The Passage through the Wall of Fire

The Passage through the Wall of Fire is the climactic ordeal of Purgatory proper, the final barrier that Dante must cross before entering the Earthly Paradise. It is the purification of the seventh and last terrace, where the sin of lust is burned away, and it represents the ultimate test of the pilgrim's will, faith, and love, requiring him to trust his guides and endure a flame that consumes the body but cannot harm the soul.

The Setting and the Angel's Command

The scene unfolds at the moment when the sun has reached its meridian circle, having left Taurus and entered Scorpio, and the ascent no longer brooks any hindrance. The path narrows, forcing the three travelers—Dante, Virgil, and Statius—to proceed single file. The embankment on one side shoots forth flames of fire, while a blast of wind from the cornice drives the flames back, creating a narrow corridor of safety. The Angel of God appears, standing outside the flame on the verge, and chants "Beati mundo corde" (Blessed are the pure in heart) in a voice far more living than any human one. He then declares the condition for proceeding: "No one farther goes, souls sanctified, if first the fire bite not; within it enter, and be not deaf unto the song beyond." The fire is an absolute requirement, not a suggestion.

Dante's Terror and Virgil's Persuasion

Dante's reaction to the command is immediate and visceral. He becomes like a man who is put into the grave, frozen with fear. He straightens himself on his clasped hands, scanning the fire and vividly recalling the human bodies he had once seen burned. His two good Conductors turn towards him. Virgil speaks first, reminding Dante that he has already safely guided him on Geryon, the monster of fraud, and that now, being nearer to God, he is even more trustworthy. He assures Dante that even a full millennium in the flame could not make him bald a single hair. When Dante remains motionless and stubborn, Virgil becomes somewhat disturbed and delivers the decisive argument: "Now look thou, Son, 'twixt Beatrice and thee there is this wall." The name of Beatrice, which ever wells in Dante's memory, acts as the ultimate catalyst. As the dying Pyramus opened his eyes at the name of Thisbe, so Dante's obduracy softens. Virgil, seeing this, wags his head and smiles, as one does at a child who is vanquished by an apple.

The Ordeal and the Song Beyond

Virgil enters the fire first, followed by Statius, who had been walking behind Dante. Once inside, Dante experiences an intensity of heat so great that he would have cast himself into molten glass to refresh himself. To encourage him, Virgil discourses continually of Beatrice, saying, "Her eyes I seem to see already!" A voice singing on the other side directs them, and they emerge from the flame where the ascent begins. The voice, which is that of another Angel, sounds within a splendour so bright that it overcomes Dante's sight. It says, "Venite, benedicti Patris mei" (Come, ye blessed of my Father), and then adds, "The sun departs, and night cometh; tarry ye not, but onward urge your steps, so long as the west becomes not dark." The path now ascends straight forward through the rock, and Dante, by cutting off the rays of the low sun with his own body, realizes that the day is ending.

The Night on the Stair and the Dream of Leah

As the sun sets, the three travelers are forced to stop. The nature of the mountain takes from them the power of climbing, more than the delight. Each makes his bed on a stair, and they spend the night like a shepherd and his flock, begirt on either side by rocks. Dante, like a goat, ruminates and beholds the stars, which appear more luminous and larger than their wont. Sleep seizes him, and in a dream he sees a lady walking in a meadow, gathering flowers and singing. She identifies herself as Leah, who goes moving round to make herself a garland, while her sister Rachel never leaves her looking-glass. Leah explains that seeing satisfies Rachel, while doing satisfies her. This dream, occurring just before the final ascent, prefigures the active and contemplative lives that will be reconciled in the Earthly Paradise.

The Final Farewell of Virgil

At dawn, the darkness flees and Dante rises to find his great Masters already risen. Virgil speaks to him with words of unparalleled sweetness: "That apple sweet, which through so many branches the care of mortals goeth in pursuit of, to-day shall put in peace thy hungerings." Such longing comes upon Dante that at each step he feels the pinions of flight growing. When they reach the highest step, Virgil fastens his eyes upon Dante and delivers his final speech. He declares that Dante has seen the temporal fire and the eternal, and has come to a place where Virgil himself can no longer discern the way. "By intellect and art I here have brought thee; take thine own pleasure for thy guide henceforth; beyond the steep ways and the narrow art thou." He tells Dante to behold the sun, the grass, the flowerets, and the shrubs, and that until the rejoicing eyes of Beatrice appear, he can sit down or walk among them. With the words, "Thee o'er thyself I therefore crown and mitre!" Virgil confers upon Dante the full authority of his own free will, marking the end of his role as guide and the beginning of Dante's autonomous journey into the Earthly Paradise and, ultimately, to God.