Crossing Into Purgatory — Divine Comedy

A new phase is not just a location change; you need to be washed and re-tied before the next climb begins. Dante opens Purgatory on better water: the bark of his genius lifts sail, the muses are summoned for a higher song, and sapphire air replaces Hell's grief. Venus in Pisces lights the orient; four stars shine that only the first parents ever saw from earth. Hope returns before anyone speaks. Cato stands at the shore, beard mixed with white, face lit like the sun by those four stars. He demands to know who broke the laws of the abyss. Virgil kneels, explains the heavenly Dame who sent them, Dante's near-death error, the rescue through every region of the bad, and pleads through Marcia's memory in Utica. Cato answers: Marcia cannot move him now beyond the accursed stream, but a Dame from heaven can. Pass, but first perform the entry rite. Gird him with a slender reed and wash his face till Hell's stain is gone; not with eyes clouded may he stand before heaven's foremost minister. Only reeds grow on this oozy islet. Do not return this way; the rising sun will show the mountain's easiest ascent. Virgil leads to the rear where the plain declines toward the sea. Dawn chases prime; they cross the deserted plain like someone who has lost the path. Where dew still fights the sun and the wind dries the grass slowly, Virgil wets both hands and restores the colour Hell had hidden. Dante weeps; the master washes his cheeks. On the shore no man ever sailed home from, Virgil girds him as instructed. Each humble reed plucked springs another back in its place. The old survival marks are washed off; the climb ahead requires humility that keeps renewing itself.