So, it turns out Beatrice is a bit of a bitch.
Dante, bless him, has been through a lot. His life was in the crapper so Beatrice sorted it for him to go on an educational field trip through hell and purgatory, where he was terrified, confronted, met monsters and demons and had letters drawn on his head. When last we saw him, Dante was chatting to Matelda, and a big pageant of people in fancy clothes and a chariot pulled by a griffin have come along. And now, though some semi-blinding light, Beatrice, his old love has appeared. And what does she do after not seeing him for 10 years? She tells him off, big time, nags him into the ground. Not only has he wasted his talents, but it seems to her the bigger crime is he has gone after other women since her death. How dare he?? As far as she is concerned, her beauty should have been enough to keep him from sin, even after she was dead (ego much, Beatrice?)
So Dante gets roasted, Virgil has disappeared, and Matelda then washes Dante in one of the streams in Eden, the Lethe. It’s the water of this stream that when immersed in, removes the guilt of sin, and when drunk, remove the memory of it, which is apparently where the superstition about toasting with water comes from. I don’t know, maybe if I had toasted with water at my wedding I wouldn’t be able to remember it now, and that wouldn’t be such a bad thing. My new sister-in-law made a right scene and her husband stole a load of cutlery.
Then as this is the last canto, it all goes a bit like the last major scene of an action film, such as ‘Avengers Assemble’ or something with Stallone in it, everything kicks off.
It turns out the griffin can talk, and he’s not even wearing one of those collars like the dog in ‘Up’, and he tries his chariot to the dead Tree of Knowledge, bringing it back to life, and it bursts into purple flowers. Then it all gets really mad. Beatrice shows Dante what she wants him to write about, and a weird sequence of tableaus kick off. An eagle comes out of the sky and wrecks the chariot, a fox then jumps up in the seat, the eagle comes back and wrecks it to a twisted pile, disembodied voice starts shouting about the chariot carrying the freight of wickedness, then the ground opens up and a dragon comes out and takes part of the chariot back into the ground with him. The remaining part of the chariot begins to sprout heads, then turns into a naked whore (yep, honest) who has a pimp with her, and he’s a giant. They embrace (although I wonder if that is Dante or the translator being polite), she starts giving Dante the eye, and the giant freaks out and starts to beat her up, before going into the forest with her.
Beatrice’s handmaidens are really upset, but it’s 12 noon so they start to make a move (lunchtime?) and Beatrice talks some more to Dante about what he needs to write. He is then taken by Matelda back to the streams, and fortified with some water from the Eunoe as it helps remind him of his good deeds.
And that is the end of Purgatorio, and where Paradiso picks things up. I have a feeling there won’t be so many fun characters hanging about heaven.

Willam Blake’s illustration of Bea’s chariot. Probably best not to try and run it through a car wash

Rossetti’s painting of Beatrice, depicting the moment of her death. I can think of better times to be painted.
Blimey, Dante clearly never heard the phrase ‘less is more’. Also, I’m not sure that’s just water in the Lethe 😉
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It’s as if he doesn’t think getting through hell and purgatory whilst still alive is enough. I wouldn’t be surprised if Paradiso contains a cameo for Burt Reynolds, and a tornado. And sharks. Sharknadoes.
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Just a quick know-it-all comment, seeing how quiet is goes here:
Besides being named after Dante, Rossetti was a lead figure in the Pre-Raphaelite movement (and he almost always has the same big-jawed red-head in his paintings: Manchester and, I think, Birmingham city museum have a large number of paintings from this school ). He studied with Ford Madox Brown, a great painter. FM Brown’s grandson, I think it was, came to be called Ford Madox Ford. His novel The Good Soldier is a great story, an almost perfect composition, and one that surely deserves a place on your list.
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Ahh, yes, his wife, Lizzie the red head. My favourite Rossetti story is how he put a book of his unpublished work into her coffin when she died of a laudanum overdose, and six years later had her secretly dug up again as he was ready to write again and couldn’t remember what he had written before. Chances are that book would have been a tad whiffy.
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I love that. The grand gesture soon regretted. Those Pre-Raphaelite scamps, eh!
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At least when Kafka got rid of stuff it was to the flames, that’s real commitment and a proper statement about disposing of work!
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That’s so cool! I don’t recall my professor in my Victorian writers class saying that “Beatrice was a bit of a bitch”. She did tell the Rossetti coffin story, however with less panache than you have done here. I know I would liked my class better if it had been explained by you! Not a reflection on your age, but on your ability to make literature interesting!
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Ha! Thank you, I must admit when I first heard the story I was about 19 (20 years ago!) it was whilst driving along, on bizarre late-night radio, and I thought then he must have really, really wanted that book back 😉
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I’ve read and loved Inferno, but (like so many other people with good intentions) I never got on to the less brimstone-y books. From what you’ve said, it sounds like Pergatorio is much more action packed than I’d feared…
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Purgatorio has been fun, but I agree, the more brimstone-y the better. I want monsters and dragons, and I bet heaven hasn’t got any 😦
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