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Dante's Purgatory [Divine Comedy] | |
Translanted by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow | |
August, 1997 [Etext #1002] | |
The Project Gutenberg Etext of Dante's Purgatory [Divine Comedy] | |
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THE DIVINE COMEDY | |
OF DANTE ALIGHIERI | |
(1265-1321) | |
TRANSLATED BY | |
HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW | |
(1807-1882) | |
CANTICLE II: PURGATORIO | |
CREDITS | |
The base text for this edition has been provided by Digital Dante, a | |
project sponsored by Columbia University's Institute for Learning | |
Technologies. Specific thanks goes to Jennifer Hogan (Project | |
Editor/Director), Tanya Larkin (Assistant to Editor), Robert W. Cole | |
(Proofreader/Assistant Editor), and Jennifer Cook (Proofreader). | |
The Digital Dante Project is a digital 'study space' for Dante studies and | |
scholarship. The project is multi-faceted and fluid by nature of the Web. | |
Digital Dante attempts to organize the information most significant for | |
students first engaging with Dante and scholars researching Dante. The | |
digital of Digital Dante incurs a new challenge to the student, the | |
scholar, and teacher, perusing the Web: to become proficient in the new | |
tools, e.g., Search, the Discussion Group, well enough to look beyond the | |
technology and delve into the content. For more information and access to | |
the project, please visit its web site at: | |
http://www.ilt.columbia.edu/projects/dante/ | |
For this Project Gutenberg edition the e-text was rechecked. The editor | |
greatly thanks Dian McCarthy for her assistance in proofreading the | |
Paradiso. Also deserving praise are Herbert Fann for programming the text | |
editor "Desktop Tools/Edit" and the late August Dvorak for designing his | |
keyboard layout. Please refer to Project Gutenberg's e-text listings for | |
other editions or translations of 'The Divine Comedy.' For this three part | |
edition of 'The Divine Comedy' please refer to the end of the Paradiso for | |
supplemental materials. | |
Dennis McCarthy, July 1997 | |
imprimatur@juno.com | |
CONTENTS | |
Purgatorio | |
I. The Shores of Purgatory. The Four Stars. Cato of Utica. | |
The Rush. | |
II. The Celestial Pilot. Casella. The Departure. | |
III. Discourse on the Limits of Reason. The Foot of the Mountain. | |
Those who died in Contumacy of Holy Church. Manfredi. | |
IV. Farther Ascent. Nature of the Mountain. The Negligent, | |
who postponed Repentance till the last Hour. Belacqua. | |
V. Those who died by Violence, but repentant. | |
Buonconte di Monfeltro. La Pia. | |
VI. Dante's Inquiry on Prayers for the Dead. Sordello. Italy. | |
VII. The Valley of Flowers. Negligent Princes. | |
VIII. The Guardian Angels and the Serpent. Nino di Gallura. | |
The Three Stars. Currado Malaspina. | |
IX. Dante's Dream of the Eagle. The Gate of Purgatory and | |
the Angel. Seven P's. The Keys. | |
X. The Needle's Eye. The First Circle: The Proud. | |
The Sculptures on the Wall. | |
XI. The Humble Prayer. Omberto di Santafiore. | |
Oderisi d' Agobbio. Provenzan Salvani. | |
XII. The Sculptures on the Pavement. Ascent to the Second Circle. | |
XIII. The Second Circle: The Envious. Sapia of Siena. | |
XIV. Guido del Duca and Renier da Calboli. Cities of | |
the Arno Valley. Denunciation of Stubbornness. | |
XV. The Third Circle: The Irascible. Dante's Visions. The Smoke. | |
XVI. Marco Lombardo. Lament over the State of the World. | |
XVII. Dante's Dream of Anger. The Fourth Circle: The Slothful. | |
Virgil's Discourse of Love. | |
XVIII. Virgil further discourses of Love and Free Will. | |
The Abbot of San Zeno. | |
XIX. Dante's Dream of the Siren. The Fifth Circle: | |
The Avaricious and Prodigal. Pope Adrian V. | |
XX. Hugh Capet. Corruption of the French Crown. | |
Prophecy of the Abduction of Pope Boniface VIII and | |
the Sacrilege of Philip the Fair. The Earthquake. | |
XXI. The Poet Statius. Praise of Virgil. | |
XXII. Statius' Denunciation of Avarice. The Sixth Circle: | |
The Gluttonous. The Mystic Tree. | |
XXIII. Forese. Reproof of immodest Florentine Women. | |
XXIV. Buonagiunta da Lucca. Pope Martin IV, and others. | |
Inquiry into the State of Poetry. | |
XXV. Discourse of Statius on Generation. The Seventh Circle: | |
The Wanton. | |
XXVI. Sodomites. Guido Guinicelli and Arnaldo Daniello. | |
XXVII. The Wall of Fire and the Angel of God. Dante's Sleep | |
upon the Stairway, and his Dream of Leah and Rachel. | |
Arrival at the Terrestrial Paradise. | |
XXVIII. The River Lethe. Matilda. The Nature of | |
the Terrestrial Paradise. | |
XXIX. The Triumph of the Church. | |
XXX. Virgil's Departure. Beatrice. Dante's Shame. | |
XXXI. Reproaches of Beatrice and Confession of Dante. | |
The Passage of Lethe. The Seven Virtues. The Griffon. | |
XXXII. The Tree of Knowledge. Allegory of the Chariot. | |
XXXIII. Lament over the State of the Church. Final Reproaches | |
of Beatrice. The River Eunoe. | |
The Divine Comedy | |
translated by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow | |
(e-text courtesy ILT's Digital Dante Project) | |
PURGATORIO | |
Purgatorio: Canto I | |
To run o'er better waters hoists its sail | |
The little vessel of my genius now, | |
That leaves behind itself a sea so cruel; | |
And of that second kingdom will I sing | |
Wherein the human spirit doth purge itself, | |
And to ascend to heaven becometh worthy. | |
But let dead Poesy here rise again, | |
O holy Muses, since that I am yours, | |
And here Calliope somewhat ascend, | |
My song accompanying with that sound, | |
Of which the miserable magpies felt | |
The blow so great, that they despaired of pardon. | |
Sweet colour of the oriental sapphire, | |
That was upgathered in the cloudless aspect | |
Of the pure air, as far as the first circle, | |
Unto mine eyes did recommence delight | |
Soon as I issued forth from the dead air, | |
Which had with sadness filled mine eyes and breast. | |
The beauteous planet, that to love incites, | |
Was making all the orient to laugh, | |
Veiling the Fishes that were in her escort. | |
To the right hand I turned, and fixed my mind | |
Upon the other pole, and saw four stars | |
Ne'er seen before save by the primal people. | |
Rejoicing in their flamelets seemed the heaven. | |
O thou septentrional and widowed site, | |
Because thou art deprived of seeing these! | |
When from regarding them I had withdrawn, | |
Turning a little to the other pole, | |
There where the Wain had disappeared already, | |
I saw beside me an old man alone, | |
Worthy of so much reverence in his look, | |
That more owes not to father any son. | |
A long beard and with white hair intermingled | |
He wore, in semblance like unto the tresses, | |
Of which a double list fell on his breast. | |
The rays of the four consecrated stars | |
Did so adorn his countenance with light, | |
That him I saw as were the sun before him. | |
"Who are you? ye who, counter the blind river, | |
Have fled away from the eternal prison?" | |
Moving those venerable plumes, he said: | |
"Who guided you? or who has been your lamp | |
In issuing forth out of the night profound, | |
That ever black makes the infernal valley? | |
The laws of the abyss, are they thus broken? | |
Or is there changed in heaven some council new, | |
That being damned ye come unto my crags?" | |
Then did my Leader lay his grasp upon me, | |
And with his words, and with his hands and signs, | |
Reverent he made in me my knees and brow; | |
Then answered him: "I came not of myself; | |
A Lady from Heaven descended, at whose prayers | |
I aided this one with my company. | |
But since it is thy will more be unfolded | |
Of our condition, how it truly is, | |
Mine cannot be that this should be denied thee. | |
This one has never his last evening seen, | |
But by his folly was so near to it | |
That very little time was there to turn. | |
As I have said, I unto him was sent | |
To rescue him, and other way was none | |
Than this to which I have myself betaken. | |
I've shown him all the people of perdition, | |
And now those spirits I intend to show | |
Who purge themselves beneath thy guardianship. | |
How I have brought him would be long to tell thee. | |
Virtue descendeth from on high that aids me | |
To lead him to behold thee and to hear thee. | |
Now may it please thee to vouchsafe his coming; | |
He seeketh Liberty, which is so dear, | |
As knoweth he who life for her refuses. | |
Thou know'st it; since, for her, to thee not bitter | |
Was death in Utica, where thou didst leave | |
The vesture, that will shine so, the great day. | |
By us the eternal edicts are not broken; | |
Since this one lives, and Minos binds not me; | |
But of that circle I, where are the chaste | |
Eyes of thy Marcia, who in looks still prays thee, | |
O holy breast, to hold her as thine own; | |
For her love, then, incline thyself to us. | |
Permit us through thy sevenfold realm to go; | |
I will take back this grace from thee to her, | |
If to be mentioned there below thou deignest." | |
"Marcia so pleasing was unto mine eyes | |
While I was on the other side," then said he, | |
"That every grace she wished of me I granted; | |
Now that she dwells beyond the evil river, | |
She can no longer move me, by that law | |
Which, when I issued forth from there, was made. | |
But if a Lady of Heaven do move and rule thee, | |
As thou dost say, no flattery is needful; | |
Let it suffice thee that for her thou ask me. | |
Go, then, and see thou gird this one about | |
With a smooth rush, and that thou wash his face, | |
So that thou cleanse away all stain therefrom, | |
For 'twere not fitting that the eye o'ercast | |
By any mist should go before the first | |
Angel, who is of those of Paradise. | |
This little island round about its base | |
Below there, yonder, where the billow beats it, | |
Doth rushes bear upon its washy ooze; | |
No other plant that putteth forth the leaf, | |
Or that doth indurate, can there have life, | |
Because it yieldeth not unto the shocks. | |
Thereafter be not this way your return; | |
The sun, which now is rising, will direct you | |
To take the mount by easier ascent." | |
With this he vanished; and I raised me up | |
Without a word, and wholly drew myself | |
Unto my Guide, and turned mine eyes to him. | |
And he began: "Son, follow thou my steps; | |
Let us turn back, for on this side declines | |
The plain unto its lower boundaries." | |
The dawn was vanquishing the matin hour | |
Which fled before it, so that from afar | |
I recognised the trembling of the sea. | |
Along the solitary plain we went | |
As one who unto the lost road returns, | |
And till he finds it seems to go in vain. | |
As soon as we were come to where the dew | |
Fights with the sun, and, being in a part | |
Where shadow falls, little evaporates, | |
Both of his hands upon the grass outspread | |
In gentle manner did my Master place; | |
Whence I, who of his action was aware, | |
Extended unto him my tearful cheeks; | |
There did he make in me uncovered wholly | |
That hue which Hell had covered up in me. | |
Then came we down upon the desert shore | |
Which never yet saw navigate its waters | |
Any that afterward had known return. | |
There he begirt me as the other pleased; | |
O marvellous! for even as he culled | |
The humble plant, such it sprang up again | |
Suddenly there where he uprooted it. | |
Purgatorio: Canto II | |
Already had the sun the horizon reached | |
Whose circle of meridian covers o'er | |
Jerusalem with its most lofty point, | |
And night that opposite to him revolves | |
Was issuing forth from Ganges with the Scales | |
That fall from out her hand when she exceedeth; | |
So that the white and the vermilion cheeks | |
Of beautiful Aurora, where I was, | |
By too great age were changing into orange. | |
We still were on the border of the sea, | |
Like people who are thinking of their road, | |
Who go in heart and with the body stay; | |
And lo! as when, upon the approach of morning, | |
Through the gross vapours Mars grows fiery red | |
Down in the West upon the ocean floor, | |
Appeared to me--may I again behold it!-- | |
A light along the sea so swiftly coming, | |
Its motion by no flight of wing is equalled; | |
From which when I a little had withdrawn | |
Mine eyes, that I might question my Conductor, | |
Again I saw it brighter grown and larger. | |
Then on each side of it appeared to me | |
I knew not what of white, and underneath it | |
Little by little there came forth another. | |
My Master yet had uttered not a word | |
While the first whiteness into wings unfolded; | |
But when he clearly recognised the pilot, | |
He cried: "Make haste, make haste to bow the knee! | |
Behold the Angel of God! fold thou thy hands! | |
Henceforward shalt thou see such officers! | |
See how he scorneth human arguments, | |
So that nor oar he wants, nor other sail | |
Than his own wings, between so distant shores. | |
See how he holds them pointed up to heaven, | |
Fanning the air with the eternal pinions, | |
That do not moult themselves like mortal hair!" | |
Then as still nearer and more near us came | |
The Bird Divine, more radiant he appeared, | |
So that near by the eye could not endure him, | |
But down I cast it; and he came to shore | |
With a small vessel, very swift and light, | |
So that the water swallowed naught thereof. | |
Upon the stern stood the Celestial Pilot; | |
Beatitude seemed written in his face, | |
And more than a hundred spirits sat within. | |
"In exitu Israel de Aegypto!" | |
They chanted all together in one voice, | |
With whatso in that psalm is after written. | |
Then made he sign of holy rood upon them, | |
Whereat all cast themselves upon the shore, | |
And he departed swiftly as he came. | |
The throng which still remained there unfamiliar | |
Seemed with the place, all round about them gazing, | |
As one who in new matters makes essay. | |
On every side was darting forth the day. | |
The sun, who had with his resplendent shafts | |
From the mid-heaven chased forth the Capricorn, | |
When the new people lifted up their faces | |
Towards us, saying to us: "If ye know, | |
Show us the way to go unto the mountain." | |
And answer made Virgilius: "Ye believe | |
Perchance that we have knowledge of this place, | |
But we are strangers even as yourselves. | |
Just now we came, a little while before you, | |
Another way, which was so rough and steep, | |
That mounting will henceforth seem sport to us." | |
The souls who had, from seeing me draw breath, | |
Become aware that I was still alive, | |
Pallid in their astonishment became; | |
And as to messenger who bears the olive | |
The people throng to listen to the news, | |
And no one shows himself afraid of crowding, | |
So at the sight of me stood motionless | |
Those fortunate spirits, all of them, as if | |
Oblivious to go and make them fair. | |
One from among them saw I coming forward, | |
As to embrace me, with such great affection, | |
That it incited me to do the like. | |
O empty shadows, save in aspect only! | |
Three times behind it did I clasp my hands, | |
As oft returned with them to my own breast! | |
I think with wonder I depicted me; | |
Whereat the shadow smiled and backward drew; | |
And I, pursuing it, pressed farther forward. | |
Gently it said that I should stay my steps; | |
Then knew I who it was, and I entreated | |
That it would stop awhile to speak with me. | |
It made reply to me: "Even as I loved thee | |
In mortal body, so I love thee free; | |
Therefore I stop; but wherefore goest thou?" | |
"My own Casella! to return once more | |
There where I am, I make this journey," said I; | |
"But how from thee has so much time be taken?" | |
And he to me: "No outrage has been done me, | |
If he who takes both when and whom he pleases | |
Has many times denied to me this passage, | |
For of a righteous will his own is made. | |
He, sooth to say, for three months past has taken | |
Whoever wished to enter with all peace; | |
Whence I, who now had turned unto that shore | |
Where salt the waters of the Tiber grow, | |
Benignantly by him have been received. | |
Unto that outlet now his wing is pointed, | |
Because for evermore assemble there | |
Those who tow'rds Acheron do not descend." | |
And I: "If some new law take not from thee | |
Memory or practice of the song of love, | |
Which used to quiet in me all my longings, | |
Thee may it please to comfort therewithal | |
Somewhat this soul of mine, that with its body | |
Hitherward coming is so much distressed." | |
"Love, that within my mind discourses with me," | |
Forthwith began he so melodiously, | |
The melody within me still is sounding. | |
My Master, and myself, and all that people | |
Which with him were, appeared as satisfied | |
As if naught else might touch the mind of any. | |
We all of us were moveless and attentive | |
Unto his notes; and lo! the grave old man, | |
Exclaiming: "What is this, ye laggard spirits? | |
What negligence, what standing still is this? | |
Run to the mountain to strip off the slough, | |
That lets not God be manifest to you." | |
Even as when, collecting grain or tares, | |
The doves, together at their pasture met, | |
Quiet, nor showing their accustomed pride, | |
If aught appear of which they are afraid, | |
Upon a sudden leave their food alone, | |
Because they are assailed by greater care; | |
So that fresh company did I behold | |
The song relinquish, and go tow'rds the hill, | |
As one who goes, and knows not whitherward; | |
Nor was our own departure less in haste. | |
Purgatorio: Canto III | |
Inasmuch as the instantaneous flight | |
Had scattered them asunder o'er the plain, | |
Turned to the mountain whither reason spurs us, | |
I pressed me close unto my faithful comrade, | |
And how without him had I kept my course? | |
Who would have led me up along the mountain? | |
He seemed to me within himself remorseful; | |
O noble conscience, and without a stain, | |
How sharp a sting is trivial fault to thee! | |
After his feet had laid aside the haste | |
Which mars the dignity of every act, | |
My mind, that hitherto had been restrained, | |
Let loose its faculties as if delighted, | |
And I my sight directed to the hill | |
That highest tow'rds the heaven uplifts itself. | |
The sun, that in our rear was flaming red, | |
Was broken in front of me into the figure | |
Which had in me the stoppage of its rays; | |
Unto one side I turned me, with the fear | |
Of being left alone, when I beheld | |
Only in front of me the ground obscured. | |
"Why dost thou still mistrust?" my Comforter | |
Began to say to me turned wholly round; | |
"Dost thou not think me with thee, and that I guide thee? | |
'Tis evening there already where is buried | |
The body within which I cast a shadow; | |
'Tis from Brundusium ta'en, and Naples has it. | |
Now if in front of me no shadow fall, | |
Marvel not at it more than at the heavens, | |
Because one ray impedeth not another | |
To suffer torments, both of cold and heat, | |
Bodies like this that Power provides, which wills | |
That how it works be not unveiled to us. | |
Insane is he who hopeth that our reason | |
Can traverse the illimitable way, | |
Which the one Substance in three Persons follows! | |
Mortals, remain contented at the 'Quia;' | |
For if ye had been able to see all, | |
No need there were for Mary to give birth; | |
And ye have seen desiring without fruit, | |
Those whose desire would have been quieted, | |
Which evermore is given them for a grief. | |
I speak of Aristotle and of Plato, | |
And many others;"--and here bowed his head, | |
And more he said not, and remained disturbed. | |
We came meanwhile unto the mountain's foot; | |
There so precipitate we found the rock, | |
That nimble legs would there have been in vain. | |
'Twixt Lerici and Turbia, the most desert, | |
The most secluded pathway is a stair | |
Easy and open, if compared with that. | |
"Who knoweth now upon which hand the hill | |
<DW72>s down," my Master said, his footsteps staying, | |
"So that who goeth without wings may mount?" | |
And while he held his eyes upon the ground | |
Examining the nature of the path, | |
And I was looking up around the rock, | |
On the left hand appeared to me a throng | |
Of souls, that moved their feet in our direction, | |
And did not seem to move, they came so slowly. | |
"Lift up thine eyes," I to the Master said; | |
"Behold, on this side, who will give us counsel, | |
If thou of thine own self can have it not." | |
Then he looked at me, and with frank expression | |
Replied: "Let us go there, for they come slowly, | |
And thou be steadfast in thy hope, sweet son." | |
Still was that people as far off from us, | |
After a thousand steps of ours I say, | |
As a good thrower with his hand would reach, | |
When they all crowded unto the hard masses | |
Of the high bank, and motionless stood and close, | |
As he stands still to look who goes in doubt. | |
"O happy dead! O spirits elect already!" | |
Virgilius made beginning, "by that peace | |
Which I believe is waiting for you all, | |
Tell us upon what side the mountain <DW72>s, | |
So that the going up be possible, | |
For to lose time irks him most who most knows." | |
As sheep come issuing forth from out the fold | |
By ones and twos and threes, and the others stand | |
Timidly, holding down their eyes and nostrils, | |
And what the foremost does the others do, | |
Huddling themselves against her, if she stop, | |
Simple and quiet and the wherefore know not; | |
So moving to approach us thereupon | |
I saw the leader of that fortunate flock, | |
Modest in face and dignified in gait. | |
As soon as those in the advance saw broken | |
The light upon the ground at my right side, | |
So that from me the shadow reached the rock, | |
They stopped, and backward drew themselves somewhat; | |
And all the others, who came after them, | |
Not knowing why nor wherefore, did the same. | |
"Without your asking, I confess to you | |
This is a human body which you see, | |
Whereby the sunshine on the ground is cleft. | |
Marvel ye not thereat, but be persuaded | |
That not without a power which comes from Heaven | |
Doth he endeavour to surmount this wall." | |
The Master thus; and said those worthy people: | |
"Return ye then, and enter in before us," | |
Making a signal with the back o' the hand | |
And one of them began: "Whoe'er thou art, | |
Thus going turn thine eyes, consider well | |
If e'er thou saw me in the other world." | |
I turned me tow'rds him, and looked at him closely; | |
Blond was he, beautiful, and of noble aspect, | |
But one of his eyebrows had a blow divided. | |
When with humility I had disclaimed | |
E'er having seen him, "Now behold!" he said, | |
And showed me high upon his breast a wound. | |
Then said he with a smile: "I am Manfredi, | |
The grandson of the Empress Costanza; | |
Therefore, when thou returnest, I beseech thee | |
Go to my daughter beautiful, the mother | |
Of Sicily's honour and of Aragon's, | |
And the truth tell her, if aught else be told. | |
After I had my body lacerated | |
By these two mortal stabs, I gave myself | |
Weeping to Him, who willingly doth pardon. | |
Horrible my iniquities had been; | |
But Infinite Goodness hath such ample arms, | |
That it receives whatever turns to it. | |
Had but Cosenza's pastor, who in chase | |
Of me was sent by Clement at that time, | |
In God read understandingly this page, | |
The bones of my dead body still would be | |
At the bridge-head, near unto Benevento, | |
Under the safeguard of the heavy cairn. | |
Now the rain bathes and moveth them the wind, | |
Beyond the realm, almost beside the Verde, | |
Where he transported them with tapers quenched. | |
By malison of theirs is not so lost | |
Eternal Love, that it cannot return, | |
So long as hope has anything of green. | |
True is it, who in contumacy dies | |
Of Holy Church, though penitent at last, | |
Must wait upon the outside this bank | |
Thirty times told the time that he has been | |
In his presumption, unless such decree | |
Shorter by means of righteous prayers become. | |
See now if thou hast power to make me happy, | |
By making known unto my good Costanza | |
How thou hast seen me, and this ban beside, | |
For those on earth can much advance us here." | |
Purgatorio: Canto IV | |
Whenever by delight or else by pain, | |
That seizes any faculty of ours, | |
Wholly to that the soul collects itself, | |
It seemeth that no other power it heeds; | |
And this against that error is which thinks | |
One soul above another kindles in us. | |
And hence, whenever aught is heard or seen | |
Which keeps the soul intently bent upon it, | |
Time passes on, and we perceive it not, | |
Because one faculty is that which listens, | |
And other that which the soul keeps entire; | |
This is as if in bonds, and that is free. | |
Of this I had experience positive | |
In hearing and in gazing at that spirit; | |
For fifty full degrees uprisen was | |
The sun, and I had not perceived it, when | |
We came to where those souls with one accord | |
Cried out unto us: "Here is what you ask." | |
A greater opening ofttimes hedges up | |
With but a little forkful of his thorns | |
The villager, what time the grape imbrowns, | |
Than was the passage-way through which ascended | |
Only my Leader and myself behind him, | |
After that company departed from us. | |
One climbs Sanleo and descends in Noli, | |
And mounts the summit of Bismantova, | |
With feet alone; but here one needs must fly; | |
With the swift pinions and the plumes I say | |
Of great desire, conducted after him | |
Who gave me hope, and made a light for me. | |
We mounted upward through the rifted rock, | |
And on each side the border pressed upon us, | |
And feet and hands the ground beneath required. | |
When we were come upon the upper rim | |
Of the high bank, out on the open <DW72>, | |
"My Master," said I, "what way shall we take?" | |
And he to me: "No step of thine descend; | |
Still up the mount behind me win thy way, | |
Till some sage escort shall appear to us." | |
The summit was so high it vanquished sight, | |
And the hillside precipitous far more | |
Than line from middle quadrant to the centre. | |
Spent with fatigue was I, when I began: | |
"O my sweet Father! turn thee and behold | |
How I remain alone, unless thou stay!" | |
"O son," he said, "up yonder drag thyself," | |
Pointing me to a terrace somewhat higher, | |
Which on that side encircles all the hill. | |
These words of his so spurred me on, that I | |
Strained every nerve, behind him scrambling up, | |
Until the circle was beneath my feet. | |
Thereon ourselves we seated both of us | |
Turned to the East, from which we had ascended, | |
For all men are delighted to look back. | |
To the low shores mine eyes I first directed, | |
Then to the sun uplifted them, and wondered | |
That on the left hand we were smitten by it. | |
The Poet well perceived that I was wholly | |
Bewildered at the chariot of the light, | |
Where 'twixt us and the Aquilon it entered. | |
Whereon he said to me: "If Castor and Pollux | |
Were in the company of yonder mirror, | |
That up and down conducteth with its light, | |
Thou wouldst behold the zodiac's jagged wheel | |
Revolving still more near unto the Bears, | |
Unless it swerved aside from its old track. | |
How that may be wouldst thou have power to think, | |
Collected in thyself, imagine Zion | |
Together with this mount on earth to stand, | |
So that they both one sole horizon have, | |
And hemispheres diverse; whereby the road | |
Which Phaeton, alas! knew not to drive, | |
Thou'lt see how of necessity must pass | |
This on one side, when that upon the other, | |
If thine intelligence right clearly heed." | |
"Truly, my Master," said I, "never yet | |
Saw I so clearly as I now discern, | |
There where my wit appeared incompetent, | |
That the mid-circle of supernal motion, | |
Which in some art is the Equator called, | |
And aye remains between the Sun and Winter, | |
For reason which thou sayest, departeth hence | |
Tow'rds the Septentrion, what time the Hebrews | |
Beheld it tow'rds the region of the heat. | |
But, if it pleaseth thee, I fain would learn | |
How far we have to go; for the hill rises | |
Higher than eyes of mine have power to rise." | |
And he to me: "This mount is such, that ever | |
At the beginning down below 'tis tiresome, | |
And aye the more one climbs, the less it hurts. | |
Therefore, when it shall seem so pleasant to thee, | |
That going up shall be to thee as easy | |
As going down the current in a boat, | |
Then at this pathway's ending thou wilt be; | |
There to repose thy panting breath expect; | |
No more I answer; and this I know for true." | |
And as he finished uttering these words, | |
A voice close by us sounded: "Peradventure | |
Thou wilt have need of sitting down ere that." | |
At sound thereof each one of us turned round, | |
And saw upon the left hand a great rock, | |
Which neither I nor he before had noticed. | |
Thither we drew; and there were persons there | |
Who in the shadow stood behind the rock, | |
As one through indolence is wont to stand. | |
And one of them, who seemed to me fatigued, | |
Was sitting down, and both his knees embraced, | |
Holding his face low down between them bowed. | |
"O my sweet Lord," I said, "do turn thine eye | |
On him who shows himself more negligent | |
Then even Sloth herself his sister were." | |
Then he turned round to us, and he gave heed, | |
Just lifting up his eyes above his thigh, | |
And said: "Now go thou up, for thou art valiant." | |
Then knew I who he was; and the distress, | |
That still a little did my breathing quicken, | |
My going to him hindered not; and after | |
I came to him he hardly raised his head, | |
Saying: "Hast thou seen clearly how the sun | |
O'er thy left shoulder drives his chariot?" | |
His sluggish attitude and his curt words | |
A little unto laughter moved my lips; | |
Then I began: "Belacqua, I grieve not | |
For thee henceforth; but tell me, wherefore seated | |
In this place art thou? Waitest thou an escort? | |
Or has thy usual habit seized upon thee?" | |
And he: "O brother, what's the use of climbing? | |
Since to my torment would not let me go | |
The Angel of God, who sitteth at the gate. | |
First heaven must needs so long revolve me round | |
Outside thereof, as in my life it did, | |
Since the good sighs I to the end postponed, | |
Unless, e'er that, some prayer may bring me aid | |
Which rises from a heart that lives in grace; | |
What profit others that in heaven are heard not?" | |
Meanwhile the Poet was before me mounting, | |
And saying: "Come now; see the sun has touched | |
Meridian, and from the shore the night | |
Covers already with her foot Morocco." | |
Purgatorio: Canto V | |
I had already from those shades departed, | |
And followed in the footsteps of my Guide, | |
When from behind, pointing his finger at me, | |
One shouted: "See, it seems as if shone not | |
The sunshine on the left of him below, | |
And like one living seems he to conduct him." | |
Mine eyes I turned at utterance of these words, | |
And saw them watching with astonishment | |
But me, but me, and the light which was broken! | |
"Why doth thy mind so occupy itself," | |
The Master said, "that thou thy pace dost slacken? | |
What matters it to thee what here is whispered? | |
Come after me, and let the people talk; | |
Stand like a steadfast tower, that never wags | |
Its top for all the blowing of the winds; | |
For evermore the man in whom is springing | |
Thought upon thought, removes from him the mark, | |
Because the force of one the other weakens." | |
What could I say in answer but "I come"? | |
I said it somewhat with that colour tinged | |
Which makes a man of pardon sometimes worthy. | |
Meanwhile along the mountain-side across | |
Came people in advance of us a little, | |
Singing the Miserere verse by verse. | |
When they became aware I gave no place | |
For passage of the sunshine through my body, | |
They changed their song into a long, hoarse "Oh!" | |
And two of them, in form of messengers, | |
Ran forth to meet us, and demanded of us, | |
"Of your condition make us cognisant." | |
And said my Master: "Ye can go your way | |
And carry back again to those who sent you, | |
That this one's body is of very flesh. | |
If they stood still because they saw his shadow, | |
As I suppose, enough is answered them; | |
Him let them honour, it may profit them." | |
Vapours enkindled saw I ne'er so swiftly | |
At early nightfall cleave the air serene, | |
Nor, at the set of sun, the clouds of August, | |
But upward they returned in briefer time, | |
And, on arriving, with the others wheeled | |
Tow'rds us, like troops that run without a rein. | |
"This folk that presses unto us is great, | |
And cometh to implore thee," said the Poet; | |
"So still go onward, and in going listen." | |
"O soul that goest to beatitude | |
With the same members wherewith thou wast born," | |
Shouting they came, "a little stay thy steps, | |
Look, if thou e'er hast any of us seen, | |
So that o'er yonder thou bear news of him; | |
Ah, why dost thou go on? Ah, why not stay? | |
Long since we all were slain by violence, | |
And sinners even to the latest hour; | |
Then did a light from heaven admonish us, | |
So that, both penitent and pardoning, forth | |
From life we issued reconciled to God, | |
Who with desire to see Him stirs our hearts." | |
And I: "Although I gaze into your faces, | |
No one I recognize; but if may please you | |
Aught I have power to do, ye well-born spirits, | |
Speak ye, and I will do it, by that peace | |
Which, following the feet of such a Guide, | |
From world to world makes itself sought by me." | |
And one began: "Each one has confidence | |
In thy good offices without an oath, | |
Unless the I cannot cut off the I will; | |
Whence I, who speak alone before the others, | |
Pray thee, if ever thou dost see the land | |
That 'twixt Romagna lies and that of Charles, | |
Thou be so courteous to me of thy prayers | |
In Fano, that they pray for me devoutly, | |
That I may purge away my grave offences. | |
From thence was I; but the deep wounds, through which | |
Issued the blood wherein I had my seat, | |
Were dealt me in bosom of the Antenori, | |
There where I thought to be the most secure; | |
'Twas he of Este had it done, who held me | |
In hatred far beyond what justice willed. | |
But if towards the Mira I had fled, | |
When I was overtaken at Oriaco, | |
I still should be o'er yonder where men breathe. | |
I ran to the lagoon, and reeds and mire | |
Did so entangle me I fell, and saw there | |
A lake made from my veins upon the ground." | |
Then said another: "Ah, be that desire | |
Fulfilled that draws thee to the lofty mountain, | |
As thou with pious pity aidest mine. | |
I was of Montefeltro, and am Buonconte; | |
Giovanna, nor none other cares for me; | |
Hence among these I go with downcast front." | |
And I to him: "What violence or what chance | |
Led thee astray so far from Campaldino, | |
That never has thy sepulture been known?" | |
"Oh," he replied, "at Casentino's foot | |
A river crosses named Archiano, born | |
Above the Hermitage in Apennine. | |
There where the name thereof becometh void | |
Did I arrive, pierced through and through the throat, | |
Fleeing on foot, and bloodying the plain; | |
There my sight lost I, and my utterance | |
Ceased in the name of Mary, and thereat | |
I fell, and tenantless my flesh remained. | |
Truth will I speak, repeat it to the living; | |
God's Angel took me up, and he of hell | |
Shouted: 'O thou from heaven, why dost thou rob me? | |
Thou bearest away the eternal part of him, | |
For one poor little tear, that takes him from me; | |
But with the rest I'll deal in other fashion!' | |
Well knowest thou how in the air is gathered | |
That humid vapour which to water turns, | |
Soon as it rises where the cold doth grasp it. | |
He joined that evil will, which aye seeks evil, | |
To intellect, and moved the mist and wind | |
By means of power, which his own nature gave; | |
Thereafter, when the day was spent, the valley | |
From Pratomagno to the great yoke covered | |
With fog, and made the heaven above intent, | |
So that the pregnant air to water changed; | |
Down fell the rain, and to the gullies came | |
Whate'er of it earth tolerated not; | |
And as it mingled with the mighty torrents, | |
Towards the royal river with such speed | |
It headlong rushed, that nothing held it back. | |
My frozen body near unto its outlet | |
The robust Archian found, and into Arno | |
Thrust it, and loosened from my breast the cross | |
I made of me, when agony o'ercame me; | |
It rolled me on the banks and on the bottom, | |
Then with its booty covered and begirt me." | |
"Ah, when thou hast returned unto the world, | |
And rested thee from thy long journeying," | |
After the second followed the third spirit, | |
"Do thou remember me who am the Pia; | |
Siena made me, unmade me Maremma; | |
He knoweth it, who had encircled first, | |
Espousing me, my finger with his gem." | |
Purgatorio: Canto VI | |
Whene'er is broken up the game of Zara, | |
He who has lost remains behind despondent, | |
The throws repeating, and in sadness learns; | |
The people with the other all depart; | |
One goes in front, and one behind doth pluck him, | |
And at his side one brings himself to mind; | |
He pauses not, and this and that one hears; | |
They crowd no more to whom his hand he stretches, | |
And from the throng he thus defends himself. | |
Even such was I in that dense multitude, | |
Turning to them this way and that my face, | |
And, promising, I freed myself therefrom. | |
There was the Aretine, who from the arms | |
Untamed of Ghin di Tacco had his death, | |
And he who fleeing from pursuit was drowned. | |
There was imploring with his hands outstretched | |
Frederick Novello, and that one of Pisa | |
Who made the good Marzucco seem so strong. | |
I saw Count Orso; and the soul divided | |
By hatred and by envy from its body, | |
As it declared, and not for crime committed, | |
Pierre de la Brosse I say; and here provide | |
While still on earth the Lady of Brabant, | |
So that for this she be of no worse flock! | |
As soon as I was free from all those shades | |
Who only prayed that some one else may pray, | |
So as to hasten their becoming holy, | |
Began I: "It appears that thou deniest, | |
O light of mine, expressly in some text, | |
That orison can bend decree of Heaven; | |
And ne'ertheless these people pray for this. | |
Might then their expectation bootless be? | |
Or is to me thy saying not quite clear?" | |
And he to me: "My writing is explicit, | |
And not fallacious is the hope of these, | |
If with sane intellect 'tis well regarded; | |
For top of judgment doth not vail itself, | |
Because the fire of love fulfils at once | |
What he must satisfy who here installs him. | |
And there, where I affirmed that proposition, | |
Defect was not amended by a prayer, | |
Because the prayer from God was separate. | |
Verily, in so deep a questioning | |
Do not decide, unless she tell it thee, | |
Who light 'twixt truth and intellect shall be. | |
I know not if thou understand; I speak | |
Of Beatrice; her shalt thou see above, | |
Smiling and happy, on this mountain's top." | |
And I: "Good Leader, let us make more haste, | |
For I no longer tire me as before; | |
And see, e'en now the hill a shadow casts." | |
"We will go forward with this day" he answered, | |
"As far as now is possible for us; | |
But otherwise the fact is than thou thinkest. | |
Ere thou art up there, thou shalt see return | |
Him, who now hides himself behind the hill, | |
So that thou dost not interrupt his rays. | |
But yonder there behold! a soul that stationed | |
All, all alone is looking hitherward; | |
It will point out to us the quickest way." | |
We came up unto it; O Lombard soul, | |
How lofty and disdainful thou didst bear thee, | |
And grand and slow in moving of thine eyes! | |
Nothing whatever did it say to us, | |
But let us go our way, eying us only | |
After the manner of a couchant lion; | |
Still near to it Virgilius drew, entreating | |
That it would point us out the best ascent; | |
And it replied not unto his demand, | |
But of our native land and of our life | |
It questioned us; and the sweet Guide began: | |
"Mantua,"--and the shade, all in itself recluse, | |
Rose tow'rds him from the place where first it was, | |
Saying: "O Mantuan, I am Sordello | |
Of thine own land!" and one embraced the other. | |
Ah! servile Italy, grief's hostelry! | |
A ship without a pilot in great tempest! | |
No Lady thou of Provinces, but brothel! | |
That noble soul was so impatient, only | |
At the sweet sound of his own native land, | |
To make its citizen glad welcome there; | |
And now within thee are not without war | |
Thy living ones, and one doth gnaw the other | |
Of those whom one wall and one fosse shut in! | |
Search, wretched one, all round about the shores | |
Thy seaboard, and then look within thy bosom, | |
If any part of thee enjoyeth peace! | |
What boots it, that for thee Justinian | |
The bridle mend, if empty be the saddle? | |
Withouten this the shame would be the less. | |
Ah! people, thou that oughtest to be devout, | |
And to let Caesar sit upon the saddle, | |
If well thou hearest what God teacheth thee, | |
Behold how fell this wild beast has become, | |
Being no longer by the spur corrected, | |
Since thou hast laid thy hand upon the bridle. | |
O German Albert! who abandonest | |
Her that has grown recalcitrant and savage, | |
And oughtest to bestride her saddle-bow, | |
May a just judgment from the stars down fall | |
Upon thy blood, and be it new and open, | |
That thy successor may have fear thereof; | |
Because thy father and thyself have suffered, | |
By greed of those transalpine lands distrained, | |
The garden of the empire to be waste. | |
Come and behold Montecchi and Cappelletti, | |
Monaldi and Fillippeschi, careless man! | |
Those sad already, and these doubt-depressed! | |
Come, cruel one! come and behold the oppression | |
Of thy nobility, and cure their wounds, | |
And thou shalt see how safe is Santafiore! | |
Come and behold thy Rome, that is lamenting, | |
Widowed, alone, and day and night exclaims, | |
"My Caesar, why hast thou forsaken me?" | |
Come and behold how loving are the people; | |
And if for us no pity moveth thee, | |
Come and be made ashamed of thy renown! | |
And if it lawful be, O Jove Supreme! | |
Who upon earth for us wast crucified, | |
Are thy just eyes averted otherwhere? | |
Or preparation is 't, that, in the abyss | |
Of thine own counsel, for some good thou makest | |
From our perception utterly cut off? | |
For all the towns of Italy are full | |
Of tyrants, and becometh a Marcellus | |
Each peasant churl who plays the partisan! | |
My Florence! well mayst thou contented be | |
With this digression, which concerns thee not, | |
Thanks to thy people who such forethought take! | |
Many at heart have justice, but shoot slowly, | |
That unadvised they come not to the bow, | |
But on their very lips thy people have it! | |
Many refuse to bear the common burden; | |
But thy solicitous people answereth | |
Without being asked, and crieth: "I submit." | |
Now be thou joyful, for thou hast good reason; | |
Thou affluent, thou in peace, thou full of wisdom! | |
If I speak true, the event conceals it not. | |
Athens and Lacedaemon, they who made | |
The ancient laws, and were so civilized, | |
Made towards living well a little sign | |
Compared with thee, who makest such fine-spun | |
Provisions, that to middle of November | |
Reaches not what thou in October spinnest. | |
How oft, within the time of thy remembrance, | |
Laws, money, offices, and usages | |
Hast thou remodelled, and renewed thy members? | |
And if thou mind thee well, and see the light, | |
Thou shalt behold thyself like a sick woman, | |
Who cannot find repose upon her down, | |
But by her tossing wardeth off her pain. | |
Purgatorio: Canto VII | |
After the gracious and glad salutations | |
Had three and four times been reiterated, | |
Sordello backward drew and said, "Who are you?" | |
"Or ever to this mountain were directed | |
The souls deserving to ascend to God, | |
My bones were buried by Octavian. | |
I am Virgilius; and for no crime else | |
Did I lose heaven, than for not having faith;" | |
In this wise then my Leader made reply. | |
As one who suddenly before him sees | |
Something whereat he marvels, who believes | |
And yet does not, saying, "It is! it is not!" | |
So he appeared; and then bowed down his brow, | |
And with humility returned towards him, | |
And, where inferiors embrace, embraced him. | |
"O glory of the Latians, thou," he said, | |
"Through whom our language showed what it could do | |
O pride eternal of the place I came from, | |
What merit or what grace to me reveals thee? | |
If I to hear thy words be worthy, tell me | |
If thou dost come from Hell, and from what cloister." | |
"Through all the circles of the doleful realm," | |
Responded he, "have I come hitherward; | |
Heaven's power impelled me, and with that I come. | |
I by not doing, not by doing, lost | |
The sight of that high sun which thou desirest, | |
And which too late by me was recognized. | |
A place there is below not sad with torments, | |
But darkness only, where the lamentations | |
Have not the sound of wailing, but are sighs. | |
There dwell I with the little innocents | |
Snatched by the teeth of Death, or ever they | |
Were from our human sinfulness exempt. | |
There dwell I among those who the three saintly | |
Virtues did not put on, and without vice | |
The others knew and followed all of them. | |
But if thou know and can, some indication | |
Give us by which we may the sooner come | |
Where Purgatory has its right beginning." | |
He answered: "No fixed place has been assigned us; | |
'Tis lawful for me to go up and round; | |
So far as I can go, as guide I join thee. | |
But see already how the day declines, | |
And to go up by night we are not able; | |
Therefore 'tis well to think of some fair sojourn. | |
Souls are there on the right hand here withdrawn; | |
If thou permit me I will lead thee to them, | |
And thou shalt know them not without delight." | |
"How is this?" was the answer; "should one wish | |
To mount by night would he prevented be | |
By others? or mayhap would not have power?" | |
And on the ground the good Sordello drew | |
His finger, saying, "See, this line alone | |
Thou couldst not pass after the sun is gone; | |
Not that aught else would hindrance give, however, | |
To going up, save the nocturnal darkness; | |
This with the want of power the will perplexes. | |
We might indeed therewith return below, | |
And, wandering, walk the hill-side round about, | |
While the horizon holds the day imprisoned." | |
Thereon my Lord, as if in wonder, said: | |
"Do thou conduct us thither, where thou sayest | |
That we can take delight in tarrying." | |
Little had we withdrawn us from that place, | |
When I perceived the mount was hollowed out | |
In fashion as the valleys here are hollowed. | |
"Thitherward," said that shade, "will we repair, | |
Where of itself the hill-side makes a lap, | |
And there for the new day will we await." | |
'Twixt hill and plain there was a winding path | |
Which led us to the margin of that dell, | |
Where dies the border more than half away. | |
Gold and fine silver, and scarlet and pearl-white, | |
The Indian wood resplendent and serene, | |
Fresh emerald the moment it is broken, | |
By herbage and by flowers within that hollow | |
Planted, each one in colour would be vanquished, | |
As by its greater vanquished is the less. | |
Nor in that place had nature painted only, | |
But of the sweetness of a thousand odours | |
Made there a mingled fragrance and unknown. | |
"Salve Regina," on the green and flowers | |
There seated, singing, spirits I beheld, | |
Which were not visible outside the valley. | |
"Before the scanty sun now seeks his nest," | |
Began the Mantuan who had led us thither, | |
"Among them do not wish me to conduct you. | |
Better from off this ledge the acts and faces | |
Of all of them will you discriminate, | |
Than in the plain below received among them. | |
He who sits highest, and the semblance bears | |
Of having what he should have done neglected, | |
And to the others' song moves not his lips, | |
Rudolph the Emperor was, who had the power | |
To heal the wounds that Italy have slain, | |
So that through others slowly she revives. | |
The other, who in look doth comfort him, | |
Governed the region where the water springs, | |
The Moldau bears the Elbe, and Elbe the sea. | |
His name was Ottocar; and in swaddling-clothes | |
Far better he than bearded Winceslaus | |
His son, who feeds in luxury and ease. | |
And the small-nosed, who close in council seems | |
With him that has an aspect so benign, | |
Died fleeing and disflowering the lily; | |
Look there, how he is beating at his breast! | |
Behold the other one, who for his cheek | |
Sighing has made of his own palm a bed; | |
Father and father-in-law of France's Pest | |
Are they, and know his vicious life and lewd, | |
And hence proceeds the grief that so doth pierce them. | |
He who appears so stalwart, and chimes in, | |
Singing, with that one of the manly nose, | |
The cord of every valour wore begirt; | |
And if as King had after him remained | |
The stripling who in rear of him is sitting, | |
Well had the valour passed from vase to vase, | |
Which cannot of the other heirs be said. | |
Frederick and Jacomo possess the realms, | |
But none the better heritage possesses. | |
Not oftentimes upriseth through the branches | |
The probity of man; and this He wills | |
Who gives it, so that we may ask of Him. | |
Eke to the large-nosed reach my words, no less | |
Than to the other, Pier, who with him sings; | |
Whence Provence and Apulia grieve already | |
The plant is as inferior to its seed, | |
As more than Beatrice and Margaret | |
Costanza boasteth of her husband still. | |
Behold the monarch of the simple life, | |
Harry of England, sitting there alone; | |
He in his branches has a better issue. | |
He who the lowest on the ground among them | |
Sits looking upward, is the Marquis William, | |
For whose sake Alessandria and her war | |
Make Monferrat and Canavese weep." | |
Purgatorio: Canto VIII | |
'Twas now the hour that turneth back desire | |
In those who sail the sea, and melts the heart, | |
The day they've said to their sweet friends farewell, | |
And the new pilgrim penetrates with love, | |
If he doth hear from far away a bell | |
That seemeth to deplore the dying day, | |
When I began to make of no avail | |
My hearing, and to watch one of the souls | |
Uprisen, that begged attention with its hand. | |
It joined and lifted upward both its palms, | |
Fixing its eyes upon the orient, | |
As if it said to God, "Naught else I care for." | |
"Te lucis ante" so devoutly issued | |
Forth from its mouth, and with such dulcet notes, | |
It made me issue forth from my own mind. | |
And then the others, sweetly and devoutly, | |
Accompanied it through all the hymn entire, | |
Having their eyes on the supernal wheels. | |
Here, Reader, fix thine eyes well on the truth, | |
For now indeed so subtile is the veil, | |
Surely to penetrate within is easy. | |
I saw that army of the gentle-born | |
Thereafterward in silence upward gaze, | |
As if in expectation, pale and humble; | |
And from on high come forth and down descend, | |
I saw two Angels with two flaming swords, | |
Truncated and deprived of their points. | |
Green as the little leaflets just now born | |
Their garments were, which, by their verdant pinions | |
Beaten and blown abroad, they trailed behind. | |
One just above us came to take his station, | |
And one descended to the opposite bank, | |
So that the people were contained between them. | |
Clearly in them discerned I the blond head; | |
But in their faces was the eye bewildered, | |
As faculty confounded by excess. | |
"From Mary's bosom both of them have come," | |
Sordello said, "as guardians of the valley | |
Against the serpent, that will come anon." | |
Whereupon I, who knew not by what road, | |
Turned round about, and closely drew myself, | |
Utterly frozen, to the faithful shoulders. | |
And once again Sordello: "Now descend we | |
'Mid the grand shades, and we will speak to them; | |
Right pleasant will it be for them to see you." | |
Only three steps I think that I descended, | |
And was below, and saw one who was looking | |
Only at me, as if he fain would know me. | |
Already now the air was growing dark, | |
But not so that between his eyes and mine | |
It did not show what it before locked up. | |
Tow'rds me he moved, and I tow'rds him did move; | |
Noble Judge Nino! how it me delighted, | |
When I beheld thee not among the damned! | |
No greeting fair was left unsaid between us; | |
Then asked he: "How long is it since thou camest | |
O'er the far waters to the mountain's foot?" | |
"Oh!" said I to him, "through the dismal places | |
I came this morn; and am in the first life, | |
Albeit the other, going thus, I gain." | |
And on the instant my reply was heard, | |
He and Sordello both shrank back from me, | |
Like people who are suddenly bewildered. | |
One to Virgilius, and the other turned | |
To one who sat there, crying, "Up, Currado! | |
Come and behold what God in grace has willed!" | |
Then, turned to me: "By that especial grace | |
Thou owest unto Him, who so conceals | |
His own first wherefore, that it has no ford, | |
When thou shalt be beyond the waters wide, | |
Tell my Giovanna that she pray for me, | |
Where answer to the innocent is made. | |
I do not think her mother loves me more, | |
Since she has laid aside her wimple white, | |
Which she, unhappy, needs must wish again. | |
Through her full easily is comprehended | |
How long in woman lasts the fire of love, | |
If eye or touch do not relight it often. | |
So fair a hatchment will not make for her | |
The Viper marshalling the Milanese | |
A-field, as would have made Gallura's Cock." | |
In this wise spake he, with the stamp impressed | |
Upon his aspect of that righteous zeal | |
Which measurably burneth in the heart. | |
My greedy eyes still wandered up to heaven, | |
Still to that point where slowest are the stars, | |
Even as a wheel the nearest to its axle. | |
And my Conductor: "Son, what dost thou gaze at | |
Up there?" And I to him: "At those three torches | |
With which this hither pole is all on fire." | |
And he to me: "The four resplendent stars | |
Thou sawest this morning are down yonder low, | |
And these have mounted up to where those were." | |
As he was speaking, to himself Sordello | |
Drew him, and said, "Lo there our Adversary!" | |
And pointed with his finger to look thither. | |
Upon the side on which the little valley | |
No barrier hath, a serpent was; perchance | |
The same which gave to Eve the bitter food. | |
'Twixt grass and flowers came on the evil streak, | |
Turning at times its head about, and licking | |
Its back like to a beast that smoothes itself. | |
I did not see, and therefore cannot say | |
How the celestial falcons 'gan to move, | |
But well I saw that they were both in motion. | |
Hearing the air cleft by their verdant wings, | |
The serpent fled, and round the Angels wheeled, | |
Up to their stations flying back alike. | |
The shade that to the Judge had near approached | |
When he had called, throughout that whole assault | |
Had not a moment loosed its gaze on me. | |
"So may the light that leadeth thee on high | |
Find in thine own free-will as much of wax | |
As needful is up to the highest azure," | |
Began it, "if some true intelligence | |
Of Valdimagra or its neighbourhood | |
Thou knowest, tell it me, who once was great there. | |
Currado Malaspina was I called; | |
I'm not the elder, but from him descended; | |
To mine I bore the love which here refineth." | |
"O," said I unto him, "through your domains | |
I never passed, but where is there a dwelling | |
Throughout all Europe, where they are not known? | |
That fame, which doeth honour to your house, | |
Proclaims its Signors and proclaims its land, | |
So that he knows of them who ne'er was there. | |
And, as I hope for heaven, I swear to you | |
Your honoured family in naught abates | |
The glory of the purse and of the sword. | |
It is so privileged by use and nature, | |
That though a guilty head misguide the world, | |
Sole it goes right, and scorns the evil way." | |
And he: "Now go; for the sun shall not lie | |
Seven times upon the pillow which the Ram | |
With all his four feet covers and bestrides, | |
Before that such a courteous opinion | |
Shall in the middle of thy head be nailed | |
With greater nails than of another's speech, | |
Unless the course of justice standeth still." | |
Purgatorio: Canto IX | |
The concubine of old Tithonus now | |
Gleamed white upon the eastern balcony, | |
Forth from the arms of her sweet paramour; | |
With gems her forehead all relucent was, | |
Set in the shape of that cold animal | |
Which with its tail doth smite amain the nations, | |
And of the steps, with which she mounts, the Night | |
Had taken two in that place where we were, | |
And now the third was bending down its wings; | |
When I, who something had of Adam in me, | |
Vanquished by sleep, upon the grass reclined, | |
There were all five of us already sat. | |
Just at the hour when her sad lay begins | |
The little swallow, near unto the morning, | |
Perchance in memory of her former woes, | |
And when the mind of man, a wanderer | |
More from the flesh, and less by thought imprisoned, | |
Almost prophetic in its visions is, | |
In dreams it seemed to me I saw suspended | |
An eagle in the sky, with plumes of gold, | |
With wings wide open, and intent to stoop, | |
And this, it seemed to me, was where had been | |
By Ganymede his kith and kin abandoned, | |
When to the high consistory he was rapt. | |
I thought within myself, perchance he strikes | |
From habit only here, and from elsewhere | |
Disdains to bear up any in his feet. | |
Then wheeling somewhat more, it seemed to me, | |
Terrible as the lightning he descended, | |
And snatched me upward even to the fire. | |
Therein it seemed that he and I were burning, | |
And the imagined fire did scorch me so, | |
That of necessity my sleep was broken. | |
Not otherwise Achilles started up, | |
Around him turning his awakened eyes, | |
And knowing not the place in which he was, | |
What time from Chiron stealthily his mother | |
Carried him sleeping in her arms to Scyros, | |
Wherefrom the Greeks withdrew him afterwards, | |
Than I upstarted, when from off my face | |
Sleep fled away; and pallid I became, | |
As doth the man who freezes with affright. | |
Only my Comforter was at my side, | |
And now the sun was more than two hours high, | |
And turned towards the sea-shore was my face. | |
"Be not intimidated," said my Lord, | |
"Be reassured, for all is well with us; | |
Do not restrain, but put forth all thy strength. | |
Thou hast at length arrived at Purgatory; | |
See there the cliff that closes it around; | |
See there the entrance, where it seems disjoined. | |
Whilom at dawn, which doth precede the day, | |
When inwardly thy spirit was asleep | |
Upon the flowers that deck the land below, | |
There came a Lady and said: 'I am Lucia; | |
Let me take this one up, who is asleep; | |
So will I make his journey easier for him.' | |
Sordello and the other noble shapes | |
Remained; she took thee, and, as day grew bright, | |
Upward she came, and I upon her footsteps. | |
She laid thee here; and first her beauteous eyes | |
That open entrance pointed out to me; | |
Then she and sleep together went away." | |
In guise of one whose doubts are reassured, | |
And who to confidence his fear doth change, | |
After the truth has been discovered to him, | |
So did I change; and when without disquiet | |
My Leader saw me, up along the cliff | |
He moved, and I behind him, tow'rd the height. | |
Reader, thou seest well how I exalt | |
My theme, and therefore if with greater art | |
I fortify it, marvel not thereat. | |
Nearer approached we, and were in such place, | |
That there, where first appeared to me a rift | |
Like to a crevice that disparts a wall, | |
I saw a portal, and three stairs beneath, | |
Diverse in colour, to go up to it, | |
And a gate-keeper, who yet spake no word. | |
And as I opened more and more mine eyes, | |
I saw him seated on the highest stair, | |
Such in the face that I endured it not. | |
And in his hand he had a naked sword, | |
Which so reflected back the sunbeams tow'rds us, | |
That oft in vain I lifted up mine eyes. | |
"Tell it from where you are, what is't you wish?" | |
Began he to exclaim; "where is the escort? | |
Take heed your coming hither harm you not!" | |
"A Lady of Heaven, with these things conversant," | |
My Master answered him, "but even now | |
Said to us, 'Thither go; there is the portal.'" | |
"And may she speed your footsteps in all good," | |
Again began the courteous janitor; | |
"Come forward then unto these stairs of ours." | |
Thither did we approach; and the first stair | |
Was marble white, so polished and so smooth, | |
I mirrored myself therein as I appear. | |
The second, tinct of deeper hue than perse, | |
Was of a calcined and uneven stone, | |
Cracked all asunder lengthwise and across. | |
The third, that uppermost rests massively, | |
Porphyry seemed to me, as flaming red | |
As blood that from a vein is spirting forth. | |
Both of his feet was holding upon this | |
The Angel of God, upon the threshold seated, | |
Which seemed to me a stone of diamond. | |
Along the three stairs upward with good will | |
Did my Conductor draw me, saying: "Ask | |
Humbly that he the fastening may undo." | |
Devoutly at the holy feet I cast me, | |
For mercy's sake besought that he would open, | |
But first upon my breast three times I smote. | |
Seven P's upon my forehead he described | |
With the sword's point, and, "Take heed that thou wash | |
These wounds, when thou shalt be within," he said. | |
Ashes, or earth that dry is excavated, | |
Of the same colour were with his attire, | |
And from beneath it he drew forth two keys. | |
One was of gold, and the other was of silver; | |
First with the white, and after with the yellow, | |
Plied he the door, so that I was content. | |
"Whenever faileth either of these keys | |
So that it turn not rightly in the lock," | |
He said to us, "this entrance doth not open. | |
More precious one is, but the other needs | |
More art and intellect ere it unlock, | |
For it is that which doth the knot unloose. | |
From Peter I have them; and he bade me err | |
Rather in opening than in keeping shut, | |
If people but fall down before my feet." | |
Then pushed the portals of the sacred door, | |
Exclaiming: "Enter; but I give you warning | |
That forth returns whoever looks behind." | |
And when upon their hinges were turned round | |
The swivels of that consecrated gate, | |
Which are of metal, massive and sonorous, | |
Roared not so loud, nor so discordant seemed | |
Tarpeia, when was ta'en from it the good | |
Metellus, wherefore meagre it remained. | |
At the first thunder-peal I turned attentive, | |
And "Te Deum laudamus" seemed to hear | |
In voices mingled with sweet melody. | |
Exactly such an image rendered me | |
That which I heard, as we are wont to catch, | |
When people singing with the organ stand; | |
For now we hear, and now hear not, the words. | |
Purgatorio: Canto X | |
When we had crossed the threshold of the door | |
Which the perverted love of souls disuses, | |
Because it makes the crooked way seem straight, | |
Re-echoing I heard it closed again; | |
And if I had turned back mine eyes upon it, | |
What for my failing had been fit excuse? | |
We mounted upward through a rifted rock, | |
Which undulated to this side and that, | |
Even as a wave receding and advancing. | |
"Here it behoves us use a little art," | |
Began my Leader, "to adapt ourselves | |
Now here, now there, to the receding side." | |
And this our footsteps so infrequent made, | |
That sooner had the moon's decreasing disk | |
Regained its bed to sink again to rest, | |
Than we were forth from out that needle's eye; | |
But when we free and in the open were, | |
There where the mountain backward piles itself, | |
I wearied out, and both of us uncertain | |
About our way, we stopped upon a plain | |
More desolate than roads across the deserts. | |
From where its margin borders on the void, | |
To foot of the high bank that ever rises, | |
A human body three times told would measure; | |
And far as eye of mine could wing its flight, | |
Now on the left, and on the right flank now, | |
The same this cornice did appear to me. | |
Thereon our feet had not been moved as yet, | |
When I perceived the embankment round about, | |
Which all right of ascent had interdicted, | |
To be of marble white, and so adorned | |
With sculptures, that not only Polycletus, | |
But Nature's self, had there been put to shame. | |
The Angel, who came down to earth with tidings | |
Of peace, that had been wept for many a year, | |
And opened Heaven from its long interdict, | |
In front of us appeared so truthfully | |
There sculptured in a gracious attitude, | |
He did not seem an image that is silent. | |
One would have sworn that he was saying, "Ave;" | |
For she was there in effigy portrayed | |
Who turned the key to ope the exalted love, | |
And in her mien this language had impressed, | |
"Ecce ancilla Dei," as distinctly | |
As any figure stamps itself in wax. | |
"Keep not thy mind upon one place alone," | |
The gentle Master said, who had me standing | |
Upon that side where people have their hearts; | |
Whereat I moved mine eyes, and I beheld | |
In rear of Mary, and upon that side | |
Where he was standing who conducted me, | |
Another story on the rock imposed; | |
Wherefore I passed Virgilius and drew near, | |
So that before mine eyes it might be set. | |
There sculptured in the self-same marble were | |
The cart and oxen, drawing the holy ark, | |
Wherefore one dreads an office not appointed. | |
People appeared in front, and all of them | |
In seven choirs divided, of two senses | |
Made one say "No," the other, "Yes, they sing." | |
Likewise unto the smoke of the frankincense, | |
Which there was imaged forth, the eyes and nose | |
Were in the yes and no discordant made. | |
Preceded there the vessel benedight, | |
Dancing with girded loins, the humble Psalmist, | |
And more and less than King was he in this. | |
Opposite, represented at the window | |
Of a great palace, Michal looked upon him, | |
Even as a woman scornful and afflicted. | |
I moved my feet from where I had been standing, | |
To examine near at hand another story, | |
Which after Michal glimmered white upon me. | |
There the high glory of the Roman Prince | |
Was chronicled, whose great beneficence | |
Moved Gregory to his great victory; | |
'Tis of the Emperor Trajan I am speaking; | |
And a poor widow at his bridle stood, | |
In attitude of weeping and of grief. | |
Around about him seemed it thronged and full | |
Of cavaliers, and the eagles in the gold | |
Above them visibly in the wind were moving. | |
The wretched woman in the midst of these | |
Seemed to be saying: "Give me vengeance, Lord, | |
For my dead son, for whom my heart is breaking." | |
And he to answer her: "Now wait until | |
I shall return." And she: "My Lord," like one | |
In whom grief is impatient, "shouldst thou not | |
Return?" And he: "Who shall be where I am | |
Will give it thee." And she: "Good deed of others | |
What boots it thee, if thou neglect thine own?" | |
Whence he: "Now comfort thee, for it behoves me | |
That I discharge my duty ere I move; | |
Justice so wills, and pity doth retain me." | |
He who on no new thing has ever looked | |
Was the creator of this visible language, | |
Novel to us, for here it is not found. | |
While I delighted me in contemplating | |
The images of such humility, | |
And dear to look on for their Maker's sake, | |
"Behold, upon this side, but rare they make | |
Their steps," the Poet murmured, "many people; | |
These will direct us to the lofty stairs." | |
Mine eyes, that in beholding were intent | |
To see new things, of which they curious are, | |
In turning round towards him were not slow. | |
But still I wish not, Reader, thou shouldst swerve | |
From thy good purposes, because thou hearest | |
How God ordaineth that the debt be paid; | |
Attend not to the fashion of the torment, | |
Think of what follows; think that at the worst | |
It cannot reach beyond the mighty sentence. | |
"Master," began I, "that which I behold | |
Moving towards us seems to me not persons, | |
And what I know not, so in sight I waver." | |
And he to me: "The grievous quality | |
Of this their torment bows them so to earth, | |
That my own eyes at first contended with it; | |
But look there fixedly, and disentangle | |
By sight what cometh underneath those stones; | |
Already canst thou see how each is stricken." | |
O ye proud Christians! wretched, weary ones! | |
Who, in the vision of the mind infirm | |
Confidence have in your backsliding steps, | |
Do ye not comprehend that we are worms, | |
Born to bring forth the angelic butterfly | |
That flieth unto judgment without screen? | |
Why floats aloft your spirit high in air? | |
Like are ye unto insects undeveloped, | |
Even as the worm in whom formation fails! | |
As to sustain a ceiling or a roof, | |
In place of corbel, oftentimes a figure | |
Is seen to join its knees unto its breast, | |
Which makes of the unreal real anguish | |
Arise in him who sees it, fashioned thus | |
Beheld I those, when I had ta'en good heed. | |
True is it, they were more or less bent down, | |
According as they more or less were laden; | |
And he who had most patience in his looks | |
Weeping did seem to say, "I can no more!" | |
Purgatorio: Canto XI | |
"Our Father, thou who dwellest in the heavens, | |
Not circumscribed, but from the greater love | |
Thou bearest to the first effects on high, | |
Praised be thy name and thine omnipotence | |
By every creature, as befitting is | |
To render thanks to thy sweet effluence. | |
Come unto us the peace of thy dominion, | |
For unto it we cannot of ourselves, | |
If it come not, with all our intellect. | |
Even as thine own Angels of their will | |
Make sacrifice to thee, Hosanna singing, | |
So may all men make sacrifice of theirs. | |
Give unto us this day our daily manna, | |
Withouten which in this rough wilderness | |
Backward goes he who toils most to advance. | |
And even as we the trespass we have suffered | |
Pardon in one another, pardon thou | |
Benignly, and regard not our desert. | |
Our virtue, which is easily o'ercome, | |
Put not to proof with the old Adversary, | |
But thou from him who spurs it so, deliver. | |
This last petition verily, dear Lord, | |
Not for ourselves is made, who need it not, | |
But for their sake who have remained behind us." | |
Thus for themselves and us good furtherance | |
Those shades imploring, went beneath a weight | |
Like unto that of which we sometimes dream, | |
Unequally in anguish round and round | |
And weary all, upon that foremost cornice, | |
Purging away the smoke-stains of the world. | |
If there good words are always said for us, | |
What may not here be said and done for them, | |
By those who have a good root to their will? | |
Well may we help them wash away the marks | |
That hence they carried, so that clean and light | |
They may ascend unto the starry wheels! | |
"Ah! so may pity and justice you disburden | |
Soon, that ye may have power to move the wing, | |
That shall uplift you after your desire, | |
Show us on which hand tow'rd the stairs the way | |
Is shortest, and if more than one the passes, | |
Point us out that which least abruptly falls; | |
For he who cometh with me, through the burden | |
Of Adam's flesh wherewith he is invested, | |
Against his will is chary of his climbing." | |
The words of theirs which they returned to those | |
That he whom I was following had spoken, | |
It was not manifest from whom they came, | |
But it was said: "To the right hand come with us | |
Along the bank, and ye shall find a pass | |
Possible for living person to ascend. | |
And were I not impeded by the stone, | |
Which this proud neck of mine doth subjugate, | |
Whence I am forced to hold my visage down, | |
Him, who still lives and does not name himself, | |
Would I regard, to see if I may know him | |
And make him piteous unto this burden. | |
A Latian was I, and born of a great Tuscan; | |
Guglielmo Aldobrandeschi was my father; | |
I know not if his name were ever with you. | |
The ancient blood and deeds of gallantry | |
Of my progenitors so arrogant made me | |
That, thinking not upon the common mother, | |
All men I held in scorn to such extent | |
I died therefor, as know the Sienese, | |
And every child in Campagnatico. | |
I am Omberto; and not to me alone | |
Has pride done harm, but all my kith and kin | |
Has with it dragged into adversity. | |
And here must I this burden bear for it | |
Till God be satisfied, since I did not | |
Among the living, here among the dead." | |
Listening I downward bent my countenance; | |
And one of them, not this one who was speaking, | |
Twisted himself beneath the weight that cramps him, | |
And looked at me, and knew me, and called out, | |
Keeping his eyes laboriously fixed | |
On me, who all bowed down was going with them. | |
"O," asked I him, "art thou not Oderisi, | |
Agobbio's honour, and honour of that art | |
Which is in Paris called illuminating?" | |
"Brother," said he, "more laughing are the leaves | |
Touched by the brush of Franco Bolognese; | |
All his the honour now, and mine in part. | |
In sooth I had not been so courteous | |
While I was living, for the great desire | |
Of excellence, on which my heart was bent. | |
Here of such pride is paid the forfeiture; | |
And yet I should not be here, were it not | |
That, having power to sin, I turned to God. | |
O thou vain glory of the human powers, | |
How little green upon thy summit lingers, | |
If't be not followed by an age of grossness! | |
In painting Cimabue thought that he | |
Should hold the field, now Giotto has the cry, | |
So that the other's fame is growing dim. | |
So has one Guido from the other taken | |
The glory of our tongue, and he perchance | |
Is born, who from the nest shall chase them both. | |
Naught is this mundane rumour but a breath | |
Of wind, that comes now this way and now that, | |
And changes name, because it changes side. | |
What fame shalt thou have more, if old peel off | |
From thee thy flesh, than if thou hadst been dead | |
Before thou left the 'pappo' and the 'dindi,' | |
Ere pass a thousand years? which is a shorter | |
Space to the eterne, than twinkling of an eye | |
Unto the circle that in heaven wheels slowest. | |
With him, who takes so little of the road | |
In front of me, all Tuscany resounded; | |
And now he scarce is lisped of in Siena, | |
Where he was lord, what time was overthrown | |
The Florentine delirium, that superb | |
Was at that day as now 'tis prostitute. | |
Your reputation is the colour of grass | |
Which comes and goes, and that discolours it | |
By which it issues green from out the earth." | |
And I: "Thy true speech fills my heart with good | |
Humility, and great tumour thou assuagest; | |
But who is he, of whom just now thou spakest?" | |
"That," he replied, "is Provenzan Salvani, | |
And he is here because he had presumed | |
To bring Siena all into his hands. | |
He has gone thus, and goeth without rest | |
E'er since he died; such money renders back | |
In payment he who is on earth too daring." | |
And I: "If every spirit who awaits | |
The verge of life before that he repent, | |
Remains below there and ascends not hither, | |
(Unless good orison shall him bestead,) | |
Until as much time as he lived be passed, | |
How was the coming granted him in largess?" | |
"When he in greatest splendour lived," said he, | |
"Freely upon the Campo of Siena, | |
All shame being laid aside, he placed himself; | |
And there to draw his friend from the duress | |
Which in the prison-house of Charles he suffered, | |
He brought himself to tremble in each vein. | |
I say no more, and know that I speak darkly; | |
Yet little time shall pass before thy neighbours | |
Will so demean themselves that thou canst gloss it. | |
This action has released him from those confines." | |
Purgatorio: Canto XII | |
Abreast, like oxen going in a yoke, | |
I with that heavy-laden soul went on, | |
As long as the sweet pedagogue permitted; | |
But when he said, "Leave him, and onward pass, | |
For here 'tis good that with the sail and oars, | |
As much as may be, each push on his barque;" | |
Upright, as walking wills it, I redressed | |
My person, notwithstanding that my thoughts | |
Remained within me downcast and abashed. | |
I had moved on, and followed willingly | |
The footsteps of my Master, and we both | |
Already showed how light of foot we were, | |
When unto me he said: "Cast down thine eyes; | |
'Twere well for thee, to alleviate the way, | |
To look upon the bed beneath thy feet." | |
As, that some memory may exist of them, | |
Above the buried dead their tombs in earth | |
Bear sculptured on them what they were before; | |
Whence often there we weep for them afresh, | |
From pricking of remembrance, which alone | |
To the compassionate doth set its spur; | |
So saw I there, but of a better semblance | |
In point of artifice, with figures covered | |
Whate'er as pathway from the mount projects. | |
I saw that one who was created noble | |
More than all other creatures, down from heaven | |
Flaming with lightnings fall upon one side. | |
I saw Briareus smitten by the dart | |
Celestial, lying on the other side, | |
Heavy upon the earth by mortal frost. | |
I saw Thymbraeus, Pallas saw, and Mars, | |
Still clad in armour round about their father, | |
Gaze at the scattered members of the giants. | |
I saw, at foot of his great labour, Nimrod, | |
As if bewildered, looking at the people | |
Who had been proud with him in Sennaar. | |
O Niobe! with what afflicted eyes | |
Thee I beheld upon the pathway traced, | |
Between thy seven and seven children slain! | |
O Saul! how fallen upon thy proper sword | |
Didst thou appear there lifeless in Gilboa, | |
That felt thereafter neither rain nor dew! | |
O mad Arachne! so I thee beheld | |
E'en then half spider, sad upon the shreds | |
Of fabric wrought in evil hour for thee! | |
O Rehoboam! no more seems to threaten | |
Thine image there; but full of consternation | |
A chariot bears it off, when none pursues! | |
Displayed moreo'er the adamantine pavement | |
How unto his own mother made Alcmaeon | |
Costly appear the luckless ornament; | |
Displayed how his own sons did throw themselves | |
Upon Sennacherib within the temple, | |
And how, he being dead, they left him there; | |
Displayed the ruin and the cruel carnage | |
That Tomyris wrought, when she to Cyrus said, | |
"Blood didst thou thirst for, and with blood I glut thee!" | |
Displayed how routed fled the Assyrians | |
After that Holofernes had been slain, | |
And likewise the remainder of that slaughter. | |
I saw there Troy in ashes and in caverns; | |
O Ilion! thee, how abject and debased, | |
Displayed the image that is there discerned! | |
Whoe'er of pencil master was or stile, | |
That could portray the shades and traits which there | |
Would cause each subtile genius to admire? | |
Dead seemed the dead, the living seemed alive; | |
Better than I saw not who saw the truth, | |
All that I trod upon while bowed I went. | |
Now wax ye proud, and on with looks uplifted, | |
Ye sons of Eve, and bow not down your faces | |
So that ye may behold your evil ways! | |
More of the mount by us was now encompassed, | |
And far more spent the circuit of the sun, | |
Than had the mind preoccupied imagined, | |
When he, who ever watchful in advance | |
Was going on, began: "Lift up thy head, | |
'Tis no more time to go thus meditating. | |
Lo there an Angel who is making haste | |
To come towards us; lo, returning is | |
From service of the day the sixth handmaiden. | |
With reverence thine acts and looks adorn, | |
So that he may delight to speed us upward; | |
Think that this day will never dawn again." | |
I was familiar with his admonition | |
Ever to lose no time; so on this theme | |
He could not unto me speak covertly. | |
Towards us came the being beautiful | |
Vested in white, and in his countenance | |
Such as appears the tremulous morning star. | |
His arms he opened, and opened then his wings; | |
"Come," said he, "near at hand here are the steps, | |
And easy from henceforth is the ascent." | |
At this announcement few are they who come! | |
O human creatures, born to soar aloft, | |
Why fall ye thus before a little wind? | |
He led us on to where the rock was cleft; | |
There smote upon my forehead with his wings, | |
Then a safe passage promised unto me. | |
As on the right hand, to ascend the mount | |
Where seated is the church that lordeth it | |
O'er the well-guided, above Rubaconte, | |
The bold abruptness of the ascent is broken | |
By stairways that were made there in the age | |
When still were safe the ledger and the stave, | |
E'en thus attempered is the bank which falls | |
Sheer downward from the second circle there; | |
But on this, side and that the high rock graze. | |
As we were turning thitherward our persons, | |
"Beati pauperes spiritu," voices | |
Sang in such wise that speech could tell it not. | |
Ah me! how different are these entrances | |
From the Infernal! for with anthems here | |
One enters, and below with wild laments. | |
We now were hunting up the sacred stairs, | |
And it appeared to me by far more easy | |
Than on the plain it had appeared before. | |
Whence I: "My Master, say, what heavy thing | |
Has been uplifted from me, so that hardly | |
Aught of fatigue is felt by me in walking?" | |
He answered: "When the P's which have remained | |
Still on thy face almost obliterate | |
Shall wholly, as the first is, be erased, | |
Thy feet will be so vanquished by good will, | |
That not alone they shall not feel fatigue, | |
But urging up will be to them delight." | |
Then did I even as they do who are going | |
With something on the head to them unknown, | |
Unless the signs of others make them doubt, | |
Wherefore the hand to ascertain is helpful, | |
And seeks and finds, and doth fulfill the office | |
Which cannot be accomplished by the sight; | |
And with the fingers of the right hand spread | |
I found but six the letters, that had carved | |
Upon my temples he who bore the keys; | |
Upon beholding which my Leader smiled. | |
Purgatorio: Canto XIII | |
We were upon the summit of the stairs, | |
Where for the second time is cut away | |
The mountain, which ascending shriveth all. | |
There in like manner doth a cornice bind | |
The hill all round about, as does the first, | |
Save that its arc more suddenly is curved. | |
Shade is there none, nor sculpture that appears; | |
So seems the bank, and so the road seems smooth, | |
With but the livid colour of the stone. | |
"If to inquire we wait for people here," | |
The Poet said, "I fear that peradventure | |
Too much delay will our election have." | |
Then steadfast on the sun his eyes he fixed, | |
Made his right side the centre of his motion, | |
And turned the left part of himself about. | |
"O thou sweet light! with trust in whom I enter | |
Upon this novel journey, do thou lead us," | |
Said he, "as one within here should be led. | |
Thou warmest the world, thou shinest over it; | |
If other reason prompt not otherwise, | |
Thy rays should evermore our leaders be!" | |
As much as here is counted for a mile, | |
So much already there had we advanced | |
In little time, by dint of ready will; | |
And tow'rds us there were heard to fly, albeit | |
They were not visible, spirits uttering | |
Unto Love's table courteous invitations, | |
The first voice that passed onward in its flight, | |
"Vinum non habent," said in accents loud, | |
And went reiterating it behind us. | |
And ere it wholly grew inaudible | |
Because of distance, passed another, crying, | |
"I am Orestes!" and it also stayed not. | |
"O," said I, "Father, these, what voices are they?" | |
And even as I asked, behold the third, | |
Saying: "Love those from whom ye have had evil!" | |
And the good Master said: "This circle scourges | |
The sin of envy, and on that account | |
Are drawn from love the lashes of the scourge. | |
The bridle of another sound shall be; | |
I think that thou wilt hear it, as I judge, | |
Before thou comest to the Pass of Pardon. | |
But fix thine eyes athwart the air right steadfast, | |
And people thou wilt see before us sitting, | |
And each one close against the cliff is seated." | |
Then wider than at first mine eyes I opened; | |
I looked before me, and saw shades with mantles | |
Not from the colour of the stone diverse. | |
And when we were a little farther onward, | |
I heard a cry of, "Mary, pray for us!" | |
A cry of, "Michael, Peter, and all Saints!" | |
I do not think there walketh still on earth | |
A man so hard, that he would not be pierced | |
With pity at what afterward I saw. | |
For when I had approached so near to them | |
That manifest to me their acts became, | |
Drained was I at the eyes by heavy grief. | |
Covered with sackcloth vile they seemed to me, | |
And one sustained the other with his shoulder, | |
And all of them were by the bank sustained. | |
Thus do the blind, in want of livelihood, | |
Stand at the doors of churches asking alms, | |
And one upon another leans his head, | |
So that in others pity soon may rise, | |
Not only at the accent of their words, | |
But at their aspect, which no less implores. | |
And as unto the blind the sun comes not, | |
So to the shades, of whom just now I spake, | |
Heaven's light will not be bounteous of itself; | |
For all their lids an iron wire transpierces, | |
And sews them up, as to a sparhawk wild | |
Is done, because it will not quiet stay. | |
To me it seemed, in passing, to do outrage, | |
Seeing the others without being seen; | |
Wherefore I turned me to my counsel sage. | |
Well knew he what the mute one wished to say, | |
And therefore waited not for my demand, | |
But said: "Speak, and be brief, and to the point." | |
I had Virgilius upon that side | |
Of the embankment from which one may fall, | |
Since by no border 'tis engarlanded; | |
Upon the other side of me I had | |
The shades devout, who through the horrible seam | |
Pressed out the tears so that they bathed their cheeks. | |
To them I turned me, and, "O people, certain," | |
Began I, "of beholding the high light, | |
Which your desire has solely in its care, | |
So may grace speedily dissolve the scum | |
Upon your consciences, that limpidly | |
Through them descend the river of the mind, | |
Tell me, for dear 'twill be to me and gracious, | |
If any soul among you here is Latian, | |
And 'twill perchance be good for him I learn it." | |
"O brother mine, each one is citizen | |
Of one true city; but thy meaning is, | |
Who may have lived in Italy a pilgrim." | |
By way of answer this I seemed to hear | |
A little farther on than where I stood, | |
Whereat I made myself still nearer heard. | |
Among the rest I saw a shade that waited | |
In aspect, and should any one ask how, | |
Its chin it lifted upward like a blind man. | |
"Spirit," I said, "who stoopest to ascend, | |
If thou art he who did reply to me, | |
Make thyself known to me by place or name." | |
"Sienese was I," it replied, "and with | |
The others here recleanse my guilty life, | |
Weeping to Him to lend himself to us. | |
Sapient I was not, although I Sapia | |
Was called, and I was at another's harm | |
More happy far than at my own good fortune. | |
And that thou mayst not think that I deceive thee, | |
Hear if I was as foolish as I tell thee. | |
The arc already of my years descending, | |
My fellow-citizens near unto Colle | |
Were joined in battle with their adversaries, | |
And I was praying God for what he willed. | |
Routed were they, and turned into the bitter | |
Passes of flight; and I, the chase beholding, | |
A joy received unequalled by all others; | |
So that I lifted upward my bold face | |
Crying to God, 'Henceforth I fear thee not,' | |
As did the blackbird at the little sunshine. | |
Peace I desired with God at the extreme | |
Of my existence, and as yet would not | |
My debt have been by penitence discharged, | |
Had it not been that in remembrance held me | |
Pier Pettignano in his holy prayers, | |
Who out of charity was grieved for me. | |
But who art thou, that into our conditions | |
Questioning goest, and hast thine eyes unbound | |
As I believe, and breathing dost discourse?" | |
"Mine eyes," I said, "will yet be here ta'en from me, | |
But for short space; for small is the offence | |
Committed by their being turned with envy. | |
Far greater is the fear, wherein suspended | |
My soul is, of the torment underneath, | |
For even now the load down there weighs on me." | |
And she to me: "Who led thee, then, among us | |
Up here, if to return below thou thinkest?" | |
And I: "He who is with me, and speaks not; | |
And living am I; therefore ask of me, | |
Spirit elect, if thou wouldst have me move | |
O'er yonder yet my mortal feet for thee." | |
"O, this is such a novel thing to hear," | |
She answered, "that great sign it is God loves thee; | |
Therefore with prayer of thine sometimes assist me. | |
And I implore, by what thou most desirest, | |
If e'er thou treadest the soil of Tuscany, | |
Well with my kindred reinstate my fame. | |
Them wilt thou see among that people vain | |
Who hope in Talamone, and will lose there | |
More hope than in discovering the Diana; | |
But there still more the admirals will lose." | |
Purgatorio: Canto XIV | |
"Who is this one that goes about our mountain, | |
Or ever Death has given him power of flight, | |
And opes his eyes and shuts them at his will?" | |
"I know not who, but know he's not alone; | |
Ask him thyself, for thou art nearer to him, | |
And gently, so that he may speak, accost him." | |
Thus did two spirits, leaning tow'rds each other, | |
Discourse about me there on the right hand; | |
Then held supine their faces to address me. | |
And said the one: "O soul, that, fastened still | |
Within the body, tow'rds the heaven art going, | |
For charity console us, and declare | |
Whence comest and who art thou; for thou mak'st us | |
As much to marvel at this grace of thine | |
As must a thing that never yet has been." | |
And I: "Through midst of Tuscany there wanders | |
A streamlet that is born in Falterona, | |
And not a hundred miles of course suffice it; | |
From thereupon do I this body bring. | |
To tell you who I am were speech in vain, | |
Because my name as yet makes no great noise." | |
"If well thy meaning I can penetrate | |
With intellect of mine," then answered me | |
He who first spake, "thou speakest of the Arno." | |
And said the other to him: "Why concealed | |
This one the appellation of that river, | |
Even as a man doth of things horrible?" | |
And thus the shade that questioned was of this | |
Himself acquitted: "I know not; but truly | |
'Tis fit the name of such a valley perish; | |
For from its fountain-head (where is so pregnant | |
The Alpine mountain whence is cleft Peloro | |
That in few places it that mark surpasses) | |
To where it yields itself in restoration | |
Of what the heaven doth of the sea dry up, | |
Whence have the rivers that which goes with them, | |
Virtue is like an enemy avoided | |
By all, as is a serpent, through misfortune | |
Of place, or through bad habit that impels them; | |
On which account have so transformed their nature | |
The dwellers in that miserable valley, | |
It seems that Circe had them in her pasture. | |
'Mid ugly swine, of acorns worthier | |
Than other food for human use created, | |
It first directeth its impoverished way. | |
Curs findeth it thereafter, coming downward, | |
More snarling than their puissance demands, | |
And turns from them disdainfully its muzzle. | |
It goes on falling, and the more it grows, | |
The more it finds the dogs becoming wolves, | |
This maledict and misadventurous ditch. | |
Descended then through many a hollow gulf, | |
It finds the foxes so replete with fraud, | |
They fear no cunning that may master them. | |
Nor will I cease because another hears me; | |
And well 'twill be for him, if still he mind him | |
Of what a truthful spirit to me unravels. | |
Thy grandson I behold, who doth become | |
A hunter of those wolves upon the bank | |
Of the wild stream, and terrifies them all. | |
He sells their flesh, it being yet alive; | |
Thereafter slaughters them like ancient beeves; | |
Many of life, himself of praise, deprives. | |
Blood-stained he issues from the dismal forest; | |
He leaves it such, a thousand years from now | |
In its primeval state 'tis not re-wooded." | |
As at the announcement of impending ills | |
The face of him who listens is disturbed, | |
From whate'er side the peril seize upon him; | |
So I beheld that other soul, which stood | |
Turned round to listen, grow disturbed and sad, | |
When it had gathered to itself the word. | |
The speech of one and aspect of the other | |
Had me desirous made to know their names, | |
And question mixed with prayers I made thereof, | |
Whereat the spirit which first spake to me | |
Began again: "Thou wishest I should bring me | |
To do for thee what thou'lt not do for me; | |
But since God willeth that in thee shine forth | |
Such grace of his, I'll not be chary with thee; | |
Know, then, that I Guido del Duca am. | |
My blood was so with envy set on fire, | |
That if I had beheld a man make merry, | |
Thou wouldst have seen me sprinkled o'er with pallor. | |
From my own sowing such the straw I reap! | |
O human race! why dost thou set thy heart | |
Where interdict of partnership must be? | |
This is Renier; this is the boast and honour | |
Of the house of Calboli, where no one since | |
Has made himself the heir of his desert. | |
And not alone his blood is made devoid, | |
'Twixt Po and mount, and sea-shore and the Reno, | |
Of good required for truth and for diversion; | |
For all within these boundaries is full | |
Of venomous roots, so that too tardily | |
By cultivation now would they diminish. | |
Where is good Lizio, and Arrigo Manardi, | |
Pier Traversaro, and Guido di Carpigna, | |
O Romagnuoli into bastards turned? | |
When in Bologna will a Fabbro rise? | |
When in Faenza a Bernardin di Fosco, | |
The noble scion of ignoble seed? | |
Be not astonished, Tuscan, if I weep, | |
When I remember, with Guido da Prata, | |
Ugolin d' Azzo, who was living with us, | |
Frederick Tignoso and his company, | |
The house of Traversara, and th' Anastagi, | |
And one race and the other is extinct; | |
The dames and cavaliers, the toils and ease | |
That filled our souls with love and courtesy, | |
There where the hearts have so malicious grown! | |
O Brettinoro! why dost thou not flee, | |
Seeing that all thy family is gone, | |
And many people, not to be corrupted? | |
Bagnacaval does well in not begetting | |
And ill does Castrocaro, and Conio worse, | |
In taking trouble to beget such Counts. | |
Will do well the Pagani, when their Devil | |
Shall have departed; but not therefore pure | |
Will testimony of them e'er remain. | |
O Ugolin de' Fantoli, secure | |
Thy name is, since no longer is awaited | |
One who, degenerating, can obscure it! | |
But go now, Tuscan, for it now delights me | |
To weep far better than it does to speak, | |
So much has our discourse my mind distressed." | |
We were aware that those beloved souls | |
Heard us depart; therefore, by keeping silent, | |
They made us of our pathway confident. | |
When we became alone by going onward, | |
Thunder, when it doth cleave the air, appeared | |
A voice, that counter to us came, exclaiming: | |
"Shall slay me whosoever findeth me!" | |
And fled as the reverberation dies | |
If suddenly the cloud asunder bursts. | |
As soon as hearing had a truce from this, | |
Behold another, with so great a crash, | |
That it resembled thunderings following fast: | |
"I am Aglaurus, who became a stone!" | |
And then, to press myself close to the Poet, | |
I backward, and not forward, took a step. | |
Already on all sides the air was quiet; | |
And said he to me: "That was the hard curb | |
That ought to hold a man within his bounds; | |
But you take in the bait so that the hook | |
Of the old Adversary draws you to him, | |
And hence availeth little curb or call. | |
The heavens are calling you, and wheel around you, | |
Displaying to you their eternal beauties, | |
And still your eye is looking on the ground; | |
Whence He, who all discerns, chastises you." | |
Purgatorio: Canto XV | |
As much as 'twixt the close of the third hour | |
And dawn of day appeareth of that sphere | |
Which aye in fashion of a child is playing, | |
So much it now appeared, towards the night, | |
Was of his course remaining to the sun; | |
There it was evening, and 'twas midnight here; | |
And the rays smote the middle of our faces, | |
Because by us the mount was so encircled, | |
That straight towards the west we now were going | |
When I perceived my forehead overpowered | |
Beneath the splendour far more than at first, | |
And stupor were to me the things unknown, | |
Whereat towards the summit of my brow | |
I raised my hands, and made myself the visor | |
Which the excessive glare diminishes. | |
As when from off the water, or a mirror, | |
The sunbeam leaps unto the opposite side, | |
Ascending upward in the selfsame measure | |
That it descends, and deviates as far | |
From falling of a stone in line direct, | |
(As demonstrate experiment and art,) | |
So it appeared to me that by a light | |
Refracted there before me I was smitten; | |
On which account my sight was swift to flee. | |
"What is that, Father sweet, from which I cannot | |
So fully screen my sight that it avail me," | |
Said I, "and seems towards us to be moving?" | |
"Marvel thou not, if dazzle thee as yet | |
The family of heaven," he answered me; | |
"An angel 'tis, who comes to invite us upward. | |
Soon will it be, that to behold these things | |
Shall not be grievous, but delightful to thee | |
As much as nature fashioned thee to feel." | |
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, | |
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 <DW72> | |
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. | |
But tell me, if thou knowest, where is Piccarda; | |
Tell me if any one of note I see | |
Among this folk that gazes at me so." | |
"My sister, who, 'twixt beautiful and good, | |
I know not which was more, triumphs rejoicing | |
Already in her crown on high Olympus." | |
So said he first, and then: "'Tis not forbidden | |
To name each other here, so milked away | |
Is our resemblance by our dieting. | |
This," pointing with his finger, "is Buonagiunta, | |
Buonagiunta, of Lucca; and that face | |
Beyond him there, more peaked than the others, | |
Has held the holy Church within his arms; | |
From Tours was he, and purges by his fasting | |
Bolsena's eels and the Vernaccia wine." | |
He named me many others one by one; | |
And all contented seemed at being named, | |
So that for this I saw not one dark look. | |
I saw for hunger bite the empty air | |
Ubaldin dalla Pila, and Boniface, | |
Who with his crook had pastured many people. | |
I saw Messer Marchese, who had leisure | |
Once at Forli for drinking with less dryness, | |
And he was one who ne'er felt satisfied. | |
But as he does who scans, and then doth prize | |
One more than others, did I him of Lucca, | |
Who seemed to take most cognizance of me. | |
He murmured, and I know not what Gentucca | |
From that place heard I, where he felt the wound | |
Of justice, that doth macerate them so. | |
"O soul," I said, "that seemest so desirous | |
To speak with me, do so that I may hear thee, | |
And with thy speech appease thyself and me." | |
"A maid is born, and wears not yet the veil," | |
Began he, "who to thee shall pleasant make | |
My city, howsoever men may blame it. | |
Thou shalt go on thy way with this prevision; | |
If by my murmuring thou hast been deceived, | |
True things hereafter will declare it to thee. | |
But say if him I here behold, who forth | |
Evoked the new-invented rhymes, beginning, | |
'Ladies, that have intelligence of love?'" | |
And I to him: "One am I, who, whenever | |
Love doth inspire me, note, and in that measure | |
Which he within me dictates, singing go." | |
"O brother, now I see," he said, "the knot | |
Which me, the Notary, and Guittone held | |
Short of the sweet new style that now I hear. | |
I do perceive full clearly how your pens | |
Go closely following after him who dictates, | |
Which with our own forsooth came not to pass; | |
And he who sets himself to go beyond, | |
No difference sees from one style to another;" | |
And as if satisfied, he held his peace. | |
Even as the birds, that winter tow'rds the Nile, | |
Sometimes into a phalanx form themselves, | |
Then fly in greater haste, and go in file; | |
In such wise all the people who were there, | |
Turning their faces, hurried on their steps, | |
Both by their leanness and their wishes light. | |
And as a man, who weary is with trotting, | |
Lets his companions onward go, and walks, | |
Until he vents the panting of his chest; | |
So did Forese let the holy flock | |
Pass by, and came with me behind it, saying, | |
"When will it be that I again shall see thee?" | |
"How long," I answered, "I may live, I know not; | |
Yet my return will not so speedy be, | |
But I shall sooner in desire arrive; | |
Because the place where I was set to live | |
From day to day of good is more depleted, | |
And unto dismal ruin seems ordained." | |
"Now go," he said, "for him most guilty of it | |
At a beast's tail behold I dragged along | |
Towards the valley where is no repentance. | |
Faster at every step the beast is going, | |
Increasing evermore until it smites him, | |
And leaves the body vilely mutilated. | |
Not long those wheels shall turn," and he uplifted | |
His eyes to heaven, "ere shall be clear to thee | |
That which my speech no farther can declare. | |
Now stay behind; because the time so precious | |
Is in this kingdom, that I lose too much | |
By coming onward thus abreast with thee." | |
As sometimes issues forth upon a gallop | |
A cavalier from out a troop that ride, | |
And seeks the honour of the first encounter, | |
So he with greater strides departed from us; | |
And on the road remained I with those two, | |
Who were such mighty marshals of the world. | |
And when before us he had gone so far | |
Mine eyes became to him such pursuivants | |
As was my understanding to his words, | |
Appeared to me with laden and living boughs | |
Another apple-tree, and not far distant, | |
From having but just then turned thitherward. | |
People I saw beneath it lift their hands, | |
And cry I know not what towards the leaves, | |
Like little children eager and deluded, | |
Who pray, and he they pray to doth not answer, | |
But, to make very keen their appetite, | |
Holds their desire aloft, and hides it not. | |
Then they departed as if undeceived; | |
And now we came unto the mighty tree | |
Which prayers and tears so manifold refuses. | |
"Pass farther onward without drawing near; | |
The tree of which Eve ate is higher up, | |
And out of that one has this tree been raised." | |
Thus said I know not who among the branches; | |
Whereat Virgilius, Statius, and myself | |
Went crowding forward on the side that rises. | |
"Be mindful," said he, "of the accursed ones | |
Formed of the cloud-rack, who inebriate | |
Combated Theseus with their double breasts; | |
And of the Jews who showed them soft in drinking, | |
Whence Gideon would not have them for companions | |
When he tow'rds Midian the hills descended." | |
Thus, closely pressed to one of the two borders, | |
On passed we, hearing sins of gluttony, | |
Followed forsooth by miserable gains; | |
Then set at large upon the lonely road, | |
A thousand steps and more we onward went, | |
In contemplation, each without a word. | |
"What go ye thinking thus, ye three alone?" | |
Said suddenly a voice, whereat I started | |
As terrified and timid beasts are wont. | |
I raised my head to see who this might be, | |
And never in a furnace was there seen | |
Metals or glass so lucent and so red | |
As one I saw who said: "If it may please you | |
To mount aloft, here it behoves you turn; | |
This way goes he who goeth after peace." | |
His aspect had bereft me of my sight, | |
So that I turned me back unto my Teachers, | |
Like one who goeth as his hearing guides him. | |
And as, the harbinger of early dawn, | |
The air of May doth move and breathe out fragrance, | |
Impregnate all with herbage and with flowers, | |
So did I feel a breeze strike in the midst | |
My front, and felt the moving of the plumes | |
That breathed around an odour of ambrosia; | |
And heard it said: "Blessed are they whom grace | |
So much illumines, that the love of taste | |
Excites not in their breasts too great desire, | |
Hungering at all times so far as is just." | |
Purgatorio: Canto XXV | |
Now was it the ascent no hindrance brooked, | |
Because the sun had his meridian circle | |
To Taurus left, and night to Scorpio; | |
Wherefore as doth a man who tarries not, | |
But goes his way, whate'er to him appear, | |
If of necessity the sting transfix him, | |
In this wise did we enter through the gap, | |
Taking the stairway, one before the other, | |
Which by its narrowness divides the climbers. | |
And as the little stork that lifts its wing | |
With a desire to fly, and does not venture | |
To leave the nest, and lets it downward droop, | |
Even such was I, with the desire of asking | |
Kindled and quenched, unto the motion coming | |
He makes who doth address himself to speak. | |
Not for our pace, though rapid it might be, | |
My father sweet forbore, but said: "Let fly | |
The bow of speech thou to the barb hast drawn." | |
With confidence I opened then my mouth, | |
And I began: "How can one meagre grow | |
There where the need of nutriment applies not?" | |
"If thou wouldst call to mind how Meleager | |
Was wasted by the wasting of a brand, | |
This would not," said he, "be to thee so sour; | |
And wouldst thou think how at each tremulous motion | |
Trembles within a mirror your own image; | |
That which seems hard would mellow seem to thee. | |
But that thou mayst content thee in thy wish | |
Lo Statius here; and him I call and pray | |
He now will be the healer of thy wounds." | |
"If I unfold to him the eternal vengeance," | |
Responded Statius, "where thou present art, | |
Be my excuse that I can naught deny thee." | |
Then he began: "Son, if these words of mine | |
Thy mind doth contemplate and doth receive, | |
They'll be thy light unto the How thou sayest. | |
The perfect blood, which never is drunk up | |
Into the thirsty veins, and which remaineth | |
Like food that from the table thou removest, | |
Takes in the heart for all the human members | |
Virtue informative, as being that | |
Which to be changed to them goes through the veins | |
Again digest, descends it where 'tis better | |
Silent to be than say; and then drops thence | |
Upon another's blood in natural vase. | |
There one together with the other mingles, | |
One to be passive meant, the other active | |
By reason of the perfect place it springs from; | |
And being conjoined, begins to operate, | |
Coagulating first, then vivifying | |
What for its matter it had made consistent. | |
The active virtue, being made a soul | |
As of a plant, (in so far different, | |
This on the way is, that arrived already,) | |
Then works so much, that now it moves and feels | |
Like a sea-fungus, and then undertakes | |
To organize the powers whose seed it is. | |
Now, Son, dilates and now distends itself | |
The virtue from the generator's heart, | |
Where nature is intent on all the members. | |
But how from animal it man becomes | |
Thou dost not see as yet; this is a point | |
Which made a wiser man than thou once err | |
So far, that in his doctrine separate | |
He made the soul from possible intellect, | |
For he no organ saw by this assumed. | |
Open thy breast unto the truth that's coming, | |
And know that, just as soon as in the foetus | |
The articulation of the brain is perfect, | |
The primal Motor turns to it well pleased | |
At so great art of nature, and inspires | |
A spirit new with virtue all replete, | |
Which what it finds there active doth attract | |
Into its substance, and becomes one soul, | |
Which lives, and feels, and on itself revolves. | |
And that thou less may wonder at my word, | |
Behold the sun's heat, which becometh wine, | |
Joined to the juice that from the vine distils. | |
Whenever Lachesis has no more thread, | |
It separates from the flesh, and virtually | |
Bears with itself the human and divine; | |
The other faculties are voiceless all; | |
The memory, the intelligence, and the will | |
In action far more vigorous than before. | |
Without a pause it falleth of itself | |
In marvellous way on one shore or the other; | |
There of its roads it first is cognizant. | |
Soon as the place there circumscribeth it, | |
The virtue informative rays round about, | |
As, and as much as, in the living members. | |
And even as the air, when full of rain, | |
By alien rays that are therein reflected, | |
With divers colours shows itself adorned, | |
So there the neighbouring air doth shape itself | |
Into that form which doth impress upon it | |
Virtually the soul that has stood still. | |
And then in manner of the little flame, | |
Which followeth the fire where'er it shifts, | |
After the spirit followeth its new form. | |
Since afterwards it takes from this its semblance, | |
It is called shade; and thence it organizes | |
Thereafter every sense, even to the sight. | |
Thence is it that we speak, and thence we laugh; | |
Thence is it that we form the tears and sighs, | |
That on the mountain thou mayhap hast heard. | |
According as impress us our desires | |
And other affections, so the shade is shaped, | |
And this is cause of what thou wonderest at." | |
And now unto the last of all the circles | |
Had we arrived, and to the right hand turned, | |
And were attentive to another care. | |
There the embankment shoots forth flames of fire, | |
And upward doth the cornice breathe a blast | |
That drives them back, and from itself sequesters. | |
Hence we must needs go on the open side, | |
And one by one; and I did fear the fire | |
On this side, and on that the falling down. | |
My Leader said: "Along this place one ought | |
To keep upon the eyes a tightened rein, | |
Seeing that one so easily might err." | |
"Summae Deus clementiae," in the bosom | |
Of the great burning chanted then I heard, | |
Which made me no less eager to turn round; | |
And spirits saw I walking through the flame; | |
Wherefore I looked, to my own steps and theirs | |
Apportioning my sight from time to time. | |
After the close which to that hymn is made, | |
Aloud they shouted, "Virum non cognosco;" | |
Then recommenced the hymn with voices low. | |
This also ended, cried they: "To the wood | |
Diana ran, and drove forth Helice | |
Therefrom, who had of Venus felt the poison." | |
Then to their song returned they; then the wives | |
They shouted, and the husbands who were chaste. | |
As virtue and the marriage vow imposes. | |
And I believe that them this mode suffices, | |
For all the time the fire is burning them; | |
With such care is it needful, and such food, | |
That the last wound of all should be closed up. | |
Purgatorio: Canto XXVI | |
While on the brink thus one before the other | |
We went upon our way, oft the good Master | |
Said: "Take thou heed! suffice it that I warn thee." | |
On the right shoulder smote me now the sun, | |
That, raying out, already the whole west | |
Changed from its azure aspect into white. | |
And with my shadow did I make the flame | |
Appear more red; and even to such a sign | |
Shades saw I many, as they went, give heed. | |
This was the cause that gave them a beginning | |
To speak of me; and to themselves began they | |
To say: "That seems not a factitious body!" | |
Then towards me, as far as they could come, | |
Came certain of them, always with regard | |
Not to step forth where they would not be burned. | |
"O thou who goest, not from being slower | |
But reverent perhaps, behind the others, | |
Answer me, who in thirst and fire am burning. | |
Nor to me only is thine answer needful; | |
For all of these have greater thirst for it | |
Than for cold water Ethiop or Indian. | |
Tell us how is it that thou makest thyself | |
A wall unto the sun, as if thou hadst not | |
Entered as yet into the net of death." | |
Thus one of them addressed me, and I straight | |
Should have revealed myself, were I not bent | |
On other novelty that then appeared. | |
For through the middle of the burning road | |
There came a people face to face with these, | |
Which held me in suspense with gazing at them. | |
There see I hastening upon either side | |
Each of the shades, and kissing one another | |
Without a pause, content with brief salute. | |
Thus in the middle of their brown battalions | |
Muzzle to muzzle one ant meets another | |
Perchance to spy their journey or their fortune. | |
No sooner is the friendly greeting ended, | |
Or ever the first footstep passes onward, | |
Each one endeavours to outcry the other; | |
The new-come people: "Sodom and Gomorrah!" | |
The rest: "Into the cow Pasiphae enters, | |
So that the bull unto her lust may run!" | |
Then as the cranes, that to Riphaean mountains | |
Might fly in part, and part towards the sands, | |
These of the frost, those of the sun avoidant, | |
One folk is going, and the other coming, | |
And weeping they return to their first songs, | |
And to the cry that most befitteth them; | |
And close to me approached, even as before, | |
The very same who had entreated me, | |
Attent to listen in their countenance. | |
I, who their inclination twice had seen, | |
Began: "O souls secure in the possession, | |
Whene'er it may be, of a state of peace, | |
Neither unripe nor ripened have remained | |
My members upon earth, but here are with me | |
With their own blood and their articulations. | |
I go up here to be no longer blind; | |
A Lady is above, who wins this grace, | |
Whereby the mortal through your world I bring. | |
But as your greatest longing satisfied | |
May soon become, so that the Heaven may house you | |
Which full of love is, and most amply spreads, | |
Tell me, that I again in books may write it, | |
Who are you, and what is that multitude | |
Which goes upon its way behind your backs?" | |
Not otherwise with wonder is bewildered | |
The mountaineer, and staring round is dumb, | |
When rough and rustic to the town he goes, | |
Than every shade became in its appearance; | |
But when they of their stupor were disburdened, | |
Which in high hearts is quickly quieted, | |
"Blessed be thou, who of our border-lands," | |
He recommenced who first had questioned us, | |
"Experience freightest for a better life. | |
The folk that comes not with us have offended | |
In that for which once Caesar, triumphing, | |
Heard himself called in contumely, 'Queen.' | |
Therefore they separate, exclaiming, 'Sodom!' | |
Themselves reproving, even as thou hast heard, | |
And add unto their burning by their shame. | |
Our own transgression was hermaphrodite; | |
But because we observed not human law, | |
Following like unto beasts our appetite, | |
In our opprobrium by us is read, | |
When we part company, the name of her | |
Who bestialized herself in bestial wood. | |
Now knowest thou our acts, and what our crime was; | |
Wouldst thou perchance by name know who we are, | |
There is not time to tell, nor could I do it. | |
Thy wish to know me shall in sooth be granted; | |
I'm Guido Guinicelli, and now purge me, | |
Having repented ere the hour extreme." | |
The same that in the sadness of Lycurgus | |
Two sons became, their mother re-beholding, | |
Such I became, but rise not to such height, | |
The moment I heard name himself the father | |
Of me and of my betters, who had ever | |
Practised the sweet and gracious rhymes of love; | |
And without speech and hearing thoughtfully | |
For a long time I went, beholding him, | |
Nor for the fire did I approach him nearer. | |
When I was fed with looking, utterly | |
Myself I offered ready for his service, | |
With affirmation that compels belief. | |
And he to me: "Thou leavest footprints such | |
In me, from what I hear, and so distinct, | |
Lethe cannot efface them, nor make dim. | |
But if thy words just now the truth have sworn, | |
Tell me what is the cause why thou displayest | |
In word and look that dear thou holdest me?" | |
And I to him: "Those dulcet lays of yours | |
Which, long as shall endure our modern fashion, | |
Shall make for ever dear their very ink!" | |
"O brother," said he, "he whom I point out," | |
And here he pointed at a spirit in front, | |
"Was of the mother tongue a better smith. | |
Verses of love and proses of romance, | |
He mastered all; and let the idiots talk, | |
Who think the Lemosin surpasses him. | |
To clamour more than truth they turn their faces, | |
And in this way establish their opinion, | |
Ere art or reason has by them been heard. | |
Thus many ancients with Guittone did, | |
From cry to cry still giving him applause, | |
Until the truth has conquered with most persons. | |
Now, if thou hast such ample privilege | |
'Tis granted thee to go unto the cloister | |
Wherein is Christ the abbot of the college, | |
To him repeat for me a Paternoster, | |
So far as needful to us of this world, | |
Where power of sinning is no longer ours." | |
Then, to give place perchance to one behind, | |
Whom he had near, he vanished in the fire | |
As fish in water going to the bottom. | |
I moved a little tow'rds him pointed out, | |
And said that to his name my own desire | |
An honourable place was making ready. | |
He of his own free will began to say: | |
'Tan m' abellis vostre cortes deman, | |
Que jeu nom' puesc ni vueill a vos cobrire; | |
Jeu sui Arnaut, que plor e vai chantan; | |
Consiros vei la passada folor, | |
E vei jauzen lo jorn qu' esper denan. | |
Ara vus prec per aquella valor, | |
Que vus condus al som de la scalina, | |
Sovenga vus a temprar ma dolor.'* | |
Then hid him in the fire that purifies them. | |
* So pleases me your courteous demand, | |
I cannot and I will not hide me from you. | |
I am Arnaut, who weep and singing go; | |
Contrite I see the folly of the past, | |
And joyous see the hoped-for day before me. | |
Therefore do I implore you, by that power | |
Which guides you to the summit of the stairs, | |
Be mindful to assuage my suffering! | |
Purgatorio: Canto XXVII | |
As when he vibrates forth his earliest rays, | |
In regions where his Maker shed his blood, | |
(The Ebro falling under lofty Libra, | |
And waters in the Ganges burnt with noon,) | |
So stood the Sun; hence was the day departing, | |
When the glad Angel of God appeared to us. | |
Outside the flame he stood upon the verge, | |
And chanted forth, "Beati mundo corde," | |
In voice by far more living than our own. | |
Then: "No one farther goes, souls sanctified, | |
If first the fire bite not; within it enter, | |
And be not deaf unto the song beyond." | |
When we were close beside him thus he said; | |
Wherefore e'en such became I, when I heard him, | |
As he is who is put into the grave. | |
Upon my clasped hands I straightened me, | |
Scanning the fire, and vividly recalling | |
The human bodies I had once seen burned. | |
Towards me turned themselves my good Conductors, | |
And unto me Virgilius said: "My son, | |
Here may indeed be torment, but not death. | |
Remember thee, remember! and if I | |
On Geryon have safely guided thee, | |
What shall I do now I am nearer God? | |
Believe for certain, shouldst thou stand a full | |
Millennium in the bosom of this flame, | |
It could not make thee bald a single hair. | |
And if perchance thou think that I deceive thee, | |
Draw near to it, and put it to the proof | |
With thine own hands upon thy garment's hem. | |
Now lay aside, now lay aside all fear, | |
Turn hitherward, and onward come securely;" | |
And I still motionless, and 'gainst my conscience! | |
Seeing me stand still motionless and stubborn, | |
Somewhat disturbed he said: "Now look thou, Son, | |
'Twixt Beatrice and thee there is this wall." | |
As at the name of Thisbe oped his lids | |
The dying Pyramus, and gazed upon her, | |
What time the mulberry became vermilion, | |
Even thus, my obduracy being softened, | |
I turned to my wise Guide, hearing the name | |
That in my memory evermore is welling. | |
Whereat he wagged his head, and said: "How now? | |
Shall we stay on this side?" then smiled as one | |
Does at a child who's vanquished by an apple. | |
Then into the fire in front of me he entered, | |
Beseeching Statius to come after me, | |
Who a long way before divided us. | |
When I was in it, into molten glass | |
I would have cast me to refresh myself, | |
So without measure was the burning there! | |
And my sweet Father, to encourage me, | |
Discoursing still of Beatrice went on, | |
Saying: "Her eyes I seem to see already!" | |
A voice, that on the other side was singing, | |
Directed us, and we, attent alone | |
On that, came forth where the ascent began. | |
"Venite, benedicti Patris mei," | |
Sounded within a splendour, which was there | |
Such it o'ercame me, and I could not look. | |
"The sun departs," it added, "and night cometh; | |
Tarry ye not, but onward urge your steps, | |
So long as yet the west becomes not dark." | |
Straight forward through the rock the path ascended | |
In such a way that I cut off the rays | |
Before me of the sun, that now was low. | |
And of few stairs we yet had made assay, | |
Ere by the vanished shadow the sun's setting | |
Behind us we perceived, I and my Sages. | |
And ere in all its parts immeasurable | |
The horizon of one aspect had become, | |
And Night her boundless dispensation held, | |
Each of us of a stair had made his bed; | |
Because the nature of the mount took from us | |
The power of climbing, more than the delight. | |
Even as in ruminating passive grow | |
The goats, who have been swift and venturesome | |
Upon the mountain-tops ere they were fed, | |
Hushed in the shadow, while the sun is hot, | |
Watched by the herdsman, who upon his staff | |
Is leaning, and in leaning tendeth them; | |
And as the shepherd, lodging out of doors, | |
Passes the night beside his quiet flock, | |
Watching that no wild beast may scatter it, | |
Such at that hour were we, all three of us, | |
I like the goat, and like the herdsmen they, | |
Begirt on this side and on that by rocks. | |
Little could there be seen of things without; | |
But through that little I beheld the stars | |
More luminous and larger than their wont. | |
Thus ruminating, and beholding these, | |
Sleep seized upon me,--sleep, that oftentimes | |
Before a deed is done has tidings of it. | |
It was the hour, I think, when from the East | |
First on the mountain Citherea beamed, | |
Who with the fire of love seems always burning; | |
Youthful and beautiful in dreams methought | |
I saw a lady walking in a meadow, | |
Gathering flowers; and singing she was saying: | |
"Know whosoever may my name demand | |
That I am Leah, and go moving round | |
My beauteous hands to make myself a garland. | |
To please me at the mirror, here I deck me, | |
But never does my sister Rachel leave | |
Her looking-glass, and sitteth all day long. | |
To see her beauteous eyes as eager is she, | |
As I am to adorn me with my hands; | |
Her, seeing, and me, doing satisfies." | |
And now before the antelucan splendours | |
That unto pilgrims the more grateful rise, | |
As, home-returning, less remote they lodge, | |
The darkness fled away on every side, | |
And slumber with it; whereupon I rose, | |
Seeing already the great Masters risen. | |
"That apple sweet, which through so many branches | |
The care of mortals goeth in pursuit of, | |
To-day shall put in peace thy hungerings." | |
Speaking to me, Virgilius of such words | |
As these made use; and never were there guerdons | |
That could in pleasantness compare with these. | |
Such longing upon longing came upon me | |
To be above, that at each step thereafter | |
For flight I felt in me the pinions growing. | |
When underneath us was the stairway all | |
Run o'er, and we were on the highest step, | |
Virgilius fastened upon me his eyes, | |
And said: "The temporal fire and the eternal, | |
Son, thou hast seen, and to a place art come | |
Where of myself no farther I discern. | |
By intellect and art I here have brought thee; | |
Take thine own pleasure for thy guide henceforth; | |
Beyond the steep ways and the narrow art thou. | |
Behold the sun, that shines upon thy forehead; | |
Behold the grass, the flowerets, and the shrubs | |
Which of itself alone this land produces. | |
Until rejoicing come the beauteous eyes | |
Which weeping caused me to come unto thee, | |
Thou canst sit down, and thou canst walk among them. | |
Expect no more or word or sign from me; | |
Free and upright and sound is thy free-will, | |
And error were it not to do its bidding; | |
Thee o'er thyself I therefore crown and mitre!" | |
Purgatorio: Canto XXVIII | |
Eager already to search in and round | |
The heavenly forest, dense and living-green, | |
Which tempered to the eyes the new-born day, | |
Withouten more delay I left the bank, | |
Taking the level country slowly, slowly | |
Over the soil that everywhere breathes fragrance. | |
A softly-breathing air, that no mutation | |
Had in itself, upon the forehead smote me | |
No heavier blow than of a gentle wind, | |
Whereat the branches, lightly tremulous, | |
Did all of them bow downward toward that side | |
Where its first shadow casts the Holy Mountain; | |
Yet not from their upright direction swayed, | |
So that the little birds upon their tops | |
Should leave the practice of each art of theirs; | |
But with full ravishment the hours of prime, | |
Singing, received they in the midst of leaves, | |
That ever bore a burden to their rhymes, | |
Such as from branch to branch goes gathering on | |
Through the pine forest on the shore of Chiassi, | |
When Eolus unlooses the Sirocco. | |
Already my slow steps had carried me | |
Into the ancient wood so far, that I | |
Could not perceive where I had entered it. | |
And lo! my further course a stream cut off, | |
Which tow'rd the left hand with its little waves | |
Bent down the grass that on its margin sprang. | |
All waters that on earth most limpid are | |
Would seem to have within themselves some mixture | |
Compared with that which nothing doth conceal, | |
Although it moves on with a brown, brown current | |
Under the shade perpetual, that never | |
Ray of the sun lets in, nor of the moon. | |
With feet I stayed, and with mine eyes I passed | |
Beyond the rivulet, to look upon | |
The great variety of the fresh may. | |
And there appeared to me (even as appears | |
Suddenly something that doth turn aside | |
Through very wonder every other thought) | |
A lady all alone, who went along | |
Singing and culling floweret after floweret, | |
With which her pathway was all painted over. | |
"Ah, beauteous lady, who in rays of love | |
Dost warm thyself, if I may trust to looks, | |
Which the heart's witnesses are wont to be, | |
May the desire come unto thee to draw | |
Near to this river's bank," I said to her, | |
"So much that I might hear what thou art singing. | |
Thou makest me remember where and what | |
Proserpina that moment was when lost | |
Her mother her, and she herself the Spring." | |
As turns herself, with feet together pressed | |
And to the ground, a lady who is dancing, | |
And hardly puts one foot before the other, | |
On the vermilion and the yellow flowerets | |
She turned towards me, not in other wise | |
Than maiden who her modest eyes casts down; | |
And my entreaties made to be content, | |
So near approaching, that the dulcet sound | |
Came unto me together with its meaning | |
As soon as she was where the grasses are. | |
Bathed by the waters of the beauteous river, | |
To lift her eyes she granted me the boon. | |
I do not think there shone so great a light | |
Under the lids of Venus, when transfixed | |
By her own son, beyond his usual custom! | |
Erect upon the other bank she smiled, | |
Bearing full many colours in her hands, | |
Which that high land produces without seed. | |
Apart three paces did the river make us; | |
But Hellespont, where Xerxes passed across, | |
(A curb still to all human arrogance,) | |
More hatred from Leander did not suffer | |
For rolling between Sestos and Abydos, | |
Than that from me, because it oped not then. | |
"Ye are new-comers; and because I smile," | |
Began she, "peradventure, in this place | |
Elect to human nature for its nest, | |
Some apprehension keeps you marvelling; | |
But the psalm 'Delectasti' giveth light | |
Which has the power to uncloud your intellect. | |
And thou who foremost art, and didst entreat me, | |
Speak, if thou wouldst hear more; for I came ready | |
To all thy questionings, as far as needful." | |
"The water," said I, "and the forest's sound, | |
Are combating within me my new faith | |
In something which I heard opposed to this." | |
Whence she: "I will relate how from its cause | |
Proceedeth that which maketh thee to wonder, | |
And purge away the cloud that smites upon thee. | |
The Good Supreme, sole in itself delighting, | |
Created man good, and this goodly place | |
Gave him as hansel of eternal peace. | |
By his default short while he sojourned here; | |
By his default to weeping and to toil | |
He changed his innocent laughter and sweet play. | |
That the disturbance which below is made | |
By exhalations of the land and water, | |
(Which far as may be follow after heat,) | |
Might not upon mankind wage any war, | |
This mount ascended tow'rds the heaven so high, | |
And is exempt, from there where it is locked. | |
Now since the universal atmosphere | |
Turns in a circuit with the primal motion | |
Unless the circle is broken on some side, | |
Upon this height, that all is disengaged | |
In living ether, doth this motion strike | |
And make the forest sound, for it is dense; | |
And so much power the stricken plant possesses | |
That with its virtue it impregns the air, | |
And this, revolving, scatters it around; | |
And yonder earth, according as 'tis worthy | |
In self or in its clime, conceives and bears | |
Of divers qualities the divers trees; | |
It should not seem a marvel then on earth, | |
This being heard, whenever any plant | |
Without seed manifest there taketh root. | |
And thou must know, this holy table-land | |
In which thou art is full of every seed, | |
And fruit has in it never gathered there. | |
The water which thou seest springs not from vein | |
Restored by vapour that the cold condenses, | |
Like to a stream that gains or loses breath; | |
But issues from a fountain safe and certain, | |
Which by the will of God as much regains | |
As it discharges, open on two sides. | |
Upon this side with virtue it descends, | |
Which takes away all memory of sin; | |
On that, of every good deed done restores it. | |
Here Lethe, as upon the other side | |
Eunoe, it is called; and worketh not | |
If first on either side it be not tasted. | |
This every other savour doth transcend; | |
And notwithstanding slaked so far may be | |
Thy thirst, that I reveal to thee no more, | |
I'll give thee a corollary still in grace, | |
Nor think my speech will be to thee less dear | |
If it spread out beyond my promise to thee. | |
Those who in ancient times have feigned in song | |
The Age of Gold and its felicity, | |
Dreamed of this place perhaps upon Parnassus. | |
Here was the human race in innocence; | |
Here evermore was Spring, and every fruit; | |
This is the nectar of which each one speaks." | |
Then backward did I turn me wholly round | |
Unto my Poets, and saw that with a smile | |
They had been listening to these closing words; | |
Then to the beautiful lady turned mine eyes. | |
Purgatorio: Canto XXIX | |
Singing like unto an enamoured lady | |
She, with the ending of her words, continued: | |
"Beati quorum tecta sunt peccata." | |
And even as Nymphs, that wandered all alone | |
Among the sylvan shadows, sedulous | |
One to avoid and one to see the sun, | |
She then against the stream moved onward, going | |
Along the bank, and I abreast of her, | |
Her little steps with little steps attending. | |
Between her steps and mine were not a hundred, | |
When equally the margins gave a turn, | |
In such a way, that to the East I faced. | |
Nor even thus our way continued far | |
Before the lady wholly turned herself | |
Unto me, saying, "Brother, look and listen!" | |
And lo! a sudden lustre ran across | |
On every side athwart the spacious forest, | |
Such that it made me doubt if it were lightning. | |
But since the lightning ceases as it comes, | |
And that continuing brightened more and more, | |
Within my thought I said, "What thing is this?" | |
And a delicious melody there ran | |
Along the luminous air, whence holy zeal | |
Made me rebuke the hardihood of Eve; | |
For there where earth and heaven obedient were, | |
The woman only, and but just created, | |
Could not endure to stay 'neath any veil; | |
Underneath which had she devoutly stayed, | |
I sooner should have tasted those delights | |
Ineffable, and for a longer time. | |
While 'mid such manifold first-fruits I walked | |
Of the eternal pleasure all enrapt, | |
And still solicitous of more delights, | |
In front of us like an enkindled fire | |
Became the air beneath the verdant boughs, | |
And the sweet sound as singing now was heard. | |
O Virgins sacrosanct! if ever hunger, | |
Vigils, or cold for you I have endured, | |
The occasion spurs me their reward to claim! | |
Now Helicon must needs pour forth for me, | |
And with her choir Urania must assist me, | |
To put in verse things difficult to think. | |
A little farther on, seven trees of gold | |
In semblance the long space still intervening | |
Between ourselves and them did counterfeit; | |
But when I had approached so near to them | |
The common object, which the sense deceives, | |
Lost not by distance any of its marks, | |
The faculty that lends discourse to reason | |
Did apprehend that they were candlesticks, | |
And in the voices of the song "Hosanna!" | |
Above them flamed the harness beautiful, | |
Far brighter than the moon in the serene | |
Of midnight, at the middle of her month. | |
I turned me round, with admiration filled, | |
To good Virgilius, and he answered me | |
With visage no less full of wonderment. | |
Then back I turned my face to those high things, | |
Which moved themselves towards us so sedately, | |
They had been distanced by new-wedded brides. | |
The lady chid me: "Why dost thou burn only | |
So with affection for the living lights, | |
And dost not look at what comes after them?" | |
Then saw I people, as behind their leaders, | |
Coming behind them, garmented in white, | |
And such a whiteness never was on earth. | |
The water on my left flank was resplendent, | |
And back to me reflected my left side, | |
E'en as a mirror, if I looked therein. | |
When I upon my margin had such post | |
That nothing but the stream divided us, | |
Better to see I gave my steps repose; | |
And I beheld the flamelets onward go, | |
Leaving behind themselves the air depicted, | |
And they of trailing pennons had the semblance, | |
So that it overhead remained distinct | |
With sevenfold lists, all of them of the colours | |
Whence the sun's bow is made, and Delia's girdle. | |
These standards to the rearward longer were | |
Than was my sight; and, as it seemed to me, | |
Ten paces were the outermost apart. | |
Under so fair a heaven as I describe | |
The four and twenty Elders, two by two, | |
Came on incoronate with flower-de-luce. | |
They all of them were singing: "Blessed thou | |
Among the daughters of Adam art, and blessed | |
For evermore shall be thy loveliness." | |
After the flowers and other tender grasses | |
In front of me upon the other margin | |
Were disencumbered of that race elect, | |
Even as in heaven star followeth after star, | |
There came close after them four animals, | |
Incoronate each one with verdant leaf. | |
Plumed with six wings was every one of them, | |
The plumage full of eyes; the eyes of Argus | |
If they were living would be such as these. | |
Reader! to trace their forms no more I waste | |
My rhymes; for other spendings press me so, | |
That I in this cannot be prodigal. | |
But read Ezekiel, who depicteth them | |
As he beheld them from the region cold | |
Coming with cloud, with whirlwind, and with fire; | |
And such as thou shalt find them in his pages, | |
Such were they here; saving that in their plumage | |
John is with me, and differeth from him. | |
The interval between these four contained | |
A chariot triumphal on two wheels, | |
Which by a Griffin's neck came drawn along; | |
And upward he extended both his wings | |
Between the middle list and three and three, | |
So that he injured none by cleaving it. | |
So high they rose that they were lost to sight; | |
His limbs were gold, so far as he was bird, | |
And white the others with vermilion mingled. | |
Not only Rome with no such splendid car | |
E'er gladdened Africanus, or Augustus, | |
But poor to it that of the Sun would be,-- | |
That of the Sun, which swerving was burnt up | |
At the importunate orison of Earth, | |
When Jove was so mysteriously just. | |
Three maidens at the right wheel in a circle | |
Came onward dancing; one so very red | |
That in the fire she hardly had been noted. | |
The second was as if her flesh and bones | |
Had all been fashioned out of emerald; | |
The third appeared as snow but newly fallen. | |
And now they seemed conducted by the white, | |
Now by the red, and from the song of her | |
The others took their step, or slow or swift. | |
Upon the left hand four made holiday | |
Vested in purple, following the measure | |
Of one of them with three eyes m her head. | |
In rear of all the group here treated of | |
Two old men I beheld, unlike in habit, | |
But like in gait, each dignified and grave. | |
One showed himself as one of the disciples | |
Of that supreme Hippocrates, whom nature | |
Made for the animals she holds most dear; | |
Contrary care the other manifested, | |
With sword so shining and so sharp, it caused | |
Terror to me on this side of the river. | |
Thereafter four I saw of humble aspect, | |
And behind all an aged man alone | |
Walking in sleep with countenance acute. | |
And like the foremost company these seven | |
Were habited; yet of the flower-de-luce | |
No garland round about the head they wore, | |
But of the rose, and other flowers vermilion; | |
At little distance would the sight have sworn | |
That all were in a flame above their brows. | |
And when the car was opposite to me | |
Thunder was heard; and all that folk august | |
Seemed to have further progress interdicted, | |
There with the vanward ensigns standing still. | |
Purgatorio: Canto XXX | |
When the Septentrion of the highest heaven | |
(Which never either setting knew or rising, | |
Nor veil of other cloud than that of sin, | |
And which made every one therein aware | |
Of his own duty, as the lower makes | |
Whoever turns the helm to come to port) | |
Motionless halted, the veracious people, | |
That came at first between it and the Griffin, | |
Turned themselves to the car, as to their peace. | |
And one of them, as if by Heaven commissioned, | |
Singing, "Veni, sponsa, de Libano" | |
Shouted three times, and all the others after. | |
Even as the Blessed at the final summons | |
Shall rise up quickened each one from his cavern, | |
Uplifting light the reinvested flesh, | |
So upon that celestial chariot | |
A hundred rose 'ad vocem tanti senis,' | |
Ministers and messengers of life eternal. | |
They all were saying, "Benedictus qui venis," | |
And, scattering flowers above and round about, | |
"Manibus o date lilia plenis." | |
Ere now have I beheld, as day began, | |
The eastern hemisphere all tinged with rose, | |
And the other heaven with fair serene adorned; | |
And the sun's face, uprising, overshadowed | |
So that by tempering influence of vapours | |
For a long interval the eye sustained it; | |
Thus in the bosom of a cloud of flowers | |
Which from those hands angelical ascended, | |
And downward fell again inside and out, | |
Over her snow-white veil with olive cinct | |
Appeared a lady under a green mantle, | |
Vested in colour of the living flame. | |
And my own spirit, that already now | |
So long a time had been, that in her presence | |
Trembling with awe it had not stood abashed, | |
Without more knowledge having by mine eyes, | |
Through occult virtue that from her proceeded | |
Of ancient love the mighty influence felt. | |
As soon as on my vision smote the power | |
Sublime, that had already pierced me through | |
Ere from my boyhood I had yet come forth, | |
To the left hand I turned with that reliance | |
With which the little child runs to his mother, | |
When he has fear, or when he is afflicted, | |
To say unto Virgilius: "Not a drachm | |
Of blood remains in me, that does not tremble; | |
I know the traces of the ancient flame." | |
But us Virgilius of himself deprived | |
Had left, Virgilius, sweetest of all fathers, | |
Virgilius, to whom I for safety gave me: | |
Nor whatsoever lost the ancient mother | |
Availed my cheeks now purified from dew, | |
That weeping they should not again be darkened. | |
"Dante, because Virgilius has departed | |
Do not weep yet, do not weep yet awhile; | |
For by another sword thou need'st must weep." | |
E'en as an admiral, who on poop and prow | |
Comes to behold the people that are working | |
In other ships, and cheers them to well-doing, | |
Upon the left hand border of the car, | |
When at the sound I turned of my own name, | |
Which of necessity is here recorded, | |
I saw the Lady, who erewhile appeared | |
Veiled underneath the angelic festival, | |
Direct her eyes to me across the river. | |
Although the veil, that from her head descended, | |
Encircled with the foliage of Minerva, | |
Did not permit her to appear distinctly, | |
In attitude still royally majestic | |
Continued she, like unto one who speaks, | |
And keeps his warmest utterance in reserve: | |
"Look at me well; in sooth I'm Beatrice! | |
How didst thou deign to come unto the Mountain? | |
Didst thou not know that man is happy here?" | |
Mine eyes fell downward into the clear fountain, | |
But, seeing myself therein, I sought the grass, | |
So great a shame did weigh my forehead down. | |
As to the son the mother seems superb, | |
So she appeared to me; for somewhat bitter | |
Tasteth the savour of severe compassion. | |
Silent became she, and the Angels sang | |
Suddenly, "In te, Domine, speravi:" | |
But beyond 'pedes meos' did not pass. | |
Even as the snow among the living rafters | |
Upon the back of Italy congeals, | |
Blown on and drifted by Sclavonian winds, | |
And then, dissolving, trickles through itself | |
Whene'er the land that loses shadow breathes, | |
So that it seems a fire that melts a taper; | |
E'en thus was I without a tear or sigh, | |
Before the song of those who sing for ever | |
After the music of the eternal spheres. | |
But when I heard in their sweet melodies | |
Compassion for me, more than had they said, | |
"O wherefore, lady, dost thou thus upbraid him?" | |
The ice, that was about my heart congealed, | |
To air and water changed, and in my anguish | |
Through mouth and eyes came gushing from my breast. | |
She, on the right-hand border of the car | |
Still firmly standing, to those holy beings | |
Thus her discourse directed afterwards: | |
"Ye keep your watch in the eternal day, | |
So that nor night nor sleep can steal from you | |
One step the ages make upon their path; | |
Therefore my answer is with greater care, | |
That he may hear me who is weeping yonder, | |
So that the sin and dole be of one measure. | |
Not only by the work of those great wheels, | |
That destine every seed unto some end, | |
According as the stars are in conjunction, | |
But by the largess of celestial graces, | |
Which have such lofty vapours for their rain | |
That near to them our sight approaches not, | |
Such had this man become in his new life | |
Potentially, that every righteous habit | |
Would have made admirable proof in him; | |
But so much more malignant and more savage | |
Becomes the land untilled and with bad seed, | |
The more good earthly vigour it possesses. | |
Some time did I sustain him with my look; | |
Revealing unto him my youthful eyes, | |
I led him with me turned in the right way. | |
As soon as ever of my second age | |
I was upon the threshold and changed life, | |
Himself from me he took and gave to others. | |
When from the flesh to spirit I ascended, | |
And beauty and virtue were in me increased, | |
I was to him less dear and less delightful; | |
And into ways untrue he turned his steps, | |
Pursuing the false images of good, | |
That never any promises fulfil; | |
Nor prayer for inspiration me availed, | |
By means of which in dreams and otherwise | |
I called him back, so little did he heed them. | |
So low he fell, that all appliances | |
For his salvation were already short, | |
Save showing him the people of perdition. | |
For this I visited the gates of death, | |
And unto him, who so far up has led him, | |
My intercessions were with weeping borne. | |
God's lofty fiat would be violated, | |
If Lethe should be passed, and if such viands | |
Should tasted be, withouten any scot | |
Of penitence, that gushes forth in tears." | |
Purgatorio: Canto XXXI | |
"O thou who art beyond the sacred river," | |
Turning to me the point of her discourse, | |
That edgewise even had seemed to me so keen, | |
She recommenced, continuing without pause, | |
"Say, say if this be true; to such a charge, | |
Thy own confession needs must be conjoined." | |
My faculties were in so great confusion, | |
That the voice moved, but sooner was extinct | |
Than by its organs it was set at large. | |
Awhile she waited; then she said: "What thinkest? | |
Answer me; for the mournful memories | |
In thee not yet are by the waters injured." | |
Confusion and dismay together mingled | |
Forced such a Yes! from out my mouth, that sight | |
Was needful to the understanding of it. | |
Even as a cross-bow breaks, when 'tis discharged | |
Too tensely drawn the bowstring and the bow, | |
And with less force the arrow hits the mark, | |
So I gave way beneath that heavy burden, | |
Outpouring in a torrent tears and sighs, | |
And the voice flagged upon its passage forth. | |
Whence she to me: "In those desires of mine | |
Which led thee to the loving of that good, | |
Beyond which there is nothing to aspire to, | |
What trenches lying traverse or what chains | |
Didst thou discover, that of passing onward | |
Thou shouldst have thus despoiled thee of the hope? | |
And what allurements or what vantages | |
Upon the forehead of the others showed, | |
That thou shouldst turn thy footsteps unto them?" | |
After the heaving of a bitter sigh, | |
Hardly had I the voice to make response, | |
And with fatigue my lips did fashion it. | |
Weeping I said: "The things that present were | |
With their false pleasure turned aside my steps, | |
Soon as your countenance concealed itself." | |
And she: "Shouldst thou be silent, or deny | |
What thou confessest, not less manifest | |
Would be thy fault, by such a Judge 'tis known. | |
But when from one's own cheeks comes bursting forth | |
The accusal of the sin, in our tribunal | |
Against the edge the wheel doth turn itself. | |
But still, that thou mayst feel a greater shame | |
For thy transgression, and another time | |
Hearing the Sirens thou mayst be more strong, | |
Cast down the seed of weeping and attend; | |
So shalt thou hear, how in an opposite way | |
My buried flesh should have directed thee. | |
Never to thee presented art or nature | |
Pleasure so great as the fair limbs wherein | |
I was enclosed, which scattered are in earth. | |
And if the highest pleasure thus did fail thee | |
By reason of my death, what mortal thing | |
Should then have drawn thee into its desire? | |
Thou oughtest verily at the first shaft | |
Of things fallacious to have risen up | |
To follow me, who was no longer such. | |
Thou oughtest not to have stooped thy pinions downward | |
To wait for further blows, or little girl, | |
Or other vanity of such brief use. | |
The callow birdlet waits for two or three, | |
But to the eyes of those already fledged, | |
In vain the net is spread or shaft is shot." | |
Even as children silent in their shame | |
Stand listening with their eyes upon the ground, | |
And conscious of their fault, and penitent; | |
So was I standing; and she said: "If thou | |
In hearing sufferest pain, lift up thy beard | |
And thou shalt feel a greater pain in seeing." | |
With less resistance is a robust holm | |
Uprooted, either by a native wind | |
Or else by that from regions of Iarbas, | |
Than I upraised at her command my chin; | |
And when she by the beard the face demanded, | |
Well I perceived the venom of her meaning. | |
And as my countenance was lifted up, | |
Mine eye perceived those creatures beautiful | |
Had rested from the strewing of the flowers; | |
And, still but little reassured, mine eyes | |
Saw Beatrice turned round towards the monster, | |
That is one person only in two natures. | |
Beneath her veil, beyond the margent green, | |
She seemed to me far more her ancient self | |
To excel, than others here, when she was here. | |
So pricked me then the thorn of penitence, | |
That of all other things the one which turned me | |
Most to its love became the most my foe. | |
Such self-conviction stung me at the heart | |
O'erpowered I fell, and what I then became | |
She knoweth who had furnished me the cause. | |
Then, when the heart restored my outward sense, | |
The lady I had found alone, above me | |
I saw, and she was saying, "Hold me, hold me." | |
Up to my throat she in the stream had drawn me, | |
And, dragging me behind her, she was moving | |
Upon the water lightly as a shuttle. | |
When I was near unto the blessed shore, | |
"Asperges me," I heard so sweetly sung, | |
Remember it I cannot, much less write it. | |
The beautiful lady opened wide her arms, | |
Embraced my head, and plunged me underneath, | |
Where I was forced to swallow of the water. | |
Then forth she drew me, and all dripping brought | |
Into the dance of the four beautiful, | |
And each one with her arm did cover me. | |
'We here are Nymphs, and in the Heaven are stars; | |
Ere Beatrice descended to the world, | |
We as her handmaids were appointed her. | |
We'll lead thee to her eyes; but for the pleasant | |
Light that within them is, shall sharpen thine | |
The three beyond, who more profoundly look.' | |
Thus singing they began; and afterwards | |
Unto the Griffin's breast they led me with them, | |
Where Beatrice was standing, turned towards us. | |
"See that thou dost not spare thine eyes," they said; | |
"Before the emeralds have we stationed thee, | |
Whence Love aforetime drew for thee his weapons." | |
A thousand longings, hotter than the flame, | |
Fastened mine eyes upon those eyes relucent, | |
That still upon the Griffin steadfast stayed. | |
As in a glass the sun, not otherwise | |
Within them was the twofold monster shining, | |
Now with the one, now with the other nature. | |
Think, Reader, if within myself I marvelled, | |
When I beheld the thing itself stand still, | |
And in its image it transformed itself. | |
While with amazement filled and jubilant, | |
My soul was tasting of the food, that while | |
It satisfies us makes us hunger for it, | |
Themselves revealing of the highest rank | |
In bearing, did the other three advance, | |
Singing to their angelic saraband. | |
"Turn, Beatrice, O turn thy holy eyes," | |
Such was their song, "unto thy faithful one, | |
Who has to see thee ta'en so many steps. | |
In grace do us the grace that thou unveil | |
Thy face to him, so that he may discern | |
The second beauty which thou dost conceal." | |
O splendour of the living light eternal! | |
Who underneath the shadow of Parnassus | |
Has grown so pale, or drunk so at its cistern, | |
He would not seem to have his mind encumbered | |
Striving to paint thee as thou didst appear, | |
Where the harmonious heaven o'ershadowed thee, | |
When in the open air thou didst unveil? | |
Purgatorio: Canto XXXII | |
So steadfast and attentive were mine eyes | |
In satisfying their decennial thirst, | |
That all my other senses were extinct, | |
And upon this side and on that they had | |
Walls of indifference, so the holy smile | |
Drew them unto itself with the old net | |
When forcibly my sight was turned away | |
Towards my left hand by those goddesses, | |
Because I heard from them a "Too intently!" | |
And that condition of the sight which is | |
In eyes but lately smitten by the sun | |
Bereft me of my vision some short while; | |
But to the less when sight re-shaped itself, | |
I say the less in reference to the greater | |
Splendour from which perforce I had withdrawn, | |
I saw upon its right wing wheeled about | |
The glorious host returning with the sun | |
And with the sevenfold flames upon their faces. | |
As underneath its shields, to save itself, | |
A squadron turns, and with its banner wheels, | |
Before the whole thereof can change its front, | |
That soldiery of the celestial kingdom | |
Which marched in the advance had wholly passed us | |
Before the chariot had turned its pole. | |
Then to the wheels the maidens turned themselves, | |
And the Griffin moved his burden benedight, | |
But so that not a feather of him fluttered. | |
The lady fair who drew me through the ford | |
Followed with Statius and myself the wheel | |
Which made its orbit with the lesser arc. | |
So passing through the lofty forest, vacant | |
By fault of her who in the serpent trusted, | |
Angelic music made our steps keep time. | |
Perchance as great a space had in three flights | |
An arrow loosened from the string o'erpassed, | |
As we had moved when Beatrice descended. | |
I heard them murmur altogether, "Adam!" | |
Then circled they about a tree despoiled | |
Of blooms and other leafage on each bough. | |
Its tresses, which so much the more dilate | |
As higher they ascend, had been by Indians | |
Among their forests marvelled at for height. | |
"Blessed art thou, O Griffin, who dost not | |
Pluck with thy beak these branches sweet to taste, | |
Since appetite by this was turned to evil." | |
After this fashion round the tree robust | |
The others shouted; and the twofold creature: | |
"Thus is preserved the seed of all the just." | |
And turning to the pole which he had dragged, | |
He drew it close beneath the widowed bough, | |
And what was of it unto it left bound. | |
In the same manner as our trees (when downward | |
Falls the great light, with that together mingled | |
Which after the celestial Lasca shines) | |
Begin to swell, and then renew themselves, | |
Each one with its own colour, ere the Sun | |
Harness his steeds beneath another star: | |
Less than of rose and more than violet | |
A hue disclosing, was renewed the tree | |
That had erewhile its boughs so desolate. | |
I never heard, nor here below is sung, | |
The hymn which afterward that people sang, | |
Nor did I bear the melody throughout. | |
Had I the power to paint how fell asleep | |
Those eyes compassionless, of Syrinx hearing, | |
Those eyes to which more watching cost so dear, | |
Even as a painter who from model paints | |
I would portray how I was lulled asleep; | |
He may, who well can picture drowsihood. | |
Therefore I pass to what time I awoke, | |
And say a splendour rent from me the veil | |
Of slumber, and a calling: "Rise, what dost thou?" | |
As to behold the apple-tree in blossom | |
Which makes the Angels greedy for its fruit, | |
And keeps perpetual bridals in the Heaven, | |
Peter and John and James conducted were, | |
And, overcome, recovered at the word | |
By which still greater slumbers have been broken, | |
And saw their school diminished by the loss | |
Not only of Elias, but of Moses, | |
And the apparel of their Master changed; | |
So I revived, and saw that piteous one | |
Above me standing, who had been conductress | |
Aforetime of my steps beside the river, | |
And all in doubt I said, "Where's Beatrice?" | |
And she: "Behold her seated underneath | |
The leafage new, upon the root of it. | |
Behold the company that circles her; | |
The rest behind the Griffin are ascending | |
With more melodious song, and more profound." | |
And if her speech were more diffuse I know not, | |
Because already in my sight was she | |
Who from the hearing of aught else had shut me. | |
Alone she sat upon the very earth, | |
Left there as guardian of the chariot | |
Which I had seen the biform monster fasten. | |
Encircling her, a cloister made themselves | |
The seven Nymphs, with those lights in their hands | |
Which are secure from Aquilon and Auster. | |
"Short while shalt thou be here a forester, | |
And thou shalt be with me for evermore | |
A citizen of that Rome where Christ is Roman. | |
Therefore, for that world's good which liveth ill, | |
Fix on the car thine eyes, and what thou seest, | |
Having returned to earth, take heed thou write." | |
Thus Beatrice; and I, who at the feet | |
Of her commandments all devoted was, | |
My mind and eyes directed where she willed. | |
Never descended with so swift a motion | |
Fire from a heavy cloud, when it is raining | |
From out the region which is most remote, | |
As I beheld the bird of Jove descend | |
Down through the tree, rending away the bark, | |
As well as blossoms and the foliage new, | |
And he with all his might the chariot smote, | |
Whereat it reeled, like vessel in a tempest | |
Tossed by the waves, now starboard and now larboard. | |
Thereafter saw I leap into the body | |
Of the triumphal vehicle a Fox, | |
That seemed unfed with any wholesome food. | |
But for his hideous sins upbraiding him, | |
My Lady put him to as swift a flight | |
As such a fleshless skeleton could bear. | |
Then by the way that it before had come, | |
Into the chariot's chest I saw the Eagle | |
Descend, and leave it feathered with his plumes. | |
And such as issues from a heart that mourns, | |
A voice from Heaven there issued, and it said: | |
"My little bark, how badly art thou freighted!" | |
Methought, then, that the earth did yawn between | |
Both wheels, and I saw rise from it a Dragon, | |
Who through the chariot upward fixed his tail, | |
And as a wasp that draweth back its sting, | |
Drawing unto himself his tail malign, | |
Drew out the floor, and went his way rejoicing. | |
That which remained behind, even as with grass | |
A fertile region, with the feathers, offered | |
Perhaps with pure intention and benign, | |
Reclothed itself, and with them were reclothed | |
The pole and both the wheels so speedily, | |
A sigh doth longer keep the lips apart. | |
Transfigured thus the holy edifice | |
Thrust forward heads upon the parts of it, | |
Three on the pole and one at either corner. | |
The first were horned like oxen; but the four | |
Had but a single horn upon the forehead; | |
A monster such had never yet been seen! | |
Firm as a rock upon a mountain high, | |
Seated upon it, there appeared to me | |
A shameless whore, with eyes swift glancing round, | |
And, as if not to have her taken from him, | |
Upright beside her I beheld a giant; | |
And ever and anon they kissed each other. | |
But because she her wanton, roving eye | |
Turned upon me, her angry paramour | |
Did scourge her from her head unto her feet. | |
Then full of jealousy, and fierce with wrath, | |
He loosed the monster, and across the forest | |
Dragged it so far, he made of that alone | |
A shield unto the whore and the strange beast. | |
Purgatorio: Canto XXXIII | |
"Deus venerunt gentes," alternating | |
Now three, now four, melodious psalmody | |
The maidens in the midst of tears began; | |
And Beatrice, compassionate and sighing, | |
Listened to them with such a countenance, | |
That scarce more changed was Mary at the cross. | |
But when the other virgins place had given | |
For her to speak, uprisen to her feet | |
With colour as of fire, she made response: | |
"'Modicum, et non videbitis me; | |
Et iterum,' my sisters predilect, | |
'Modicum, et vos videbitis me.'" | |
Then all the seven in front of her she placed; | |
And after her, by beckoning only, moved | |
Me and the lady and the sage who stayed. | |
So she moved onward; and I do not think | |
That her tenth step was placed upon the ground, | |
When with her eyes upon mine eyes she smote, | |
And with a tranquil aspect, "Come more quickly," | |
To me she said, "that, if I speak with thee, | |
To listen to me thou mayst be well placed." | |
As soon as I was with her as I should be, | |
She said to me: "Why, brother, dost thou not | |
Venture to question now, in coming with me?" | |
As unto those who are too reverential, | |
Speaking in presence of superiors, | |
Who drag no living utterance to their teeth, | |
It me befell, that without perfect sound | |
Began I: "My necessity, Madonna, | |
You know, and that which thereunto is good." | |
And she to me: "Of fear and bashfulness | |
Henceforward I will have thee strip thyself, | |
So that thou speak no more as one who dreams. | |
Know that the vessel which the serpent broke | |
Was, and is not; but let him who is guilty | |
Think that God's vengeance does not fear a sop. | |
Without an heir shall not for ever be | |
The Eagle that left his plumes upon the car, | |
Whence it became a monster, then a prey; | |
For verily I see, and hence narrate it, | |
The stars already near to bring the time, | |
From every hindrance safe, and every bar, | |
Within which a Five-hundred, Ten, and Five, | |
One sent from God, shall slay the thievish woman | |
And that same giant who is sinning with her. | |
And peradventure my dark utterance, | |
Like Themis and the Sphinx, may less persuade thee, | |
Since, in their mode, it clouds the intellect; | |
But soon the facts shall be the Naiades | |
Who shall this difficult enigma solve, | |
Without destruction of the flocks and harvests. | |
Note thou; and even as by me are uttered | |
These words, so teach them unto those who live | |
That life which is a running unto death; | |
And bear in mind, whene'er thou writest them, | |
Not to conceal what thou hast seen the plant, | |
That twice already has been pillaged here. | |
Whoever pillages or shatters it, | |
With blasphemy of deed offendeth God, | |
Who made it holy for his use alone. | |
For biting that, in pain and in desire | |
Five thousand years and more the first-born soul | |
Craved Him, who punished in himself the bite. | |
Thy genius slumbers, if it deem it not | |
For special reason so pre-eminent | |
In height, and so inverted in its summit. | |
And if thy vain imaginings had not been | |
Water of Elsa round about thy mind, | |
And Pyramus to the mulberry, their pleasure, | |
Thou by so many circumstances only | |
The justice of the interdict of God | |
Morally in the tree wouldst recognize. | |
But since I see thee in thine intellect | |
Converted into stone and stained with sin, | |
So that the light of my discourse doth daze thee, | |
I will too, if not written, at least painted, | |
Thou bear it back within thee, for the reason | |
That cinct with palm the pilgrim's staff is borne." | |
And I: "As by a signet is the wax | |
Which does not change the figure stamped upon it, | |
My brain is now imprinted by yourself. | |
But wherefore so beyond my power of sight | |
Soars your desirable discourse, that aye | |
The more I strive, so much the more I lose it?" | |
"That thou mayst recognize," she said, "the school | |
Which thou hast followed, and mayst see how far | |
Its doctrine follows after my discourse, | |
And mayst behold your path from the divine | |
Distant as far as separated is | |
From earth the heaven that highest hastens on." | |
Whence her I answered: "I do not remember | |
That ever I estranged myself from you, | |
Nor have I conscience of it that reproves me." | |
"And if thou art not able to remember," | |
Smiling she answered, "recollect thee now | |
That thou this very day hast drunk of Lethe; | |
And if from smoke a fire may be inferred, | |
Such an oblivion clearly demonstrates | |
Some error in thy will elsewhere intent. | |
Truly from this time forward shall my words | |
Be naked, so far as it is befitting | |
To lay them open unto thy rude gaze." | |
And more coruscant and with slower steps | |
The sun was holding the meridian circle, | |
Which, with the point of view, shifts here and there | |
When halted (as he cometh to a halt, | |
Who goes before a squadron as its escort, | |
If something new he find upon his way) | |
The ladies seven at a dark shadow's edge, | |
Such as, beneath green leaves and branches black, | |
The Alp upon its frigid border wears. | |
In front of them the Tigris and Euphrates | |
Methought I saw forth issue from one fountain, | |
And slowly part, like friends, from one another. | |
"O light, O glory of the human race! | |
What stream is this which here unfolds itself | |
From out one source, and from itself withdraws?" | |
For such a prayer, 'twas said unto me, "Pray | |
Matilda that she tell thee;" and here answered, | |
As one does who doth free himself from blame, | |
The beautiful lady: "This and other things | |
Were told to him by me; and sure I am | |
The water of Lethe has not hid them from him." | |
And Beatrice: "Perhaps a greater care, | |
Which oftentimes our memory takes away, | |
Has made the vision of his mind obscure. | |
But Eunoe behold, that yonder rises; | |
Lead him to it, and, as thou art accustomed, | |
Revive again the half-dead virtue in him." | |
Like gentle soul, that maketh no excuse, | |
But makes its own will of another's will | |
As soon as by a sign it is disclosed, | |
Even so, when she had taken hold of me, | |
The beautiful lady moved, and unto Statius | |
Said, in her womanly manner, "Come with him." | |
If, Reader, I possessed a longer space | |
For writing it, I yet would sing in part | |
Of the sweet draught that ne'er would satiate me; | |
But inasmuch as full are all the leaves | |
Made ready for this second canticle, | |
The curb of art no farther lets me go. | |
From the most holy water I returned | |
Regenerate, in the manner of new trees | |
That are renewed with a new foliage, | |
Pure and disposed to mount unto the stars. | |
End of The Project Gutenberg Etext of Dante's Purgatory [Divine Comedy] | |
as translanted by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow | |