Direction & Concentration

"For when a man lets his attention range
toward every wisp, he loses direction,
sapping his mind's force with continual change."

Alighieri, Dante. The Divine Comedy. The Purgatorio, Canto V, p.321. Trans. John Ciardi. New York: New American Library, 2003

Dante's placement of this canto, in The Purgatorio, where souls are being cleansed of their individual vice, simply dazzles. Clear out of Hell and advancing toward Paradise through Purgatory, Virgil admonishes Dante that this is not the time or the place to lose direction (going upward) or concentration (not going anywhere). The preceding canto underscores this point:

"Above the cliff's last rise we reached in time
an open slope. 'Do we go right or left?'
I asked my Master, 'or do we still climb?'

"And he: 'Take not one step to either side,
but follow yet, and make way up the mountain
till we meet someone who may serve as guide.'"

Alighieri, Dante. The Divine Comedy. The Purgatorio, Canto IV, p. 312-13. Trans. John Ciardi. New York: New American Library, 2003