tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-17586860.post3435066658631213751..comments2023-08-26T10:15:36.123-04:00Comments on Classics in Sarasota: Reading as Viniculture: Purgatorio 4Tom Matrullohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11460789537848811061noreply@blogger.comBlogger3125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-17586860.post-45257718130784844012015-08-27T08:46:44.507-04:002015-08-27T08:46:44.507-04:00Getting to Heaven has never been a piece of cake. ...Getting to Heaven has never been a piece of cake. "Enter ye in at the narrow gate: for wide is the gate, and broad is the way that leadeth to destruction, and many there are who go in thereat. How narrow is the gate, and strait is the way that leadeth to life: and few there are that find it!" (Matthew 7:13-14).Pete D'Epirohttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05587788179975446908noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-17586860.post-25862273892207072142015-08-26T23:22:05.490-04:002015-08-26T23:22:05.490-04:00Yes, that parable surely relates to this, and seem...Yes, that parable surely relates to this, and seems fully consonant with the idea of the souls who are now at the beginning of a process of transformation that will in large part have them as submitting passively to a larger craft which might be quite frightening, but which they willingly undergo. Somewhat on this, I'm still puzzling over why the Purgatorio's several thresholds are so emphatically guarded, or obscure, or difficult to pass through. Ulysses, the only human to get so close before Dante while alive, never got near the shore, let alone the door. There's a large allotropic motif in the Purg., seen very clearly in Canto 8 with the two angels. Tom Matrullohttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11460789537848811061noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-17586860.post-27781233121363658002015-08-26T12:13:06.170-04:002015-08-26T12:13:06.170-04:00Any relevance here of the parable of the workers i...Any relevance here of the parable of the workers in the vineyard (Matthew 20:1-16)? You had mentioned in a previous post that excommunicate Manfred was a very unexpected denizen of Purgatory, and this parable ends with the lesson: "The last will be first, and the first will be last." Here, the farmer patching up the holes to keep people out of his vineyard is showing a "normal" human reflex to exclude outsiders that may be contrasted both with God in accepting Manfred and with the angel warder of Purgatory (Canto 9, 127-129), who explains that St. Peter instructed him "ch'i' erri / anzi ad aprir ch'a tenerla serrata" ("that I err / rather in opening [the gate of Purgatory] than in keeping it locked").Pete D'Epirohttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05587788179975446908noreply@blogger.com