And here he is the symbol of Liberty, since, for her sake, to him “not bitter was death in Utica”; and the meaning of Purgatory is spiritual Liberty, or freedom from sin through purification, “the glorious liberty of the children of God.” Therefore in thus selecting the “Divine Cato” for the guardian of this realm, Dante shows himself to have greater freedom than the critics, who accuse him of “a perverse theology in saving the soul of an idolater and suicide.” ↩

• The “blind river” is Lethe, which by sound and not by sight had guided them through the winding cavern from the centre of the earth to the surface. Inferno XXXIV 130. ↩
• His beard. Ford, Lady’s Trial :⁠— “Now the down Of softness is exchanged for plumes of age.” Dante uses the same expression. Inferno XX 45, and Petrarca, who became gray at an early period, says:⁠— “In such a tenebrous and narrow cage Were we shut up, and the accustomed plumes I changed betimes, and my first countenance.” ↩