Part 6
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.