We’ve just finished the seventh Terrace of Lust with the big Third Dream – and Virgil’s momentous Crowning and Farewell Speech. In many ways – this is the culmination of the Climb of the Mountain and the whole process of Purification.
The third Dream on the last Terrace left us speechless again as Dante is evoking the Aristotelian Divinity of contemplation contemplating itself, and outlining the transition from the Active to the Contemplative Life through the Biblical figures of Leah and Rachel, the first two wives of Jacob in Genesis. All told in four small tercets of pure beauty and pleasantness, and with Leah peacefully collecting some flowers for a Garland.
This first day ended in the Valley of Princes before the Main Gate, the second day ended after Terrace Four, and the third day has now ended on Terrace Seven after the Purgatory Fire, on the threshold to the Garden of Eden and right before entering into the Earthly Paradise. The Pilgrim is purified, and we have been educated, to enter deeper into the substance of the Contemplative Life in Paradise.