Inside Front Cover: Mr Sydney Fowler Wright's metrical version of Dante's Inferno received high praise when it was published in 1928. His Purgatorio is written on the same plan, and presents what to many is the most attractive part of the Divine Comedy in the form of a readable English poem.
Besides being a poet of some distinction, Mr. Fowler Wright has also an established reputation as a novelist, biographer and essayist, and his stories of the Mildew gang, published under the name of Sydney Fowler, will be familiar to many readers.
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IT is now twenty-five years since I published a translation of the Inferno, which was received with at least as much favour as it deserved, and has long been out of print. The present translation of the Purgatorio was made at the same time and on the same principles, as was also the Paradiso, which I hope may yet be published. Meantime, for the benefit of such readers as do not know my Inferno, I repeat below part of the original preface which sufficiently explains what I have tried to do.
There are at least three obstacles to an English translation of Dante which shall be at once worthy and popular. First of all there is the initial and almost insuperable difficulty of translating poetry of any kind from or into any language whatsoever. Second, there is a special obstacle arising from the form in which the Divine Comedy was composed, hendecasyllabic terza rima, which cannot be successfully imitated in English. Third, there is the fact that a student of Dante is confronted by such a massed accretion of commentary that his approach to the poem is almost forced toward the pedantic rather than the poetic. Here I am tempted to say that my first qualification for this undertaking is that, while I have some knowledge of European poetry, and some practice in its composition, I make no claim whatever to Italian scholarship.
I conclude that Dante would certainly not have selected for an English poem the terza rima in which the Divine Comedy is written, but that he would, with equal certainty, have selected the decasyllabic line, which is the finest and most flexible of which our language is capable. This line can be used with equal success for blank and for rhymed verse. My decision (which must be justified, if at all, by the result) was to use it, introducing rhyme with an irregular freedom, but to endeavour to reach a quality of verse which would be so far independent of this subordinate feature that its irregularity, or even occasional absence, would be unobtrusive to the reader's mind.
Having selected a form in which I hoped to be able to move with sufficient freedom, and which, in English, is best adapted to the spirit of the poem, I had to face the larger questions of formal and spiritual fidelity. In regard to these I recognize two primary obligations: first, I regard it as inexcusable to introduce any word or phrase which discolours the meaning of the original, or deviates widely from it; second, I am bound to present the substance of the poem with such verbal beauty as I am capable of constructing, even though an adjective be omitted or added in the process, or some non-essential order of narration be changed to obtain it. This last freedom of rendering is not merely a translator's right, it is a clear duty, because the directness and vigour of the original cannot be reproduced by any verbal literality, and it is of the first importance that he inspire the poem with a new vitality.
My own approach having been poetic rather than pedantic, I have concerned myself very little with the subtleties of disputed words unless some fundamental question of spiritual interpretation be dependent thereon. Since notes and references are so freely available in many excellent editions and commentaries, I have not included any explanatory matter.
Some knowledge of the conditions of Europe, social, political, and intellectual, as Dante knew them, some knowledge of the corruptions of Church and State, and of the civil discords which distracted his native Florence, and prevailed in most of the cities of Northern Italy, may be essential to an understanding of the poem; a more detailed knowledge will add greatly to the enjoyment of many passages in it; but, finally, the Divine Comedy must stand or fall by its internal vitality, and it may gain more than it loses by being presented independently of the almost unbelievable accretions of disputation and commentary which have been piled upon it.
The cosmographical idea on which the poem is founded is extremely simple. The earth is a fixed point in the centre of the Universe. The northern hemisphere is inhabited by the race of Adam. Purgatory is an isolated mountain in the seas of the southern hemisphere, which was unexplored at the time at which the poem was written. The seven Heavens extended, one beyond the other, above the earth on every side, the seventh being infinite in extent. Hell is a central core of evil in the earth's interior.
Metaphorically, Dante represents himself as being entangled in the corruption of Florentine politics, and restrained from their temptations by his love of literature (Virgil) and by his memory of Beatrice, by which influences he is led through and out of this central Hell to the ultimate Heaven.
It would be absurd to suppose that Dante believed in this Hell of his imagination as a physical fact. It would have been contrary to the logic of this intellect to suppose that he could discover its locality, or that of a material Purgatory, by his own intuition; nor, had he intended his readers to regard it otherwise than allegorically, would he have peopled it with fabled monsters such as Minos, Cerberus. and the Minotaur; or with demons of Persian, and centaurs of Greek, mythology.
He drew widely and impartially from every source of human imagination. He faced the mystery of evil without flinching. He saw that good and evil are inevitable and everlasting, as long as life be free-willed and finite and recognizing this, he asserted confidently the divine supremacy of love, and its continual conquest, so that the whole conception becomes one magnificent metaphor of the preponderance of good and its eternal triumph, the residuum of evil being continually chased down and pressed into its central core, while the surrounding Heavens extend upwards, each of a larger orbit, and of a greater holiness than the one below, till the ultimate bliss of the seventh Heaven extends into infinity, so that even the vast extent of the six Heavens below is a triviality in comparison.
It has been said that the latter parts of the poem are of less general interest than the first, the Purgatorio being encumbered with a dead philosophy, and the Paradiso rendered monotonous by the fact that Dante had nothing but light and colour with which to build the Heavens of his imagination.
I venture to challenge these opinions. To me, the power and the imagination of the poem rise as it proceeds. I hope to have justified this assertion; and, should I have failed, should still hold that the fault is mine, and not that of the greater poet.
Certainly, he would not himself have given the place of honour to the Inferno, and if we consider it separately, we should not forget that the path through Hell is only a means of approach to a clearer atmosphere where his art
Reviving from that depth where beauty dies
Purgatorio, Canto I
can occupy itself with better things, till it culminates in the vision of the ultimate triumph of the Divine Love:
Paradiso, Canto XXIII
The Purgatorio
CANTO I
At last my barque to cross no pitiless sea
Puts outward. Long the course before me lies;
But here are softer winds, and loftier skies,
And friendlier waters. O Calliope!
Exalt me now, for here are heights beyond
The fore-conception of the dismal pond
Where last I journeyed. All the art I bring,
Reviving from that depth where beauty dies,
Can scarce contrive the second realm to sing
Where the cleansed soul its final worth attains,
And wins ascent to Heaven. O sacred Nine!
To my weak words your songful strains combine
Which once the Magpie-minstrels heard, with pains
That dared to hope no pardon.
All the east
Was sapphire, deepening in the lucid air
To earth's horizon. Love's ambassador
With silver radiance made the Pisces dim,
Her regal escort. Think'st thou not, to him
So lately climbed from that dense atmosphere
Which choked his breathing, and his sight had blurred,
It seemed not earth but final Heaven were here?
I looked to southward, and the gleaming Cross
No eyes had gladdened since our parents' loss
Was splendour. All the wide sky banqueted
In that soft light. O widow North! debarred
Of so much beauty. Then I turned regard
To where the chariot of the northern skies
Had sunk already, when before us showed
A man so reverend in his age, so wise
In aspect, that it had not seemed too hard
With filial fear to serve him. Grizzled-grey
The hair that on his breast and shoulders lay;
And so the sacred lights reflected glowed
Of those four stars from off his face, it seemed
As though the sun's full glory backward gleamed.
'Who are ye,' shaking back his locks, he cried,
'Who thus escape the eternal dungeon? How
The river stemmed ye? Who was found for guide?
How came ye through the infernal night that now
Hath closed that vale for ever? Doth yet the abyss
Revolt against us? Or is it shown in this
That Heaven revokes its own decrees, and gives
Its aid to Hell's convicted fugitives?'
My Guide's firm hand was on me, and he spake
And signed me reverence on my knees to make,
Before he answered: 'Not unpiloted
We came, for One that in the Holiest lives
Commanded that this living man be led
From out such maze as else his end had meant,
By this sole rescue left. Were long to tell
The ways we traversed through the pits of hell.
Now must I show him those whose sins repent
In willing penance underneath thy care.
The virtue from the Utmost Heights derives
Which gave me power to guide him. Hence my prayer
Is bold to urge his freedom. Liberty
He seeks, and suffers. Those who gave their lives,
As thou didst once, no more constraining plea
Can hearken. In Utica, death for thee
Was not too bitter, nor thy garb of flesh
(That in God's Judgment shall outshine afresh)
Too dear to barter in such cause. We break
Eternal laws in nothing. For he yet lives;
And I no leave from condemnation take,
For Minos binds me not. My freedom lies
Where dwells thy Marcia, whose imploring eyes
Look up for thy remembrance. For her sake
Give favour. Grant thy seven wards we see,
And I will thank thee for thy words, if we
Who keep that circle are not held too low
For thy regarding.'
He replied: 'So fond
My thought to Marcia when on earth we dwelt
That all things that she willed, my love to show,
I gave her gladly. Now she stays beyond
The stream of condemnation, all I felt
Is stilled within me; Heavenly law compelled
This severance when I left the drear abode.
But since your right to this infrequent road
A high Madonna of the Heavens confers,
You need not flatter, for your course is held
Beyond my verdict. Go - but this regard;
The man is mortal, and the course is hard
For such to traverse. Thou shalt cleanse away
The filth of hell-fumes that his visage blurs,
And with a smooth rush gird him. Wrong it were
To face the Angel of the souls that dwell
In Paradise, the while the fogs of hell
Yet blind them. Round this isle, on every side,
Even where the tide's full force, with naught to stay,
Sweeps upward, osiers in an oozy bed
Grow thickly. (Nothing else is rooted there,
Nor could be. Naught that shooteth leaves should dare,
Nor aught that hardens into wood.) The tide
They thwart by yielding. Thither haste, nor try
To here return, for here ye go not by.
The sun, that nearly to the dawn is due
Will show the easier slope to take.'
He went
And we, reluctant, left the steep descent
As one who wanders from the path he knew,
And counts each backward step a loss the more
To find it. Now the dawn advancing slew
Upon the rear of twilight where it fled,
And we, yet far, from higher ground could see
The shimmering of the dim, disclosing sea;
Till came we in a shady place to tread
Where still the sunlight had not chased the dew,
And here my Master bent with hands outspread
On the wet grass, and I, his purpose guessed,
Tendered my face, that all the sights of hell
With tears had streaked, and pestilent mists had stained,
And he unveiled me, till no trace remained
Of that distortion. Then we came to where
The barren beaches met the waters, bare
Of any traffic of returning men;
And he, obedient to the high behest,
A lowly rush to gird me pulled, and then
I watched a marvel. Where he plucked there came
Another like it, and their count the same.
CANTO II
The sun which darkened on Jerusalem
Was dawning here, while night from Ganges came,
Bearing the equal scales she casts away
When, in the late year, she outlasts the day.
Now from the fair Aurora's cheeks had fled
The youthful evidence of white and red,
Their beauty conquered, while we gazed at them
By age's mellower sign of tawny flame.
Still by the bare seashore we stayed, as they
Who travel in their thoughts, before the way
Their feet attempt, till, as the warrior star
Goes redly in the west above the sea,
When vapours thicken, so I watched afar
(God grant me yet once more that sight to see!)
A light so swiftly move, no earthly flight
Could equal. Once my Guide a glance I gave,
And looked back instant, but a larger light
Confronted. On each side a shape of white
Was forming, and emerging from below
A third shone later. Naught my guide would show,
Until the Angel's lifted wings were clear,
Then cried he to me 'Bend thy knees, and praise!
The Angel of the Eternal God is here.
For thou dost enter to the loftier sphere
Where of such kind He makes His ministers.
Behold how he rejects of sail or oar
The aid to use, but from the distant shore
With ever-youthful plumes he cleaves the air,
That do not moult, nor age as mortal hair.'
Thereat I bent, and looked again, and found
That my reluctant eyes desired the ground
And shrank that glory. But the Angel neared:
Beneath his feet a flying boat, that cleared
The waves so lightly that it scarce displaced
A ripple on the shining path it traced.
Upon the poop he stood. His wings divine
Impelled its passage, and his looks benign
Where on a hundred souls that there I knew,
As with one voice they sang: 'In exitu
Israel de Aegypto.' With the sign
Most holy, each he blessed, as each ashore
Stept from the boat; and backward course he bore,
Another load to find.
The multitude,
So left, looked round them with strange eyes, as they
Who dream they find an unfamiliar morn,
In scenes that not their waking eyes have viewed,
Wondrous. Behind their backs the breaking day
Had broadened, and the rout of Capricorn
The sun's swift arrows in mid-heaven had won.
Their glances found us. 'If ye know,' they said,
'The upward way by which our feet should tread,
Wilt lead us?'
Virgil answered them: 'Ye deem
We hold acquainted paths, but strange are we,
Even as yourselves. The hard ascent will seem
To us but pastime, from such dark degree
We climb.'
The spirits clustered round, and saw
My body breathing, and the outraged law
Confused their minds, and like the multitude
That crowd, uncaring on whose feet they tread,
The while the olived herald's news is read,
So came they, through the wonder that they viewed
Forgetful of their cleansing need.
And one
Approached me in a mood so arduous
That thrice to grasp its form, where form was none
(O form unsubstanced of the empty dead!)
Mine arms I lifted, and relaxed. As thus
I reached and wondered, with a smile the shade,
Retreated from me, and a sign it made
To hold me backward. 'Nay, desist,' it said,
'I pray thee', and the voice a memory stirred.
Whereat I answered: 'Nay, but speak, I pray!'
It said: 'When breathed I mortal life I heard
Thy voice with pleasure: therefore praise I now
Again to hear it. But I fail to see
Why pause be needed. Wilt thou not with me
The path continue?'
'O my Casella,'
I said, 'I journey to the world you left.
But tell me why, of mortal days bereft
So long time sooner. here defrauded still
You linger?'
He replied: 'No ill design
Hath held me. He who taketh whom he will
Hath justly others' larger claims than mine
Regarded, and deferred me, though I oft
Have pled for passage. But I came today
Because the three months of the Jubilee
A peaceful passage for all souls hath bought
That there desire it. So the place I sought
Where Tiber's waters meet the salter sea,
And he received me in his barque.
'For there,
Forever gathering, all dead souls repair,
Except the sad descent to Acheron
Their sins have purchased. There again have gone
His wings of mercy.'
'If the later laws,'
I answered, 'that the ransomed shades obey
Will sanction, gladly would I hear once more
Thy gift of song, that in the far-away
Remembered leisures raptured all my soul,
Or soothed its grieving. Couldst thou still console
A body wearied, and a mind that wars
With darkest recollections?'
He thereat
Commenced so sweetly on the canzonet
'Love in the kingdom of my mind confers'
That in mine ears its cadence lingers yet,
And not I only, but my gentle Guide,
And all the ransomed souls that grouped beside,
Were held in rapture.
On their feeding ground
Hast seen how quarrelsome doves their feuds forget,
And quieten to the scattering tares? Hast seen,
If any sound arise, or motion stir,
How with one lift their sudden wings appear,
Their hunger conquered by the sharper fear?
So now, forthright, another mood we found,
When came that venerable guide, and said,
In sharp reproof: 'Why pause ye here? What mean
- O sluggards on the path to holiness! -
This negligence, this hasteless pace to shed
The stainful vestures that your faults confess,
Which blinds ye from the presence of God?'
With speed
Thereat, as those in too much haste to heed
Their path of flight, I saw this company
Attempt the ascent; nor any less were we
Stirred by that chiding voice precipitate.
CANTO III
So fled they up their natural path; but I,
Who could not lightly from my mind abate
My conscious needing of my Master's aid,
Drew closer to his side. Who else but he
Could lead me? What my weaker steps rely,
If he were failure? Self-reproached he seemed
Beyond my concept. Slightest fault is great
To one pure-purposed. When his feet forebore
The haste unseemly that his mind betrayed,
- Haste that doth every human act degrade -
My mind was quieted by his peace, and grew
Conscious and eager for that height anew
That Heavenward rose.
The sun, that mounted red
Behind our backs, my shadow lengthened spread
Upon the rising steep. With startled dread
I saw it lonely, and too quickly deemed
My Guide had left me as I pressed ahead,
And turned to find him near my side.
He said:
'Why dost thou doubt? The shadow, once that fell
Before me as I walked, can fall no more,
Since that which cast it at Brundusium
(But since to Naples moved) I laid aside.
Yet naught that should perplex thy mind I tell,
Who knowest that Heavens on Heavens in circles wide
Include the Heavens below, which do not hide
Nor interrupt their rays. High Power ordains
That our unsubstanced shades must still succumb
To mortal weakness. Cold of falling rains,
Heats, wounds, disease, with all their varying pains,
Can still torment us, as thyself hast seen.
But how the Omnipotent brings such ends to be
Is hidden, and foolish in his thoughts is he
Who deems that mortal reason may discern
The trackless, infinite ways; or modes may learn
By which Three Persons in one Substance act.
Content ye with inexplicable fact.
For were all reason by our race possest
God had not lain a child on Mary's breast;
Nor had men yearned in vain that Light to see
Whose absence made their grief eternally. -
I speak of Plato and Aristotle,
And numerous others that thyself beheld.'
Then, by the thought perturbed, he sank his head,
And walked in silence.
Now we came to where
The mountain from its steep foundation swelled
So sheerly that our willing feet could find
No further footing. Like an easy stair
Between Lerici rise and Turbia
Their broken desolate heights in this compare.
My master needs must pause. 'Now where,' he said,
'Is access here? For gentler slopes, inclined
For men unpinioned, go we left or right?'
And while he bent his head, with thoughtful mind
Seeking resolve, and I that hopeless height
Surveyed, a crowd of souls advanced to sight
From leftward. But they came with feet so slow
They scantly moved the while I watched.
'Behold,
O Master,' spake I, 'if thou canst not tell
The advancing way, are others here who well
May help us.'
Then my Master smiled, and said:
'Thy doubt was needless, yet we best may go
To meet them faster than their pace. Do thou
Meantime reject a baseless fear.'
So slight
Their motion that a thousand yards we trod
And still a practised hand a stone could throw
No further distant than they seemed, who then
Drew sideward to the cliffs, and grouped as men
Who doubted all the path they came, and now
With undecided glances halt. My Guide
Hailed them. 'O ye that in the grace of God,
And in the peace of His election died,
I charge ye by that peace that here ye show
The upward path - the more of time we know,
The more to lose it irks us.'
They thereat,
As sheep that timorous leave the fold, or stand
Unsure, with drooping heads and downcast eyes,
Issuing by ones and twos (and if the first
Should pause, they bunch behind, not anywise
Attempting passage, nor to understand
The cause that stays them), so this fortunate band
Opposed us in a meek simplicity,
Not abject in its mien; but when they saw
My shadow blot the mountain-side, they drew
A little back, and those behind (who knew
No cause) did likewise, till my Leader said:
'Unasked, I tell ye. This that here ye see
Is human, and his body yet may flaw
The light's advance. But marvel not for this.
If one shall with you move who is not dead,
And enter living to the heights of bliss,
It is by virtue from those heights bestowed.'
To which they answered: 'Then the way ye came
Return before us', and reversed our road
With motions of their hands.
But one man cried:
'Whoe'er you be, regard me. If my name
Were onetime known in that left world, I pray
That now thou wilt recall it.'
I thereat
Looked closely. One of gentle mien I saw,
And blond, and tall. A sword, before he died,
Had cleft an eyebrow. When I could but say,
Humbly, I had not seen him, he replied
(Showing a wound that broke his breast): 'See that.'
- Smiling - 'I am Manfredi. I am he,
Costanza's grandson, and my daughter she
Whose children rule today in Sicily
And Aragon. I pray thee her to tell
That though beneath the Church's curse I fell,
Yet, when these mortal wounds I felt, I gave
My soul to Him who hath the power to save.
I was not guiltless; but the sins I did,
They could not from the arms of God forbid:
The arms of Infinite Good, that reach so wide
That none who seeks them shall be closed outside.
'If he, Costanza's priest, this truth had read
With understanding in the Writ Divine,
He had not then, by Clement's urging led,
So dealt with those rain-beaten bones of mine
That now the homeless winds consort, beside
Garigliano's desert banks, that lie
Beyond the lands I lost. Those bones he bore
In ritual darkness excommunicate
To that dishonour. But the hope denied
Still lives. Before such curse Love Crucified,
The Eternal Love, is not so lost but still
The shadow of hope is dimly seen. Yet those
Who die repentant but unreconciled
Must wait delayed without the Sacred Hill
For thirty times the space of years that saw
The fault of their presumption unsubdued;
Unless the assault of prayers importunate
Be heard in Heaven, and their doom abate.
'I would that thou shouldst tell my dear-loved child
The nature of this interdict that she
Should mourn no longer that the Church's feud
Expelled me from the holiest rites. - But say
Still potent are the living lips that pray.'
CANTO IV
We know that when the soul doth concentrate,
At pleasure's impulse, or the call of pain,
Upon one object, or the exercise
Of one roused function, all beside abate
Their clamour at this urge importunate.
Refuting the Manichaean falsity
That plural are the souls our frames contain;
And therefore when assault of sight or sound
Invades, and wins the soul's surrender thus,
To all besides it grows oblivious.
Yet sight or hearing is not soul: for free
The soul remains, and these it doth constrain
Or else release to serve it.
Thus I found
That, while I wondered at Manfredi's word,
My mind, in marvel at the things I heard,
Perceived not that the sun three hours had left
The earth's horizon, till the souls around
Cried with one voice: 'The place ye seek is here.'
I think that with a single fork of thorns
A husbandman would close a wider cleft
That gaps the boundary of the vines, than that
Which here they showed. San Leo's fortressed height
And Noli's steep descent a man may tread
With feet unaided, or the crest attain
Of Bismantova, but the peaks ahead
That faced us now, must very wings require,
- The wings, at least, of hot and swift desire
To follow closely where my Master led.
We left these gentle guiding souls; we clomb
With foot and hand the riven rocks between,
A path so narrow that the walls would brush
At once both shoulders, till we came to where
The gullet ended, and the ultimate dome
Of the precipitous mount beyond our sight
Aspired to Heaven. When this new height was seen,
I asked my Master: 'Turn we left or right?'
He answered: 'Neither. Do not shirk nor fail.
We go straight upward; till some Guide appear
More competent than I.'
I could but lean,
Panting, against a slope that rose more sheer
Than would a line from middle quadrant drawn
To reach the centre. 'Father,' I began,
'Kind father, turn thou; here I needs must stay.
Thou wilt not leave me thus?' He answered: 'Nay,
My son, take courage. Will thy strength avail
To drag thee there?' And with a pointing hand
He showed a terrace that aloft was seen
Girdling the mountain. By his words inspired,
I strove anew, with sinews toiled and tired,
To crawl behind him, till that cincture lay
Beneath our feet that trod it.
Here we sat,
And eastward turned our downward eyes to gaze
Upon the vanquished path; for conquered ill
Is pleasant to regard. From off the flat
And reed-grown shore, and mountainous slope, I raised
Mine eyes toward the morning light, amazed,
Perceiving that the sun's assailing rays
From leftward came. My poet-guide observed
My mute bewilderment. The sun's bright car
To northern heaven its shining circuit curved.
He told me: 'If, beside the lordlier star
That lights the earth above, and then below,
Castor and Pollux moved in company,
Then wouldst thou see the Zodiac's golden bow
Lie closer to the Bears; its ancient way
Not changing therefor. Rouse thy mind to see
The simple solving of this mystery;
And think of Zion as the mount that stands
So opposite, that round us here expands
Another hemisphere that spreads to meet
The same horizon; and the heavenly street,
Where Phaeton's chariot fell, must hold its way
To right of Zion, and to leftward here.'
'Master,' I answered, 'never yet so clear
My mind perceived it. That dividing line
By some men called Equator, severing sheer
The summer from the winter hemisphere,
Is now our north horizon bound, as far
In distance as the Hebrews once beheld,
Gazing to southward. . . But I pray thee tell
How far we yet must climb. These heights exceed
My furthest gaze.'
He answered: 'Heed thou this.
The mount is hard. But though at first it swelled
So steeply, yet its earlier ills decline
With each advancing step, until the ascent
Will easeful grow as doth a boat descend
A stream's smooth current. When this ease is thine,
At once the summit and thy rest are near.'
This thing he pledged me, and no more would say;
And in the silence, close beside the way,
Another voice we heard: 'Perchance a need
Of earlier rest will be.' We turned to heed.
Left was a slab of upward stone, and here
We looked, and loitered in its shade we found
An indolent-seeming group, and on the ground
Was seated one with arms his knees around,
And head that bowed upon them 'Lord,' I said,
'He loungeth lazier than his sister Sloth '
Thereat the figure slightly raised its head
From off the thigh's support, more to regard
Our own approach, and answered: 'Strong art thou.
Go upward.' But the lifted face I knew,
And though I panted yet, my feet unloth
Made haste to reach him.
'Nay, Belacqua, now
I grieve thy death no more,' I made reply,
'But tell me, wait'st thou here how long, and why?
Is escort needed? Or doth ease retard,
- The old mode enduring still?'
And he to me:
'Brother, what use to ask? God's angel sits
To guard the portal. Would he let me in?
For those who drift through unrepentant days
Will find that here an equal law delays
Their upward passage - save that prayer remits
Some portion of the wasted years, that else
I now must balance with the like delay -
Prayer surgent from a heart God's grace inspires,
For else the wingless thought in mounting tires,
And no sound reaches through the Heavenly choirs '
But, while he drawled his hasteless speech, my Guide
Had turned once more to breast the mountain-side,
And called me: 'Come! Behold, the mounting sun
Hath reached mid-heaven, and half its course is run;
And on the horizon-line, beyond our sight,
Morocco darkens at the feet of night.'
CANTO V
Following my Leader's steps, I left behind
That slothful band, when one that watched me cried,
With pointed finger at myself 'Doth mind
How he to rearward blocks the light? Methinks
He might be living!'
Then I turned and eyed
A group awake with wonder, while they viewed
My body's shadow on the slope. But he,
My Master, spake with sharp reproof: 'Why so
Doth all delay thee? Let their whispering be.
Wilt thou regard their talk, or come with me?
Strong towers unmoved by wandering winds remain,
But vacillant minds, where thought by thought is slain,
Are futile in their ends.'
To this rebuke
What answer could I give, except 'I come',
And with such colour, though the lips be dumb,
As wins forgiveness?
Where a path transgressed
Some space before us, while we spake, there showed
Another band that on their upward road
Sang Miserere verse by verse, but when
They saw me in the wise of earthly men,
They changed their word, and like a raven's croak
A long-drawn Oh! came hoarsely, while there broke
Two spirits from the band, that herald-wise
Approached us and besought: 'Disclose the state
Of thine invasion here.' My Guide replied:
'Return to those that sent ye. If their eyes
Observed his shadow, say he hath not died
Who here walks with me. Mortal evident frame
He yet inhabits. Let their thoughts abate
No honour therefor: that they grant today,
His service to themselves may soon repay.'
I have not seen shot stars at midnight fall,
Nor lightnings that ignited clouds display
In August sunsets, with such speed, as now
These spirits to their band returned; and all
Their comrades with them wheeled, and came, as though
A herd of horses galloped unreined, unrid,
Loose-maned upon us.
My Master spake: 'Do thou
Attend, but pause not. All these people throng
With one petition.'
'Soul, who yet dost know
The mortal members that thy birth supplied
To work thy pleasure, turn thy steps aside
Awhile to hear us.' So they wailed. 'Survey
If here be those familiar, that thy word
May take good tidings to our earthly kin.
Alas! Dost thou not pity? Hast thou not heard?
Wilt thou not pause? For in the throes of sin
By violence died we. Yet the light Divine
In that last hour redeemed us, that we died
Pardoning and pardoned; pregnant of desire
To reach the Love that saved us.'
Down their line
I looked intently, yet I could but say:
'I know not any. What your hearts require,
Speak freely. By the peace I seek, I swear
I will not fail to help you.'
One began:
'We do not ask thine oath, but trust thee more
Of kindness, if the power be thine. And I,
Who speak thee first, beseech, that if thine eyes
Behold once more the pleasant vale that lies
Between Romagna and King Carlo's land,
Be fervent for me in thy prayers, for there
I saw the light in Fano; but the gore
That welled from out my wounds, in Padua ran.
Too late I journeyed westward, where I planned
My greater safety. That D'Este did,
Whom wrath made blind to justice. Had I fled
Toward La Mira when pursuit was nigh,
It may be that today I were not dead,
Who died at Oriaco. There I ran
For succour to the marsh, but had not hid
Before they found me. In the reeds and mire
I stumbled forward, till the pool I saw
Which was my blood that made it.'
Then began
Another: 'When fulfilled thine own desire,
And the high mount is won, I pray thee aid
The longing that I show thee. I was bred
In Montefeltro; Buonconte I.
There is no voice that on my part hath prayed,
Not even Giovanna. Hence I go
Downcast, amidst of these more fortunate.'
I said: 'What chanced at Campaldino? Trace
Was found not of thee; nor thy burial place
Was known to any.'
'Truth I speak,' he said,
For thy repeating. Archiano's flow
In Apennine, above the Hermitage,
Runs down to Casentino's vale, to blend
With Arno's wider stream. Thither I came
Dismounted, wearied, fugitive. I bled
With every step, throat-wounded. There I fell.
Sight failed me, and my voice on Mary's name
Called, and was stilled forever. My empty course
Alone was left, for there God's Angel came
And took me. But there cried a voice from hell:
"O Thou of Heaven, can one poor word redeem?
One tear win pardon? Wilt thou rob my right?
At least, his mortal part is mine, to end
In different wise!" Thou knowest the mists that rise
From Pratomagno to the mountain-ridge,
Filling the great vale at times, until the skies
Congeal them as they reach the colder height?
This mist hell's angel called. At falling night
The valley filled, until the impregnate air
Poured rain in torrents, and every swollen stream
Rushed to the river in irresistible force.
The Archian foam, from narrow banks unpenned,
Found at its mouth my stiffening form, and there
Breaking apart the cross mine arms had made,
It flung me into Arno. There at last,
Swept down by swift deep currents, my bones are laid
Where the land's spoils in muddied depths are cast.'
Then sighed a voice behind: 'When home once more
In restful peace from thy long wandering,
Recall La Pia. That Siena bore,
Maremma ended. This he knows too well
Who on this hand, that wore an earlier ring,
Placed his own gem. I have no place in hell,
Who died unguilty. This I charge thee tell.'
CANTO VI
When the last dice are thrown, the loser still
Remains disconsolate. Again he throws,
To test experience. But the victor goes,
With elbowing friends around him. One retains
His side; another pulls his cloak; a third
Obstructs his path. He does not pause to fill
The expectant hands that reach to share his gains,
But moving onward still, with casual word
To right and left contents them. As they hear
The promised boon, their importunity
Is stayed, and in this wise he shakes them clear
And finds his exit. In that multitude
So felt I, facing right and left to stay
Their prayers with pledges. Benincasa here,
Who learnt his death from Ghino, pressed beside
That other from Arezzo - he who died
By drowning, in his foes' pursuit. Here too
Novello with appealing hands I viewed,
And him of Pisa, who the fortitude
Of good Marzucco could not break. I saw
Count Orso; and that soul whom envy slew,
As his last words maintained. She well may heed,
The Lady of Brabant, while yet she lives,
Lest haply at the last a juster law
Consign her to a fouler company
Than this, where Dalla Broccia came.
When freed
At last from all these pleading souls, who sought
The prayer of those yet living, that themselves
Might gain a sooner sanctity, I asked:
'O guiding light! my thoughts recall thy line
Which taught that prayer is vain, high Heaven's decree
To shake or change. It seems thy verdict gives
The pleadings that we heard to end in naught.
Are those who pray for souls so prisoned self-tasked
In wasted effort? Or these words of thine
Transcend mine understanding?'
He replied:
'My words were clear, and, justly weighed, decline
Thy mind's assertion. Not in vain they pray;
Nor is God's justice foiled because the fire
Of Love makes instant satisfaction
To the full sum that earthly faults require.
I spoke of only those whose hope is gone.
There is no power in any prayer from hell.
It has no access to the Throne. But yet
Rest not thy mind in this suspicion,
Nor take my teaching here, except it be
Confirmed by Her to whom thou goest, for She
Shall guide thee to the truth. You may not guess
My thought is of Beatrice. On this height
She waits thee, radiant in felicity.'
Then said I: 'Good my Leader, let us press
At better speed ahead. My weariness
Hath fallen from me; and the shades of night,
That lengthen round us, urge our haste.'
He said:
'We shall advance our upward course today
As light allows, but different is the way
From that thou thinkest. Ere thy feet are set
On that far summit, the retreating sun
Again shall greet us. . . But that spirit observe
Who stands alone and silent. He will show
The swiftest passage where thy heart would go.'
At that, we turned toward it. Cold disdain,
O Lombard spirit, was in thine eyes, aloof
And silent, as we passed. A drowsing lion
Might thus have scorned us, till my Master spake,
Enquiring for the best ascent. And then
It did not answer, but enquired again
Whence and who were we in the world of men?
My Master answered: 'Mantua -" and thereat
The solitary spirit rose to take
A swift embrace. 'O Mantuan friend,' he cried,
'I am Sordello, of thine own town!' His pride
Forgotten at once.
O Italy, faction-rent!
O servile! Storm-flung vessel unpiloted!
Hostel of sorrows! A queen of lands no more,
But house of prostitution! Here was said
Merely the name of his loved home, for him,
That gentle spirit, all else to forget
And clasp the speaker.
Search from shore to shore
Of all thy seas - thine inmost glades explore,
And where is peace within thee? Where is set
A moat that doth not in its girth contain
The strife of factious foes? What continent wall
But townsmen at the hands of townsmen fall
Within the mockery of its girdle vain?
What boots Justinian gave thy reins repair
If none can mount thee, and thy seat is bare?
Thy shame is greater. Ah! thou race misled,
Couldst thou not give the glory to God, and yet
Maintain thy Caesar in his temporal power?
O Austrian Albert! in that fatal hour
When the wild beast thy bridle owned, oh, then
Why was thy spur left bloodless? Now she rears
Fierce, savage, tameless. In the sight of men
May some strange vengeance find thy race, to awe
The princes that succeed thee. Heaven's just law
Shall doom thee, and thy father, who beheld
The wider German lands, and in that greed
Left his fair garden to the invading weed.
Behold them, Capulet and Montague;
Monaldi, Filippeschi; one with fears,
The other with arrived calamity,
In turn confounded. Callous to all our need!
Behold the sufferings of thy nobles - nude
Of all things through thy service; then conclude
How safe Santafiore! Come, behold
Thy widowed Rome - the Rome that was thy bride
Deserted, destitute, who calleth now,
My Caesar, hast thou left me? If no ruth
Disturb thee to behold our griefs, let shame
Find entrance, for our state defouls thy fame.
And if my words may dare such flight - O Thou,
Almighty! who for us wast crucified,
Are Thy just eyes withdrawn? Or dost Thou plan
Within Thy counsels, deep, inscrutable,
Some ultimate good, beyond the thought of man,
From all this evil? For the land we love
Is ruined by tyrants. Each side-serving cheat
Becomes Marcellus in his own conceit.
But thou, my Florence, well content wilt see
The shaft of censure winged that nears not thee,
By reason ruled, and subtle argument.
For though in many hearts is justice set,
Yet counsel hinders, and the shaft is slow,
Late fixed, and loosened from a slackening bow.
But thine have justice on their lips! The weight
Of public office, and the cares of state,
Are shirked by many; but thy people cry:
'I charge myself unasked, not backward I.'
Be happy in thy wisdom: rest content.
Regard thy wealth, thy peace! If scorn were meant
When thus I praise thee, needst thou care for that?
Will not the event resolve it?
Once were named
Athens and Lacedaemon not for naught.
Their gracious living, and the laws they framed,
Gave them repute well founded; but to thee
What were they at their greatest? Thou canst weave
Such subtle counsels that a month will find
The last month's wisdom left a mock behind.
How often hast thou in remembered time
Changed coinage, customs - all but race and clime -
So that, if to thyself thyself be clear,
Thou must in all this restless change appear
As one who on her sickbed turns to gain
A moment's respite from returning pain.
CANTO VII
Three times and four their glad embraces met,
By those dear native memories urged, before
Past loss he might for present gain forget,
And asked what name my noble Leader bore.
He answered: 'Ere the herewith flight began
Of souls that by this Mount to God ascend,
My bones were buried by Octavian.
For I am Virgil. By no fault of sin
Debarred of Heaven, but lacking faith to win
The ultimate crown.'
As one whose eyes are set
Upon a scene that dumb amazement breeds,
So that 'It is not' to 'It is' succeeds
As sight and reason war, so looked he then.
But as the incredible doubt resolved, he bent
And humbly he embraced my Leader's knees.
'Oh, glory of the Latin race,' he said.
'Revealer of our tongue's high potencies,
Eternal jewel of the place wherein
My life began, what merit of mine could win
The grace of thy regarding? Wilt thou deign
To say if Hell, and from which ward of pain,
Thy spirit hath freed?'
He answered: 'All the woe
That fills the circles of the realm below
Mine eyes have seen, but not as one misled
To earn its scourging. Neither rise I free
As one released therefrom. A Power constrains
That I, who led through Hell's interior pains,
Lead upward also. But mine own abode
Immutable Justice hath decreed; for through
Not what I did but what I did not do
I stand excluded from the Light Divine
Which thou canst hope. There is a place below
From bliss made absent but reserved from woe,
Where no fire enters though no sun may shine,
And sorrow ends in sighing. There I stay
With those newborn whom Death's sharp teeth betray
Too soon for sin's release. With those am I
Who knew not faith, nor hope, nor charity,
Yet virtues all besides the holy three
They practised, faultless in themselves. . . But tell,
I pray thee, if thou canst, what upward way
Will lead us to the gate we seek, wherethrough
We reach the purgatorial wards.'
He said:
'We are not hindered to one place. We go
Upward at will, or else around, and so
I need not speak a path myself can show.
But see! the day declines. It were not well
To wander blindly, by the dark misled.
It were but wisdom of the hour to seek
A place of harbour for the night. Nearby,
But somewhat to the right, a rest is set
Where spirits apart until the morn will lie
In ease of concord which you might not share
Without delight in converse.'
'Nay, but why,'
My Leader answered, 'need we loiter thus?
Is there to reach that Gate no path for us
But night will hinder? Or will those be there
Whose mission is denial?'
'None will stay,'
Sordello answered, 'where you walk. But not'
- He drew a finger on the ground - 'so far
As is that short line's length from where you are
Would you make progress in the night. The will
Fails with the light. You would but blindly stray:
Most likely down.'
My Master looked as one
Who wonders but accepts. 'Then lead,' he said,
'To where this pleasure will requite delay.'
A little distance from that place away,
And sidelong to the rising Mount, he led.
Until we came to where a valley lay
Hollowing its side (our native hills include
Such lofty clefts), and here a pathway fell
At times, or levelled as it wound, from which,
Half downward now, the valley's floor we viewed.
Gold and fine silver, cochineal and lead,
The Indian wood-blue lucid and serene,
The fresh-flaked shining of the emerald green,
Would fade defeated from too hard compare
With the bright flowers and spreading verdure there.
Not colour only, but their fragrant scent
- Nature to one a thousand odours blent -
A large anonymous delight supplied,
Sweetness unsingled, unidentified.
And in the midst a group of souls were seen
Salve Regina singing.
'Where they sit,'
The Mantuan said, 'I will not lead as yet.
For we can view them, till the sun be set,
Better than when you join them there below. . .
He who sits highest, and alone, as though
Repenting negligence too late, with lips
That move not to his comrades' chant, is he
Who might have healed the wounds of Italy,
The Emperor Rudolph, through whose fault she sought
A new physician. He who sits beside,
As offering comfort, ruled the land wherein
The waters rise that to the Moldau flow,
And Moldau to the Elbe conveys, and she
Receives and carries to the distant sea.
Ottocar was he named. His life began
Better in childhood than, a bearded man,
His son, King Wenceslas, could boast to be,
Sloughed in soft ease and hindering luxury.
'And he, the short-nosed man, who beats his breast,
And seems to share their counsel, it was he
Who died in flight that soiled the lilies' pride,
Outhounded from Verona. He beside
Sighs with like woe, the while his cheek is pressed
Into the bed his palm provides. Aware
Is either of the common woes they share.
Father, and father of his bride, are they
To him who lives as France's curse today;
And hence the grief that irks them.
'He beyond,
The large-limbed man who chants in unison,
In life with every kingly virtue girt,
Is Peter, once the Third of Aragon;
And he, the youth who sits behind, his son,
Who, had he long retained the crown, had shown
Worth following worth. But those succeeding heirs,
Frederick and James, have proved that he who wears
The father's crown not often emulates
The father's virtues, which from God alone
Must each derive.
'This truth, to equal pains,
The large-nosed man who sings with Peter knows,
By which Apulia's and Provence's banes
Already appear. So much the plant it bore
The virtue of the seed excelled, as more
Than could Beatrice or than Margaret
Constance still boasts her husband's worth.
'Apart
From these, is Henry Third of England set:
He of the simple blameless life. To him
Was nobler issue.
'At the feet of all,
With lifted eyes, the Marquis William sits.
For whom, immured in Alessandria's wall,
On Monferrato and the Cevanese
Did war's intolerable scourging fall.'
CANTO VIII
It was that hour when they who seaward fare
Look back with longing through the darkened air,
Tender of heart for those dear friends whom they
Left at the morn; and if the pilgrim hear
A bell far, love stirs at the sweet sound
That spreads its sorrow to the dusk around,
Lamenting, as it seems, the death of day;
When I my sight upon one Shade anear
So fixed, I failed my Leader's words to hear.
I saw it signal with a lifted hand
To those around, and then its arms expand,
Stretched to the East, as though to God it said:
There is naught else I hear, naught else I see,
Only I reach to lose my soul in Thee.
Then from its mouth Te lucis ante came
In such sweet notes, with such devoutness wed,
That my surrendered spirit caught the flame,
Oblivious of myself; and every Shade
Gesture and song of aspiration made,
Following the hymn, and with their eyes intent
On those supernal wheels, God's firmament.
Oh, reader, here the hiding veil is thin,
Make keen thine eyes to seek the truth within.
Humble and pale, I saw that noble troop
Gaze upward, silent at the ended hymn,
As though they waited till the Heavens should stoop.
Till downward through the dusk, that now was dim,
Two angels in a single wonder came,
And in their hands two swords of shortened flame,
Shorn of their points; and their down-planing wings
Were green, and all their wind-blown raiment, green
As leaves newborn, as when on Earth is seen
The tender break of her returning Springs.
One settled near above to where we stayed;
The second on the further bank delayed;
The Shades assembling in the space between.
I saw their heads, of Heaven's high comeliness,
Except their eyes, that none might face to see.
Virtue, invisible through its own excess,
So hides itself from those as weak as we.
'They come from Mary's heart,' Sordello said,
'To guard this vale; for when the night is spread
The serpent else would make of these his prey.'
At which I shrank, who knew not by what way
The evil might approach, more close beside
The backward shoulder of my trusted Guide,
Chilled by that fear. Sordello's words the while
Continued thus: 'But let us downward go
Without more pause these noble Shades amid.
Well will it please them ye who come to know.'
Three steps - if recollection hold, but three -
Sufficed to bring us to the Shades below.
Close came I there to one I might not see
At distance that the darkening twilight hid,
Whose eyes to me, as my glad eyes to him,
Joined in one glance. Gallura's ruler he.
The noble Nino. Much I joyed to see
Hell had not closed him in its portals grim.
No salutation failed of courtesy
Between us twain, before he asked how long
Since I, across the intervening sea,
Had come to the desirable Mount. Whereto
I answered: 'Nay, but through the place of woe,
With limbs that to my human life belong,
I came by Heaven's excepting choice, and go
Such path that yet the second life to know
Good hope is mine.'
At this, in like amaze
Sordello and the Pisan backward drew.
Sordello on my Guide bewildered gaze
Directed. Nino, to a Shade who sat
On the near bank, exclaimed: 'Up, Conrad, see
What God in grace hath willed.' And then to me:
'I pray thee by this favour singular,
Thy debt to Him whose purpose none may read,
Whose wherefores lie to deep for human wit,
That when you cross once more the waters far
You charge Giovanna to intercede
Where the petitions of the innocent
Will not be vain to aid me. Scarce I think
Her mother loves me longer, since she changed
Her widow's wimple, shortly to repent
That thus she showed how women's hearts estranged
From the dead love, unpraised and uncaressed,
Forget so quickly. But she will not find
More sculptured honour on her tomb designed
By the coiled viper of the Milanese
Than had her faith retained Gallura's crest.'
He spake assured, as one made confident
Within his own integrity. But I
Mine eyes had lifted to the central sky
Wherein the process of the stars is slow,
As near its axle moves the wheel. My Guide
Observed and questioned: 'Son, what point on high
Attracts thee thus?' And I to him: 'The glow
Of those three torches on this side the pole.'
To which he answered: 'Those four stars are low
Which pleased thee at their morning height, and these
Are risen to where they were.'
But while he spake
Sordello drew toward him. 'See,' he cried,
'How comes our foe.' And where the vale was wide
From its unguarded end advanced a snake
Such as perchance the bitter dole supplied
That ruined Eden. Through the flowers it came
Of that fair valley, with a backward head
At times, that licked and sleeked its scales, as though
Assured and leisured for the overthrow
Of those it sought.
I did not see their flight
When first the hawks of heaven beheld their prey,
And that I did not see I will not say.
But, as I watched the snake, the sound I heard
Above me, as the swift green pinions beat,
And raised mine eyes toward the heavenly sight,
The while the hasting of the snake's retreat
Confessed their power. The angels wheeled abreast,
And backward to their perches soared.
The Shade
That Nino called, through all the snake's attack,
Held his fixed gave upon me. Now he said:
'So may the candle of thy will provide
Sufficient that the lantern shall not lack
That leads thee upward, till the emerald track
Disclose the summit, as thy lips shall tell
True news of Valdimagra. I who speak
Am Conrad Malaspina - not the first,
But from that first derived. To those who dwell
In that dear vale, my love, now purified,
Is constant ever.'
I to this replied:
'I was not ever in thy land, but through
All Europe's numerous tribes were vain to seek
For those who had not heard its name. So loud
Thy House's fame proclaims it. - This I swear
By all my hope of heaven: in all men's view
It hath not ceased its honour. Its sword is clean:
Its wealth untarnished. While the general crowd
Follows the evil road the Church's Head
Misleads them to their loss, in cleaner air
Thy gentler race, by use and custom led,
Keep the straight path.'
He answered: 'Yea, but go -
With this assurance go: The sun shall lie
Not seven times more in that nocturnal bed
Which with four feet the Ram bestrides, but thou,
If naught the natural course divert, shalt know
The truth of this thou sayest in courtesy,
By the sharp impact of thy private woe.'
CANTO IX
The concubine of ancient Tithonus
Was rising whitely from her leman's bed
Along the gallery of the East, her head
Gemmed with cold radiance of the Scorpion's stars,
While the two steps had passed beneath her feet
By which she mounts upon the Night's retreat,
And planed the third its downward wings, when I,
Whose spirit had not cast its mortal bars,
As had those others, might no more deny
The needs of rest, and on the ground, where they,
My five companions, still conversing sat,
I stretched, and soon in sleep's oblivion lay.
What time the swallow stirs to plaintive song,
Ere the dawn widens in the East, as though
She wakes to memory of her ancient woe,
And when it seems our spirits least belong
To earth, or bonds of human thought, but stray,
Or follow guides divine pilgrim way
To visions that approach celestial kind,
Then saw I in the far blue heights of air,
With wide-stretched wings, a golden eagle soar:
An eagle poised to swoop. And I was where
The friends of Ganymede he left behind
Stood (so it seemed) and upward gazed, when he
Was raped aloft to Heaven's consistory.
'Perhaps,' I thought, 'it soars by custom here
Disdaining else to strike an earthly prey.'
And, as I thought, it wheeled, and stooped, and came
Swifter than any bolt, and yet more dread,
And bore me upward in its claws. . . The flame
Of Heaven was round us now. I felt it sear
My shrinking flesh, and in that tortured fear
Perforce I waked. Achilles once, as I,
Looked with astonished wakened eyes around,
What time his mother, who from Chiron fled,
Bore him asleep to Scyros, from which place
The Greeks expelled him at a later day.
Thus was I, as from my bewildered face
Slumber's oblivion passed, for air and ground
Were strange and different, and I felt as one
Frozen by fear to deathly cold. The sun
Two hours had risen. I looked around to see
A steep bare height. Beneath, the distant sea.
Only my Comforter was there, of all
I knew when sleep approached us. But his voice
Gave swift assurance. 'Do not fear at all.
Shrink not, but rouse thy senses. Here are we
Well placed for our ascension. Purgatory
Is here before us. See the galleried girth:
The gap suggesting entrance. . . At the birth
Of twilight, while the dawn was not the day,
And while thy soul within thee slept, there came
A spirit downward from the heights, who said:
'Lucia am I: upon his upward way
It is my part to speed him.' With the word
She took thee, sleeping, in her arms, and so
Led upward, while our friends remained below.
She laid thee here. With starbright eyes she showed
That gap that opens to the further road:
And sleep and she together went their way.'
As one whose fear slow-entering truths expel
For doubt and then for comfort, so was I
Transformed by this disclosure. All my dread
Fell from me. Seeing this, the path he led
Between the rampart and the steep descent,
To where that gate for ransomed souls was set.
(See, reader, how I guide my theme on high,
Nor wonder if my conscious art shall vie
To reach its exaltation.)
Now we neared
The place we sought, and that which first appeared
A fissure upright in the wall, became
A gateway entrance, with three steps that shone
Three colours; and in blinding light thereat,
Foiling mine eyes, a silent porter sat.
Sometime this silence held, the while the flame
His sword reflected, with my sight at war
Half baffled, half allowed, and glimpses saw
And faltered off his face: the light thereon
Too near to Heaven's for mortal eyes. He said
At last: 'Ye who so strangely stand, beware
Of hurt that waits for those who nearer dare,
And have no escort to release their way. -
Stand backward, while your present cause you say.'
My Master answered: 'How these things may be
Is ours to ask, but not unwarranted
We come. A dame of Heaven, it was but now,
Said to us: "There the entrance gates you see:
Go thither".'
'May she guide your steps to good,'
The porter answered, with an altered brow,
'Ascend, unfearing.'
Then we boldly drew
To those three steps. The first was marble white,
So finely polished that, as there I stood,
Myself was mirrored. Basalt, born of fire,
Darker than purple, was the next. Its face
Was rugged, and two cracks, the sacred sign,
Divided breadth and length. The third in hue
Was flaming porphyry. No blood so bright
From the pierced artery spouts. The angel's place
Was granite, where he sat, his feet the while
On the third step.
Upward my Leader drew
My diffident feet. 'Ask humbly thy desire,'
His voice was urgent, 'that he let thee through.'
Devoutly at the holy feet I fell.
Three times I smote my breast the while I pled
For mercy and for entrance. He thereat
The point of that sight-blinding sword applied
Upon my forehead while I knelt. He traced
Seven Ps thereon, the mortal sins to tell.
'Fail not, within, to wash these signs,' he said.
From out his raiment, cinder-brown in hue,
Or like to earth that cracks with drought, he drew
Two keys, one gold, one silver. These he placed
- The silver, then the gold - within the lock,
Which yielded, to my hearts content.
'These two
Must smoothly turn, for if the wards should block
It means,' he said, 'that entrance is denied.
More costly one; but that of worth the less
Needs more of art to turn, and more of wit.
The intricacies of the lock by it
Are solved and conquered. Peter's hand supplied
These keys, and charged me that mine own should err
Rather, with those who come in humbleness,
To open than refuse.'
The while he spake
He pushed the gate wide open. 'Go,' he said,
'Right upward, only with one thought for spur:
Those who look back are backward brought.'
Less shrill
Tarpeia bellowed for Metellus' loss,
Whereby she languished with lean flanks unfed,
Than on their pins those metal hinges swung.
But I turned from them, more intent to hear
A higher music, which did faintly break
On doubtful ears.
As when some chant is sung
To organ music which prevails so high
That half the words are heard and half are drowned,
So through that sweet and distant harmony
I caught Te Deum in uncertain sound.
CANTO X
Within that gate which love of evil leaves
Too little sought of human souls, because
To it the tortuous way seems straight, I heard
The clanging close. But did I therefore pause,
Or backward glance? For such a fault as that
What plea could hope for pardon?
Upward cleaves
The difficult way, through rocks that here recede,
And here come forward, like a moving tide.
My Leader cautioned: 'Here, from side to side,
Our crooked passage, as the rocks allow,
And with some art, we need to choose.'
His word
So true became, the waning moon had set
Before we issued from that toilsome net.
It was a cornice where we came, no more
In breadth than three men's length would reach. Before
The sheer rock rose: behind the sheer rock fell.
To right, to left, the cornice stretched, more bare
Even to the limit of sight, than roads that lie
Through desert lands, and in uncertainty
Which way to turn, and I being wearied, there
Sometime we stayed. Upon the fronting rock
I gazed. It seemed, our further course to block,
It rose uncleft by fissure, gate or stair.
But its own marvel filled mine eyes. Its white
Clear marble was with sculptured wealth so well,
So richly furnished, Polycletus' art
Not only, but the actuality
Of Nature, might accept the inferior's scorn.
I saw an angel who, I might have sworn,
Spoke Hail! to her to whom he came to tell
The gracious verdict that reversed our woe,
When the long-wept-for peace, by Heaven's decree,
To men was granted; held no more apart
By God's refusal of our guilt. For she
To whom he bent, who turned the holy key
Of Love's high gates, this speech imprinted showed:
Ecce ancilla Dei! Apt as seal
On the soft wax.
But spoke my kindly Guide,
Who, on the side where beats the human heart,
Stood closely to me: 'Cast thine eyes more wide.
Be not content a single sight to know.'
Whereat I looked, and on his further side
A separate sculpture showed. Straight view to gain,
I passed before him.
Here the marble live
Seemed motion, as their car the oxen drew,
Bearing the sacred ark, which taught the bane
Of those who more than seemly service do.
Before them moved seven choirs. My senses warred:
'They sing.' 'They sing not.' With no more accord
Sight knew the incense real that scent denied.
The humble Psalmist, more and less than king,
Danced on before, with garments girded high;
While Michal, from a palace window nigh,
Looked sombre scorn upon him.
I moved to bring
Before mine eyes the next bright history
That gleamed beyond that leaning queen's contempt.
Here rode the prince for whom Saint Gregory
By prayer won Heaven: the saint's high victory
According to the Emperor's worth. Was he,
Trajan, outriding seen. Beneath his rein
A woman wept. Around him horsemen rode
With stir of trampling hooves beneath. Above,
The golden eagles that his standards showed
Swayed in the wind, so live the scene. It seemed,
The woman holding to his bridle said:
'Lord, wilt thou venge me for my dearest dead,
My son, for whom I mourn uncomforted?'
And he to her: 'My soon return await.'
And she, as one by urgent grief possessed:
'But, Lord, if thou return not?' 'Then will he
True justice deal who takes my vacant state.'
'But will another's deed be praise for thee,
Who hast thyself ignored it?' He thereat:
'Take comfort, for thy prayers prevail. The plea
Of justice rules, and pity's call must be
As potent to delay me.'
Visible speech
So sculptured we beheld, beyond the reach
Of earthly art: nor can I clearly tell
A thing so different.
While I paused to see
These images of high humility,
Dear for themselves and their superior art,
My Leader urged me: 'Hold no more apart
Thy mind from our adventure. Those appear
Whose slow continuous movements bring them here,
And they will point us to the upward way.'
Mine eyes, which ever love new sights to see,
Transferred the intentness of their gaze thereat
From those high sculptures to the sight that he
Already beheld.
Reader, I would not be
The cause of thy confusion, to dismay
Thy difficult efforts to the goal divine,
Through fear of how God's justice works. Forget
The form of the chastising. Think, the debt
Is cancelled at the last. It cannot go
Beyond the limited sentence. Still will shine
The eternal consummation.
I began:
'Master, what see I? Sure, it is not man
Who moveth thus my troubled sight to blur.'
He answered: 'Men they are. Their torment dire
So bows them. At the first, my sight was strained
Correctly to determine what they were.
But look, as one who pulls the vines apart
For clearer vision. Fixedly require
Thine eyes to answer what is he below
The nearer rock. Now canst thou well perceive
How each is pinched.'
Oh, Christians, self-content!
Way-weary, miserable, yet confident
In laggard paces! Do ye fail to know
That present worms are we, though formed to cleave
The chrysalis, that the angelic butterfly,
Unshamed and undisguised its course may soar,
To find the seat of judgment? Why so high
Your minds exalt, who are but grubs, before
You come to transformation?
As we see
A corbel quaintly carved, that breast and knee
Grotesquely meet, the while it bends to bear
The monstrous weight of floor or roof, that so
Our minds are shaken by the seeming show
Of such distorting burden, so to me
Those crouching forms appeared. I saw them there
So burdened, so distorted. More or less,
According to their weighted backs, distress
So bent them. He who crouched the lowliest head,
Weeping, 'I can no more,' it seemed he said.
CANTO XI
'Our Father, who dost dwell in Heaven most high,
(Not as confined therein, nor limited,
But that in Heaven is Thy pavilion spread
Of Love transcendent which no sins defy,)
Thy name may all thy creatures sanctify.
Thy Kingdom's peace be ours; for all our wit
Will prove but nothing in default of it.
As of their will Thy chanting angels bend,
From lowlier men may equal praise ascend.
While this rough desert with slow toil we tread,
Give us the manna of our daily bread.
As we condone their faults with whom we live,
Do Thou, regardless of our worth, forgive
Our weakness, that too soon is foiled. Protect,
And lead not where, for thrall of Thine elect,
The serpent lurks. - But this last prayer we pray,
Not for ourselves, but those we left, for they
Are not from sin's assault released, as we
Who, while we bend, the sure, far glory see.'
So for themselves, and those who are not yet
Released from danger of the Pit, they prayed.
If they forget not, say, should we forget
To call on Heaven to grant their equal aid?
Now the first ledge their burdened crawlings wound.
As in some dreadful and fantastic dream,
Oppressed contortions moved. My Leader asked:
'I pray you - so may soon your wings out-gleam,
Uplifting to the swift ascent - declare
The shortest way toward some possible stair
For this my comrade, whose desire is bound
By earth's retarding flesh.'
From these, so tasked,
With crushing burdens that I could not see
Which one it was that spake, a voice arose:
'Come to the right the way we take, for we
Can show a passage where a living man
Could clamber upward. Did no burden span
My neck, that once was stiff with pride, and bear
My visage to the ground, I fain would scan
The face of him who comes from earth, to learn
If he be friend or stranger; and to claim
His pity for this weight that none may share.
'Italian was I, and my father's name,
William Aldobrandescho, Tuscany
Called not ignoble. If this stranger know
Our old repute I will not ask, but I
So dwelt upon their puissance that my pride
Despited all men. From that cause I died.
There is no child in Campagnatico
But talks the tale of how Umberto brought
His consorts to their equal fall. And now
This weight I bear till God be satisfied
That arrogant life hath learned humility,
Having come to death's apartment.'
Low to bow
My head to hear him was a natural thought,
And as I did so, one who came beside
(Not he who spake) a twisting motion made
By which a difficult glance he upward cast,
And recognised, and called me.
'Oh,' I cried,
'Art thou not Oderisi? - He who brought
Much honour to Agubbio, practising there
The Art which Paris calls enluminer?'
'My brother,' he replied, 'Bologna's praise
In Franco's parchments fairer smiles. My art
Was crescent to his fuller orb. Be sure
My talk was different in the emulous days
I spent on earth! For envy urged my heart,
Content with naught but excellence. You see
Of pride's high vaunt the heavy-bending fee.
'Even thus to take of pride the patient cure
I had not entered, save to God I turned
Before my sin's occasion ceased. Behold,
How vain are human words, and dextrous skill,
As cause for glory! How short time until
The outgrown green the coming years deny.
'Cimabue of his art was confident
That none could rout him from the field, yet now
Giotto's painting wins the louder cry.
A Guido from a Guido's brows hath rent
The wreath of his pre-eminence, whereby
The further truth discloses. These will die,
And one now born may both their fames prevent
By other excellence. The world's report
Is wind that hence and hither blows, and brings
New names from new directions. What outwings
A short millenium's space? Ere that be spent
The child who dies with speech half-learnt and thou
Have found an equal end. A thousand years -
What are they different from an eyelid's blink
Beside the eternal? As a blink is naught
Beside the slowest heaven's complete revolve
Their time is trivial.
'He who next appears
And crawls across our sight his difficult way
All Tuscany applauded. Scarcely now
Siena recollects his names, that link
Therewith the cries of ruin, when orgulous
As now made abject, Florence arms outfought
Went down at Montaperti. Such repute
As thine may promise shall not longer stay
Than grass His fervent summer dries away
Whose spring gave freshness to its growth.'
I said:
'Thy words make humble all my pride, for true
My reason owns them. . . Wilt thou tell me now
Of whom you last were speaking?'
'He you mean
Is Provencal Salvani, grovelling thus
Because he sought in mood presumptuous
Siena wholly to his feet to bow.
Who take on earth an overweening way -
Behold the crushing coin in which we pay!'
'But if the spirit who through life delays
Repentance to the last,' I asked, 'be held
For the same period that its acts rebelled
Chained down to earth, except that kindly prayer
Assist its passage, how, from hindrance clear,
Has so short time availed to bring him here?'
He answered: 'While he lived in glory there,
Shameless to tread Siena, once his stand
He took, though all his pulses shook with fear,
A friend from Charles's dungeon-chains to free;
And that good deed was potent to expand
The else-barred boundaries. - Though I may not tell
A clearer tale, yet short the time shall be
Before thy neighbours' talk confirm it well.'
CANTO XII
As oxen in an equal yoke are paired,
So with that burdened soul awhile I shared
Motion and gait, until my patient Guide
Rebuked me gently: 'Each with oar and tide,
And as aloft the spreading sails allow,
His barque must urge.'
At this, I ceased to bow
Mine outward form, and rose erect to take
The steps of natural freedom, while within
My prostrate spirit cowered uncomforted.
But when some space behind my active Guide
My willing feet had hastened, 'Look,' he said,
'Look downward! For the sight of where you tread
Will prove your consolation.'
As we make
Graven memorials of our kinsmen dead,
Recording on their tombs of how they died,
And what their lives accomplished, so to win
The tears of recollection; even so,
But far in art superior, ranged below
A pictured record on the whole extent
Of that mount-circling road by which we went.
There saw I Lucifer as lightning fall,
Heaven's noblest cast from Heaven. The further side
Showed where Briareus, raised by equal pride,
Smitten by celestial lightning, sprawled supine,
By chill death weighted to the earth he spurned.
Thymbraeus I saw. Pallas and Mars I saw
Yet armed around their father, gazing down
Upon the giant's dismembered limbs. I saw
Nimrod beneath his toil bewildered stand,
The nations ranged around on either hand
Who shared his pride in Shinar. Tears were mine
Thy seven and seven children, Niobe,
Slain in their youth around thy feet to see.
And here was Saul, face-fallen, pierced and dead
By his own conquered weapon: rain nor dew
Gilboa from that fated moment knew.
And foolish here I saw Arachne too,
Half-spider now, and mournful to survey
The tatters of the work her hurt had wrought.
And Rehoboam, his high threats forgot,
Now terrored in his clanging chariot fled
The hard pursuit behind him.
Forward lay
Vision succeeding vision. Alcmaeon
Within the lucid pavement made appear
His mother's bright adorning bought too dear.
Further, Sennacherib on the temple stone
Stretched lifeless, while his murdering sons withdrew.
And next Tomyris, who to Cyrus said:
'With blood that was thy thirst I feed thee full.'
And all the pitiless ruin she caused was shown.
Headless beyond, the bold Assyrian bull.
Great Holofernes, sprawled, whom Judith slew,
While on its flying rear his army bled.
Troy saw I also there, how piteous low!
Blackened and hollowed by its eating fire,
And all its pride degraded.
Is there known
Among our mortal craftsmen one to show,
With pencil or with graver, art like this?
Shadow and line alike were absolute
In reproduction. Living men were seen
As live as in past time their deeds had been,
And those whose deaths recording stone declared
Were dead beyond denial. Those who shared
The events themselves no clearer saw than I
The while I bowed to watch them. Lift ye high,
Eve's children, all your haughty necks, nor bow
To see your condemnation!
While I bent,
Further upon that circling path we went,
And more the sun's diurnal course was spent
Than I, whose mind was thus preoccupied,
Was ware until I heard my Leader chide,
Who watchful all this time had walked ahead:
'Be ye no longer heedless! Lift thine eyes!
Behold the angel in the path! Regard
How the sixth handmaid of the day returns.
Dispose thyself to act in reverent wise
That he may deign to point the upward way.
Consider ever that the failing day
No second dawn delivers.'
Such rebuke
I heard too often not to heed. Mine eyes
I raised to see the angel. Close he came,
White-clad, and in his face, no threatening flame,
There shone the light of morning's tremulous star.
His hands he reached. His wide white wings he spread.
'Come forward, for the steps are near,' he said,
'And easy is the upward path from now.'
Oh, race of men, for such ascent designed,
Why doth so little wind your course divert?
Why come so few that angel's voice to hear?
He led us where the rock was hewn. He beat
His wings about my forehead. 'Mount, and find
Thy feet secure,' he said.
As where the street
Mounts from the Rubaconte bridge to reach
That church that from its high precipitous hill
Surveys the well-ruled city, the slant is cut
With steps that piety had hewn when still
The measures of the market-place were sure;
The public records seemed to rest secure,
So here the steep, that else no man might climb
The second round to reach, an upward stair
Ascends, though right and left the closing wall
The climbers' elbows graze.
A song sublime,
Beyond resource of mortal words to tell,
Our ears encountered as we clomb. Recall
How different were the sounds we heard in hell
At each dread circle's entrance! Beati
Pauperes spiritu they chanted now.
'Master, how swift the holy stairs I tread!'
Astonished at the light ascent I said.
For weariness I felt not, and a weight
Was lifted from my heart.
And he replied:
'The letters on thy brow the porter traced
Are fainter now, and were they all erased,
As one already is, thy feet would feel
Such holy impulse that their swift ascent
Would give more ease than pausing.'
I thereat,
As one who by another's gesture knows
That something which he would not else suspect
Has marked him, and in sight's default he lifts
A hand, that unknown object to detect
With outspread fingers felt, and found indeed
That of those letters marked upon my brow
By him who held the keys, remaining now
There were but six, and fainter those: the while
Uplifted by my Guide's approving smile.
CANTO XIII
Again a summit to the climbing stair.
Again a cornice round the mount did go,
And sooner circled than the zone below.
No shade we saw, nor any pictures there,
But right and left the rising rock was bare.
Those livid walls we faced, and only those.
So bare appeared the wall, so bare the way,
That Virgil counselled: 'If our steps we stay
To wait some guiding voice, too long delay
May hinder here.' He rightward turned, and raised
His eyes to Heaven's sweet light. 'O Light,' he said,
'Sweet Light, by which mankind is comforted!
Warm overbrooding Light, if naught beside
Give different urge, thou art our natural guide,
And we will follow in thy confidence.'
So went we on with eager wills, that thence
A mile we traversed in short time, until
We heard the wings of those we could not see
Fly past us, and the ear's alerted sense
Could hear them call us in their courtesy
To join the Table of Love. The first one cried:
Vinum non habent as it came, and still
Repeated till the sound in distance died.
But ere it ceased another came, who said:
'I am Orestes.' Down the wind it fled
As did that other.
'Father,' of my Guide
I asked, 'what may these sightless voices be?'
And while I asked another passing cried:
'Love those who wrong thee.' Then my Master said:
'Within this round is envy scourged, and so
Love wields the whip. But of an opposite sound
The reins must be. I think thou shalt not go
So far that thou our next release wilt know
Before you hear it. . . But thy gaze around
More keenly cast, for there are folk who sit
Beside us as we walk.'
With wider eyes
I looked, and all beneath the cliff there sat
Cloaked shades, whose colour and the rock were one.
Audibly they sighed: 'Ob, Mary, Mary, pray,
Pray for us!' . . . Michael . . . Peter . . . all the saints
Their cries assailed. I do not think today,
For all its ill, a man so hard were found
On earth compassion had not stirred thereat
Even to the source of tears.
At nearer view,
Their sightless pleading and their plight I knew.
With heavy grief I wept. It seemed that they
Were coarsely covered, as with cloth of hair;
And as the sightless ones their movements were
Who, at the Place of Pardons indigent,
Expose themselves for pity. So they leant
Each against each, or on the bank: so yearned
With pleading misery, as the blind, to plant
Compassion in those who pass the holy door.
And as the sun to those blind faces turned
Is darkness, so to these the Heavenly Light
Withholds. For as the wild hawks vainly pant
For freedom, blinded that they may not soar
With iron threads that interrupt their sight,
So did the wires these downdrawn eyelids bore.
It seemed as outrage to my heart that I
Walked with clear sight, while these to light denied
Could not behold me, and I turned to speak
The vexing doubt. But read my wiser Guide
The unspoken thought.
'Expose thy mind,' he said,
'Be brief and clear.' Upon the outer verge
He walked, where mortal feet might fail to keep
The fenceless edge, and on my leftward side
There were the shades devout, whose heavenly urge
Against the horrible stitching strained, to weep
Continual longing tears.
'O Folk, secure
To see the light at last! With short delay
May grace the pure spring of the mind permit
To break the scum that chokes it,' so I said,
'If you will tell me - gracious words and dear
My heart should count them - is there one man here
Who of the Latin lands is citizen?'
'Brother,' a voice made answer, 'rather say
"Who was a pilgrim once in Italy",
For we who were of devious wanderings then
Are now of one true city.'
I looked ahead,
With eyes obedient to the sound, and saw
A face strain blindly with a lifted chin.
To which I answered: 'Spirit, so tormented
For thine at last uplifting, if from thee
That protest came, I plead thy courtesy
Thine earthly place to tell, or how therein
Thy name was voiced.'
It answered: 'Sienese
I was, who cleanse with these my life astray,
Weeping to Him who will at last delay
Himself no longer. Sapia was my name,
But wise I was not. More my heart would please
To watch disaster to my foes than find
My ventures win. Until the day there came,
When somewhat down my arch of years declined,
That those of mine own city against their foes
Went out to battle, and there I God besought
His will to work. But when the fight I saw
- The bitter routing of my foes - I thought
Not Heaven itself my final bliss could flaw.
I raised audacious face to God, and said:
"Now do I cease to fear Thee", as the merle
Mocked the wind-routed cloud, while the next shower
Came upward from the sea. Yet peace I sought
With Heaven, at life's extremity. My hour
Of ended penitence were not yet nigh
But that the holy prayers assault the sky
Of Peter Pettinagno. . . But I hear,
Surely, a breathing voice! Thine eyes appear,
By thy free steps, unclosed! Who art thou, thus
With power to pass unstitched, and question us
Made blind for envy here?'
'Mine eyes,' I said,
'Will yet be blinded, though my fear is less
For this, than for the heavy woes which press
The previous round. They have not been misled
So much by envy, as I think.'
And she:
'Then say by what strange guide thy feet are set
Herein, who have not passed the stage below?'
And I to her: 'In his sure charge I go
Who walks in silence at my side. I bear
As yet the burden of my flesh. And so,
If there be ways my feet in Tuscany,
O Spirit elect, may move to serve thee, speak!'
She answered: 'Since this wonder strange and new
Discloses God thy friend, I pray thee share
Sometime for me a moment of thy prayer;
And more, by that which here thou most dost seek,
I charge thee that mine earthly fame shall be
Renewed among my kindred, if thy feet
Indeed once more the Tuscan land shall tread -
Among those men you may my kindred meet
Whose hope is futile in Talamone,
Vainer than that which bored Diana's spring;
Such hope shall heaviest loss their seamen bring.'
CANTO XIV
'Who treads our circle ere his death permit
The winged ascent? To whom doth Heaven remit
The penance that our tortured eyelids know?'
'I know not whom he be. But this I know:
He comes companioned. Ask him, if thou wilt,
In words of winning softness, that he stay,
And grant us speech.'
I heard, beside our way,
On the right hand, two spirits in converse thus,
Who upward turned their blinded eyes to us,
While one petitioned: 'Thou, the fleshly bond
Who hast not burst, but yet, ignoring guilt,
Canst take the heavenward road, in charity
Console our curious minds; for marvellous
That which hath never been must always be.'
I answered: 'Down through midmost Tuscany
A stream from Falterona falls. Extends
Its course a hundred devious miles, and still
Unsated wanders. On its banks I wear
This mortal body, but the name I bear
Would nothing mean. Beyond immediate friends
It makes no sound as yet.'
The first replied:
'If to a hidden word my sense was wide,
You talk of Arno.'
'Why,' the second said,
'Makes he that river's name a mystery,
As careful lips avoid a word obscene?'
To which the first made answer: 'That to say
Is his, not mine. But well its name had been
Cast to forgetfulness. From where it springs
(Where the huge mountain-range exalts so high
That seldom loftier peaks assault the sky
Even to where, to end its length, the sea
Cuts off Pelorum) till it finds at last
Its issue of repayment, rendering back
That which the heavens dry upward, and the streams
Return in season to the waiting sea,
In all its length, men own no enemy
More hated than is virtue: it to see,
As from a poisonous snake, they shrink aside.
'Either because the vale is cursed, or through
Inherited evil, those who dwell there lack
The natural virtues of their kind. It seems
That Circe feeds them. Where its stream is new,
Foul hogs are those accursed who populate
Its miserable banks, that galls should be
Their food: not acorns. nor a human meal.
Lower, to those who snarl, from those who squeal,
Its course descends, that with a quick disgust
It turns, as from a stench, rejecting curs
That yap beyond their power for injury.
Yet, as it broadens, more its evil fate
Befouls it: wolves for dogs its curse prefers.
And after that, as on through deep ravines
It seeks the sea's far favour, what remains?
Foxes for wolves at last, who fear no chains
But cunning fraud may loose them!
'What I say
I will not silence, though a stranger gleans.
The power of truth impels me. Well may he
Regard it, and remember. More I see.
It is thy grandson now whose bestial mood
Chases those wolves and scares them. Ravening there,
Along the wretched vale, their flesh he sells
While life is in them; or their slaughtering
He orders ruthless, as a man will doom
A beast grown old in service; life from them
And honour from himself he shreds away.
Bloodsoaked, emerging from the trampled wood,
He leaves it so that no millenium
Will cleanse it and replant it.'
As the word
Of one who of a frustrate future tells
Changes the countenance of him who hears,
Although he guess not whence the danger nears,
So saw I that the spirit's face who heard
Fell to a troubled sadness, as his thought
Digested his companion's speech. The sight
And hearing moved me that I hard besought
That they would tell me who they were. Whereat
The first made answer: 'Do you plead for that
Yourself refused to grant me? Yet the grace
Which brings thee here outshines so large a light
That it constrains me. When on earth I went
Guido del Duca was I called. My blood
Was so enraged with envy when I saw
A man grow prosperous, that all my face
Turned livid. Thus I sowed; and now the straw
Is mine to garner. Oh, ye mortal race!
Why will ye so debase your hearts that sight
And fellowship of your more fortunate kind
Becomes intolerable? . . . My comrade here
Is Rinier, once Calboli's boast, where none
Has heired his worth, and not his life alone
Is barren of good harvesting between
Po and the mountains, Reno and the sea;
But all throughout Romagna's bounds is seen
A growth of foul degenerate stocks, so lean
Of noble purpose that to cultivate
That land would be to hoe them. Who shall find
A Lizio now? Manardi, where is he?
Or Traversaro? Do you find again
Guy of Carpigna? O degenerate!
Sunk bastards of Romagna! Seek in vain
Throughout all Faenza, is a Bernard there? -
A son of Fosco, that most noble growth
Of humble root. . .
'Tuscan, to see me weep
You shall not marvel, as my thoughts recall
Ugolin d'Azzo, Guy of Prata, they
Who were our house-companions. Throng they all
Back to remembrance, though my grief be loth.
Frederick Tignoso and his company:
The Traversaro, Anastagni - both
Great houses void and heirless now! I see
The cavaliers, the love, the courtesy,
The ladies, and the travails and repose,
High hearts and deeds, so sunk in infamy
That naught is left if Brettinoro goes,
Following his kinsmen, and a crowd who thence,
Self-exiled as the price of innocence,
Have left Romagna. Praise at least be thine,
Bagnacavallo, that no sons you bear!
And blamed be Castrocaro that an heir
It gives to its dishonour. Conio
Does worse in such begetting. More shall shine
Imola's fortune when its lord shall go
The Demon's natural way, but not so fair
That ever shall its record-scroll be bright
Beyond besmirching. One there is remains
- One name secure from blight of shaming stains -
Ugolin de Fantoli. For he left
No child who could degrade it . . . Tuscan, go!
The memories thou hast stirred give more delight
In tears than converse.'
So he spake, and we
Went onward, without guidance, confident
That though they saw not, hearing where we went,
They would have chided had we turned astray.
And then, like lightning through the air, our way
Was countered by a flying voice that cried:
'Whoever findeth me shall surely slay.'
And as it died upon our ears, there came,
Like thunder that pursues the lightning's flame,
Another voice that roared in deafening tone:
'I am Aglauros, who became a stone,'
And in the silence, as that thunder died,
I checked my steps, and to my patient Guide
Drew closer, while his chiding voice I heard:
'That was the bit which should be iron to keep
The man who feels it to the path; but you
Another bait have taken, and the hook
Of the old adversary so prevails
To draw you to him that no bridle now
Restrains, nor voice recalls you. In your view
The eternal heavens, at which you do not look,
Revolve with all their beauties, while your gaze,
Oblivious of their splendours, earthward turns,
Wherefore He scourges you, who all discerns.'
CANTO XV
Of the sun's sphere, which sways in passing by
Like a child's hoop that's trundled through the sky,
So much before the fall of evening lay
As from the third hour to the break of day.
There was the low sun of the afternoon,
While here had been the midnight. Now we met
The sun full-face, with blinking eyes, for we
So far had circled round the mount. I set
My hand to shade mine eyes, that such degree
Of light confronted, but I found the boon
Of shade denied.
'Sweet Father, wilt thou tell
How is it that the light assails me so
That naught can shade it, and it strikes as though
Reflected upwards? As when waters throw,
Or dazzling glass, the backward beam? Meseems
Itself advances on us.'
'Marvellous,'
He answered, 'are the heavenly lights as yet
Too unfamiliar vision. You fail to see
That not alone the sun's low radiance gleams;
But straightly on the path there comes to us
An angel sent to lead us. Soon will be
Confusion changed for comfort at the sight
Of Heaven's lucent hosts. Extreme delight
Will stir thee to thy nature's most extent
At such beholding.'
While he spake, we came
To that benignant angel. 'Enter here',
He called us with a joyful voice. We went
Upon a stair less steep than that below.
Beati misericordes chanted clear
Pursued us upward, and a song more near:
Rejoice that thou hast conquered.
Lonely now
We climbed, and I, with all my thoughts intent
On gaining wisdom from my Master's word,
Besought his exposition: 'Say what meant
That spirit of Romagna, when he spake,
Both of rejection and companionship?'
To which he answered: 'He the detriment
Of his own blemish so rebukes, that he
May have less cause for mourning. While desire
On finite and inferior food relies,
Where fewer feeders mean more bounteous fare,
Envy becomes a bellows to your sighs.
But if to Heavenly Love your hopes aspire
There lacks occasion for so base a fear.
The more there are, the wealthier each must be,
As more of that celestial charity
Burns in the crowded cloister.'
'That I hear,'
I answered, 'sounds so strangely in mine ear,
That being amply by thy wisdom fed,
I fast more keenly, and the doubt I knew
Is sharper than before. For how can good
Being to many hands distributed,
Endow them richlier than were it spread
Less thinly, totalled to a fortunate few?'
And he to me: 'Because your eyes you keep
Fixed downward to your earthly range, you reap
Darkness from light itself. The Eternal Good
Is both ineffable and infinite.
The more there are who in its rays unite,
The more its conflagration heats. The more
Of folk in Heaven whose souls have understood
Each other, in the light of Love Divine,
The more of love doth midst and round them shine,
As mirrors, each to each, reflected light
Cast to their own advantage.
'If from me
This truth you may not take, and sated see
Its prevalent wonder, Beatrice soon
Will be more potent with her words, and take
Not this alone, but all unsatisfied
Truth-hungers from thee. Only seek to bring
A diligent mind hereto, the final three
Of the five wounds to close, that sorrowing
Can heal, as twice already hath been.'
My Guide
I did not answer, though my thought replied:
'My heart is rested by thy words', for now
Our stair had to the next high gallery gained,
So that my wandering eyes my speech denied.
And at that instant, as it seemed, I knew
Ecstatic visions. Here a temple showed,
With moving groups about its doors, and one
Who with a mother's gesture called: 'My son,
Why hast thou disregarded? While that we
Have sought thee grieving?'
As she ceased, there feigned
A different sight. A woman frantic cried,
With lifted arms, and tears less misery
Distilled than indignation: 'Lord, if thou
Art truly regnant in this town, which erst
Caused strife of gods to name it, and hath gained
A later style more noble, seeing that now
Its fount of various knowledge sparkles high,
Wilt thou not venge me for those arms that dared,
Oh, Pisistratus, in an hour accursed,
Embrace my daughter?'
And that Lord replied
With temperate kindness: 'If we so condemn
A man who loves us, what is meet for them
Who work us evil?'
Then a crowd I saw
Fired with fierce hate, and voices shouted: 'Slay!'
And in their midst a youth was bound, and they
Hurled stones on him from every side, that he
Sank deathward, but his eyes were gates of prayer
Raised to an opening heaven, and from his lips,
Unstilled by scourging pains or life's eclipse,
Petitions for their pardon came, that so
Stirred pity to see it.
When my mind recurred
To external things (and yet which had not erred
Even in that it saw which was not there),
My Leader, who beheld me move as though
I waked from dreaming, for my comfort said:
'What ails thee that thou canst not firmly tread?
For half a league thy wandering feet have wound
Such devious patterns on the uncertain ground
As wine compels, or sleep inclines.'
And I:
'Oh, Father, if thine ear attend, I tell
The visions that impelled my mind to leave
My legs' control.'
To which he answered: 'Nay,
I read thee to thy smallest thought so well,
That not a hundred masks could hide. Believe
The sights thus granted were thy gain, that they
Should move thy heart, full-opened, to receive
The streams of peace abroad distributed
Wide from the eternal fount.
I did not ask
"What ails thee?" as might one whose earthly eyes
See nothing while his body dreaming lies,
But to impel thee on thy forward task
With diligent feet. Meet is it thus to press
The slothful who delay their wakefulness
From active use.'
As thus he spake, we went
Straight on to meet the sunset. Far ahead,
Level and low, its gleaming rays were spread.
But gradually across the light there came
A drifting smoke. It hid the sunset's flame.
Densely it darkened that clear firmament
Till we, reliefless in its folds confined,
Reft of pure air, were compassed, lost and blind.
CANTO XVI
Not hell's interior gloom, nor starless night
By densest clouds augmented, foiled my sight
As that enveloping smoke, nor felt a veil
So harsh of texture. nor so irritant,
So that mine eyelids could not long prevail
To lift against it. But my faithful Guide
His ready shoulder for my use supplied.
He said: 'Hold firmly. Do not leave my side,
And naught will harm thee.'
On we went, as goes
A blind man and his leader; he behind
A shortened pace, that naught that meets their way
May snare his feet, and holding, lest he stray,
His leader's hand. And as we went there rose
A murmur round us. Through the fetid air
'Oh, Lamb of God, who takes all sins away'
Rose from all sides the universal prayer.
With Agnus Dei every voice began,
So that it seemed a concord of desire:
One word, one measure.
'Master, these I hear
Are spirits' voices?'
'Surely so. Of ire
The knot they loosen.'
'Who art thou so near
Who talkest of us in a separate style,
As still for thee the months their process ran?'
So from the darkness came a voice. At which
My Guide enjoined me: 'Answer. Ask the while
If from this point we upward turn.'
And I:
'O Creature who thyself dost purify
So that thou mayst be fit for fair return
To Him who made thee, keep beside, and learn
A marvel I will tell thee.'
He to me:
'So far from here as heavenly laws permit
I will continue with thee. Smoke may hide
Our movements, but our voices will provide
An equal guidance.'
Then I answer made
To his first question: 'With that burden weighed
Which death alone releases climb I now.
So came I scatheless through Hell's weariness;
And if God's grace, having shown those depths, will bless
Mine eyes with comfort of His courts above,
Conceal not from me whom thou wast, and show
I pray, the path by which we upward go,
And be thy words our escort.'
'I,' said he,
'Was Marcus, called on earth of Lombardy.
Virtue I loved, toward which all men today
The bowstring slacken in lax hands. . . Thy way
Is straightly upward.'
Thus he spake, and then:
'I plead thy favour when thou mountest high
That I be mentioned in thy prayers.'
I said:
'I pledge thee that most surely; but my mind
Is pregnant with a bursting doubt. Before
I held it, and thy word confirms anew
Its subject. Surely is the world of men
A desert bare of virtue, overspread
With fecund evil. What I seek to find
Is sin's occasion to such depth. The more
My mind perceives, the better equipped am I
To point its source to others.'
I heard a sigh
Weighty with grief. 'Brother, the world is blind,
And surely art thou of it. You think to find
Occasions distant in the stars, as though
They rule the doings of men. If that were so,
Virtue should bring no joy, nor evil woe,
Having no freedom in their choice. You see
Events commenced from Heaven. But destiny
Is yours to shape thereafter. Good or ill
You have the light to choose, and human will
Shall overget encountered circumstance
If at the first it fail not. Power more high
And better nature will their strengths ally,
Creating in you that which destiny
Is futile to confound: the will to shape,
Or else endure. So if the world astray
Stumble to its destruction, do not try
To search excuses in the stars. More nigh
The occasion lies. In you the fault: in you
The diligent search should be. And therefore I
Gladly for thy instruction testify.
'Out from the Hand that loves it ere it be,
Comes forth the soul in bare simplicity,
A laughing, weeping child incontinent;
Ignorant of all except the keen desires
That its glad Maker gave. It turns intent
To that which pleases first. If guide nor bit
Withhold it from pursuit before it tires,
It spends itself for gains inadequate.
Hence is the need of laws restraining it;
And of a king who can at least discern
Of the true City the distant towers. Today
The laws exist. But who on earth are they
Who those firm rules enforce? Respect? Obey?
No man. The Shepherd, if he chew the cud,
His hooves are not divided. Those who learn
From partial lips some positive good, pursue
That only. On a single herb they feed,
Choking themselves with their unequal greed,
And seek no further; good to evil thus
Transforming by their own excess. The wrong
Is no inordinate defect of blood,
But evil guidance. Rome, one time who showed
Two suns which led the world by either road,
The temporal and eternal, now confounds
Those who perceive one only. In one hand
Are sword and crook, and by that unity
Are both enfeebled, having lost the fear,
Each for the other, that they ought to know.
'What seed will scatter from the fertile ear
But that which first was planted? Once the land
Watered by Po and Adige courtesy
Contained, and virtue thrived therein. But came
The wars of Frederick, and it sank so low
That those are most secure who think it shame
To neighbour men of clear integrity.
Three are there - three old men who yet remain,
In whom the ancient use rebukes the new.
Guy of Castel, and Gerard called the Good,
And Conrad of Palazzo. You may say,
In all men's hearing, that the Papal See
Through joining in herself two governments,
Falls in the mire, and in that fall befouls
Her burden and herself.'
'Your words explain,'
I answered, 'all I seek. I understand
Why Levi's sons received no heritage.
But tell, I pray, that Gerard, who is he
Whose life enduring from a nobler age
Reproves the baser?'
'Either,' he replied,
'Thy accent snares, or else thy heart hath planned
To try me, who in speech of Tuscany
Canst question thus, as being ignorant
Of whom I knew by that sole name, except
His daughter Gaia's.
'God be now your guide,
For I must go no further. Through the scant
Retiring fog, the first pale light you see;
And there the angel, not as yet for me,
Will meet you.'
Then he ceased to speak, and I
Called vainly through the mist without reply.
CANTO XVII
O reader, if on heights of Alpine snow
A mist hath wrapped thee of such density
That more than any mole thou couldst not see,
Recall how feeble and how white would show
The sun's pale entrance as the vapour thinned.
So will thy mind conceive how came to me
The sun which nightward now descended low.
Following my Master with close steps, I drew
Out to clear light at last. The sunset lay
Yet visible here, though sunk from sight to those
On the low shores beneath us.
Fantasy,
Which can so part us from external things
That not a thousand trumpets sounding shrill
Could rouse us - if not of ourselves it be,
Whence is it? Born of Light, by Heavenly Will,
Its power descends upon us.
She who sings,
Impious, in likeness of the bird which most
For sorrow in its song finds ecstasy,
First my imagination held: so still
My mind was mirrored on itself that naught
Intruded inward to divert its thought.
Next after Philomela came a sight
Of one who hung in torment crucified,
Yet haughty and dispiteous while he died,
While round him grouped Ahasuerus stood,
Esther, and Mordicai called the Good,
Who was of speech unbending.
As will burst
A bubble, failing of its watery frame,
So passed this vision. In its place there came
A maiden, weeping anguished tears, who said:
'O Queen, why hast thou made this choice accurst,
Wrath-blinded? Not to lose Lavinia,
Thy own life hast thou lost; so losing me.
Mine is the grief, the bitter grief for thee.
Oh, Mother, for thy ruin must I weep
Much more than for another's.'
As when first
Strikes on a sleeper's eyes the light of day,
Scattering divisions of his broken sleep,
So these imaginations failed away
As on my face a greater glory fell
Than is the light of any earthly name.
And as I turned to seek its source, there came
A voice that cried: 'The ascent is here', Whereat,
Hearing its tone, desire within me rose
To gaze on him by whom those words were said,
As when insatiate hunger puts to flight
All other impulse till its need be fed.
But as the sun repels our feeble sight,
Hiding itself in its own excellence,
So fell my blinded eyes.
My Leader said:
'This spirit of God, who unsolicited
Directs us upward, his own light conceals
Beyond thine eyes' endurance. So he deals,
As for himself a man will choose. For he
Who knows the need and waits the spoken plea,
Unkindly on refusal's side is set.
But be you instant now to mount, for yet
Some little light remains, and only so,
While it continue, may we upward go.'
At that, and side by side, we took the stair,
And at the first step I became aware
Of a wing's motion past me, that the air
Stirred on my face. A voice said: 'Beati
Pacifici who from evil wrath are free.'
But soon, too soon, the last faint rays so high
Rose from beneath that half the abandoned sky
Revealed its stars; and to myself I said:
'Oh, vigour, wherefore hast thou failed?' For lo!
My feet were useless to proceed. The stair
Had ended. Like two ships that drift ashore
We gained the circle's edge, but might no more
Till day released us.
'If we may not go,
Sweet Father, let me of thy wisdom share,
For all is silence round us. I would know
What sin doth this fourth circle purge away.'
To which he answered: 'Here the negligent
Who loved the good beyond their deeds, repent
The occasion lost: the loitering oar resumes
Its regular stroke. But, that thy mind receive
A clearer picture, turn its face to me
Wide-opened. Heed with care the things I say;
And reap rich profit from this night's delay.'
'Nor creature nor Creator,' he began,
'Was ever yet of all love destitute
Of instinct or of reason. That which springs
From instinct will not err; but rational man
May yearn to evil or degrading things,
Or fail by love's defect, or love's excess.
But if its object lack no worthiness,
And it be wisely moderate, its delight
Cannot be sin's occasion. Differently,
If on an object vile its heart be set,
Or seek some good with lust inordinate,
Or else too slackly, then in mutiny
Against his Maker, whom He made proceeds.
'Consider next that all things excellent
Spring from this seed of love; and baser deeds,
Deserving condemnation, rise alike
From the same root. And as it may not be
That one can feel self-hate, or wish the ill
Of that from which itself derives, even so
If rightly I these matters estimate,
Against its neighbour moves an evil will,
And operates in three modes.
'For there is he
Who sees advancement in his neighbour's fall,
And from this cause alone would cast him low;
And there is he who reaps so large a fee
Of power, or fame, or grace, or dignity,
That fear is his lest other's rise should vie
With that loved eminence, and fearing thus
Less than his neighbour's praise, his overthrow
Provides his pleasure. Last, is he whose shame
Makes him of reputations emulous,
Avid for retribution on the name
Beyond its worth exalted. Here below,
In fitting torments, these three sins lament.
Further it will be yours to contemplate
The faults that by wrong paces, fast or slow,
Pursue the good they lack not wits to know.
Dimly, confusedly, they apprehend
The Heaven that calls them, and they strive to win;
But with a love too weak. If by this sin,
This slackness of desire, your sloth offend,
Here, in the torments of this gallery,
After true penitence, your lot must be.
'Another good there is which brings no bliss.
It is not essence of the Good Divine,
The root and fruit of God's high mystery.
The love that doth too much for that resign
Bewails in those three circles after this.
But how tripartite is its form may be
Seen by thyself; and that I leave to thee.'
CANTO XVIII
My Teacher paused from the profundity
Of the close reasoning that he gave. Intent
He gazed upon me, searching deep to see
How far I understood, and how content
My mind became.
But I, who outwardly
Was silent, felt new thirst, yet said within:
'I may offend by importunity.'
But he, my Father, saw the timorous will.
He understood the wish it dared not tell,
And, speaking, gave me heart to speak, until
I answered fully: 'Master, clear and well
Thy exposition taught me, and my sight
Discerned thy reasons, livened by thy light;
And for that cause I pray thee, Father dear,
That thou interpret to me what may be
This love from which do all good works appear,
As also springs from it their contrary.'
'Direct the acuteness of thine intellect,'
He answered, 'on my words, and thou shalt see
Why the blind leaders that the blind select
Fall to the ditch. The soul, for love designed,
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