rly
wilt thou see 'tis meet he reign with the good.... Wherefore I was brought
from Hell's wide jaws to guide him and I will guide him onward, so far as
my school can lead him. But tell us, if thou knowest, why the mount gave
before such quakings and wherefore all seemed to shout with one voice down
to its soft base.'"

It was the very question Dante had been yearning to utter.

"Thus, by asking did he thread the very needle of my desire and with the
pope alone my thirst was made less fasting."

* * * * *

The spirit, Statius by name, who has just obtained his release from
Purgatorial confinement to ascend to Heaven, states that the earthquake
was not due to natural causes, such as strong dry vapors producing wind,
but was caused by spiritual elements operative upon a soul's completing
the penance and term assigned.

* * * * *

"It quakes here when some soul feeleth herself cleansed, so that she may
rise up or set forth, to mount on high, and such a shout follows her. Of
the cleansing the will alone gives proof, which fills the soul, all free to
change her cloister, and avails her to will.... And I who have lain under
this torment five hundred years and more, only now felt free will for a
better threshold. Therefore didst thou feel the earthquake and hear the
pious spirits about the mount give praises to the Lord."

* * * * *

This Statius was a Roman poet who died in the year 96. His term in
Purgatory therefore has lasted a little more than eleven centuries. The
next longest period mentioned by Dante is that of Duke Hugh Capet who
has been in Purgatory over 350 years with his purification still
incomplete. Statius by Dante's poetic invention is represented first as
saved through the influence of Virgil's poems and then is shown to be a
Christian, having been led to embrace Christianity both from the heroic
example of the martyrs and from his meditation on Virgil's prophecy of
the Cumaean Sibyl interpreted in the Middle Ages to refer to Christ. In
the Divina Commedia Statius pays a glowing tribute to the AEneid and its
author, wholly ignorant that he is addressing Virgil himself. "Of the
AEneid I speak which was a mother to me and was to me a nurse in poesy
... and to have lived yonder when Virgil was alive, I would consent to
one sun more than I need perform." Dante is all aquiver to surprise
Statius with the informati