Perga 9a

The Angel Marks Dante with the Sevenfold
William Blake Illustrations of Dante

From GoodReads:Dawn is approaching. Dante has a dream of A GOLDEN EAGLE that descends from the height of Heaven and carries him up to the Sphere of Fire. He wakes to find he has been transported in his sleep, that it was LUCIA who bore him, laying him down beside an enormous wall, through an opening in which he and Virgil may approach THE GATE OF PURGATORY.

Having explained these matters, Virgil leads Dante to the Gate and its ANGEL GUARDIAN. The Angel is seated on the topmost of THREE STEPS that symbolize the three parts of a perfect ACT OF CONFESSION. Dante prostrates himself at the feet of the Angel, who cuts SEVEN P’s in Dante’s forehead with the point of a blazing sword. He then allows the Poets to enter. As the Gates open with a sound of thunder, the mountain resounds with a great HYMN OF PRAISE. 

As he is carried in his sleep by St. Lucy to the threshold of Purgatory proper (9.49-63), Dante identifies with Ganymede and dreams he is hunted by a powerful eagle that snatches him up to the heavenly sphere of fire. Ganymede was a young Trojan prince, known for his beauty, abducted by Jupiter--in the form of an eagle--to serve forever as the god's cupbearer in Olympus. Virgil provides an animated depiction of the scene: "The royal boy, with javelin gives keen chase--he is panting--tiring running stags; and Jove's swift armor-bearer sweeps him up from Ida in his talons; and the boy's old guardians in vain implore the stars; the savage barking of the dogs disturbs the skies" (Aen. 5.252-7). Ovid's version (Met. 10.155-61), presented by Orpheus as an example of Jupiter's power, highlights an erotic dimension to the story often contained in Greek and Roman accounts: 
 
The king of the gods was once fired with love for Phrygian Ganymede, and when that happened Jupiter found another shape preferable to his own. Wishing to turn himself into a bird, he nonetheless scorned to change into any save that which can carry his thunderbolts. Then without delay, beating the air on borrowed pinions, he snatched away the shepherd of Ilium, who even now mixes the wine cups, and supplies Jove with nectar, to the annoyance of Juno. 
 
Ganymede was thus viewed as a symbol of male sexual love, particularly between a boy and a mature man, in the Middle Ages and Renaissance. The word catamite, derived from a Latin form of Ganymede, indicates a boy who has a sexual relationship with a man. 
 
[The double s sound repeated in Dante's verses is an example of onomatopoeia: the hissing words suggest the presence of fire, the sensation of which is so strong it causes the dreaming Dante to awaken: