At last, Dante reaches Purgatory and begins the second leg of his journey. Now, he will see the purifying punishments of those who will one day enter Paradise. With Virgil still at his side to help illuminate the mysteries that still puzzle Dante. Traversing the plain at the foot of Purgatory, he learns of those souls that must wait because of various other sins before they may ascend the mount. Once past the Porter at the base, Dante and Virgil see the souls bearing the boulders of pride and the tears fall from the sewn eyes of the envious. At both these levels, the two pilgrims see and discuss with those who are being purged.
In the level of the wrathful though, they encounter a new problem. “Profoundest darkness of the realm below, / or of the night under a starless vault / when it’s most shrouded by the glooming clouds, / Never spread for my eyes so thick a veil / as did that smoke that wrapped us all about,” (16.1-5). Here, they cannot even see the suffering souls. However, what strikes me most is that “profoundest darkness of the realm below . . . never spread for my eyes so thick a veil as did that smoke.” Even the darkness of Hell could not match the darkness of wrath in a Christian. Compared to the places that Dante has described in Inferno, this is a very heavy accusation. How scary to think that not even the worst sin and all its gloom could equal the darkness that comes over a Christian when they submit to wrath and its horrid accomplices.
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