Beata Beatrix

Of all the sonnets, the fourth sonnet is most specific to a scene in the Divine Comedy. This sonnet describes Dante’s meeting with Beatrice, at the climax of Purgatory. In the third sonnet, Dante watched the other sinners ascend the mount of Purgatory and confess their sins. Now it is time for Dante to internalize his lessons and confess his own sins.

Like the other sonnets, the distinction between the octave and the sestet is significant. The octave depicts Beatrice in all her heavenly glory, calling Dante to confession. She reminds him of his sins, and Dante weeps in anguish. In the sestet, Dante repents and receives pardon for his sins. Now that the burden of sin has been lifted, he is free to ascend with Beatrice to the heights of heaven.

Unlike the other sonnets, this sonnet contains four notable pairs of concepts: the veil and flame, the passion and woe, Lethe and Eunoe, and pardon and peace.

The first pair is fond in line 1: “With snow-white veil and garments as of flame.” This description of Beatrice as she stands before Dante is taken directly from the Comedy. John Ciardi notes that Beatrice’s garments symbolize the three theological virtues: faith is white, hope is green, and love is red (Ciardi 552). It is Beatrice’s faith and love that cause her to rebuke Dante, and faith and love allow Dante to confess his sins.

Next comes the “passion and the woe” of the young poet Dante (IV.3). Dante is Longfellow’s Virgil in these sonnets (cf. III.2), and Longfellow is taking a typically Dantean digression to praise his master. Longfellow also praised Dante’s passion and woe earlier in the second sonnet: “What passionate outcry of a soul in pain, / Uprose this poem of the earth and air, / This mediæval miracle of song!” (II.12-14) Dante’s love for God and his grief over sin led him to produce his masterpiece.

In line 12, Longfellow refers to the mythical streams Lethe and Eunoe. Lethe caused forgetfulness in Greek mythology, and the souls who went to Hades drank from it to forget their former lives. In Canto XXXI, Matilda plunges Dante into Lethe so that his sins are remembered no more (“the forgotten sorrow”, IV.13). Eunoe, a river of Dante’s own invention, increases his love for the good – “the remembered dream” (IV.12).

Finally, Dante gains “That perfect pardon which is perfect peace” (IV.14). As in the last lines of the third sonnet, God’s forgiveness of sins is announced. This is a fitting close to Purgatory – Dante is now inside the church, with the redeemed, and can raise his eyes to heaven. Now that the peccata have been erased, the light of heaven dawns on his lifted forehead (IV.11). Since his sins are no longer remembered or counted against him, Dante is able to love freely and to rise to the stars.


* The painting is Beata Beatrix by Dante Gabriel Rossetti.

Sonnet IV: Purgatorio

With snow-white veil and garments as of flame,
She stands before thee, who so long ago
Filled thy young heart with passion and the woe
From which thy song and all its splendors came;
And while with stern rebuke she speaks thy name,
The ice about thy heart melts as the snow
On mountain heights, and in swift overflow
Comes gushing from thy lips in sobs of shame.

Thou makest full confession; and a gleam,
As of the dawn on some dark forest cast,
Seems on thy lifted forehead to increase;
Lethe and Eunoë -- the remembered dream
And the forgotten sorrow -- bring at last
That perfect pardon which is perfect peace.

- Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

Wash All My Sins Away

As Dante enters Purgatory, Longfellow steps inside the cathedral. Both are now inside the church – the realm of the saved. Like the first sonnet, the third sonnet is somber and reflective. This is Purgatory, and here the souls mourn their sins.

To create the solemn mood, the octave of the sonnet sets up an atmosphere of sanctity. There is an otherworldly quality that greets all the senses – the smell of incense, the light of the candles, and the sound of whispered Latin prayers. In the book of Revelation, incense symbolizes the prayers of the saints. In Catholic churches, votive candles are often lit as prayers are offered. The incense, candles, and whisperings are the prayers of the souls as they gradually ascend the mount of Purgatory.

Inside the church, Longfellow is surrounded by the dead souls who are buried in tombs along the aisles and down below in the crypt. Longfellow pictures himself as hearing the life stories of the Christians in his cathedral, who are still working their way into heaven. This is like Dante, who is encircled by a cloud of souls in Purgatory—souls who are gradually being released from the weight of sin.

Longfellow’s mood invites contemplation and introspection. For him, Purgatory is the place of repentance, not of rejoicing. His rejoicing will be saved for the time when the burden of sin is lifted and the soul is free to rise to God.

In the sestet, Longfellow describes the process of repentance more specifically. He hears “rehearsals of forgotten tragedies / And lamentations from the crypt below.” (10-11) The dead souls confess their sins to Longfellow, just like they do to Dante. Longfellow learns and profits from by their example. Additionally, these confessions may serve a similar purpose as the whip and the rein found on each step of Purgatory. The rein shows negative examples of each of the seven deadly sins, warning Dante not to commit these sins; the whip displays positive examples of the corresponding virtues, spurring the poet on to love and good works.

While the dead souls confess their sins, their confessions and prayers rise upwards to God. This parallels the soul’s ascent in Purgatory: as each sin is rubbed away, the soul rises higher to God, love, and holiness.

This sonnet ends with the emotional announcement of God’s pardon (13-14). Longfellow is quoting Isaiah 1:18, but he is also referring to Dante’s “baptism” in the garden. As Matilda plunges Dante into Lethe, he hears her quote from Psalm 51: “Asperges me hyssopo, et mundabor; lavabis me, et super nivem dealbabor” (Ciardi 560). Like the poet David, Dante is washed clean as he repents from his sins. Once the poet has confessed, God grants his pardon. Rejoicing now replaces repentance.

Sonnet III: Purgatorio

I enter, and I see thee in the gloom
Of the long aisles, O poet saturnine!
And strive to make my steps keep pace with thine.
The air is filled with some unknown perfume;
The congregation of the dead make room
For thee to pass; the votive tapers shine;
Like rooks that haunt Ravenna's groves of pine
The hovering echoes fly from tomb to tomb.

From the confessionals I hear arise
Rehearsals of forgotten tragedies,
And lamentations from the crypts below;
And then a voice celestial that begins
With the pathetic words, "Although your sins
As scarlet be," and ends with "as the snow."

- Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

The Doctrine of Substituted Love

Hopefully, my co-author will forgive me for putting a break in her stream of sonnets.

The phrase causes an instant doubletake. "What on earth does that doctrine mean? Is it a variation on works-based salvation? A spin-off of the whole Eucharist debate? Or maybe it is just another term for Christ’s death. Yes, that's it!" The confusing doctrine is well in keeping with its author or identifier, Charles Williams.

Charles Williams was once quoted as saying that his novels always went better after he had dispensed with space and time. Descent Into Hell, widely considered his best novel, is a striking proof of this claim. I won't try and explain the novel: two reasons, first, it would rob you of all the fun of figuring it out for yourself, and two, after three re-reads, I am quite positive I don't understand it all.

But, I do want to take a few minutes to dwell on the doctrine of substituted love that he presents in the novel. It stems from the daring idea of taking Christ's words literally. Specifically, His command to "bear one another's burdens." The crux of the problem is our heroine, Pauline, who lives in the grip of debilitating fear. Peter Stanhope, a poet and the leading man of the piece, explains the doctrine of substituted love and offers to bear her burden of fear:

"'but you'll [to Pauline] be free of all distress because you can pass it on to me. Haven't you heard it said we ought to bear one another’s burdens?'

'But that means--she began, and stopped.

'I know,' Stanhope said. 'It means listening sympathetically, and thinking unselfishly, and being anxious about, and so on. Well, I don't say a word against all that; no doubt it helps. But I think when Christ or St. Paul, or whoever said bear, or whatever he Aramaically said instead of bear, he meant something much more like carrying a parcel instead of something else. To bear a burden is precisely to carry it instead of, if you're still carrying yours, I’m not carrying it for you--however sympathetic I may be."

Pauline is skeptical, but she accepts the offer in the end, and in the freedom of growth she experiences, she is able to bear the burden of others and free them as she has been freed.

There is room to exploit this theory as a way to justify excessively clingy human relationships. You know the one's of which I speak--where one party simply cannot live without the other and they become an amorphous blob of characteristics surpassed only by their "togetherness" For a visual representation, see richandamy.

That is the negative extreme: an extreme that has been re-enacted before our eyes so often that there is now a tendency to resist any dependence or interaction on another human being. But that that idea also leads to dreadful consequences. This also is illustrated in Descent Into Hell as one of the characters locks himself away from the world and chooses his delusions of a preferred reality over Reality. In the end, he becomes so isolated that he cannot bear people at all, and is self-damned.

Man can never be all for another man, no man can atone for another’s sin, or give him salvation. But, I think in this Doctrine of Substituted love, that Williams gives us another powerful picture of how much man needs, and is required to join, the "Body of Christ." A Body that is not merely a metaphor for our happy-togetherness as believers, but is a very real picture of just how much each believer relies upon another to live, to grow, and to function. We cannot rely fully on our fellow man--he is a fallen creature and will break under the strain, and/or let you down. But God, in his blessing and wisdom, gave us the Church, to help bear our burdens, so, in turn, we can bear anothers.

This World, with Devils Filled

As mentioned previously, Longfellow wrote six sonnets on Dante’s Divina Commedia. The first two are about Inferno, the middle two about Purgatorio, and the final two about Paradiso. In these sonnets, Longfellow describes his impression of an emotion or theme in the poem, rather than a reaction to a specific scene. Thus, Longfellow’s first sonnet on the Inferno covers the first canto, when the middle-aged Dante is walking through the wood. The first sonnet’s theme is the idea of pilgrimage through life. The second sonnet moves on to Inferno proper, with a primary focus on Dante’s reaction to the souls in torment. In this sonnet, Longfellow is more impressionistic than specific in his commentary on Dante.

Sonnet II sets up the dichotomy between the world and the church, between the lost and the saved. We often speak of people being “outside the church,” meaning that they are not saved. Longfellow is literally outside the church, where sin reigns in the actions of the world. “The loud vociferations of the street” of Sonnet I refer to the cacophony and confusion of Hell (I.7).* Only inside the church can the pilgrim find salvation and rest (I.9-14, III.12-14).

The octave of the first sonnet describes the exterior of the cathedral that Longfellow is visiting. From the later sonnets, it appears that the exterior of the cathedral, as well as the world outside, symbolizes Hell. In lines 1-5, Longfellow admires the carvings of saints and sinners on the facade of the Gothic cathedral. In lines 6-8, it appears that one of these scenes is the crucifixion of Christ, with Judas watching from a corner of the picture. “The traitor Judas lowers!” and this alludes to Dante’s placement of Judas at the bottom of hell, in the circle reserved for the traitors (II.8). The “living thieves” could refer to an earlier circle of hell, but more likely refers to sinners in general (II.7). The grotesque gargoyles around the sides of the church are likely the demons who torment the sinners in Hell (II.6). They look down on the people on the street, the people who never enter the cathedral, and remind them of the anguish to come.**

While the octave describes the grotesqueness of hell, the sestet shows us Dante’s reaction to the horrors of Inferno. Longfellow effectively portrays the mingled pity and horror, the glee and hatred that Dante experiences as he travels down through the circles. Several scenes from Inferno immediately spring to mind while reading lines 9-11. First, there is the famous story of Paolo and Francesca, the lovers who were killed by a jealous husband. As Dante listens to her pathetic tale, he is moved to tears and faints at the end of Canto 5. Virgil rebukes him for his weakness, say that he must learn to scorn sin. Dante is an apt pupil, and by the ninth circle, he mocks and torments Bocca degli Abbati, frozen in the ice. Dante sees the horror and sadness of hell with human eyes at first, but he learns to look on it with God’s eyes of justice.

Finally, Longfellow concludes the sonnet by praising Dante’s artistry and passion (II.11-14). Dante did not just write the Divine Comedy as an academic exercise (though there is much that is academic in his song). He wrote it out of human passion and feeling, with vivid descriptions of the earth and the air, so that we might feel and partake in his journey.


*Tchaikovsky’s symphonic poem Francesca da Rimini is based on Canto V of Dante’s Inferno and provides a fascinating musical commentary on the noise and chaos of hell, balanced by the pity that Dante feels in hearing her story.

** Longfellow also makes a subtle reference in lines 3-4 to the liturgical year. Dante descends into Hell on Holy Saturday, the day before Easter. Flowers bloom and birds make their nests in springtime, the season of Easter. Since the parvis (portico) and portal are mentioned as being especially adorned, perhaps Longfellow is visiting the cathedral himself on Holy Saturday in order to follow Dante’s pilgrimage more closely.

Sonnet II: Inferno

How strange the sculptures that adorn these towers!
This crowd of statues, in whose folded sleeves
Birds build their nests; while canopied with leaves
Parvis and portal bloom like trellised bowers,
And the vast minster seems a cross of flowers!
But fiends and dragons on the gargoyled eaves
Watch the dead Christ between the living thieves,
And, underneath, the traitor Judas lowers!

Ah! from what agonies of heart and brain,
What exultations trampling on despair,
What tenderness, what tears, what hate of wrong,
What passionate outcry of a soul in pain,
Uprose this poem of the earth and air,
This mediæval miracle of song!

-Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

Come Unto Me, and I Will Give You Rest

This post begins a new series on Longfellow’s six Dante sonnets. NB: Large portions of the explication of this sonnet are taken from a paper which I wrote for Linguistics.

While Henry Wadsworth Longfellow was translating Dante’s Divine Comedy, he wrote six sonnets to be prefixed to his translation. In these sonnets, he compares the structure of the Divine Comedy to the architecture of a Gothic cathedral. The first two sonnets are prefixed to Inferno and describe Longfellow the pilgrim’s entrance into the cathedral. Longfellow achieves a reverent mood in this first sonnet by a skillful use of linguistic devices, such as syntactic structure in the sonnet form, word choice, and word placement, to center his poem around prayer.

This sonnet is written in the Italian style, so that the octave describes the entrance of an ordinary laborer and the sestet depicts the entrance of Longfellow the pilgrim. Longfellow skillfully uses syntactic structures of sentences within the sonnet form to convey his meaning. In the octave, the first two lines set up the scene before the cathedral, both for the workman and for Longfellow the pilgrim. Line three shows the laborer laying down his burden, then entering the cathedral in line four.

The sestet reverses this description, as Longfellow the pilgrim enters the cathedral in line nine and leaves his burden in line ten. This chiastic structure is repeated later between the octave and sestet, when the business of the outside world (lines 7-8, 12-13) is enclosed by the silence of waiting (6, 14).

The central lines of the octave and sestet come in lines five and eleven. “Kneel to repeat his paternoster o’er” and “Kneeling in prayer, and not ashamed to pray” both emphasize the devotional aspect of the poem (5, 11). Reverent prayer, the theme of this sonnet, is significantly placed at the center of the octave and sestet. The chiastic arrangement of the clauses in the sentences serves to emphasize Longfellow’s larger theme in the poem.

Longfellow’s word choices also serve to convey his meaning. Most of the words in the poem are only one or two syllables long. Words such as laborer, reverent, and eternal, while containing three syllables are elided to sound as two. This short length enables the reader to pause and breathe after every word, contributing to the slow and reverent mood of the poem. The four words with the most syllables – vociferations, undistinguishable, disconsolate, and inarticulate – emphasize the confusion and heaviness of the world outside. Inside the cathedral, all is quiet, brief, and restful.

In both the octave and sestet, the poet emphasizes burden at the same point in the meter. This shows the similarity between the laborer and Longfellow. These two men have a similar need for the rest and reverence of the cathedral. This can only be achieved by laying aside their burdens of the cares, noises, and disruptions of the world and entering the cathedral.

Another device Longfellow employs is accented and alliterative pairs. One of these is “day to day,” found in the first line of the sestet. It accents the pilgrim’s continual need for rest from the busy world outside. The other accented and alliterative pair closes the sestet with “watch and wait” (14). This last pair once again reminds the reader of the reverent nature of the poem. As he kneels in prayer, the pilgrim should “watch and wait” in the silence of the cathedral for God to speak.

Through syntactic structures, Longfellow builds his poem around a central theme of prayer. By using short words, he enables the reader to pause and rest in the silence of the cathedral. The meter emphasizes the pilgrim’s burden, and alliterative pairs to show how much the pilgrim needs peace. These elements of syntactic structure, word choice, and word placement combine to form a poem emphasizing reverence and rest.

What point, suffering?

“Yet the patience of God still invites the wicked to penitence, just as God’s chastisement trains the good in patient endurance. God’s mercy embraces the good for their cherishing, just as his severity chastens the wicked for their punishment.”

~St. Augustine, Book 1, Chapter 8


The modern encapsulation of the problem of evil is “why do bad things happen to good people.” I find Augustine’s take blessedly clear and oddly comforting. Essentially, bad happens because the world fell. The suffering exists by man’s action and God’s allowance—in some mysterious sense, we as man cannot know. But, none of this suffering is in vain, to the unrepentant, suffering is both a punishment and a severe mercy to bring them back to God. For the believer, the supposed “good person,” suffering is a means of grace to teach us patience, and will ultimately bring us close to the heart of God. I feel a sense of probably-evil pleasure knowing that Satan’s tool for destroying us, suffering, actually is one of God’s greatest opportunities of bring us to himself. Pardon me.

Sonnet I: Inferno

Oft have I seen at some cathedral door
A laborer, pausing in the dust and heat,
Lay down his burden, and with reverent feet
Enter, and cross himself, and on the floor
Kneel to repeat his paternoster o’er;
Far off the noises of the world retreat;
The loud vociferations of the street
Become an undistinguishable roar.

So, as I enter here from day to day,
And leave my burden at this minster gate,
Kneeling in prayer, and not ashamed to pray,
The tumult of the time disconsolate
To inarticulate murmurs dies away,
While the eternal ages watch and wait.

- Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

The Truth is in the Laughter?

There are numerous verses in the Bible that baffle me as to why they exist: some I think are just extraneous detail, some I think are just there to confuse mankind, and some I think are there just for poetic effect. This is one of the latter…the Proverbs 31 verse about the virtuous woman that laughs at the day to come. I used to think that was just a poetic figure—a way to describe her lighthearted take on life and its challenges. Then I entered the real world. My world is periodically quite distressing. Cars break, my financial plan blows up because I forgot a $29.00 charge, and I discover house hunting can be a challenge. Yet, I read of the Proverbs 31 woman, and she not only worships God and manages her household, but she also laughs at all the challenges to come. She neither worries not frets, but treats them with a casual unconcern that is utterly confident that the future will be managed by God, and his management will be good. This woman has such faith in a time and a place where “the days to come” may very well bring a horde of angry Amorites pouring over the hills to slaughter the town. I had accepted the sign that laughter shows a truly joyful heart, but the connection that laughter demonstrates a heart fully surrendered to the will of God had escaped me before. New area of sanctification—the discipline and faith of laughter.

A Pebble off the Touchstone

"To paraphrase Charles Williams, if there is one law in the life of a Christian, it is this: My life for yours. The answer to the great question of natural evil is neither syllogism nor argument, it is the life of a member of the Lord's body, a life willing to take up its cross and pour itself out completely so that others might live. It is a life of sacrifice, lived in imitation of the Master."

~Aaron W. Calhoun