Virgil's Farewell

(Purgatorio, Canto XXVII): Crossing the gates of Fire, Final Purification, Virgil's Farewell

Vashik Armenikus and Lisa Statler

Aug 10, 2025

“Through pain I've learned to comfort suffering men”

~ Virgil

Welcome to Dante Read-Along! ✨

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Welcome to Dante Book Club, where you and I descend into Hell and Purgatory to be able to ascend to Paradise. Our guide is the great Roman poet Virgil and in this Twenty seventh Canto of the Purgatorio, Dante passes through the cleansing flame. You can find the main page of the read-along right here, reading schedule here, and the list of chat threads here.

In each post you can find a brief summary of the canto, philosophical exercises that you can draw from it, themes, character, and symbolism explanations.

All the wonderful illustrations are done specially for the Dante Read-Along by the one and only Luana Montebello.

This Week’s Circle ⭕️

The setting sun on the seventh terrace of the Lustful - The Angel of Chastity - Beati Mundo Corde - Dante, Virgil and Statius must pass through the flames - Dante’s hesitation - He passes through the flames - Venite, benedicti Patris mei - They begin to climb, but the sun has set - Dante sleeps, and dreams of Leah and Rachel - They climb the remaining steps - Virgil's final words to Dante.

Canto XXVII Summary:

Evening had arrived on the seventh terrace of Purgatory, marking dawn at the center point of Jerusalem, midnight in the far west in Spain under the constellation Libra, and noon in the easternmost India. The angel of chastity appeared before them, standing in the path clear of the ring of flame, and sang the benediction of chastity—Beati mundo corde!—the beatitude ‘Blessed are the pure in heart’:

Blessed are the pure in heart: for they shall see God. Matthew 5:8

The sixth beatitude is especially appropriate here, with its blessing on those who are clean of heart, who have purged themselves of all lustful inclinations, which arise as bad love in the heart, and its promise of heavenly beatitude in the vision of God which souls who are now leaving this, the last of the purgatorial terraces, are soon to enjoy.1

This final cleansing of the soul, that of the lustful heart, must be purified in flame, with a pointed reminder from the angel to listen closely upon passage:

Then: “Holy souls, you cannot move ahead
unless the fire has stung you first: enter
the flames, and don’t be deaf to song you’ll hear

beyond,” he said when we were close to him;
and when I heard him say this, I became
like one who has been laid within the grave.
xxvii.10-15

The sight of it struck fear into Dante, as he remembered images of burning bodies; in fact, in his exile, he himself had been condemned to be burnt at the stake if he returned to Florence.

It is the peculiarity of the Seventh Cornice that all souls, whether or not they are detained there to purge the sin of Lust, are compelled to pass through and suffer its torment of fire before ascending the Pass…Allegorically, since every sin is a sin of love, the purgation of love itself is a part of every man’s penitence.2

Virgil and Statius turned toward him, and Virgil spoke with reassurance; he reminded Dante of his guidance in other frightening moments, such as their descent on the back of Geryon from the seventh to the eighth circle of the Inferno. The purifying flame will not harm him, even with its intense heat.

“And if you think I am deceiving you,
draw closer to the flames, let your own hands
try out, within the fire, your clothing’s hem—

put down, by now put down, your every fear;
turn toward the fire, and enter, confident!”
But I was stubborn, set against my conscience.
xxvii.28-33

Just as the Cherubim repel the devil, so fire will man. It is to be noted that God makes and has made fire, as we read in the life of St. Nicholas, to be of such a nature that, if one puts his hand near it, he will feel heat but not be burned. Also, this fire is of such a nature that it can burn a spirit, and it does not need matter to consume, even as that which is in the sun, whereas our fire must have matter and burns only our bodies.
Hugh of St. Victor, Adnotationes Elucidatoriae in Pentateuchon

Virgil was perplexed at Dante’s hesitation, and inspired his forward movement with a mention of Beatrice; this fire, then, was the final barrier between Dante and his desire. The simple mention of her name was enough to invigorate him toward certainty and movement; a fountain of water springing up within him, with the surety of Pyramus reviving at the name of Thisbe.

The two lovers Pyramus and Thisbe dwelt in adjoining houses at Babylon and used to converse together secretly through a hole in the wall, since their parents would not sanction their marriage. On one occasion they agreed to meet at the tomb of Ninus, and when Thisbe, who arrived first, was waiting for Pyramus, she perceived a lioness which had just torn in pieces an ox. In terror she fled, in her flight dropping her garment, which the lioness soiled with blood. In the meantime Pyramus came to the tomb and, finding Thisbe’s garment covered with blood, supposed that she had been killed. In despair he stabbed himself at the foot of a mulberry tree, the fruit of which, from being white, thenceforth became crimson like blood.3

For Dante, the Flames Are Worse Than Molten Glass – Francesco Scaramuzza

In the next moment, Thisbe recognizes
her lover’s body and begins to beat
her unoffending arms with small, hard fists,
tearing her hair out; she embraces him,
and the tears she sheds there mingle with his blood.
Kissing his cold lips, she cries, ‘Pyramus,
what grave mischance has taken you from me?
Answer me, Pyramus, your darling Thisbe
is calling: hear me, raise your fallen head!’

And he, responding to his darling’s name,
opens his eyes, so heavy with his death,
to close them on the image of her face.
Ovid Metamorphoses 190-208

And so they entered the flame; Virgil going first, then Dante, with Statius last. Dante was within that cleansing fire, a pinnacle of experience and the culmination of the struggle that it took to arrive; just as he had been cleansed of the grime of sin at the bottom of the mount through the dew, so here he is purified again through flame;

No sooner was I in that fire than I’d
have thrown myself in molten glass to find
coolness—because those flames were so intense.

My gentle father, who would comfort me,
kept talking, as we walked, of Beatrice,
saying: “I seem to see her eyes already.”
xxvii.49-54

From the other side of the flame they heard singing, like a beacon, and as they followed it and passed through the wall of flame to the stairs, the prayer Venite, benedicti Patris mei—Come, ye blessed of my Father—greeted them, along with the brightest of radiances, so bright that Dante had to look away. The moment of acknowledgement had arrived; this was the invitation to enter the Heavenly realms, the final P had been removed.

Then shall the King say unto them on his right hand, Come, ye blessed of my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world: Matthew 25:34

The Angel Tells the Pilgrims They Must Pass Through the Fire – Francesco Scaramuzza

[These are] the words that Christ will speak to the just souls on His right hand at the Last Judgment. The words are most appropriate here, as addressed to all ‘holy souls’ who come forth from the cleansing fire and have completed their purgation.4

The angel encouraged haste, to move quickly before the sun, low in the sky, would set. Even as they began to climb, the sun fell beyond the horizon, and the power of movement dissolved; they each took a stone step as a bed for the night. Dante felt as safe as the animals watched over by their shepherd in the night, at peace, protected, cleansed. He viewed the night sky through the space above as framed by the walls of the stairs, and contemplating and reflective, he fell asleep.

The prophetic dreams which come at dawn visited Dante on this third night of sleeping in Purgatory,5 as Venus shone above:

Cytherea, epithet of Venus, who was so called from Cythera, an island off the southeast coast of the Peloponnesus, near which she is said to have risen from the foam of the sea.6

He dreamed of Leah and Rachel, sisters and wives of Jacob, the father of the nation of Israel in the Old Testament. Jacob first loved Rachel, and asked her father Laban for permission to marry her.

Jacob served Laban seven years for the hand of Rachel, his younger daughter. At the end of that time, Laban gave him Leah, saying that it was not fitting for the younger sister to be married before the elder. When Jacob had accepted Leah and promised to serve for another seven years, Laban gave him Rachel also.7

In mystical writings…the two wives of Jacob are frequently interpreted as allegories respectively of the Active and the Contemplative Life; and this is the function they fulfil in Dante’s third dream.8

Dante Speaks with Guido Guinizelli – Francesco Scaramuzza

Whoever asks my name, know that I’m Leah,
and I apply my lovely hands to fashion
a garland of the flowers I have gathered.

To find delight within this mirror I
adorn myself; whereas my sister Rachel
never deserts her mirror; there she sits

all day; she longs to see her fair eyes gazing,
as I, to see my hands adorning, long:
she is content with seeing, I with labor.
xxvii.100-108

Leah, as the active force, was the one who undertook the necessary activity by which life was abundant and fruitful, the ordered life of service and devotion; she delighted in her work and in admiring the work of her hands through the use of the mirror. Rachel, the contemplative sister, bears the fruit of the spirit, which delights in itself and in that which it adores. Benvenuto said of Rachel that she “rests in speculation.”9 Dante had been active in moving upward, actively purging. Ahead of him, however, will come the realm of just such effortless adoration.

Rachel’s eyes are beautiful, even as Leah’s hands are said to be. The object of contemplation is truth, but philosophy, as Dante says in the Convivio, not only contemplates truth, but contemplates the contemplation itself, here signified by Rachel’s constant desire to see her own eyes.10

Philosophy, which…is ‘the loving exercise of wisdom,’ contemplates herself when the beauty of her eyes is revealed to herself. And what else is this but to say that the philosophising soul not only contemplates the truth, but also contemplates its own contemplation and the beauty thereof, turning upon itself and enamouring itself of itself by reason of the beauty of its direct contemplation?
Dante Convivio IV.ii.18

Dante awoke and arose from his dream, and joined Virgil and Statius, who were waiting for him. A day of peace and adoration was ahead of them, that fruit that was now achieved, and which so many spent their time seeking out in a variety of ways:

All men’s thoughts, which are turmoiled with manifold cares, take indeed divers courses, but yet endeavour to attain the same end of happiness.
Boethius, Consolation of Philosophy III.2

Dante felt the lightness that came with the removal of all the P’s from his forehead, the purgation of his sin, all leading to a feeling of flight as they climbed the remaining steps quickly. Once they reached the top, Virgil gave a final speech. His contribution to the journey was coming to a close, that embodied reason which had been fulfilled to its highest possible purpose. Virgil had guided him through the eternal fires of hell and the temporary fires of Purgatory:

The Poets Reposing – John Flaxman (1793)

My son, you’ve seen the temporary fire
and the eternal fire; you have reached
the place past which my powers cannot see.

I’ve brought you here through intellect and art;
from now on, let your pleasure be your guide;
you’re past the steep and past the narrow paths.
xxvii.127-132

Dante’s loves had become ordered; his cleansed will, from his “pleasure” may now guide him from an internal space. He had passed through every challenge.

When the stain of sin is purged, and love set in order, the wisdom and skill of human reason are no longer needed for right conduct, because love is then the fulfilling of the law. In St. Augustine’s words: “Love, and do as you like” - because what you ought to do and what you want to do are now the same thing.11

They now stood in a garden, and Virgil urged Dante to take his pleasure there as he waited for Beatrice; to sit and contemplate, as Rachel, or to wander and discover, as Leah would. There is no more wisdom that he had to share, Dante was now able to move forward without him, acting through his upright, wholesome, and free will.

Free will, the central subject of the Purgatorio, is finally in the central focus at the end. Dante, who was said by Virgil at the beginning to be seeking liberty, has now attained it. His will is free, straight, and whole again, like man’s will before original sin.12

Wherefore be it known that our intellect may be spoken of as sound or sick; and I mean by ‘intellect’ the noble part of our soul which may be indicated by the common term ‘mind.’ Sound it may be called when not impeded in its activity by ill either of mind or of body.
Dante, Convivio IV.xv.11

Virgil declared him lord of his own temporal and spiritual power through the symbols of the miter and crown; both aligned to his perfected will and able to express in perfect harmony.

Dante, Virgil, and Statius Sleep on the Stairs – G.G. Macchiavelli

💭 Philosophical Exercises

“Fare thee well, and if for ever
Still for ever fare thee well.”
― Lord Byron

The Angel Welcomes the Pilgrims on the Other Side of the Flames – Francesco Scaramuzza

Looking back, we often see that the pivotal moments of our lives were those in which not choosing was no longer an option for us. The word decision itself comes from the Latin decidere meaning “to cut off.” To decide is to sever one path and set our life on a new course.

“Abandon all hope, you who enter here” is written above the gates of Hell. My reader may recall how mechanical and almost bureaucratic, the sorting of the damned is in the Inferno. King Minos, Hell’s guardian, coils his tail around his body; the number of coils determines the circle each soul is sent to: three turns, the third circle, and so on.

There is no decision left to a soul once it is consigned to Inferno.

To be in Hell means the will itself has hardened into vice. When vice so fully possesses the will that it becomes the will, hope is impossible. You may not even know how corrupt you are. This is why the damned never tell Dante they feel remorse or regret: they lack the very awareness of their corruption.

Liars have the hardest job: keeping track of every lie they have told. But repetition breeds belief; say something often enough and it passes for truth at least to the speaker. Some politicians illustrate this all too well. Some of them are not even aware that they are liars.

In Purgatory, the soul remains free to choose and thus hope endures. Vice has not become will, and Dante who now stands before the divine fire, trembles.

He must cut off, he must decide, so he can finally sever himself from vice and begin a new life. He must dare to pass through the fire.

Some commentators explain Dante’s fear by noting that the hostile Florentine authorities had condemned him to be burned if he ever returned to his native city. Thus the fear of the fire.

And yet I believe his terror before the divine flame, greater even than the pain of molten fire, is the same fear we all encounter at life’s turning points. It is not the fear of uncertainty that follows a choice, nor even the fear of choosing wrongly; it is the fear of being, of living, of daring to live.

Allow me to explain…

I. Vita Contemplativa and Vita Activa

The decisive shift comes when Dante’s desire for Beatrice finally outweighs his fear of pain and he leaps.

So it is with us, in our own contexts: when the longing to become a better self grows stronger than sloth or the fear of leaving comfort, we, too, step through the fire.

After Virgil persuades him to cross the flames, Dante falls asleep on the steps and receives a prophetic dream: a vision of Leah and Rachel. Leah represents the active life (vita activa): she gathers flowers, and her work pleases her when she looks in the mirror. Rachel, her sister, embodies the contemplative life (vita contemplativa), absorbed in gazing.

They are sisters for a reason: the two lives are inseparable. They are not sequential but parallel, each completing the other.

Having journeyed through Inferno and Purgatorio to learn first to recognise vice in himself and then to be cleansed of it, at last by the terrifying yet harmless divine fire, Dante is shown this truth: contemplation alone does not make one virtuous. Leah must stand beside Rachel; the active life must accompany the contemplative.

We can ponder endlessly which physical exercises might make us strong but without actually moving, without sweating, working, and then seeing in the mirror the body grow healthy, contemplation remains sterile.

II. Virgil’s Farewell

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“My son, you’ve seen the temporary fire
and the eternal fire; you have reached
the place past which my powers cannot see.
~ 127-129

At this point of our journey it is hard to imagine how we can do without Virgil. The words I quoted above reminded me of another masterpiece of literature, also a journey to a mountain, and yet of a different kind:

“Your time may come. Do not be too sad, Sam. You cannot be always torn in two. You will have to be one and whole, for many years. You have so much to enjoy and to be, and to do.”
~ The Return of the King, Frodo, J.R.R. Tolkien

Virgil offers us a tender, reassuring farewell. I would like to ask my reader to remember the state we were in when he first found us and how dark that place was. It’s as if all the circles of Hell pass before my eyes: every moment when his presence steadied us in weakness or fear. I recall how he first appeared as a faint shade, growing more distinct as we journeyed on; how he shielded us from the Furies at the gates of Dis; how he persuaded Geryon to carry us on his back. It is thanks to him that we stand here now.

There are two reasons he parts from us. First, the path ahead requires stronger aid: Virgil yields to an all-seeing guide. Second, he has fulfilled his duty, has cleansed our mind through intellect and art, and our vision is clear.

In Inferno, he taught us to discern good from evil and showed us where vice leads. In Purgatorio, he taught us measure: how to love, feel, and think without excess.

Dante the pilgrim is ready, he has crossed the divine fire, his own Rubicon. Are you ready my dear reader?

As it comes to myself, I think I will have to read The Divine Comedy once again, and then again, each time attempting to understand Virgil’s words better, to truly know that I can discern and I can measure. But for now, I must observe, observe where the path takes us from here.

This Week’s Sinners and Virtuous 🎭

(Themes, Quotes, Terms and Characters)

Dante’s Vision of Leah and Rachel – Marie Spartali Stillman

I. The Myth of Pyramus and Thisbe

The myth of Pyramus and Thisbe inevitably recalls Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet.

These two ill-fated lovers, forbidden to marry by their families, spoke to one another through a narrow crack between their houses and arranged a secret meeting near Ninus’s tomb, beside a mulberry tree.

In Purgatorio, Dante briefly recounts their story: a tragic misunderstanding in which Pyramus, finding Thisbe’s blood-stained veil, assumes she is dead and takes his own life, leading her to do the same.

Why does Dante choose to include a tale in which confusion breeds catastrophe? Because here love is not destroyed by malice, but by haste, by a will ruled by imagination rather than reason.

It is a warning that even the purest desire, if unmeasured and unexamined, can turn fatal, a reminder that love must be guided by discernment if it is to be fruitful rather than ruinous.

Perhaps the tragedy of these two lovers begins the moment they truly meet when, speaking through the narrow crack in the wall, they discover the beauty of each other’s souls.

In that unseen exchange, their love is pure. Yet the moment it seeks to cross into the realm of the physical, the purity is broken, and the seeds of catastrophe are sown.

Quotes 🖋️

(The ones I keep in my journal as reminders of eternal wisdom):

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“My son, you’ve seen the temporary fire
and the eternal fire; you have reached
the place past which my powers cannot see.

I’ve brought you here through intellect and art;
from now on, let your pleasure be your guide;
you’re past the steep and past the narrow paths.

Look at the sun that shines upon your brow;
look at the grasses, flowers, and the shrubs
born here, spontaneously, of the earth.

Among them, you can rest or walk until
the coming of the glad and lovely eyes—
those eyes that, weeping, sent me to your side.

Await no further word or sign from me:
your will is free, erect, and whole—to act
against that will would be to err: therefore

I crown and miter you over yourself.

~ the last lines of Purgatorio, Canto XXVII