Part 12

When we had reached the Angel benedight, With joyful voice he said: “Here enter in To stairway far less steep than are the others.”

We mounting were, already thence departed, And “Beati misericordes” was Behind us sung, “Rejoice, thou that o’ercomest!”

My Master and myself, we two alone Were going upward, and I thought, in going, Some profit to acquire from words of his;

And I to him directed me, thus asking: “What did the spirit of Romagna mean, Mentioning interdict and partnership?”

Whence he to me: “Of his own greatest failing He knows the harm; and therefore wonder not If he reprove us, that we less may rue it.

Because are thither pointed your desires Where by companionship each share is lessened, Envy doth ply the bellows to your sighs.

But if the love of the supernal sphere Should upwardly direct your aspiration, There would not be that fear within your breast;

For there, as much the more as one says ‘Our,’ So much the more of good each one possesses, And more of charity in that cloister burns.”

“I am more hungering to be satisfied,” I said, “than if I had before been silent, And more of doubt within my mind I gather.

How can it be, that boon distributed The more possessors can more wealthy make Therein, than if by few it be possessed?”

And he to me: “Because thou fixest still Thy mind entirely upon earthly things, Thou pluckest darkness from the very light.

That goodness infinite and ineffable Which is above there, runneth unto love, As to a lucid body comes the sunbeam.

So much it gives itself as it finds ardour, So that as far as charity extends, O’er it increases the eternal valour.

And the more people thitherward aspire, More are there to love well, and more they love there, And, as a mirror, one reflects the other.

And if my reasoning appease thee not, Thou shalt see Beatrice; and she will fully Take from thee this and every other longing.

Endeavour, then, that soon may be extinct, As are the two already, the five wounds That close themselves again by being painful.”

Even as I wished to say, “Thou dost appease me,” I saw that I had reached another circle, So that my eager eyes made me keep silence.

There it appeared to me that in a vision Ecstatic on a sudden I was rapt, And in a temple many persons saw;

And at the door a woman, with the sweet Behaviour of a mother, saying: “Son, Why in this manner hast thou dealt with us?

Lo, sorrowing, thy father and myself Were seeking for thee;”—and as here she ceased, That which appeared at first had disappeared.

Then I beheld another with those waters Adown her cheeks which grief distils whenever From great disdain of others it is born,

And saying: “If of that city thou art lord, For whose name was such strife among the gods, And whence doth every science scintillate,

Avenge thyself on those audacious arms That clasped our daughter, O Pisistratus;” And the lord seemed to me benign and mild

To answer her with aspect temperate: “What shall we do to those who wish us ill, If he who loves us be by us condemned?”

Then saw I people hot in fire of wrath, With stones a young man slaying, clamorously Still crying to each other, “Kill him! kill him!”

And him I saw bow down, because of death That weighed already on him, to the earth, But of his eyes made ever gates to heaven,

Imploring the high Lord, in so great strife, That he would pardon those his persecutors, With such an aspect as unlocks compassion.

Soon as my soul had outwardly returned To things external to it which are true, Did I my not false errors recognize.

My Leader, who could see me bear myself Like to a man that rouses him from sleep, Exclaimed: “What ails thee, that thou canst not stand?

But hast been coming more than half a league Veiling thine eyes, and with thy legs entangled, In guise of one whom wine or sleep subdues?”

“O my sweet Father, if thou listen to me, I’ll tell thee,” said I, “what appeared to me, When thus from me my legs were ta’en away.”

And he: “If thou shouldst have a hundred masks Upon thy face, from me would not be shut Thy cogitations, howsoever small.

What thou hast seen was that thou mayst not fail To ope thy heart unto the waters of peace, Which from the eternal fountain are diffused.

I did not ask, ‘What ails thee?’ as he does Who only looketh with the eyes that see not When of the soul bereft the body lies,

But asked it to give vigour to thy feet; Thus must we needs urge on the sluggards, slow To use their wakefulness when it returns.”

We passed along, athwart the twilight peering Forward as far as ever eye could stretch Against the sunbeams serotine and lucent;

And lo! by slow degrees a smoke approached In our direction, sombre as the night, Nor was there place to hide one’s self therefrom.

This of our eyes and the pure air bereft us.

Purgatorio: Canto XVI

Darkness of hell, and of a night deprived Of every planet under a poor sky, As much as may be tenebrous with cloud,

Ne’er made unto my sight so thick a veil, As did that smoke which there enveloped us, Nor to the feeling of so rough a texture;

For not an eye it suffered to stay open; Whereat mine escort, faithful and sagacious, Drew near to me and offered me his shoulder.

E’en as a blind man goes behind his guide, Lest he should wander, or should strike against Aught that may harm or peradventure kill him,

So went I through the bitter and foul air, Listening unto my Leader, who said only, “Look that from me thou be not separated.”

Voices I heard, and every one appeared To supplicate for peace and misericord The Lamb of God who takes away our sins.

Still “Agnus Dei” their exordium was; One word there was in all, and metre one, So that all harmony appeared among them.

“Master,” I said, “are spirits those I hear?” And he to me: “Thou apprehendest truly, And they the knot of anger go unloosing.”

“Now who art thou, that cleavest through our smoke And art discoursing of us even as though Thou didst by calends still divide the time?”

After this manner by a voice was spoken; Whereon my Master said: “Do thou reply, And ask if on this side the way go upward.”

And I: “O creature that dost cleanse thyself To return beautiful to Him who made thee, Thou shalt hear marvels if thou follow me.”

“Thee will I follow far as is allowed me,” He answered; “and if smoke prevent our seeing, Hearing shall keep us joined instead thereof.”

Thereon began I: “With that swathing band Which death unwindeth am I going upward, And hither came I through the infernal anguish.

And if God in his grace has me infolded, So that he wills that I behold his court By method wholly out of modern usage,

Conceal not from me who ere death thou wast, But tell it me, and tell me if I go Right for the pass, and be thy words our escort.”

“Lombard was I, and I was Marco called; The world I knew, and loved that excellence, At which has each one now unbent his bow.

For mounting upward, thou art going right.” Thus he made answer, and subjoined: “I pray thee To pray for me when thou shalt be above.”

And I to him: “My faith I pledge to thee To do what thou dost ask me; but am bursting Inly with doubt, unless I rid me of it.

First it was simple, and is now made double By thy opinion, which makes certain to me, Here and elsewhere, that which I couple with it.

The world forsooth is utterly deserted By every virtue, as thou tellest me, And with iniquity is big and covered;

But I beseech thee point me out the cause, That I may see it, and to others show it; For one in the heavens, and here below one puts it.”

A sigh profound, that grief forced into Ai! He first sent forth, and then began he: “Brother, The world is blind, and sooth thou comest from it!

Ye who are living every cause refer Still upward to the heavens, as if all things They of necessity moved with themselves.

If this were so, in you would be destroyed Free will, nor any justice would there be In having joy for good, or grief for evil.

The heavens your movements do initiate, I say not all; but granting that I say it, Light has been given you for good and evil,

And free volition; which, if some fatigue In the first battles with the heavens it suffers, Afterwards conquers all, if well ’tis nurtured.

To greater force and to a better nature, Though free, ye subject are, and that creates The mind in you the heavens have not in charge.

Hence, if the present world doth go astray, In you the cause is, be it sought in you; And I therein will now be thy true spy.

Forth from the hand of Him, who fondles it Before it is, like to a little girl Weeping and laughing in her childish sport,

Issues the simple soul, that nothing knows, Save that, proceeding from a joyous Maker, Gladly it turns to that which gives it pleasure.

Of trivial good at first it tastes the savour; Is cheated by it, and runs after it, If guide or rein turn not aside its love.

Hence it behoved laws for a rein to place, Behoved a king to have, who at the least Of the true city should discern the tower.

The laws exist, but who sets hand to them? No one; because the shepherd who precedes Can ruminate, but cleaveth not the hoof;

Wherefore the people that perceives its guide Strike only at the good for which it hankers, Feeds upon that, and farther seeketh not.

Clearly canst thou perceive that evil guidance The cause is that has made the world depraved, And not that nature is corrupt in you.

Rome, that reformed the world, accustomed was Two suns to have, which one road and the other, Of God and of the world, made manifest.

One has the other quenched, and to the crosier The sword is joined, and ill beseemeth it That by main force one with the other go,

Because, being joined, one feareth not the other; If thou believe not, think upon the grain, For by its seed each herb is recognized.

In the land laved by Po and Adige, Valour and courtesy used to be found, Before that Frederick had his controversy;

Now in security can pass that way Whoever will abstain, through sense of shame, From speaking with the good, or drawing near them.

True, three old men are left, in whom upbraids The ancient age the new, and late they deem it That God restore them to the better life:

Currado da Palazzo, and good Gherardo, And Guido da Castel, who better named is, In fashion of the French, the simple Lombard:

Say thou henceforward that the Church of Rome, Confounding in itself two governments, Falls in the mire, and soils itself and burden.”

“O Marco mine,” I said, “thou reasonest well; And now discern I why the sons of Levi Have been excluded from the heritage.

But what Gherardo is it, who, as sample Of a lost race, thou sayest has remained In reprobation of the barbarous age?”

“Either thy speech deceives me, or it tempts me,” He answered me; “for speaking Tuscan to me, It seems of good Gherardo naught thou knowest.

By other surname do I know him not, Unless I take it from his daughter Gaia. May God be with you, for I come no farther.

Behold the dawn, that through the smoke rays out, Already whitening; and I must depart— Yonder the Angel is—ere he appear.”

Thus did he speak, and would no farther hear me.

Purgatorio: Canto XVII

Remember, Reader, if e’er in the Alps A mist o’ertook thee, through which thou couldst see Not otherwise than through its membrane mole,

How, when the vapours humid and condensed Begin to dissipate themselves, the sphere Of the sun feebly enters in among them,

And thy imagination will be swift In coming to perceive how I re-saw The sun at first, that was already setting.

Thus, to the faithful footsteps of my Master Mating mine own, I issued from that cloud To rays already dead on the low shores.

O thou, Imagination, that dost steal us So from without sometimes, that man perceives not, Although around may sound a thousand trumpets,

Who moveth thee, if sense impel thee not? Moves thee a light, which in the heaven takes form, By self, or by a will that downward guides it.

Of her impiety, who changed her form Into the bird that most delights in singing, In my imagining appeared the trace;

And hereupon my mind was so withdrawn Within itself, that from without there came Nothing that then might be received by it.

Then reigned within my lofty fantasy One crucified, disdainful and ferocious In countenance, and even thus was dying.

Around him were the great Ahasuerus, Esther his wife, and the just Mordecai, Who was in word and action so entire.

And even as this image burst asunder Of its own self, in fashion of a bubble In which the water it was made of fails,

There rose up in my vision a young maiden Bitterly weeping, and she said: “O queen, Why hast thou wished in anger to be naught?

Thou’st slain thyself, Lavinia not to lose; Now hast thou lost me; I am she who mourns, Mother, at thine ere at another’s ruin.”

As sleep is broken, when upon a sudden New light strikes in upon the eyelids closed, And broken quivers ere it dieth wholly,

So this imagining of mine fell down As soon as the effulgence smote my face, Greater by far than what is in our wont.

I turned me round to see where I might be, When said a voice, “Here is the passage up;” Which from all other purposes removed me,

And made my wish so full of eagerness To look and see who was it that was speaking, It never rests till meeting face to face;

But as before the sun, which quells the sight, And in its own excess its figure veils, Even so my power was insufficient here.

“This is a spirit divine, who in the way Of going up directs us without asking, And who with his own light himself conceals.

He does with us as man doth with himself; For he who sees the need, and waits the asking, Malignly leans already tow’rds denial.

Accord we now our feet to such inviting, Let us make haste to mount ere it grow dark; For then we could not till the day return.”

Thus my Conductor said; and I and he Together turned our footsteps to a stairway; And I, as soon as the first step I reached,

Near me perceived a motion as of wings, And fanning in the face, and saying, “‘Beati Pacifici,’ who are without ill anger.”

Already over us were so uplifted The latest sunbeams, which the night pursues, That upon many sides the stars appeared.

“O manhood mine, why dost thou vanish so?” I said within myself; for I perceived The vigour of my legs was put in truce.

We at the point were where no more ascends The stairway upward, and were motionless, Even as a ship, which at the shore arrives;

And I gave heed a little, if I might hear Aught whatsoever in the circle new; Then to my Master turned me round and said:

“Say, my sweet Father, what delinquency Is purged here in the circle where we are? Although our feet may pause, pause not thy speech.”

And he to me: “The love of good, remiss In what it should have done, is here restored; Here plied again the ill-belated oar;

But still more openly to understand, Turn unto me thy mind, and thou shalt gather Some profitable fruit from our delay.

Neither Creator nor a creature ever, Son,” he began, “was destitute of love Natural or spiritual; and thou knowest it.

The natural was ever without error; But err the other may by evil object, Or by too much, or by too little vigour.

While in the first it well directed is, And in the second moderates itself, It cannot be the cause of sinful pleasure;

But when to ill it turns, and, with more care Or lesser than it ought, runs after good, ’Gainst the Creator works his own creation.

Hence thou mayst comprehend that love must be The seed within yourselves of every virtue, And every act that merits punishment.

Now inasmuch as never from the welfare Of its own subject can love turn its sight, From their own hatred all things are secure;

And since we cannot think of any being Standing alone, nor from the First divided, Of hating Him is all desire cut off.

Hence if, discriminating, I judge well, The evil that one loves is of one’s neighbour, And this is born in three modes in your clay.

There are, who, by abasement of their neighbour, Hope to excel, and therefore only long That from his greatness he may be cast down;

There are, who power, grace, honour, and renown Fear they may lose because another rises, Thence are so sad that the reverse they love;

And there are those whom injury seems to chafe, So that it makes them greedy for revenge, And such must needs shape out another’s harm.

This threefold love is wept for down below; Now of the other will I have thee hear, That runneth after good with measure faulty.

Each one confusedly a good conceives Wherein the mind may rest, and longeth for it; Therefore to overtake it each one strives.

If languid love to look on this attract you, Or in attaining unto it, this cornice, After just penitence, torments you for it.

There’s other good that does not make man happy; ’Tis not felicity, ’tis not the good Essence, of every good the fruit and root.

The love that yields itself too much to this Above us is lamented in three circles; But how tripartite it may be described,

I say not, that thou seek it for thyself.”

Purgatorio: Canto XVIII

An end had put unto his reasoning The lofty Teacher, and attent was looking Into my face, if I appeared content;

And I, whom a new thirst still goaded on, Without was mute, and said within: “Perchance The too much questioning I make annoys him.”

But that true Father, who had comprehended The timid wish, that opened not itself, By speaking gave me hardihood to speak.

Whence I: “My sight is, Master, vivified So in thy light, that clearly I discern Whate’er thy speech importeth or describes.

Therefore I thee entreat, sweet Father dear, To teach me love, to which thou dost refer Every good action and its contrary.”

“Direct,” he said, “towards me the keen eyes Of intellect, and clear will be to thee The error of the blind, who would be leaders.

The soul, which is created apt to love, Is mobile unto everything that pleases, Soon as by pleasure she is waked to action.

Your apprehension from some real thing An image draws, and in yourselves displays it So that it makes the soul turn unto it.

And if, when turned, towards it she incline, Love is that inclination; it is nature, Which is by pleasure bound in you anew

Then even as the fire doth upward move By its own form, which to ascend is born, Where longest in its matter it endures,

So comes the captive soul into desire, Which is a motion spiritual, and ne’er rests Until she doth enjoy the thing beloved.

Now may apparent be to thee how hidden The truth is from those people, who aver All love is in itself a laudable thing;

Because its matter may perchance appear Aye to be good; but yet not each impression Is good, albeit good may be the wax.”

“Thy words, and my sequacious intellect,” I answered him, “have love revealed to me; But that has made me more impregned with doubt;

For if love from without be offered us, And with another foot the soul go not, If right or wrong she go, ’tis not her merit.”

And he to me: “What reason seeth here, Myself can tell thee; beyond that await For Beatrice, since ’tis a work of faith.

Every substantial form, that segregate From matter is, and with it is united, Specific power has in itself collected,

Which without act is not perceptible, Nor shows itself except by its effect, As life does in a plant by the green leaves.

But still, whence cometh the intelligence Of the first notions, man is ignorant, And the affection for the first allurements,

Which are in you as instinct in the bee To make its honey; and this first desire Merit of praise or blame containeth not.

Now, that to this all others may be gathered, Innate within you is the power that counsels, And it should keep the threshold of assent.

This is the principle, from which is taken Occasion of desert in you, according As good and guilty loves it takes and winnows.

Those who, in reasoning, to the bottom went, Were of this innate liberty aware, Therefore bequeathed they Ethics to the world.

Supposing, then, that from necessity Springs every love that is within you kindled, Within yourselves the power is to restrain it.

The noble virtue Beatrice understands By the free will; and therefore see that thou Bear it in mind, if she should speak of it.”

The moon, belated almost unto midnight, Now made the stars appear to us more rare, Formed like a bucket, that is all ablaze,

And counter to the heavens ran through those paths Which the sun sets aflame, when he of Rome Sees it ’twixt Sardes and Corsicans go down;

And that patrician shade, for whom is named Pietola more than any Mantuan town, Had laid aside the burden of my lading;

Whence I, who reason manifest and plain In answer to my questions had received, Stood like a man in drowsy reverie.

But taken from me was this drowsiness Suddenly by a people, that behind Our backs already had come round to us.

And as, of old, Ismenus and Asopus Beside them saw at night the rush and throng, If but the Thebans were in need of Bacchus,

So they along that circle curve their step, From what I saw of those approaching us, Who by good-will and righteous love are ridden.

Full soon they were upon us, because running Moved onward all that mighty multitude, And two in the advance cried out, lamenting,

“Mary in haste unto the mountain ran, And Caesar, that he might subdue Ilerda, Thrust at Marseilles, and then ran into Spain.”

“Quick! quick! so that the time may not be lost By little love!” forthwith the others cried, “For ardour in well-doing freshens grace!”

“O folk, in whom an eager fervour now Supplies perhaps delay and negligence, Put by you in well-doing, through lukewarmness,

This one who lives, and truly I lie not, Would fain go up, if but the sun relight us; So tell us where the passage nearest is.”

These were the words of him who was my Guide; And some one of those spirits said: “Come on Behind us, and the opening shalt thou find;

So full of longing are we to move onward, That stay we cannot; therefore pardon us, If thou for churlishness our justice take.

I was San Zeno’s Abbot at Verona, Under the empire of good Barbarossa, Of whom still sorrowing Milan holds discourse;

And he has one foot in the grave already, Who shall erelong lament that monastery, And sorry be of having there had power,

Because his son, in his whole body sick, And worse in mind, and who was evil-born, He put into the place of its true pastor.”

If more he said, or silent was, I know not, He had already passed so far beyond us; But this I heard, and to retain it pleased me.

And he who was in every need my succour Said: “Turn thee hitherward; see two of them Come fastening upon slothfulness their teeth.”

In rear of all they shouted: “Sooner were The people dead to whom the sea was opened, Than their inheritors the Jordan saw;

And those who the fatigue did not endure Unto the issue, with Anchises’ son, Themselves to life withouten glory offered.”

Then when from us so separated were Those shades, that they no longer could be seen, Within me a new thought did entrance find,

Whence others many and diverse were born; And so I lapsed from one into another, That in a reverie mine eyes I closed,

And meditation into dream transmuted.

Purgatorio: Canto XIX

It was the hour when the diurnal heat No more can warm the coldness of the moon, Vanquished by earth, or peradventure Saturn,

When geomancers their Fortuna Major See in the orient before the dawn Rise by a path that long remains not dim,

There came to me in dreams a stammering woman, Squint in her eyes, and in her feet distorted, With hands dissevered and of sallow hue.

I looked at her; and as the sun restores The frigid members which the night benumbs, Even thus my gaze did render voluble

Her tongue, and made her all erect thereafter In little while, and the lost countenance As love desires it so in her did colour.

When in this wise she had her speech unloosed, She ’gan to sing so, that with difficulty Could I have turned my thoughts away from her.

“I am,” she sang, “I am the Siren sweet Who mariners amid the main unman, So full am I of pleasantness to hear.

I drew Ulysses from his wandering way Unto my song, and he who dwells with me Seldom departs so wholly I content him.”

Her mouth was not yet closed again, before Appeared a Lady saintly and alert Close at my side to put her to confusion.

“Virgilius, O Virgilius! who is this?” Sternly she said; and he was drawing near With eyes still fixed upon that modest one.

She seized the other and in front laid open, Rending her garments, and her belly showed me; This waked me with the stench that issued from it.

I turned mine eyes, and good Virgilius said: “At least thrice have I called thee; rise and come; Find we the opening by which thou mayst enter.”

I rose; and full already of high day Were all the circles of the Sacred Mountain, And with the new sun at our back we went.

Following behind him, I my forehead bore Like unto one who has it laden with thought, Who makes himself the half arch of a bridge,

When I heard say, “Come, here the passage is,” Spoken in a manner gentle and benign, Such as we hear not in this mortal region.

With open wings, which of a swan appeared, Upward he turned us who thus spake to us, Between the two walls of the solid granite.

He moved his pinions afterwards and fanned us, Affirming those ‘qui lugent’ to be blessed, For they shall have their souls with comfort filled.

“What aileth thee, that aye to earth thou gazest?” To me my Guide began to say, we both Somewhat beyond the Angel having mounted.

And I: “With such misgiving makes me go A vision new, which bends me to itself, So that I cannot from the thought withdraw me.”

“Didst thou behold,” he said, “that old enchantress, Who sole above us henceforth is lamented? Didst thou behold how man is freed from her?

Suffice it thee, and smite earth with thy heels, Thine eyes lift upward to the lure, that whirls The Eternal King with revolutions vast.”

Even as the hawk, that first his feet surveys, Then turns him to the call and stretches forward, Through the desire of food that draws him thither,

Such I became, and such, as far as cleaves The rock to give a way to him who mounts, Went on to where the circling doth begin.

On the fifth circle when I had come forth, People I saw upon it who were weeping, Stretched prone upon the ground, all downward turned.

“Adhaesit pavimento anima mea,” I heard them say with sighings so profound, That hardly could the words be understood.

“O ye elect of God, whose sufferings Justice and Hope both render less severe, Direct ye us towards the high ascents.”

“If ye are come secure from this prostration, And wish to find the way most speedily, Let your right hands be evermore outside.”

Thus did the Poet ask, and thus was answered By them somewhat in front of us; whence I In what was spoken divined the rest concealed,

And unto my Lord’s eyes mine eyes I turned; Whence he assented with a cheerful sign To what the sight of my desire implored.

When of myself I could dispose at will, Above that creature did I draw myself, Whose words before had caused me to take note,

“One work. Many languages. One reading experience.”