Of the three Canticas of the Commedia the hardest for a non-Catholic to understand is the Purgatorio; because the entire conception of purgatory is foreign to his mind. Hence we find even devout men like H. F. Cary, who has general sympathy with Dante’s teaching, misunderstand him here. For example, upon the well-known lines (x. 106-in, which shall be quoted from his own translation):

‘Reader! I would not that amazed thou miss Of thy good purpose, hearing how just God Decrees our debts be cancel’d. Pander not The form of suffering. Think on what succeeds :
Think that, at worst, beyond the mighty doom It cannot pass.’

Cary’s comment is : ‘This is, in truth, an unanswerable objection to the doctrine of Purgatory. It is difficult to conceive how the best can meet death without horror, if they believe it must be followed by immediate and intense suffering.’ And Leigh Hunt, in his Italian Poets, refers to this comment with approval, after his own manner, that is to say, in less refined language.

‘The purpose of this article is to show how Dante himself, on the contrary, represents the attitude of the Holy Souls towards their own sufferings in Purgatory.