As we opened the second Volume of the Comedy this afternoon, the opening verses felt once again breath-taking in their beauty and their immediate shift of atmosphere and outlook towards the sunny and fertile journey through Purgatory:
For better waters, now, the little bark
of my poetic powers hoists its sails,
and leaves behind chat cruelest of the seas.
And I shall sing about that second realm
where man’s soul goes to purify itself
and become worthy to ascend to Heaven.
Then we have the invocation of Calliope, the leader of the Muses, and the Muse of Epic Poetry.