Dante the pilgrim and his guide, Virgil, take up with a flock of sheeplike souls at the bottom of Mount Purgatory. Dante and Virgil are in fact in the lead when one of these humbled souls steps out to identify himself as Manfred, self-proclaimed King of Sicily and the illegitimate son of Emperor Frederick II. What follows is the second (after Cato) of the many surprises of the poet Dante’s PURGATORIO.

Dante and Virgil come across a shepherd-less flock of souls on the bottom rung of Mount Purgatory. They’re hesitant, many of them moving without knowing why. They’re living in the “quia,” the “what is,” the very thing Virgil encouraged humans to be content with, the very thing that brought him so much despair earlier in PURGATORIO, Canto III.

Virgil seems way out of his league. And we’re only at the bottom of Mount Purgatory. He (and Dante) seem to scare some of the penitent souls at the very bottom of the mountain. Virgil resorts of an excess of flattery that may miss the mark. And he ends his speech with a strange, almost incomprehensible aphorism. Dante is up to strange games in his masterwork, COMEDY.

Virgil seems to have lost the way. He’s even a little snarky about it. But Dante has a revelation. Souls ahead. Behold. And Dante’s revelation puts Virgil back on the right path as guide up Purgatory. Can PURGATORIO get any more ironic? You bet!

Dante has been shocked at his solitary shadow on Mount Purgatory. He turns to find Virgil still there—and seems to want comfort. Does Virgil give it? Virgil seems to launch into an answer about bodies and light, but then gets diverted into a digression that reveals his bitterness and regret. This passage is the essence of the tragedy of Virgil in Dante’s COMEDY.

Virgil is running at a frenzied pace, but as he slows down, Dante the pilgrim can finally notice the giant mountain beside them. And Dante can also realize something dramatic: he casts a shadow. He’s in his body. And his corporeality leads him to a moment of profound alienation.

Purgatorio, Canto III opens with Virgil on the run. He’s clearly ashamed. But why? What has he done? What would it matter if Virgil ever does anything wrong, since he’s already damned? To answer these questions, Dante the poet offers a moment of emotional consolation, a plea for compassion. Does that answer work? In COMEDY, the resounding reply is “yes!”

Cato returns! He seems awfully mad. But at what? And at whom? These are harder questions that we might imagine. Dante the pilgrim certainly didn’t expect his return. Cato apparently didn’t either. And maybe the poet Dante didn’t expect it as well. So many interpretations, so many quandaries at the end of PURGATORIO, Canto II.

Dante wants something from Casella. He wants refreshment, relief. And he gets it in the form of his own poetry that Casella sings back to our pilgrim. He also may be partaking in a much older version of Purgatory as the “refrigerium,” as well as the historical nodes of Pope Boniface VIII’s Jubilee Year of 1300.

Dante hears some wild news from Casella on the shores of Purgatory: Ghosts can wander around the land of the living, souls can refuse an angel’s summons, and the pope’s plenary indulgences may not be as effective as the pontiff thinks they are. PURGATORIO gets weirder by the moment. No wonder it’s the heart of Dante’s COMEDY.

Dante the pilgrim moves to hug one of the souls who’ve stepped off the angel’s boat. But Dante’s arms go right through the fellow, despite their obvious bond of affection. The body-soul problem is intensifying in PURGATORIO. How? And why? Dante the poet is not satisfied with his corporeal souls so far. So he’s starting to change the game.

Dante and Virgil encounter the souls who’ve been summarily dumped onto the shores of Purgatory from the angel’s boat. Nobody seems to know what to do. Is hesitancy the right first step toward a new life? And is hesitancy part of this new work Virgil uses: “pilgrims”? Maybe the theology of wonder requires hesitancy as its grounding in Dante’s PURGATORIO, the second third of COMEDY.

The souls arrive on the shores of Purgatory singing a psalm all about the exodus experience. But more than that, this psalm is a unique example of chant musicality in Dante’s day, a possible comment on the road ahead for us as we trace our route through PURGATORIO with Virgil and Dante the pilgrim.

Virgil spots the first angel, he makes Dante the pilgrim bend the knee, and Dante also drops his eyes at the incredible brightness. A seemingly redemptive passage that is yet packed with references to characters from INFERNO. And what of Virgil? His position in Purgatory (and in PURGATORIO!) appears ever more complicated.

Dante the pilgrim and his guide, Virgil, may not know what to do as the sun rises and turns the sky orange. But an answer may be approaching Purgatory very quickly as something incredibly white is sailing straight toward them, revealing both the poet’s and the pilgrim’s disingenuous stance.

The sunrises on a gorgeous landscape. The zodiac even appears to be alive. Dante the pilgrim is all cleaned up. Too bad he has no idea what to do next. Worse yet, Virgil’s apparently of no use, either. An interesting start to Canto II of PURGATORIO.

In this interpolated episode of our podcast about Dante’s masterwork, COMEDY, I’d like to begin a discussion of what Purgatory is: how did it come to be, how does Dante understand its theology, and what part does he play in the development of the doctrine.