Purgatorio — Part 2

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 slope

Your realm, that from itself discharges him."

Purgatorio: Canto XXIV

Nor speech the going, nor the going that

Slackened; but talking we went bravely on,

Even as a vessel urged by a good wind.

And shadows, that appeared things doubly dead,

From out the sepulchres of their eyes betrayed

Wonder at me, aware that I was living.

And I, continuing my colloquy,

Said: "Peradventure he goes up more slowly

Than he would do, for other people's sake.

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.