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Canto 21
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
Having been cleansed by an angel of the sin of covetousness, Dante follows Statius and Virgil upward. Kindly, Virgil asks Statius how a wise man like himself ended up doing such lengthy penance for covetousness. Statius explains that he was actually doing penance for “wild expense,” or prodigality, which is punished in the same section of Purgatory. He also explains that the themes of Virgil’s poetry inspired him to become a Christian. However, for fear of persecution, he concealed his faith, for which he also did penance for sloth. Statius and Virgil talk about their favorite pagan poets, most of whom live in Limbo with Virgil.
Excessive spending is portrayed as being the other side of the coin from covetous hoarding—the ideal being moderation. Statius would have lived during Emperor Domitian’s persecution of Christians in the late first century, and his reluctance to identify publicly with his faith is portrayed as a form of insufficient zeal, or sloth. Like Virgil, most of the famous classical authors are placed in Limbo, the least punitive level of Hell—meaning that though they were virtuous, they didn’t possess Christian grace.
Themes
As the three continue their climb, they come upon a tree with sweet-smelling fruits. Out of the tree come voices proclaiming examples of temperance, like the biblical Daniel and John the Baptist, both of whom fasted.
The group progresses to the next level of Purgatory, where the sin of gluttony is the focus. Gluttony’s opposite is restraint, as exemplified by those who could fast, or choose to go without food.
Themes
