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Canto 12
Themes
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in Purgatorio, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
Purgatory and the Heavenward Journey
Love, Sin, and God
Free Will
Spiritual Power vs. Earthly Power
Time
Summary
Analysis
As Dante and Virgil climb to the next level, they reach another ledge curving around the mountain, this one narrower than the one below it. They hear invisible voices calling things like, “Look, they have no wine!” and “I’m Orestes!” Virgil explains that these voices are a meditation on the sin of envy. A little further ahead, Dante sees a group of souls dressed in drab cloaks. As he gets closer, he sheds tears of pity, seeing that not only are these figures dressed in rough hair shirts and leaning on one another for support, but that their eyes are sewn shut with wires.
The sin of envy is purged on this particular level of lower Purgatory. The meditation includes voices calling out examples of envy’s opposite—generosity. These meditations always begin with an example from the life of the Virgin Mary; here, she’s quoted asking Christ to supply the wedding at Cana with wine (Gospel of John, Chapter 2). The meditations also always include an example from classical literature—as told by Cicero, Orestes’ friend Pylades offered to die in his place. Because self-sufficiency is at the root of the sin of envy, these souls are needy beggars; and since they couldn’t bear seeing others’ good fortune on earth, now they’re blinded and unable to see at all.
Themes
Dante asks if any of these pitiful souls is Italian, and a soul named Sapia, a Sienese woman, addresses him. Sapia explains that, in her earthly life, she took greater joy in other’s misfortunes than in her own good fortune. She recalls witnessing a battle between the Sienese and the Florentines and cheering on the routing of her enemies. Dante promises to pray for her and to ask the same of her loved ones on earth.
The name Sapia is akin to the word sapience, meaning “wisdom”—Sapia’s tone in this section is meant to be self-deprecating, showing that her attitude of self-regard is shifting to one that takes herself less seriously. It’s an example of the gradual transformation of the will that happens in Purgatory.
Themes
