Part 13
Saying: “O Spirit, in whom weeping ripens That without which to God we cannot turn, Suspend awhile for me thy greater care.
Who wast thou, and why are your backs turned upwards, Tell me, and if thou wouldst that I procure thee Anything there whence living I departed.”
And he to me: “Wherefore our backs the heaven Turns to itself, know shalt thou; but beforehand ‘Scias quod ego fui successor Petri.’
Between Siestri and Chiaveri descends A river beautiful, and of its name The title of my blood its summit makes.
A month and little more essayed I how Weighs the great cloak on him from mire who keeps it, For all the other burdens seem a feather.
Tardy, ah woe is me! was my conversion; But when the Roman Shepherd I was made, Then I discovered life to be a lie.
I saw that there the heart was not at rest, Nor farther in that life could one ascend; Whereby the love of this was kindled in me.
Until that time a wretched soul and parted From God was I, and wholly avaricious; Now, as thou seest, I here am punished for it.
What avarice does is here made manifest In the purgation of these souls converted, And no more bitter pain the Mountain has.
Even as our eye did not uplift itself Aloft, being fastened upon earthly things, So justice here has merged it in the earth.
As avarice had extinguished our affection For every good, whereby was action lost, So justice here doth hold us in restraint,
Bound and imprisoned by the feet and hands; And so long as it pleases the just Lord Shall we remain immovable and prostrate.”
I on my knees had fallen, and wished to speak; But even as I began, and he was ’ware, Only by listening, of my reverence,
“What cause,” he said, “has downward bent thee thus?” And I to him: “For your own dignity, Standing, my conscience stung me with remorse.”
“Straighten thy legs, and upward raise thee, brother,” He answered: “Err not, fellow-servant am I With thee and with the others to one power.
If e’er that holy, evangelic sound, Which sayeth ‘neque nubent,’ thou hast heard, Well canst thou see why in this wise I speak.
Now go; no longer will I have thee linger, Because thy stay doth incommode my weeping, With which I ripen that which thou hast said.
On earth I have a grandchild named Alagia, Good in herself, unless indeed our house Malevolent may make her by example,
And she alone remains to me on earth.”
Purgatorio: Canto XX
Ill strives the will against a better will; Therefore, to pleasure him, against my pleasure I drew the sponge not saturate from the water.
Onward I moved, and onward moved my Leader, Through vacant places, skirting still the rock, As on a wall close to the battlements;
For they that through their eyes pour drop by drop The malady which all the world pervades, On the other side too near the verge approach.
Accursed mayst thou be, thou old she-wolf, That more than all the other beasts hast prey, Because of hunger infinitely hollow!
O heaven, in whose gyrations some appear To think conditions here below are changed, When will he come through whom she shall depart?
Onward we went with footsteps slow and scarce, And I attentive to the shades I heard Piteously weeping and bemoaning them;
And I by peradventure heard “Sweet Mary!” Uttered in front of us amid the weeping Even as a woman does who is in child-birth;
And in continuance: “How poor thou wast Is manifested by that hostelry Where thou didst lay thy sacred burden down.”
Thereafterward I heard: “O good Fabricius, Virtue with poverty didst thou prefer To the possession of great wealth with vice.”
So pleasurable were these words to me That I drew farther onward to have knowledge Touching that spirit whence they seemed to come.
He furthermore was speaking of the largess Which Nicholas unto the maidens gave, In order to conduct their youth to honour.
“O soul that dost so excellently speak, Tell me who wast thou,” said I, “and why only Thou dost renew these praises well deserved?
Not without recompense shall be thy word, If I return to finish the short journey Of that life which is flying to its end.”
And he: “I’ll tell thee, not for any comfort I may expect from earth, but that so much Grace shines in thee or ever thou art dead.
I was the root of that malignant plant Which overshadows all the Christian world, So that good fruit is seldom gathered from it;
But if Douay and Ghent, and Lille and Bruges Had Power, soon vengeance would be taken on it; And this I pray of Him who judges all.
Hugh Capet was I called upon the earth; From me were born the Louises and Philips, By whom in later days has France been governed.
I was the son of a Parisian butcher, What time the ancient kings had perished all, Excepting one, contrite in cloth of gray.
I found me grasping in my hands the rein Of the realm’s government, and so great power Of new acquest, and so with friends abounding,
That to the widowed diadem promoted The head of mine own offspring was, from whom The consecrated bones of these began.
So long as the great dowry of Provence Out of my blood took not the sense of shame, ’Twas little worth, but still it did no harm.
Then it began with falsehood and with force Its rapine; and thereafter, for amends, Took Ponthieu, Normandy, and Gascony.
Charles came to Italy, and for amends A victim made of Conradin, and then Thrust Thomas back to heaven, for amends.
A time I see, not very distant now, Which draweth forth another Charles from France, The better to make known both him and his.
Unarmed he goes, and only with the lance That Judas jousted with; and that he thrusts So that he makes the paunch of Florence burst.
He thence not land, but sin and infamy, Shall gain, so much more grievous to himself As the more light such damage he accounts.
The other, now gone forth, ta’en in his ship, See I his daughter sell, and chaffer for her As corsairs do with other female slaves.
What more, O Avarice, canst thou do to us, Since thou my blood so to thyself hast drawn, It careth not for its own proper flesh?
That less may seem the future ill and past, I see the flower-de-luce Alagna enter, And Christ in his own Vicar captive made.
I see him yet another time derided; I see renewed the vinegar and gall, And between living thieves I see him slain.
I see the modern Pilate so relentless, This does not sate him, but without decretal He to the temple bears his sordid sails!
When, O my Lord! shall I be joyful made By looking on the vengeance which, concealed, Makes sweet thine anger in thy secrecy?
What I was saying of that only bride Of the Holy Ghost, and which occasioned thee To turn towards me for some commentary,
So long has been ordained to all our prayers As the day lasts; but when the night comes on, Contrary sound we take instead thereof.
At that time we repeat Pygmalion, Of whom a traitor, thief, and parricide Made his insatiable desire of gold;
And the misery of avaricious Midas, That followed his inordinate demand, At which forevermore one needs but laugh.
The foolish Achan each one then records, And how he stole the spoils; so that the wrath Of Joshua still appears to sting him here.
Then we accuse Sapphira with her husband, We laud the hoof-beats Heliodorus had, And the whole mount in infamy encircles
Polymnestor who murdered Polydorus. Here finally is cried: ‘O Crassus, tell us, For thou dost know, what is the taste of gold?’
Sometimes we speak, one loud, another low, According to desire of speech, that spurs us To greater now and now to lesser pace.
But in the good that here by day is talked of, Erewhile alone I was not; yet near by No other person lifted up his voice.”
From him already we departed were, And made endeavour to o’ercome the road As much as was permitted to our power,
When I perceived, like something that is falling, The mountain tremble, whence a chill seized on me, As seizes him who to his death is going.
Certes so violently shook not Delos, Before Latona made her nest therein To give birth to the two eyes of the heaven.
Then upon all sides there began a cry, Such that the Master drew himself towards me, Saying, “Fear not, while I am guiding thee.”
“Gloria in excelsis Deo,” all Were saying, from what near I comprehended, Where it was possible to hear the cry.
We paused immovable and in suspense, Even as the shepherds who first heard that song, Until the trembling ceased, and it was finished.
Then we resumed again our holy path, Watching the shades that lay upon the ground, Already turned to their accustomed plaint.
No ignorance ever with so great a strife Had rendered me importunate to know, If erreth not in this my memory,
As meditating then I seemed to have; Nor out of haste to question did I dare, Nor of myself I there could aught perceive;
So I went onward timorous and thoughtful.
Purgatorio: Canto XXI
The natural thirst, that ne’er is satisfied Excepting with the water for whose grace The woman of Samaria besought,
Put me in travail, and haste goaded me Along the encumbered path behind my Leader And I was pitying that righteous vengeance;
And lo! in the same manner as Luke writeth That Christ appeared to two upon the way From the sepulchral cave already risen,
A shade appeared to us, and came behind us, Down gazing on the prostrate multitude, Nor were we ware of it, until it spake,
Saying, “My brothers, may God give you peace!” We turned us suddenly, and Virgilius rendered To him the countersign thereto conforming.
Thereon began he: “In the blessed council, Thee may the court veracious place in peace, That me doth banish in eternal exile!”
“How,” said he, and the while we went with speed, “If ye are shades whom God deigns not on high, Who up his stairs so far has guided you?”
And said my Teacher: “If thou note the marks Which this one bears, and which the Angel traces Well shalt thou see he with the good must reign.
But because she who spinneth day and night For him had not yet drawn the distaff off, Which Clotho lays for each one and compacts,
His soul, which is thy sister and my own, In coming upwards could not come alone, By reason that it sees not in our fashion.
Whence I was drawn from out the ample throat Of Hell to be his guide, and I shall guide him As far on as my school has power to lead.
But tell us, if thou knowest, why such a shudder Erewhile the mountain gave, and why together All seemed to cry, as far as its moist feet?”
In asking he so hit the very eye Of my desire, that merely with the hope My thirst became the less unsatisfied.
“Naught is there,” he began, “that without order May the religion of the mountain feel, Nor aught that may be foreign to its custom.
Free is it here from every permutation; What from itself heaven in itself receiveth Can be of this the cause, and naught beside;
Because that neither rain, nor hail, nor snow, Nor dew, nor hoar-frost any higher falls Than the short, little stairway of three steps.
Dense clouds do not appear, nor rarefied, Nor coruscation, nor the daughter of Thaumas, That often upon earth her region shifts;
No arid vapour any farther rises Than to the top of the three steps I spake of, Whereon the Vicar of Peter has his feet.
Lower down perchance it trembles less or more, But, for the wind that in the earth is hidden I know not how, up here it never trembled.
It trembles here, whenever any soul Feels itself pure, so that it soars, or moves To mount aloft, and such a cry attends it.
Of purity the will alone gives proof, Which, being wholly free to change its convent, Takes by surprise the soul, and helps it fly.
First it wills well; but the desire permits not, Which divine justice with the self-same will There was to sin, upon the torment sets.
And I, who have been lying in this pain Five hundred years and more, but just now felt A free volition for a better seat.
Therefore thou heardst the earthquake, and the pious Spirits along the mountain rendering praise Unto the Lord, that soon he speed them upwards.”
So said he to him; and since we enjoy As much in drinking as the thirst is great, I could not say how much it did me good.
And the wise Leader: “Now I see the net That snares you here, and how ye are set free, Why the earth quakes, and wherefore ye rejoice.
Now who thou wast be pleased that I may know; And why so many centuries thou hast here Been lying, let me gather from thy words.”
“In days when the good Titus, with the aid Of the supremest King, avenged the wounds Whence issued forth the blood by Judas sold,
Under the name that most endures and honours, Was I on earth,” that spirit made reply, “Greatly renowned, but not with faith as yet.
My vocal spirit was so sweet, that Rome Me, a Thoulousian, drew unto herself, Where I deserved to deck my brows with myrtle.
Statius the people name me still on earth; I sang of Thebes, and then of great Achilles; But on the way fell with my second burden.
The seeds unto my ardour were the sparks Of that celestial flame which heated me, Whereby more than a thousand have been fired;
Of the Aeneid speak I, which to me A mother was, and was my nurse in song; Without this weighed I not a drachma’s weight.
And to have lived upon the earth what time Virgilius lived, I would accept one sun More than I must ere issuing from my ban.”
These words towards me made Virgilius turn With looks that in their silence said, “Be silent!” But yet the power that wills cannot do all things;
For tears and laughter are such pursuivants Unto the passion from which each springs forth, In the most truthful least the will they follow.
I only smiled, as one who gives the wink; Whereat the shade was silent, and it gazed Into mine eyes, where most expression dwells;
And, “As thou well mayst consummate a labour So great,” it said, “why did thy face just now Display to me the lightning of a smile?”
Now am I caught on this side and on that; One keeps me silent, one to speak conjures me, Wherefore I sigh, and I am understood.
“Speak,” said my Master, “and be not afraid Of speaking, but speak out, and say to him What he demands with such solicitude.”
Whence I: “Thou peradventure marvellest, O antique spirit, at the smile I gave; But I will have more wonder seize upon thee.
This one, who guides on high these eyes of mine, Is that Virgilius, from whom thou didst learn To sing aloud of men and of the Gods.
If other cause thou to my smile imputedst, Abandon it as false, and trust it was Those words which thou hast spoken concerning him.”
Already he was stooping to embrace My Teacher’s feet; but he said to him: “Brother, Do not; for shade thou art, and shade beholdest.”
And he uprising: “Now canst thou the sum Of love which warms me to thee comprehend, When this our vanity I disremember,
Treating a shadow as substantial thing.”
Purgatorio: Canto XXII
Already was the Angel left behind us, The Angel who to the sixth round had turned us, Having erased one mark from off my face;
And those who have in justice their desire Had said to us, “Beati,” in their voices, With “sitio,” and without more ended it.
And I, more light than through the other passes, Went onward so, that without any labour I followed upward the swift-footed spirits;
When thus Virgilius began: “The love Kindled by virtue aye another kindles, Provided outwardly its flame appear.
Hence from the hour that Juvenal descended Among us into the infernal Limbo, Who made apparent to me thy affection,
My kindliness towards thee was as great As ever bound one to an unseen person, So that these stairs will now seem short to me.
But tell me, and forgive me as a friend, If too great confidence let loose the rein, And as a friend now hold discourse with me;
How was it possible within thy breast For avarice to find place, ’mid so much wisdom As thou wast filled with by thy diligence?”
These words excited Statius at first Somewhat to laughter; afterward he answered: “Each word of thine is love’s dear sign to me.
Verily oftentimes do things appear Which give fallacious matter to our doubts, Instead of the true causes which are hidden!
Thy question shows me thy belief to be That I was niggard in the other life, It may be from the circle where I was;
Therefore know thou, that avarice was removed Too far from me; and this extravagance Thousands of lunar periods have punished.
And were it not that I my thoughts uplifted, When I the passage heard where thou exclaimest, As if indignant, unto human nature,
‘To what impellest thou not, O cursed hunger Of gold, the appetite of mortal men?’ Revolving I should feel the dismal joustings.
Then I perceived the hands could spread too wide Their wings in spending, and repented me As well of that as of my other sins;
How many with shorn hair shall rise again Because of ignorance, which from this sin Cuts off repentance living and in death!
And know that the transgression which rebuts By direct opposition any sin Together with it here its verdure dries.
Therefore if I have been among that folk Which mourns its avarice, to purify me, For its opposite has this befallen me.”
“Now when thou sangest the relentless weapons Of the twofold affliction of Jocasta,” The singer of the Songs Bucolic said,
“From that which Clio there with thee preludes, It does not seem that yet had made thee faithful That faith without which no good works suffice.
If this be so, what candles or what sun Scattered thy darkness so that thou didst trim Thy sails behind the Fisherman thereafter?”
And he to him: “Thou first directedst me Towards Parnassus, in its grots to drink, And first concerning God didst me enlighten.
Thou didst as he who walketh in the night, Who bears his light behind, which helps him not, But wary makes the persons after him,
When thou didst say: ‘The age renews itself, Justice returns, and man’s primeval time, And a new progeny descends from heaven.’
Through thee I Poet was, through thee a Christian; But that thou better see what I design, To colour it will I extend my hand.
Already was the world in every part Pregnant with the true creed, disseminated By messengers of the eternal kingdom;
And thy assertion, spoken of above, With the new preachers was in unison; Whence I to visit them the custom took.
Then they became so holy in my sight, That, when Domitian persecuted them, Not without tears of mine were their laments;
And all the while that I on earth remained, Them I befriended, and their upright customs Made me disparage all the other sects.
And ere I led the Greeks unto the rivers Of Thebes, in poetry, I was baptized, But out of fear was covertly a Christian,
For a long time professing paganism; And this lukewarmness caused me the fourth circle To circuit round more than four centuries.
Thou, therefore, who hast raised the covering That hid from me whatever good I speak of, While in ascending we have time to spare,
Tell me, in what place is our friend Terentius, Caecilius, Plautus, Varro, if thou knowest; Tell me if they are damned, and in what alley.”
“These, Persius and myself, and others many,” Replied my Leader, “with that Grecian are Whom more than all the rest the Muses suckled,
In the first circle of the prison blind; Ofttimes we of the mountain hold discourse Which has our nurses ever with itself.
Euripides is with us, Antiphon, Simonides, Agatho, and many other Greeks who of old their brows with laurel decked.
There some of thine own people may be seen, Antigone, Deiphile and Argia, And there Ismene mournful as of old.
There she is seen who pointed out Langia; There is Tiresias’ daughter, and there Thetis, And there Deidamia with her sisters.”
Silent already were the poets both, Attent once more in looking round about, From the ascent and from the walls released;
And four handmaidens of the day already Were left behind, and at the pole the fifth Was pointing upward still its burning horn,
What time my Guide: “I think that tow’rds the edge Our dexter shoulders it behoves us turn, Circling the mount as we are wont to do.”
Thus in that region custom was our ensign; And we resumed our way with less suspicion For the assenting of that worthy soul
They in advance went on, and I alone Behind them, and I listened to their speech, Which gave me lessons in the art of song.
But soon their sweet discourses interrupted A tree which midway in the road we found, With apples sweet and grateful to the smell.
And even as a fir-tree tapers upward From bough to bough, so downwardly did that; I think in order that no one might climb it.
On that side where our pathway was enclosed Fell from the lofty rock a limpid water, And spread itself abroad upon the leaves.
The Poets twain unto the tree drew near, And from among the foliage a voice Cried: “Of this food ye shall have scarcity.”
Then said: “More thoughtful Mary was of making The marriage feast complete and honourable, Than of her mouth which now for you responds;
And for their drink the ancient Roman women With water were content; and Daniel Disparaged food, and understanding won.
The primal age was beautiful as gold; Acorns it made with hunger savorous, And nectar every rivulet with thirst.
Honey and locusts were the aliments That fed the Baptist in the wilderness; Whence he is glorious, and so magnified
As by the Evangel is revealed to you.”
Purgatorio: Canto XXIII
The while among the verdant leaves mine eyes I riveted, as he is wont to do Who wastes his life pursuing little birds,
My more than Father said unto me: “Son, Come now; because the time that is ordained us More usefully should be apportioned out.”
I turned my face and no less soon my steps Unto the Sages, who were speaking so They made the going of no cost to me;
And lo! were heard a song and a lament, “Labia mea, Domine,” in fashion Such that delight and dolence it brought forth.
“O my sweet Father, what is this I hear?” Began I; and he answered: “Shades that go Perhaps the knot unloosing of their debt.”
In the same way that thoughtful pilgrims do, Who, unknown people on the road o’ertaking, Turn themselves round to them, and do not stop,
Even thus, behind us with a swifter motion Coming and passing onward, gazed upon us A crowd of spirits silent and devout.
Each in his eyes was dark and cavernous, Pallid in face, and so emaciate That from the bones the skin did shape itself.
I do not think that so to merest rind Could Erisichthon have been withered up By famine, when most fear he had of it.
Thinking within myself I said: “Behold, This is the folk who lost Jerusalem, When Mary made a prey of her own son.”
Their sockets were like rings without the gems; Whoever in the face of men reads ‘omo’ Might well in these have recognised the ‘m.’
Who would believe the odour of an apple, Begetting longing, could consume them so, And that of water, without knowing how?
I still was wondering what so famished them, For the occasion not yet manifest Of their emaciation and sad squalor;
And lo! from out the hollow of his head His eyes a shade turned on me, and looked keenly; Then cried aloud: “What grace to me is this?”
Never should I have known him by his look; But in his voice was evident to me That which his aspect had suppressed within it.
This spark within me wholly re-enkindled My recognition of his altered face, And I recalled the features of Forese.
“Ah, do not look at this dry leprosy,” Entreated he, “which doth my skin discolour, Nor at default of flesh that I may have;
But tell me truth of thee, and who are those Two souls, that yonder make for thee an escort; Do not delay in speaking unto me.”
“That face of thine, which dead I once bewept, Gives me for weeping now no lesser grief,” I answered him, “beholding it so changed!
But tell me, for God’s sake, what thus denudes you? Make me not speak while I am marvelling, For ill speaks he who’s full of other longings.”
And he to me: “From the eternal council Falls power into the water and the tree Behind us left, whereby I grow so thin.
All of this people who lamenting sing, For following beyond measure appetite In hunger and thirst are here re-sanctified.
Desire to eat and drink enkindles in us The scent that issues from the apple-tree, And from the spray that sprinkles o’er the verdure;
And not a single time alone, this ground Encompassing, is refreshed our pain,— I say our pain, and ought to say our solace,—
For the same wish doth lead us to the tree Which led the Christ rejoicing to say ‘Eli,’ When with his veins he liberated us.”
And I to him: “Forese, from that day When for a better life thou changedst worlds, Up to this time five years have not rolled round.
If sooner were the power exhausted in thee Of sinning more, than thee the hour surprised Of that good sorrow which to God reweds us,
How hast thou come up hitherward already? I thought to find thee down there underneath, Where time for time doth restitution make.”
And he to me: “Thus speedily has led me To drink of the sweet wormwood of these torments, My Nella with her overflowing tears;
She with her prayers devout and with her sighs Has drawn me from the coast where one where one awaits, And from the other circles set me free.
So much more dear and pleasing is to God My little widow, whom so much I loved, As in good works she is the more alone;
For the Barbagia of Sardinia By far more modest in its women is Than the Barbagia I have left her in.
O brother sweet, what wilt thou have me say? A future time is in my sight already, To which this hour will not be very old,
When from the pulpit shall be interdicted To the unblushing womankind of Florence To go about displaying breast and paps.
What savages were e’er, what Saracens, Who stood in need, to make them covered go, Of spiritual or other discipline?
But if the shameless women were assured Of what swift Heaven prepares for them, already Wide open would they have their mouths to howl;
For if my foresight here deceive me not, They shall be sad ere he has bearded cheeks Who now is hushed to sleep with lullaby.
O brother, now no longer hide thee from me; See that not only I, but all these people Are gazing there, where thou dost veil the sun.”
Whence I to him: “If thou bring back to mind What thou with me hast been and I with thee, The present memory will be grievous still.
Out of that life he turned me back who goes In front of me, two days agone when round The sister of him yonder showed herself,”
And to the sun I pointed. “Through the deep Night of the truly dead has this one led me, With this true flesh, that follows after him.
Thence his encouragements have led me up, Ascending and still circling round the mount That you doth straighten, whom the world made crooked.
He says that he will bear me company, Till I shall be where Beatrice will be; There it behoves me to remain without him.
This is Virgilius, who thus says to me,” And him I pointed at; “the other is That shade for whom just now shook every slope
Your realm, that from itself discharges him.”
Purgatorio: Canto XXIV
Nor speech the going, nor the going that Slackened; but talking we went bravely on, Even as a vessel urged by a good wind.
And shadows, that appeared things doubly dead, From out the sepulchres of their eyes betrayed Wonder at me, aware that I was living.
And I, continuing my colloquy, Said: “Peradventure he goes up more slowly Than he would do, for other people’s sake.
“One work. Many languages. One reading experience.”