Part 14

and by chance I heard 'Sweet Mary!' called thus before us in weeping as a woman does who is in childbirth;

and following: 'So poor you were, as may be seen by that lodging where you laid your holy burden.'

Thereafter I heard: 'O good Fabricius, you chose rather poverty with virtue than to possess great wealth with vice.'

These words were so pleasing to me that I drew further on to have knowledge of that spirit from whom they seemed to come.

He was still speaking of the bounty that Nicholas showed to the maidens, to bring their youth to honor.

'O soul who speak such good,' I said, 'tell me who you were, and why alone you renew these worthy praises.

Your word shall not be without reward if I return to complete the short journey of that life which flies to its term.'

And he: 'I will tell you, not for comfort that I expect from thence, but because so great grace shines in you before you are dead.

I was the root of the evil plant that shadows all the Christian land, so that rarely is good fruit plucked from it.

But if Douai, Lille, Ghent and Bruges could, soon would vengeance be taken on it; and I beg it of Him who judges all.

I was called from thence Hugh Capet; from me are born the Philips and the Louises by whom France has lately been ruled.

I was son of a butcher of Paris: when the ancient kings, all save one rendered in gray garments, came to naught,

I found the rein of the kingdom's government in my hands, and so much new power acquired, and so full of friends,

that to the widowed crown the head of my son was promoted, from whom began the sacred bones of these.

While the great Provençal dowry had not taken shame from my blood, it availed little, but yet did no ill.

There began with force and falsehood his rapine; and afterwards, by way of amends, he took Ponthieu and Normandy and Gascony.

Charles came into Italy, and, by way of amends, made victim of Conradin; and then thrust Thomas back to heaven, by way of amends.

I see a time, not long after even now, that draws another Charles from France, to make better known both himself and his.

He issues forth without arms and alone with the lance with which Judas jousted, and so points it that it makes Florence burst her belly.

Thence he shall gain not land, but sin and shame, the heavier for himself as he accounts the like hurt more light.

The other, who once came forth taken from ship, I see sell his daughter and bargain for her as corsairs do for other slaves.

O avarice, what more can you do to us, since you have drawn my blood so to you that it cares not for its own flesh?

That the future and done ill may seem less, I see the fleur-de-lis enter Alagna, and Christ taken captive in his vicar.

I see him mocked again; I see renewed the vinegar and gall, and among living thieves crucified.

I see the new Pilate so cruel, that this contents him not, but without decree he bears his covetous sails into the Temple.

O my Lord, when shall I be glad to see the vengeance which, hidden, makes your wrath sweet in your secret?

That which I said of that only spouse of the Holy Spirit and which made you turn toward me for some gloss,

is answered to all our prayers as long as the day lasts; but when it grows night, we take contrary sound in its place.

We repeat then Pygmalion, whom his greed for gold made traitor and thief and parricide;

and the misery of avaricious Midas, who followed his greedy demand, for which ever one must laugh.

Then each recalls foolish Achan, how he stole the spoils, so that the wrath of Joshua here seems still to bite him.

Then we accuse Sapphira with her husband; we praise the kicks that Heliodorus got; and all around the mount in infamy

turns Polynestor who slew Polydorus; lastly we cry to him: 'Crassus, tell, since you know: of what savor is gold?'

Sometimes one speaks high and the other low, according as the affection spurs us to ire now with greater, now with lesser step:

wherefore for the good that is spoken of by day, I was not alone before; but here close by no other person raised the voice.'

We had already parted from him, and were striving to outgo the road as much as was permitted to our power,

when I felt, like a thing that falls, the mountain tremble; whereupon a chill seized me such as he who goes to death is wont to take.

Surely Delos shook not so strongly, before Latona made her nest in it to bring forth the two eyes of heaven.

Then began from all parts a cry such that my master turned toward me, saying: 'Fear not, while I guide you.'

'Glory in excelsis Deo' all were saying, as I gathered from those near, so that the cry could be understood.

We stood immovable and suspended like the shepherds who first heard that song, until the trembling ceased and it was ended.

Then we took up again our holy journey, looking at the shades who lay on the ground, returned now to their wonted weeping.

No ignorance ever with so great strife made me desirous to know, if my memory err not herein,

as then seemed to me, thinking, to have; nor through haste dared I ask, nor could I see aught there by myself:

so went I timid and thoughtful.

Purgatory Canto XXI

The natural thirst that never is satisfied save with the water whereof the Samaritan woman asked the grace,

tormented me, and pricked me the haste along the hampered way behind my leader, and I grieved at the just vengeance.

And lo, as Luke writes to us that Christ appeared to the two who were on the way, already risen from the sepulchral cave,

there appeared to us a shade, and came behind us, looking from his feet at the crowd that lies; nor were we aware of him, so spoke he first,

saying: 'O my brothers, God give you peace.' We turned suddenly, and Virgil rendered him the sign that befits that.

Then he began: 'May the truthful court that relegates me to the eternal exile place you in peace in the blessed council.'

'How!' said he, and in part we went briskly: 'if you are shades that God deigns not to raise, who has conducted you so far by his stair?'

And my doctor: 'If you regard the signs that this one bears and that the angel outlines, well shall you see that with the good he must reign.

But because she who spins day and night had not yet drawn forth the distaff that Clotho imposes and completes for each,

his soul, which is sister to yours and mine, coming up, could not come alone, for after our fashion it does not spy.

Whence I was drawn forth from the wide throat of hell to show him, and will show him further, as far as my school can lead him.

But tell me, if you know, why such rolls gave the mountain lately, and why all at once it seemed to cry even to its soft feet.'

So he gave me, asking, through the eye of my desire, that only with hope my thirst became less fasting.

He began: 'There is naught that feels without order the religion of the mountain, or that is beyond usage.

Free is it here from all alteration: of that which heaven receives from itself into itself can there be cause, and not of else.

Wherefore no rain, no hail, no snow, no dew, no rime falls higher than the short stair of three steps;

thick clouds appear not nor rare, nor coruscation, nor daughter of Thaumas, who often changes regions there;

dry vapor rises no further than the top of the three steps I spoke of, where the vicar of Peter has his feet.

It trembles perhaps below more or less; but through wind that hides in earth, I know not how, up here it never trembled.

It trembles when some clean soul feels itself, so that it rises or moves to go up; and such a cry attends.

Of the cleanness alone the will gives proof, which, wholly free to change convent, surprises the soul, and aids it with will.

First it wills good, but leaves not the bent that divine justice, against will, as at sinning, sets to torment.

And I, who have lain in this pain five hundred years and more, but now felt free will of better threshold:

wherefore you felt the quake and the pious spirits render praise through the mount to that Lord who soon sends them up.'

Thus he told us; and because he enjoys the drinking as much as the thirst is great, I cannot say how much he profited me.

And the wise leader: 'Now I see the net that ensnares you here and how one slips out, why it trembles and at what you rejoice together.

Now who you were, may it please you that I know, and why you have lain here so many centuries, let it be caught in your words.'

'In the time when good Titus, with the aid of the highest King, avenged the wounds whence issued the blood for Judas sold,

with the name that endures most and honors most was I thence,' answered that spirit, 'famous enough, but not yet with faith.

So sweet was my vocal spirit, that, a Tolosan, Rome drew me to herself, where I merited to crown my brows with myrtle.

Statius the people still name me there: I sang of Thebes, and then of great Achilles; but fell by the way with the second load.

To my ardor were seeds the sparks that warmed me, of the divine flame wherefrom more than a thousand are lit;

of the Aeneid I speak, which was mother to me, and was nurse, poetizing: without it I fixed not weight of a drachm.

And for having lived there when Virgil lived, I would concede one sun more than I ought to my being unbanned.'

Virgil turned these words to me with a face which, silent, said 'Be still'; but not all can the virtue that wills;

for smile and tear are so follower of the passion from which each is plucked, that they follow will less in the truest.

I smiled just as a man who winks; wherefore the shade was silent, and looked at me in the eyes where the countenance most fixes;

and 'If you sum so much labor in good,' said he, 'why did your face just now show me a flash of smile?'

Now am I taken on one side and the other: the one makes me silent, the other conjures me to speak; whence I sigh, and am understood

by my master, and 'Have no fear,' he says to me, 'to speak; but speak and tell him that which he asks with such care.'

Whence I: 'Perhaps you marvel, ancient spirit, at the laugh I made; but let more admiration take you.

He who guides my eyes on high is that Virgil from whom you took strength to sing of men and of gods.

If you believed other cause for my smile, leave it as untrue, and believe those words true that you spoke of him.'

Already he was bending to embrace the feet of my doctor, but he said to him: 'Brother, do not, for you are shade and shade see.'

And he, rising: 'Now can you comprehend the quantity of the love that warms me toward you, when I forget our vanity,

treating shades as solid thing.'

Purgatory Canto XXII

Already was the angel behind us remained, the angel who had turned us to the sixth circle, having rasped a stroke from my face;

and they who have justice for their desire had said us blessed, and his voices with 'sitiunt,' without else, completed it.

And I went lighter than by the other passes, so that without any labor I followed up the swift spirits;

when Virgil began: 'Love, kindled by virtue, ever kindled other, provided its flame appeared outward;

wherefore from the hour that Juvenal descended among us in the limbo of hell, who made your affection manifest to me,

my good will toward you was such as ever bound most to a person unseen, so that now these stairs will seem short to me.

But tell me, and as friend pardon me if too much assurance slackens the rein, and as friend now discourse with me:

how could avarice find place within your bosom, amid so much wisdom wherewith you were filled by your care?'

These words moved Statius first to a little smile; then answered: 'Every saying of yours of love is dear token to me.

Truly many times things appear that give false matter for doubting through the true reasons that are hidden.

Your question makes your belief manifest to me, that I was avaricious in the other life, perhaps by that circle where I was.

Now know that avarice was too far parted from me, and this excess thousands of moons have punished.

And if it were not that I directed my care, when I heard there where you cry, almost angered at human nature:

'Why do you not rule, O sacred hunger of gold, the appetite of mortals?', I would be turning still the sorry jousts.

Then I perceived that too wide could open the hands to spending, and repented me thus of that as of other ills.

How many will rise again with shorn locks through ignorance, which takes from this fault the repenting in life and in the extremes!

And know that the guilt which rebukes by right opposition some sin, dries up its green together with it here;

wherefore, if I have been among that people who weep avarice, to purge myself, its contrary met me.'

'Now when you sang the cruel arms of the double sadness of Jocasta,' said the singer of bucolic songs, 'by that which Clio there touches with you,

it does not appear that the faith, without which good doing suffices not, had yet made you faithful.

If thus it is, what sun or what candles de-darkened you, that you afterward steered the sails behind the fisherman?'

And he to him: 'You first sent me toward Parnassus to drink in its grottoes, and first illuminated me near to God.

You did as he who goes by night, who bears the light behind and profits not himself, but makes the persons behind him learned,

when you said: 'The age renews itself; returns justice and prime human time, and a progeny descends from heaven new.'

Through you I was poet, through you Christian: but that you may see better that which I design, I will stretch forth the hand to color it.

Already was the world all pregnant with the true belief, sown by the messengers of the eternal kingdom;

and your word above touched consorted with the new preachers; wherefore I took to visiting them.

They came to me seeming so holy, that when Domitian persecuted them, without my weeping were not their plaints;

and while I was there for them, I succored them, and their right customs made me despise all other sects.

And before I led the Greeks to the rivers of Thebes in poetizing, I had baptism; but through fear I was a hidden Christian,

long showing paganism; and this tepidness made me circle the fourth circle more than the fourth hundredth time.

You therefore, who have lifted the cover that hid from me so much good as I say, while we have surplus of ascending,

tell me where is our ancient Terence, Caecilius and Plautus and Varro, if you know: tell me if they are damned, and in what ward.'

'These and Persius and I and others many,' answered my leader, 'are with that Greek whom the Muses nursed more than ever other,

in the first ring of the blind prison; often we discourse of the mount that always has our nurses with it.

Euripides is there with us and Antiphon, Simonides, Agathon and others more Greeks who once crowned the brow with laurel.

There are seen of your people Antigone, Deiphile and Argia, and Ismene as sad as she was.

There is seen she who showed Langia; there is the daughter of Tiresias, and Thetis, and with her sisters Deidamia.'

Now were both poets silent, again intent to look around, free from ascents and from walls;

and already the four handmaids of day were left behind, and the fifth was at the pole, directing ever up the burning horn,

when my leader: 'I believe that at the extreme we must turn the right shoulders, circling the mountain as we are wont.'

Thus usage was our ensign there, and we took the way with less suspicion through the assent of that worthy soul.

They went before, and I alone behind, and listened to their discourses, which gave me understanding to poetize.

But soon broke the sweet reasonings a tree that we found in midway, with apples sweet and good to smell;

and as a fir in height degrades from branch to branch, so that one downward, I believe, that none may go up.

On the side where our path was closed, fell from the high rock a clear liquor and spread upon the leaves above.

The two poets drew near the tree; and a voice through the foliage cried: 'Of this food you shall have care.'

Then said: 'More thought Mary wherewith the marriages might be honorable and entire, than for her mouth, which now answers for you.

And the ancient Roman women, for their drink, were content with water; and Daniel despised food and acquired wisdom.

The first age, how much gold was fair, made acorns savory with hunger, and every brook nectar with thirst.

Honey and locusts were the viands that nourished the Baptist in the desert; wherefore he is glorious and so great as is opened to you by the Gospel.'

Purgatory Canto XXIII

While my eyes I fixed on the green foliage as is wont to do he who loses his life behind little birds,

the more than father said to me: 'Son, come now, for the time that is imposed on us must be portioned more usefully.'

I turned my face, and not less soon the step, behind the sages who spoke so that the going cost me nothing.

And lo, weeping and singing was heard 'Labia mea, Domine' in such mode that it brought forth delight and grief.

'O sweet father, what is that I hear?' I began; and he: 'Shades that go perhaps loosing the knot of their debt.'

As the thoughtful pilgrims do, joining by way people unknown, who turn to them and stay not,

so behind us, more quickly moved, coming and passing, admired us a crowd of souls silent and devout.

In the eyes each was dark and hollow, pale in the face, and so emaciated that the skin informed itself from the bones.

I believe not that thus to extreme rind Erysichthon was made dry through fasting, when he most feared it.

I said within myself thinking: 'Lo the people that lost Jerusalem, when Mary gave beak in the son!'

The eye-sockets seemed rings without gems: who in the face of men reads 'omo' would well have recognized the m here.

Who would believe that the odor of an apple should so govern, generating craving, and that of water, not knowing how?

Already was I in admiring that so it famishes them, for the cause yet not manifest of their leanness and their sad scale,

and lo, from the depth of the head one shade turned to me the eyes and looked fixed; then cried loud: 'What grace is this to me?'

Never should I have recognized him by the face; but in his voice was manifest to me that which the aspect had conquered in itself.

This spark wholly rekindled in me my knowledge at the changed lip, and I recognized the face of Forese.

'Ah, contend not,' he prayed, 'with the dry scab that discolors my skin, nor with the defect of flesh that I have;

but tell me the truth of you, say who those two souls are that make you escort there; cease not to speak to me!'

'Your face, which I wept as dead, gives me now no less grief to weep, seeing it so distorted,' I answered him.

'Wherefore tell me, for God, what so strips you; make me not speak while I marvel, for ill can speak he who is full of other will.'

And he to me: 'From the eternal counsel falls virtue into the water and into the plant left behind, wherefrom I so attenuate.

All this people that weeping sings to follow gluttony beyond measure, here in hunger and thirst reforms itself holy.

Of drinking and eating care enkindles us, the odor that issues from the apple and from the spray that spreads up through its verdure.

And not once only, this space going round, is our pain refreshed: I say pain, and should say solace,

for that will leads us to the trees that led Christ glad to say 'Eli,' when he freed us with his vein.'

And I to him: 'Forese, from that day in which you changed world to better life, five years are not turned to here.

If earlier was the power in you ended of sinning more, than came the hour of the good sorrow that remarries to God,

how are you come up here already? I believed to find you there below, where time by time is restored.'

Whence he to me: 'So soon has my Nella brought me to drink the sweet wormwood of the martyrdoms with her plaining outpoured.

With her devout prayers and with sighs she has drawn me from the coast where one waits, and freed me from the other gyres.

So much is to God more dear and more beloved my little widow, whom I much loved, as she is more alone in good working;

for the Barbagia of Sardinia in its women is far more chaste than the Barbagia where I left her.

O sweet brother, what would you that I say? Future time is already in my sight, which will not be very ancient this hour,

in which it shall be interdicted from the pulpit to the shameless Florentine women to go showing the breast with the bosom.

What barbarians ever, what Saracens, to whom it were needful, to make them go covered, spiritual or other disciplines?

But if the unblushing ones were certain of that which the swift heaven prepares for them, already for howling they would have opened the mouths;

for, if the foresight here deceives me not, they shall be sad before he who now consoles himself with lullaby grows cheek-hair.

Ah, brother, now make that you hide not from me! see that not only I, but all this people regards there where the sun veils.'

Wherefore to him: 'If you recall what you were with me, and what I with you, yet shall the present memory be grievous.

From that life he turned me who goes before me, the other day, when the sister of him showed herself round,'

and I showed the sun; 'this one through the deep night has led me of the true dead with this true flesh that follows him.

Then his comforts have drawn me up, ascending and circling the mountain that straightens you whom the world made crooked.

So much he says to make me his companion that I shall be there where Beatrice is; there must he remain without me.

Virgil is this who thus speaks to me,' and I pointed to him; 'and this other is that shade for whom lately shook every slope

your kingdom, that empties itself of him.'

Purgatory Canto XXIV

Nor did the speech make the going, nor the going him more slow, but discoursing we went briskly, like a ship driven by good wind;

and the shades, who seemed things dead, through the trenches of the eyes drew admiration of me, aware of my living.

And I, continuing my discourse, said: 'She goes up perhaps more slowly than she would, for another's cause.

But tell me, if you know, where is Piccarda; tell me if I see any person notable among this people that so regards me.'

'My sister, who between fair and good I know not which was more, triumphs glad in the high Olympus already of her crown.'

So said he first; and then: 'Here it is not forbidden to name each, since our semblance is so milked away by the diet.

This one,' and showed with the finger, 'is Bonagiunta, Bonagiunta of Lucca; and that face beyond him more than the others punctured

had the Holy Church in his arms: he was of the Torso, and purges by fasting the eels of Bolsena and the vernaccia.'

Many others he named to me one by one; and at the naming all seemed content, so that I saw not therefore a dark act.

I saw through hunger use the teeth in void Ubaldin della Pila and Boniface who pastured many folk with the rook.

I saw Messer Marchese, who had space already to drink at Forlì with less dryness, and was such that he felt not sated.'}

“Stories of the world, in your language.”