ABSTRACT
I. The summit of the Mount of Purgatory is a broad tableland, which Dante describes as a garden of great beauty. This is the earthly paradise, or Garden of Eden, in which our first ancestors dwelt while yet in a state of innocence. As he treads the ground, which is fragrant with flowers, a gentle breeze, laden with the perfumes of paradise, fans his tear-
stained cheeks: In the shade of verdant trees, the rustling of whose leaves murmurs a soft accompaniment to the song of a thousand birds, he comes to a limpid stream, whose course he follows; here he walks, accompanied by a fair maiden, Matilda, who, gathering flowers as she trips along the further bank, explains to him the nature of the garden. Virgil's mission is now ended, and l1e is soon to leave Dante; for, of a sudden, they behold advancing from beyond the stream a marvellous procession of maidens and elders, who, richly attired, lead in triumph a car in which, surrounded by angelic spirits and greeted with songs of welcome, appears Beatrice, the poet's beloved. Calling him by name, she sternly rebukes Dante for his disregard of the holy counsel she gave him in his dreams, for his faithlessness in following other less worthy loves, and for his sins. Dante, confused and repentant, confesses his unworthiness. He is then immersed by Matilda and the maidens that serve Beatrice in the stream of Lethe, on whose banks they are gathered, and upon drinking of its waters loses all memory of sin. Thereafter he succumbs to sleep in the shade of the tree of paradise, and finally, is bathed in the waters of Eunoe, from which he emerges " born again, even as trees renewed with fresh foliage, pure and ready to mount to the stars." 1
Graf, after minute study of the mediaeval legends bearing on the earthly paradise, has shown that there existed precedents for the site chosen by Dante, inasmuch as others before him had laid this garden in the southern hemisphere and on the peak of a high mountain.s But he asserts that no one before Dante had thought of placing it precisely on the summit of purgatory. An examination of Islamic literature will therefore be of interest, as it may furnish the key to this riddle of topography b:y revealing analogies both in outline and in detail with this closing scene of the Purgatorio.
