Canto XV   
    
    
ARGUMENT.—An Angel invites them to ascend the next steep. On their way Dante suggests certain doubts, which are resolved by Virgil; and, when they reach the third cornice, where the sin of anger is purged, our Poet, in a kind of waking dream, beholds remarkable instances of patience; and soon after they are enveloped in a dense fog.   
    
    
AS much as ’twixt the third hour’s close and dawn,      
Appeareth of Heaven’s sphere, that ever whirls      
As restless as an infant in his play;      
So much appear’d remaining to the sun      
Of his slope journey towards the western goal.           5   
  Evening was there, and here the noon of night;      
And full upon our forehead smote the beams.      
For round the mountain, circling, so our path      
Had led us, that toward the sunset now      
Direct we journey’d; when I felt a weight           10   
Of more exceeding splendour, than before,      
Press on my front. The cause unknown, amaze      
Possess’d me! and both hands against my brows      
Lifting, I interposed them, as a screen,      
That of its gorgeous superflux of light           15   
Clips the diminish’d orb. As when the ray,      
Striking on water or the surface clear      
Of mirror, leaps unto the opposite part,      
Ascending at a glance, e’en as it fell,      
And as much differs from the stone, that falls           20   
Through equal space, (so practic skill hath shown);      
Thus, with refracted light, before me seem’d      
The ground there smitten; whence, in sudden haste,      
My sight recoil’d. “What is this, sire beloved!      
’Gainst which I strive to shield the sight in vain?”           25   
Cried I, “and which toward us moving seems?”      
  “Marvel not, if the family of Heaven,”      
He answer’d, “yet with dazzling radiance dim      
Thy sense. It is a messenger who comes,      
Inviting man’s ascent. Such sights ere long,           30   
Not grievous, shall impart to thee delight,      
As thy perception is by nature wrought      
Up to their pitch.” The blessed Angel, soon      
As we had reach’d him, hail’d us with glad voice:      
“Here enter on a ladder far less steep           35   
Than ye have yet encounter’d.” We forthwith      
Ascending, heard behind us chanted sweet,      
“Blessed the merciful,” 1 and “Happy thou,      
That conquer’st.” Lonely each, my guide and I,      
Pursued our upward way; and as we went,           40   
Some profit from his words I hoped to win,      
And thus of him inquiring, framed my speech:      
“What meant Romagna’s spirit, 2 when he spake      
Of bliss exclusive, with no partner shared?”      
  He straight replied: “No wonder, since he knows           45   
What sorrow waits on his own worst defect,      
If he chide others, that they less may mourn.      
Because ye point your wishes at a mark,      
Where, by communion of possessors, part      
Is lessen’d, envy bloweth up men’s sighs.           50   
No fear of that might touch ye, if the love      
Of higher sphere exalted your desire.      
For there, by how much more they call it ours,      
So much propriety of each in good      
Increases more, and heighten’d charity           55   
Wraps that fair cloister in a brighter flame.”      
  “Now lack I satisfaction more,” said I,      
“Than if thou hadst been silent at the first;      
And doubt more gathers on my labouring thought.      
How can it chance, that good distributed,           60   
The many, that possess it, makes more rich,      
Than if ’t were shared by few?” He answering thus:      
“Thy mind, reverting still to things of earth,      
Strikes darkness from true light. The highest Good      
Unlimited, ineffable, doth so speed           65   
To love, as beam to lucid body darts,      
Giving as much of ardour as it finds.      
The sempiternal effluence streams abroad,      
Spreading, wherever charity extends;      
So that the more aspirants to that bliss           70   
Are multiplied, more good is there to love,      
And more is loved; as mirrors, that reflect,      
Each unto other, propagated light.      
If these my words avail not to allay      
Thy thirsting, Beatrice thou shalt see,           75   
Who of this want, and of all else thou hast,      
Shall rid thee to the full. Provide but thou,      
That from thy temples may be soon erased,      
E’en as the two already, those five scars,      
That, when they pain thee worst, then kindliest heal.”           80   
  “Thou,” I had said, “content’st me”; when I saw      
The other round was gain’d, and wondering eyes      
Did keep me mute. There suddenly I seem’d      
By an ecstatic vision wrapt away;      
And in a temple saw, methought, a crowd           85   
Of many persons; and at the entrance stood      
A dame, whose sweet demeanour did express      
A mother’s love, who said, “Child! why hast thou      
Dealt with us thus? Behold thy sire and I      
Sorrowing have sought thee”; and so held her peace;           90   
And straight the vision fled. A female next      
Appear’d before me, down whose visage coursed      
Those waters, that grief forces out from one      
By deep resentment stung, who seem’d to say:      
‘If thou, Pisistratus, be lord indeed           95   
Over this city, 3 named with such debate      
Of adverse gods, and whence each science sparkles,      
Avenge thee of those arms, whose bold embrace      
Hath clasp’d our daughter”; and to her, meseem’d,      
Benign and meek, with visage undisturb’d,           100   
Her sovran spake: “How shall we those requite 4      
Who wish us evil, if we thus condemn      
The man that loves us?” After that I saw      
A multitude, in fury burning, slay      
With stones a stripling youth, 5 and shout amain           105   
“Destroy, destroy”; and him I saw, who bow’d      
Heavy with death unto the ground, yet made      
His eyes, unfolded upward, gates to Heaven,      
Praying forgiveness of the Almighty Sire,      
Amidst that cruel conflict, on his foes,           110   
With looks that win compassion to their aim.      
  Soon as my spirit, from her airy flight      
Returning, sought again the things whose truth      
Depends not on her shaping, I observed      
She had not roved to falsehood in her dreams.           115   
  Meanwhile the leader, who might see I moved      
As one who struggles to shake off his sleep,      
Exclaim’d: “What ails thee, that thou canst not hold      
Thy footing firm; but more than half a league      
Hast travel’d with closed eyes and tottering gait,           120   
Like to a man by wine or sleep o’ercharged?”      
  “Beloved father! so thou deign,” said I,      
“To listen, I will tell thee what appear’d      
Before me, when so fail’d my sinking steps.”      
  He thus: “Not if thy countenance were mask’d           125   
With hundred vizards, could a thought of thine,      
How small soe’er, elude me. What thou saw’st      
Was shown, that freely thou mightst ope thy heart      
To the waters of peace, that flow diffused      
From their eternal fountain. I not ask’d,           130   
What ails thee? for such cause as he doth, who      
Looks only with that eye, which sees no more,      
When spiritless the body lies; but ask’d,      
To give fresh vigour to thy foot. Such goads,      
The slow and loitering need; that they be found           135   
Not wanting, when their hour of watch returns.”      
  So on we journey’d, through the evening sky      
Gazing intent, far onward as our eyes,      
With level view, could stretch against the bright      
Vespertine ray: and lo! by slow degrees           140   
Gathering, a fog made towards us, dark as night.      
There was no room for ’scaping; and that mist      
Bereft us, both of sight and the pure air.      
    
Note 1. “Blessed the merciful.” Matt. v. 7. [back]   
Note 2. Guido del Duca, of Brettinoro. [back]   
Note 3. “Over this city.” Athens, named after Minerva ([Greek]), in consequence of her having produced a more valuable gift for it in the olive than Neptune had done in the horse. [back]   
Note 4. “How shall we those requite?” The answer of Pisistratus the tyrant to his wife, when she urged him to inflict the punishment of death on a young man, who, inflamed with love for his daughter, had snatched a kiss from her in public. [back]   
Note 5. “A stripling youth.” The Protomartyr Stephen.

Canto XVI   
    
    
ARGUMENT.—As they proceed through the mist, they hear the voices of spirits praying. Marco Lombardo, one of these, points out to Dante the error of such as impute our actions to necessity; explains to him that man is endued with free will; and shows that much of human depravity results from the undue mixture of spiritual and temporal authority in rulers.   
    
    
HELL’S dunnest gloom, or night unlustrous, dark,      
Of every planet ’reft, and pall’d in clouds,      
Did never spread before the sight a veil      
In thickness like that fog, nor to the sense      
So palpable and gross. Entering its shade,           5   
Mine eye endured not with unclosed lids;      
Which marking, near me drew the faithful guide,      
Offering me his shoulder for a stay.      
  As the blind man behind his leader walks,      
Lest he should err, or stumble unawares           10   
On what might harm him or perhaps destroy;      
I journey’d through that bitter air and foul,      
Still listening to my escort’s warning voice,      
“Look that from me thou part not.” Straight I heard      
Voices, and each one seem’d to pray for peace,           15   
And for compassion, to the Lamb of God      
That taketh sins away. Their prelude still      
Was “Agnus Dei”; and through all the choir,      
One voice, one measure ran, that perfect seem’d      
The concord of their song. “Are these I hear           20   
Spirits, O master?” I exclaim’d; and he,      
“Thou aim’st aright: these loose the bonds of wrath.”      
  “Now who art thou, that through our smoke dost cleave,      
And speak’st of us, as thou thyself e’en yet      
Dividedst time by calends?” So one voice           25   
Bespake me; whence my master said. “Reply;      
And ask, if upward hence the passage lead.”      
  “O being! who dost make thee pure, to stand      
Beautiful once more in thy Maker’s sight;      
Along with me: and thou shalt hear and wonder.”           30   
Thus, I whereto the spirit answering spake:      
“Long as ’tis lawful for me, shall my steps      
Follow on thine; and since the cloudy smoke      
Forbids the seeing, hearing in its stead      
Shall keep us join’d.” I then forthwith began:           35   
“Yet in my mortal swathing, I ascend      
To higher regions; and am hither come      
Thorough the fearful agony of Hell.      
And, if so largely God hath doled His grace,      
That, clean beside all modern precedent,           40   
He wills me to behold His kingly state;      
From me conceal not who thou wast, ere death      
Had loosed thee; but instruct me: and instruct      
If rightly to the pass I tend; thy words      
The way directing, as a safe escort.”           45   
  “I was of Lombardy, and Marco call’d: 1      
Not inexperienced of the world, that worth      
I still affected, from which all have turn’d      
The nerveless bow aside. Thy course tends right      
Unto the summit:” and, replying thus,           50   
He added, “I beseech thee pray for me,      
When thou shalt come aloft.” And I to him:      
“Accept my faith for pledge I will perform      
What thou requirest. Yet one doubt remains,      
That wrings me sorely, if I solve it not.           55   
Singly before it urged me, doubled now      
By thine opinion, when I couple that      
With one elsewhere declared; each strengthening other.      
The world indeed is even so forlorn      
Of all good, as thou speak’st it, and so swarms           60   
With every evil. Yet, beseech thee, point      
The cause out to me, that myself may see,      
And unto others show it: for in Heaven      
One places it, and one on earth below.”      
  Then heaving forth a deep and audible sigh,           65   
“Brother!” he thus began, “the world is blind;      
And thou in truth comest from it. Ye, who live,      
Do so each cause refer to Heaven above,      
E’en as its motion, of necessity,      
Drew with it all that moves, If this were so,           70   
Free choice in you were none; nor justice would      
There should be joy for virtue, woe for ill.      
Your movements have their primal bent from Heaven;      
Not all: yet said I all; what then ensues?      
Light have ye still to follow evil or good,           75   
And of the will free power, which, if it stand      
Firm and unwearied in Heaven’s first assay,      
Conquers at last, so it be cherish’d well,      
Triumphant over all. To mightier force,      
To better nature subject, ye abide           80   
Free, not constrain’d by that which forms in you      
The reasoning mind uninfluenced of the stars.      
If then the present race of mankind err,      
Seek in yourselves the cause, and find it there;      
Herein thou shalt confess me no false spy.           85   
  “Forth from His plastic hand, who charm’d beholds      
Her image ere she yet exist, the soul      
Comes like a babe, that wantons sportively,      
Weeping and laughing in its wayward moods;      
As artless, and as ignorant of aught,           90   
Save that her Maker being one who dwells      
With gladness ever, willingly she turns      
To whate’er yields her joy. Of some slight good      
The flavour soon she tastes; and, snared by that,      
With fondness she pursues it; if no guide           95   
Recall, no rein direct her wandering course.      
Hence it behoved, the law should be a curb;      
A sovereign hence behoved, whose piercing view      
Might mark at least the fortress 2 and main tower      
Of the true city. Laws indeed there are:           100   
But who is he observes them? None; not he,      
Who goes before, the shepherd of the flock,      
Who 3 chews the cud but doth not cleave the hoof.      
Therefore the multitude, who see their guide      
Strike at the very good they covet most,           105   
Feed there and look no further. Thus the cause      
Is not corrupted nature in yourselves,      
But ill-conducting, that hath turn’d the world      
To evil. Rome, that turn’d it unto good,      
Was wont to boast two suns, 4 whose several beams           110   
Cast light on either way, the world’s and God’s.      
One since hath quench’d the other; and the sword      
Is grafted on the crook; and, so conjoin’d,      
Each must perforce decline to worse, unawed      
By fear of other. If thou doubt me, mark           115   
The blade: each herb is judged of by its seed.      
That land, 5 through which Adice and the Po      
Their waters roll, was once the residence      
Of courtesy and valour, ere the day 6      
That frown’d on Frederick; now secure may pass           120   
Those limits, whosoe’er hath left, for shame,      
To talk with good men, or come near their haunts.      
Three aged ones are still found there, in whom      
The old time chides the new: these deem it long      
Ere God restore them to a better world:           125   
The good Gherardo, 7 of Palazzo he,      
Conrad; 8 and Guido of Castello, 9 named      
In Gallic phrase more fitly the plain Lombard.      
On this at last conclude. The Church of Rome,      
Mixing two governments that ill assort,           130   
Hath miss’d her footing, fallen into the mire,      
And there herself and burden much defiled.”      
  “O Marco!” I replied, “thine arguments      
Convince me: and the cause I now discern,      
Why of the heritage no portion came           135   
To Levi’s offspring. But resolve me this:      
Who that Gherardo is, that as thou say’st      
Is left a sample of the perish’d race,      
And for rebuke to this untoward age?”      
  “Either thy words,” said he, “deceive, or else           140   
Are meant to try me; that thou, speaking Tuscan,      
Appear’st not to have heard of good Gherardo;      
The sole addition that, by which I know him;      
Unless I borrow’d from his daughter Gaïa 10      
Another name to grace him. God be with you.           145   
I bear you company no more. Behold      
The dawn with white ray glimmering through the mist.      
I must away—the angel comes—ere he      
Appear.” He said, and would not hear me more.      
    
Note 1. Venetian gentleman. “Lombardo” both was his surname and denoted the country to which he belonged. G. Villani, lib. vii. cap. cxx., terms him “a wise and worthy courtier.” Benvenuto da Imola, says Landino, relates of him, that being imprisoned and not able to pay his ransom, he wrote to his friend Riccardo da Camino, lord of Trevigi, who raised a contribution among the nobles of Lombardy; of which when Marco was informed, he wrote back with much indignation to Riccardo, that he had rather die than remain under obligations to so many benefactors. Riccardo then paid the whole out of his own purse. [back]   
Note 2. Justice, the most necessary virtue in the chief magistrate, as the commentators for the most part explain it. See also Dante’s De Monarchâ, book I. Yet Lombardi understands the law here spoken of to be the law of God; “the sovereign,” a spiritual ruler, and “the true city,” the society of true believers; so that “the fortress,” according to him, denotes the principal parts of Christian duty. [back]   
Note 3. “Who.” He compares the Pope, on account of the union of the temporal with the spiritual power in his person, to an unclean beast in the Levitical law. “The camel, because he cheweth the cud, but divideth not the hoof.” Levit. vi. 4. [back]   
Note 4. The Emperor and Bishop of Rome. [back]   
Note 5. “The land.” Lombardy. [back]   
Note 6. Before the Emperor Frederick II was defeated at Parma, in 1248. [back]   
Note 7. Gherardo da Camino, of Trevigi. He is honorably mentioned in our Poet’s Convito, p. 173. “Let us suppose that Gherardo da Camino had been the grandson of the meanest hind that ever drank of the Sile or the Cagnano, and that his grandfather was not yet forgotten; who will dare to say that Gherardo da Camino was a mean man, and who will not agree with me in calling him noble?” [back]   
Note 8. Currado da Palazzo of Brescia. [back]   
Note 9. Of Reggio. All the Italians were called Lombards by the French. [back]   
Note 10. “His daughter Gaïa.” A lady equally admired for her modesty, the beauty of her person, and the excellency of her talents. Gaïa may perhaps lay claim to the praise of having been the first among the Italian ladies, by whom the vernacular poetry was cultivated.

Canto XVII   
    
    
ARGUMENT.—The Poet issues from that thick vapour; and soon after his fancy represents to him in lively portraiture some noted examples of anger. This imagination is dissipated by the appearance of an angel, who marshals them onward to the fourth cornice, on which the sin of gloominess or indifference is purged; and here Virgil shows him that this vice proceeds from a defect of love, and that all love can be only of two sorts, either natural, or of the soul; of which sorts the former is always right, but the latter may err either in respect of object or of degree.   
    
    
CALL to remembrance, reader, if thou e’er      
Hast on an Alpine height been ta’en by cloud,      
Through which thou saw’st no better than the mole      
Doth through opacous membrane; then, whene’er      
The watery vapours dense began to melt           5   
Into thin air, how faintly the sun’s sphere      
Seem’d wading through them: so thy nimble thought      
May image, how at first I rebeheld      
The sun, that bedward now his couch o’erhung.      
  Thus, with my leader’s feet still equaling pace,           10   
From forth that could I came, when now expired      
The parting beams from off the nether shores.      
  O quick and forgetive power! that sometimes dost      
So rob us of ourselves, we take no mark      
Though round about us thousand trumpets clang;           15   
What moves thee, if the senses stir not? Light      
Moves thee from Heaven, spontaneous, self-inform’d;      
Or, likelier, gliding down with swift illapse      
By will divine. Portray’d before me came      
The traces of her dire impiety,           20   
Whose form was changed into the bird, that most      
Delights itself in song: 1 and here my mind      
Was inwardly so wrapt, it gave no place      
To aught that ask’d admittance from without.      
Next shower’d into my fantasy a shape           25   
As of one crucified, whose visage spake      
Fell rancour, malice deep, wherein he died;      
And round him Ahasuerus the great king;      
Esther his bride; and Mordecai the just,      
Blameless in word and deed. As of itself           30   
That unsubstantial coinage of the brain      
Burst, like a bubble, when the water fails      
That fed it; in my vision straight uprose      
A damsel 2 weeping loud, and cried, “O queen!      
O mother! wherefore has intemperate ire           35   
Driven thee to loathe thy being? Not to lose      
Lavinia, desperate thou hast slain thyself.      
Now hast thou lost me. I am she, whose tears      
Mourn, ere I fall, a mother’s timeless end.”      
  E’en as a sleep breaks off, if suddenly           40   
New radiance strikes upon the closed lids,      
The broken slumber quivering ere it dies;      
Thus, from before me, sunk that imagery,      
Vanishing, soon as on my face there struck      
The light, outshining far our earthly beam.           45   
As round I turn’d me to survey what place      
I had arrived at, “Here ye mount”: exclaim’d      
A voice, that other purpose left me none      
Save will so eager to behold who spake,      
I could not chuse but gaze. As ’fore the sun,           50   
That weighs our vision down, and veils his form      
In light transcendent, thus my virtue fail’d      
Unequal. “This is Spirit from above,      
Who marshals us our upward way, unsought;      
And in his own light shrouds him. As a man           55   
Doth for himself, so now is done for us.      
For whoso waits imploring, yet sees need      
Of his prompt aidance, sets himself prepared      
For blunt denial, ere the suit be made.      
Refuse we not to lend a ready foot           60   
At such inviting: haste we to ascend,      
Before it darken: for we may not then,      
Till morn again return.” So spake my guide;      
And to one ladder both address’d our steps;      
And the first stair approaching, I perceived           65   
Near me as ’t were the waving of a wing,      
That fann’d my face, and whisper’d: “Blessed they,      
The peace-makers: they know not evil wrath.”      
  Now to such height above our heads were raised      
The last beams, follow’d close by hooded night,           70   
That many a star on all sides through the gloom      
Shone out. “Why partest from me, O my strength?”      
So with myself I communed; for I felt      
My o’ertoil’d sinews slacken. We had reach’d      
The summit, and were fix’d like to a bark           75   
Arrived at land. And waiting a short space,      
If aught should meet mine ear in that new round,      
Then to my guide I turn’d, and said: “Loved sire!      
Declare what guilt is on this circle purged.      
If our feet rest, no need thy speech should pause.”           80   
  He thus to me: “The love of good, whate’er      
Wanted of just proportion, here fulfils.      
Here plies afresh the oar, that loiter’d ill.      
But that thou mayst yet clearlier understand,      
Give ear unto my words; and thou shalt cull           85   
Some fruit may please thee well, from this delay.      
  “Creator, nor created being, e’er,      
My son,” he thus began, “was without love,      
Or natural, or the free spirit’s growth,      
Thou hast not that to learn. The natural still           90   
Is without error: but the other swerves,      
If on ill object bent, or through excess      
Of vigour, or defect. While e’er it seeks      
The primal blessings, 3 or with measure due      
The inferior, 4 no delight, that flows from it,           95   
Partakes of ill. But let it warp to evil,      
Or with more ardour than behoves, or less,      
Pursue the good; the thing created then      
Works ’gainst its Maker. Hence thou must infer      
That love is germin of each virtue in ye,           100   
And of each act no less, that merits pain.      
Now 5 since it may not be, but love intend      
The welfare mainly of the thing it loves,      
All from self-hatred are secure; and since      
No being can be thought to exist apart,           105   
And independent of the first, a bar      
Of equal force restrains from hating that.      
  “Grant the distinction just; and it remains      
The evil must be another’s, which is loved.      
Three ways such love is gender’d in your clay.           110   
There is 6 who hopes (his neighbour’s worth deprest)      
Pre-eminence himself; and covets hence,      
For his own greatness, that another fall.      
There is 7 who so much fears the loss of power,      
Fame, favour, glory, (should his fellow mount           115   
Above him), and so sickens at the thought,      
He loves their opposite: and there is he, 8      
Whom wrong or insult seems to gall and shame,      
That he doth thirst for vengeance; and such needs      
Must dote on other’s evil. Here beneath,           120   
This threefold love is mourn’d. Of the other sort      
Be now instructed; that which follows good,      
But with disorder’d and irregular course.      
  “All indistinctly apprehend a bliss,      
On which the soul may rest; the hearts of all           125   
Yearn after it; and to that wished bourn      
All therefore strive to tend. If ye behold,      
Or seek it, with a love remiss and lax;      
This cornice, after just repenting, lays      
Its penal torment on ye. Other good           130   
There is, where man finds not his happiness:      
It is not true fruition; not that blest      
Essence, of every good the branch and root.      
The love too lavishly bestow’d on this,      
Along three circles over us, is mourn’d.           135   
Account of that division tripartite      
Expect not, fitter for thine own research.”      
    
Note 1. I cannot think, with Vellutello, that the swallow is here meant. Dante probably alludes to the story of Philomela, as it is found in Homer’s “Odyssey,” b. xix. 518. Philomela intended to slay the son of her husband’s brother Amphion, incited to it by the envy of his wife, who had six children, while herself had only two, but through mistake slew her own son Itylus, and for her punishment was transformed by Jupiter into a nightingale. [back]   
Note 2. Lavinia, mourning for her mother Amata, who, impelled by grief and indignation for the supposed death of Turnus, destroyed herself. [back]   
Note 3. “The primal blessings.” Spiritual good. [back]   
Note 4. “The inferior.” Temporal good. [back]   
Note 5. “Now.” “It is impossible for any being, either to hate itself, or to hate the First Cause of all, by which it exists. We can therefore rejoice only in the evil which befalls others.” [back]   
Note 6. “There is.” The proud. [back]   
Note 7. There is.” The envious. [back]   
Note 8. “There is he.” The resentful.

   
Canto XVIII   
    
    
ARGUMENT.—Virgil discourses further concerning the nature of love. Then a multitude of spirits rush by; two of whom, in van of the rest, record instances of zeal and fervent affection, and another, who was Abbot of San Zeno in Verona, declares himself to Virgil and Dante; and lastly follow other spirits, shouting forth memorable examples of the sin for which they suffer. The Poet, pursuing his meditations, falls into a dreamy slumber.   
    
    
THE TEACHER ended, and his high discourse      
Concluding, earnest in my looks inquired      
If I appear’d content; and I, whom still      
Unsated thirst to hear him urged, was mute,      
Mute outwardly, yet inwardly I said:           5   
“Perchance my too much questioning offends.”      
But he, true father, mark’d the secret wish      
By diffidence restrain’d; and, speaking, gave      
Me boldness thus to speak: “Master! my sight      
Gathers so lively virtue from thy beams,           10   
That all, thy words convey, distinct is seen.      
Wherefore I pray thee, father, whom this heart      
Holds dearest, thou wouldst deign by proof t’ unfold      
That love, from which, as from their source, thou bring’st      
All good deeds and their opposite.” He then:           15   
“To what I now disclose be thy clear ken      
Directed; and thou plainly shalt behold      
How much those blind have err’d, who make themselves      
The guides of men. The soul, created apt      
To love, moves versatile which way soe’er           20   
Aught pleasing prompts her, soon as she is waked      
By pleasure into act. Of substance true      
Your apprehension forms its counterfeit;      
And, in you the ideal shape presenting,      
Attracts the soul’s regard. If she, thus drawn,           25   
Incline toward it; love is that inclining,      
And a new nature knit by pleasure in ye.      
Then, as the fire points up, and mounting seeks      
His birth-place and his lasting seat, e’en thus      
Enters the captive soul into desire,           30   
Which is a spiritual motion, that ne’er rests      
Before enjoyment of the thing it loves.      
Enough to show thee, how the truth from those      
Is hidden, who aver all love a thing      
Praiseworthy in itself; although perhaps           35   
Its matter seem still good. Yet if the wax      
Be good, it follows not the impression must.”      
  “What love is,” I return’d, “thy words, O guide!      
And my own docile mind, reveal. Yet thence      
New doubts have sprung. For, from without, if love           40   
Be offered to us, and the spirit knows      
No other footing; tend she right or wrong,      
Is no desert of hers.” He answering thus:      
“What reason here discovers, I have power      
To show thee: that which lies beyond, expect           45   
From Beatrice, faith not reason’s task.      
Spirit, substantial form, with matter join’d,      
Not in confusion mix’d, hath in itself      
Specific virtue of that union born,      
Which is not felt except it work, nor proved           50   
But through effect, as vegetable life      
By the green leaf. From whence his intellect      
Deduced its primal notices of things,      
Man therefore knows not, or his appetites      
Their first affections; such in you, as zeal           55   
In bees to gather honey; at the first,      
Volition, meriting nor blame nor praise.      
But o’er each lower faculty supreme,      
That, as she list, are summon’d to her bar,      
Ye have that virtue 1 in you, whose just voice           60   
Uttereth counsel, and whose word should keep      
The threshold of assent. Here is the source,      
Whence cause of merit in you is derived;      
E’en as the affections, good or ill, she takes,      
Or severs, winnow’d as the chaff. Those men, 2           65   
Who, reasoning, went to depth profoundest, mark’d      
That innate freedom; and were thence induced      
To leave their moral teaching to the world.      
Grant then, that from necessity arise      
All love that glows within you; to dismiss           70   
Or harbour it, the power is in yourselves.      
Remember, Beatrice, in her style,      
Denominates free choice by eminence      
The noble virtue; if in talk with thee      
She touch upon that theme.” The moon, well nigh           75   
To midnight hour belated, made the stars      
Appear to wink and fade; and her broad disk      
Seem’d like a crag on fire, as up the vault 3      
That course she journey’d, which the sun then warms      
When they of Rome behold him at his set           80   
Betwixt Sardinia and the Corsic isle.      
And now the weight, that hung upon my thought,      
Was lighten’d by the aid of that clear spirit,      
Who raiseth Andes 4 above Mantua’s name.      
I therefore, when my questions had obtain’d           85   
Solution plain and ample, stood as one      
Musing in dreamy slumber; but not long      
Slumber’d; for suddenly a multitude,      
The steep already turning from behind,      
Rush’d on. With fury and like random rout,           90   
As echoing on their shores at midnight heard      
Ismenus and Asopus, 5 for his Thebes      
If Bacchus’ help were needed; so came these      
Tumultuous, curving each his rapid step,      
By eagerness impell’d of holy love.           95   
  Soon they o’ertook us; with such swiftness moved      
The mighty crowd. Two spirits at their head      
Cried, weeping, “Blessed Mary 6 sought with haste      
The hilly region. Cæsar, 7 to subdue      
Ilerda, darted in Marseilles his sting,           100   
And flew to Spain.”—“Oh, tarry not: away!”      
The others shouted; “let not time be lost      
Through slackness of affection. Hearty zeal      
To serve reanimates celestial grace.”      
  “O ye! in whom intenser fervency           105   
Haply supplies, where lukewarm erst ye fail’d,      
Slow or neglectful, to absolve your part      
Of good and virtuous; this man, who yet lives,      
(Credit my tale, though strange,) desires to ascend,      
So morning rise to light us. Therefore say           110   
Which hand leads nearest to the rifted rock.”      
  So spake my guide; to whom a shade return’d:      
“Come after us, and thou shalt find the cleft.      
We may not linger: such resistless will      
Speeds our unwearied course. Vouchsafe us then           115   
Thy pardon, if our duty seem to thee      
Discourteous rudeness. In Verona I      
Was Abbot 8 of San Zeno, when the hand      
Of Barbarossa grasp’d imperial sway,      
That name ne’er utter’d without tears in Milan.           120   
And there is he, 9 hath one foot in his grave,      
Who for that monastery ere long shall weep,      
Ruing his power misused: for that his son,      
Of body ill compact, and worse in mind,      
And born in evil, he hath set in place           125   
Of its true pastor.” Whether more he spake,      
Or here was mute, I know not: he had sped      
E’en now so far beyond us. Yet thus much      
I heard, and in remembrance treasured it.      
  He then, who never fail’d me at my need,           130   
Cried, “Hither turn. Lo! two with sharp remorse      
Chiding their sin.” In rear of all the troop      
These shouted: “First they died, 10 to whom the sea      
Open’d, or ever Jordan saw his heirs:      
And they, 11 who with Æneas to the end           135   
Endured not suffering, for their portion chose      
Life without glory.” Soon as they had fled      
Past reach of sight, new thought within me rose      
By others follow’d fast, and each unlike      
Its fellow: till led on from thought to thought,           140   
And pleasured with the fleeting train, mine eye      
Was closed, and meditation changed to dream.      
    
Note 1. “That virtue.” Reason. [back]   
Note 2. “Those men.” The great moral philosophers among the heathen. [back]   
Note 3. “Up the vault.” The moon passed with a motion opposite to that of the heavens, through the constellation of the Scorpion, in which the sun is, when to those who are in Rome he appears to set between the isles of Corsica and Sardinia. [back]   
Note 4. “Andes.” Andes, now Pietola, made more famous than Mantua, near which it is situated, by having been the birthplace of Virgil. [back]   
Note 5. “Ismenus and Asopus.” Rivers near Thebes. [back]   
Note 6. And Mary arose in those days, and went into the hill country with haste, into a city of Judah; and entered into the house of Zacharias and saluted Elisabeth.”—Luke i. 39. [back]   
Note 7. Cæsar left Brutus to complete the siege of Marseilles, and hastened on to the attack of Afranius and Petreius, the generals of Pompey, at Ilerda (Lerida) in Spain. [back]   
Note 8. Alberto, Abbot of San Zeno in Verona, when Frederick I was Emperor, by whom Milan was besieged and reduced to ashes, in 1162. [back]   
Note 9. “There is he.” Alberto della Scala, Lord of Verona, who had made his natural son Abbot of San Zeno. [back]   
Note 10. “First they died.” The Israelites, who on account of their disobedience died before reaching the promised land. [back]   
Note 11. “And they.” Those Trojans, who wearied with their voyage, chose rather to remain in Sicily with Acestes than accompany Æneas to Italy.

   
Canto XIX   
    
    
ARGUMENT.—The Poet, after describing his dream, relates how, at the summoning of an Angel, he ascends with Virgil to the fifth cornice, where the sin of avarice is cleansed, and where he finds Pope Adrian the fifth.   
    
    
IT was the hour, 1 when of diurnal heat      
No reliques chafe the cold beams of the moon,      
O’erpower’d by earth, or planetary sway      
Of Saturn; and the geomancer 2 sees      
His Greater Fortune up the east ascend,           5   
Where gray dawn checkers first the shadowy cone,      
When, ’fore me in my dream, a woman’s shape 3      
There came, with lips that stammer’d, eyes aslant,      
Distorted feet, hands maim’d, and colour pale.      
  I look’d upon her: and, as sunshine cheers           10   
Limbs numb’d by nightly cold, e’en thus my look      
Unloosed her tongue; next, in brief space, her form      
Decrepit raised erect, and faded face      
With love’s own hue illumed. Recovering speech,      
She forthwith, warbling, such a strain began,           15   
That I, how loth soe’er, could scarce have held      
Attention from the song. “I,” thus she sang,      
“I am the Syren, she, whom mariners      
On the wide sea are wilder’d when they hear;      
Such fullness of delight the listener feels.           20   
I, from his course, Ulysses 4 by my lay      
Enchanted drew. Whoe’er frequents me once,      
Parts seldom: so I charm him, and his heart      
Contented knows no void.” Or ere her mouth      
Was closed, to shame her, at my side appear’d           25   
A dame 5 of semblance holy. With stern voice      
She utter’d: “Say, O Virgil! who is this?”      
Which hearing, he approach’d, with eyes still bent      
Toward that goodly presence: the other seized her,      
And, her robes tearing, open’d her before,           30   
And show’d the belly to me, whence a smell,      
Exhaling loathsome, waked me. Round I turn’d      
Mine eyes: and thus the teacher: “At the least      
Three times my voice hath call’d thee. Rise, begone.      
Let us the opening find where thou mayst pass.”           35   
  I straightway rose. Now day, pour’d down from high,      
Fill’d all the circuits of the sacred mount;      
And, as we journey’d, on our shoulder smote      
The early ray. I follow’d, stooping low      
My forehead, as a man, o’ercharged with thought,           40   
Who bends him to the likeness of an arch      
That midway spans the flood; when thus I heard,      
“Come, enter here,” in tone so soft and mild,      
As never met the ear on mortal strand.      
  With swan-like wings dispred and pointing up,           45   
Who thus had spoken marshal’d us along,      
Where, each side of the solid masonry,      
The sloping walls retired; then moved his plumes,      
And fanning us, affirm’d that those, who mourn, 6      
Are blessed, for that comfort shall be theirs.           50   
  “What aileth thee, that still thou look’st to earth?”      
Began my leader; while the angelic shape      
A little over us his station took.      
  “New vision,” I replied, “hath raised in me      
Surmisings strange and anxious doubts, whereon           55   
My soul intent allows no other thought      
Or room, or entrance.”—“Hast thou seen,” said he      
“That old enchantress, her, whose wiles alone      
The spirits o’er us weep for? Hast thou seen      
How man may free him of her bonds? Enough.           60   
Let thy heels spurn the earth; and thy raised ken      
Fix on the lure, which Heaven’s eternal King      
Whirls in the rolling spheres.” As on his feet      
The falcon first looks down, then to the sky      
Turns, and forth stretches eager for the food,           65   
That woos him thither; so the call I heard:      
So onward, far as the dividing rock      
Gave way, I journey’d, till the plain was reach’d.      
  On the fifth circle when I stood at large,      
A race appear’d before me, on the ground           70   
All downward lying prone and weeping sore.      
“My soul hath cleaved to the dust,” I heard      
With sighs so deep, they well nigh choked the words.      
  “O ye elect of God! whose penal woes      
Both hope and justice mitigate, direct           75   
Towards the steep rising our uncertain way.”      
  “If ye approach secure from this our doom,      
Prostration, and would urge your course with speed,      
See that ye still to rightward keep the brink.”      
  So them the bard besought; and such the words,           80   
Beyond us some short space, in answer came.      
  I noted what remain’d yet hidden from them: 7      
Thence to my liege’s eyes mine eyes I bent,      
And he, forthwith interpreting their suit,      
Beckon’d his glad assent. Free then to act           85   
As pleased me, I drew near, and took my stand      
Over that shade whose words I late had mark’d.      
And, “Spirit!” I said, “in whom repentant tears      
Mature that blessed hour when thou with God      
Shalt find acceptance, for a while suspend           90   
For me that mightier care. Say who thou wast;      
Why thus ye grovel on your bellies prone;      
And if, in aught, ye wish my service there,      
Whence living I am come.” He answering spake:      
“The cause why Heaven our back towards his cope           95   
Reverses, shalt thou know: but me know first,      
The successor of Peter, 8 and the name      
And title of my lineage, from that stream 9      
That ’twixt Chiaveri and Siestri draws      
His limpid waters through the lowly glen.           100   
A month and little more by proof I learnt,      
With what a weight that robe of sovereignty      
Upon his shoulder rests, who from the mire      
Would guard it; that each other fardel seems      
But feathers in the balance. Late, alas!           105   
Was my conversion: but, when I became      
Rome’s pastor, I discerned at once the dream      
And cozenage of life; saw that the heart      
Rested not there, and yet no prouder height      
Lured on the climber: whereof, of that life           110   
No more enamor’d, in my bosom love      
Of purer being kindled. For till then      
I was a soul in misery, alienate      
From God, and covetous of all earthly things;      
Now, as thou seest, here punish’d for my doting.           115   
Such cleansing from the taint of avarice,      
Do spirits, converted, need. This mount inflicts      
No direr penalty. E’en as our eyes      
Fasten’d below, nor e’er to loftier clime      
Were lifted; thus hath justice level’d us,           120   
Here on the earth. As avarice quench’d our love      
Of good, without which is no working; thus      
Here justice holds us prison’d, hand and foot      
Chain’d down and bound, while Heaven’s just Lord shall please,      
So long to tarry, motionless, outstretch’d.”           125   
  My knees I stoop’d, and would have spoke; but he,      
Ere my beginning, by his ear perceived      
I did him reverence; and “What cause,” said he,      
“Hath bow’d thee thus?”—“Compunction,” I rejoin’d,      
“And inward awe of your high dignity.”           130   
  “Up,” he exclaim’d, “brother! upon thy feet      
Arise; err not: thy fellow-servant I,      
(Thine and all others’) of one Sovran Power.      
If thou hast ever mark’d those holy sounds      
Of gospel truth, ‘nor shall be given in marriage,’           135   
Thou mayst discern the reasons of my speech.      
Go thy ways now; and linger here no more.      
Thy tarrying is a let unto the tears,      
With which I hasten that whereof thou spakest.      
I have on earth a kinswoman; 10 her name           140   
Alagia, worthy in herself, so ill      
Example of our house corrupt her not:      
And she is all remaineth of me there.”      
    
Note 1. “The hour.” Near the dawn. [back]   
Note 2. “The geomancer.” The geomancers, when they divined, drew a figure consisting of sixteen marks, named from so many stars which constitute the end of Aquarius and the beginning of Pisces. One of these they called “the greater fortune.” [back]   
Note 3. “A woman’s shape.” Worldly happiness. This allegory reminds us of the “Choice of Hercules.” [back]   
Note 4. “Ulysses.” It is not easy to determine why Ulysses, contrary to the authority of Homer, is said to have been drawn aside from his course by the song of the Siren. No improbable way of accounting for the contradiction is, to suppose that she is here represented as purposely deviating from the truth. Or Dante may have followed some legend of the Middle Ages. [back]   
Note 5. “A dame.” Philosophy, or perhaps Truth. [back]   
Note 6. “Who mourn.” “Blessed are they that mourn; for they shall be comforted.”—Matt. v. 4. [back]   
Note 7. “I noted what remain’d yet hidden from them.” They were ignorant, it appeared, whether Dante was come there to be purged of his sins. [back]   
Note 8. “The successor of Peter.” Ottobuono, of the family of Fieschi, Counts of Lavagno, died thirty-nine days after he became Pope, with the title of Adrian V, in 1276. [back]   
Note 9. “That stream.” The river Lavagno, in the Genoese territory; to the east of which territory are situated Siestri and Chiaveri. [back]   
Note 10. “A kinswoman.” Alagia is said to have been the wife of the Marchese Marcello Malaspina, one of the Poet’s protectors during his exile. See Canto viii. 133.

   
Canto XX   
    
    
ARGUMENT.—Among those of the fifth cornice, Hugh Capet records illustrious examples of voluntary poverty and of bounty; then tells who himself is, and speaks of his descendants on the French throne; and, lastly, adds some noted instances of avarice. When he has ended, the mountain shakes, and all the spirits sing “Glory to God.”   
    
    
ILL strives the will, ’gainst will more wise that strives:      
His pleasure therefore to mine own preferr’d,      
I drew the sponge yet thirsty from the wave.      
Onward I moved: he also onward moved,      
Who led me, coasting still, wherever place           5   
Along the rock was vacant; as a man      
Walks near the battlements on narrow wall.      
For those on the other part, who drop by drop      
Wring out their all-infecting malady,      
Too closely press the verge. Accurst be thou,           10   
Inveterate wolf! 1 whose gorge ingluts more prey,      
Than every beast beside, yet is not fill’d;      
So bottomless thy maw. Ye spheres of Heaven!      
To whom there are, as seems, who attribute      
All change in mortal state, when is the day           15   
Of his appearing, 2 for whom fate reserves      
To chase her hence? With wary steps and slow      
We pass’d; and I attentive to the shades,      
Whom piteously I heard lament and wail;      
And, ’midst the wailing, one before us heard           20   
Cry out “O blessed Virgin!” as a dame      
In the sharp pangs of childbed; and “How poor      
Thou wast,” it added, “witness that low roof      
Where thou didst lay thy sacred burden down.      
O good Fabricius! thou didst virtue choose           25   
With poverty, before great wealth with vice.”      
  The words so pleased me, that desire to know      
The spirit, from whose lip they seem’d to come,      
Did draw me onward. Yet it spake the gift      
Of Nicholas, 3 which on the maidens he           30   
Bounteous bestow’d, to save their youthful prime      
Unblemish’d. “Spirit! who dost speak of deeds      
So worthy, tell me who thou wast,” I said,      
“And why thou dost with single voice renew      
Memorial of such praise. That boon vouchsafed           35   
Haply shall meet reward; if I return      
To finish the short pilgrimage of life,      
Still speeding to its close on restless wing.”      
  “I,” answer’d he, “will tell thee; not for help,      
Which thence I look for; but that in thyself           40   
Grace so exceeding shines, before thy time      
Of mortal dissolution. I was root 4      
Of that ill plant, whose shade such poison sheds      
O’er all the Christian land, that seldom thence      
Good fruit is gather’d. Vengeance soon should come,           45   
Had Ghent and Douay, Lille and Bruges power;  5      
And vengeance I of Heaven’s great Judge implore.      
Hugh Capet was I hight: from me descend      
The Philips and the Louis, of whom France      
Newly is govern’d: born of one, who plied           50   
The slaughterer’s trade  6 at Paris. When the race      
Of ancient kings had vanish’d (all save one 7      
Wrapt up in sable weeds) within my gripe      
I found the reins of empire, and such powers      
Of new acquirement, with full store of friends,           55   
That soon the widow’d circlet of the crown      
Was girt upon the temples of my son, 8      
He, from whose bones the anointed race begins.      
Till the great dower of Provence 9 had removed      
The stains, that yet obscured our lowly blood,           60   
Its sway indeed was narrow; but howe’er      
It wrought no evil: there, with force and lies,      
Began its rapine: after, for amends,      
Poitou it seized, Navarre and Gascony.      
To Italy came Charles; and for amends,           65   
Young Conradine, 10 an innocent victim, slew;      
And sent the angelic teacher 11 back to Heaven,      
Still for amends. I see the time at hand,      
That forth from France invites another Charles  12      
To make himself and kindred better known.           70   
Unarm’d he issues, saving with that lance,      
Which the arch-traitor tilted with, 13 and that      
He carries with so home a thrust, as rives      
The bowels of poor Florence. No increase      
Of territory hence, but sin and shame           75   
Shall be his guerdon; and so much the more      
As he more lightly deems of such foul wrong.      
I see the other 14 (who a prisoner late      
Had stept on shore) exposing to the mart      
His daughter, whom he bargains for, as do           80   
The Corsairs for their slaves. O avarice!      
What canst thou more, who hast subdued our blood      
So wholly to thyself, they feel no care      
Of their own flesh? To hide with direr guilt      
Past ill and future, lo! the flower-de-luce 15           85   
Enters Alagna; in his Vicar Christ      
Himself a captive, and his mockery      
Acted again. Lo! to his holy lip      
The vinegar and gall once more applied;      
And he ’twixt living robbers doom’d to bleed.           90   
Lo! the new Pilate, of whose cruelty      
Such violence cannot fill the measure up,      
With no decree to sanction, pushes on      
Into the temple 16 his yet eager sails.      
  “O sovran Master! when shall I rejoice           95   
To see the vengeance, which Thy wrath, well-pleased,      
In secret silence broods?—While daylight lasts,      
So long what thou didst hear of her, sole spouse      
Of the Great Spirit, and on which thou turn’dst      
To me for comment, is the general theme           100   
Of all our prayers; but, when it darkens, then      
A different strain we utter; then record      
Pygmalion, whom his gluttonous thirst of gold      
Made traitor, robber, parricide: the woes      
Of Midas, which his greedy wish ensued,           105   
Mark’d for derision to all future times:      
And the fond Achan, 17 how he stole the prey,      
That yet he seems by Joshua’s ire pursued.      
Sapphira with her husband next we blame;      
And praise the forefeet, that with furious ramp           110   
Spurn’d Heliodorus. 18 All the mountain round      
Rings with the infamy of Thracia’s king, 19      
Who slew his Phrygian charge: and last a shout      
Ascends: ‘Declare, O Crassus!  20 for thou know’st,      
The flavour of thy gold.’ The voice of each           115   
Now high, now low, as each his impulse prompts,      
Is led through many a pitch, acute or grave.      
Therefore, not singly, I erewhile rehearsed      
That blessedness we tell of in the day:      
But near me, none, beside, his accent raised.”           120   
  From him we now had parted, and essay’d      
With utmost efforts to surmount the way;      
When I did feel, as nodding to its fall,      
The mountain tremble; whence an icy chill      
Seized on me, as on one to death convey’d.           125   
So shook not Delos, when Latona there      
Couch’d to bring forth the twin-born eyes of Heaven.      
  Forthwith from every side a shout arose      
So vehement, that suddenly my guide      
Drew near, and cried: “Doubt not, while I conduct thee.”           130   
“Glory!” all shouted (such the sounds mine ear      
Gather’d from those, who near me swell’d the sounds),      
“Glory in the highest be to God.” We stood      
Immovably suspended, like to those,      
The shepherds, who first heard in Bethlehem’s field           135   
That song: till ceased the trembling, and the song      
Was ended: then our hallow’d path resumed,      
Eying the prostrate shadows, who renew’d      
Their custom’d mourning. Never in my breast      
Did ignorance so struggle with desire           140   
Of knowledge, if my memory do not err,      
As in that moment; nor through haste dared I      
To question, nor myself could aught discern.      
So on I fared, in thoughtfulness and dread.      
    
Note 1. “Wolf.” Avarice. [back]   
Note 2. He is thought to allude to Can Grande della Scala. See Hell, Canto i. 98. [back]   
Note 3. An angel having revealed to him that the father of a family was so impoverished as to resolve on exposing the chastity of his three daughters to sale, Nicholas threw in at the window of their house three bags of money, containing a sufficient portion for each of them. [back]   
Note 4. “Root.” Hugh Capet, ancestor of Philip IV. [back]   
Note 5. These cities had lately been seized by Philip IV. The spirit intimates the approaching defeat of the French army by the Flemings, in the battle of Courtrai, which happened in 1302. [back]   
Note 6. “The slaughterer’s trade.” This reflection on the birth of his ancestor induced Francis I to forbid the reading of Dante in his dominions. Hugh Capet, who came to the throne of France in 987, was, however, the grandson of Robert, who was the brother of Eudes, King of France in 888; and it may, therefore, well be questioned whether by Beccaio di Parigi is meant literally one who carried on the trade of a butcher, at Paris, and whether the sanguinary disposition of Hugh Capet’s father is not stigmatized by this opprobrious appellation. [back]   
Note 7. The posterity of Charlemain, the second race of French monarchs, had failed, with the exception of Charles of Lorraine, who is said, on account of the melancholy temper of his mind, to have always clothed himself in black. Venturi suggests that Dante may have confounded him with Childeric III, the last of the Merovingian, or first, race, who was deposed and made a monk in 751. [back]   
Note 8. Hugh Capet caused his son Robert to be crowned at Orleans. [back]   
Note 9. “The great dower of Provence.” Louis IX and his brother Charles of Anjou married two of the four daughters of Raymond Berenger, Count of Provence. See Paradise, c. vi. 135. [back]   
Note 10. “Young Conradine.” Charles of Anjou put Conradino to death in 1268, and became King of Naples. [back]   
Note 11. “The angelic teacher.” Thomas Aquinas. He was reported to have been poisoned by a physician, who wished to ingratiate himself with Charles of Anjou. “In the year 1323, at the end of July, by the said Pope John and by his cardinals, was canonized at Avignon, Thomas Aquinas, of the order of Saint Dominic, a master in divinity and philosophy. A man most excellent in all science, and who expounded the sense of Scripture better than anyone since the time of Augustin. He lived in the time of Charles I, King of Sicily; and going to the council at Lyons, it is said that he was killed by a physician of the said king, who put poison for him into some sweetmeats, thinking to ingratiate himself with King Charles, because he was of the lineage of the Lords of Aquino, who had rebelled against the king, and doubting lest he should be made cardinal; whence the Church of God received great damage. He died at the abbey of Fossanova, in Campagna.” G. Villani, lib. ix. [back]   
Note 12. “Another Charles.” Charles of Valois, brother of Philip IV, was sent by Pope Boniface VIII to settle the disturbed state of Florence. In consequence of the measures he adopted for that purpose, our Poet and his friends were condemned to exile and death. [back]   
Note 13.
           “——— with that lance.”   
If I remember right, in one of the old romances, Judas is represented tilting with our Saviour. [back]   
Note 14. “The other.” Charles, King of Naples, the eldest son of Charles of Anjou, having, contrary to the directions of his father, engaged with Ruggieri de Lauria, the admiral of Peter of Arragon, was made prisoner, and carried into Sicily, June, 1284. He afterward, in consideration of a large sum of money, married his daughter to Azzo VIII, Marquis of Ferrara. [back]   
Note 15. “The flower-de-luce.” Boniface VIII was seized at Alagna in Campagna, by the order of Philip IV, in the year 1303, and soon after died of grief. G. Villani, lib. viii. cap. lxiii. “As it pleased God, the heart of Boniface being petrified with grief, through the injury he had sustained, when he came to Rome, he fell into a strange malady, for he gnawed himself as one frantic, and in this state expired.” His character is strongly drawn by the annalist in the next chapter. Thus, says Landino, was verified the prophecy of Celestine respecting him, that he should enter on the popedom like a fox, reign like a lion, and die like a dog. [back]   
Note 16. It is uncertain whether our Poet alludes still to the event mentioned in the preceding note, or to the destruction of the order of the Templars in 1310, but the latter appears more probable. [back]   
Note 17. “Achan.” Joshua vii. [back]   
Note 18. “Heliodorus.” “For there appeared unto them an horse, with a terrible rider upon him, and adorned with a very fair covering, and he ran fiercely and smote at Heliodorus with his fore feet.” 2 Maccabees iii. 25. [back]   
Note 19. “Thracia’s king.” Polymnestor, the murderer of Polydorus. Hell, Canto xxx. 19. [back]   
Note 20. “Crassus.” Marcus Crassus, who fell miserably in the Parthian war.

Canto XXI   
    
    
ARGUMENT.—The two Poets are overtaken by the spirit of Statius, who, being cleansed, is on his way to Paradise, and who explains the cause of the mountain shaking, and of the hymn; his joy at beholding Virgil.   
    
    
THE NATURAL thirst, ne’er quench’d but from the well 1      
Whereof the woman of Samaria craved,      
Excited; haste, along the cumber’d path,      
After my guide, impell’d; and pity moved      
My bosom for the ’vengeful doom though just.           5   
When lo! even as Luke 2 relates, that Christ      
Appear’d unto the two upon their way,      
New-risen from His vaulted grave; to us      
A shade appear’d, and after us approach’d,      
Contemplating the crowd beneath its feet.           10   
We were not ware of it; so first it spake,      
Saying, “God give you peace, my brethren!” then      
Sudden we turn’d: and Virgil such salute,      
As fitted that kind greeting, gave; and cried:      
“Peace in the blessed council be thy lot,           15   
Awarded by that righteous court which me      
To everlasting banishment exiles.”      
  “How!” he exclaim’d, nor from his speed meanwhile      
Desisting; “If that ye be spirits whom God      
Vouchsafes not room above; who up the height           20   
Has been thus far your guide?” To whom the bard:      
“If thou observe the tokens, 3 which this man,      
Traced by the finger of the Angel, bears;      
’Tis plain that in the kingdom of the just      
He needs must share. But sithence she, 4 whose wheel           25   
Spins day and night, for him not yet had drawn      
That yarn, which on the fatal distaff piled,      
Clotho apportions to each wight that breathes;      
His soul, that sister is to mine and thine,      
Not of herself could mount; for not like ours           30   
Her ken: whence I, from forth the ample gulf      
Of Hell, was ta’en, to lead him, and will lead      
Far as my lore avails. But, if thou know,      
Instruct us for what cause, the mount erewhile      
Thus shook, and trembled: wherefore all at once           35   
Seem’d shouting, even from his wave-wash’d foot.”      
  That questioning so tallied with my wish,      
The thirst did feel abatement of its edge      
E’en from expectance. He forthwith replied:      
“In its devotion, nought irregular           40   
This mount can witness, or by punctual rule      
Unsanction’d; here from every change exempt,      
Other than that, which Heaven in itself      
Doth of itself receive, no influence      
Can reach us. Tempest none, shower, hail, or snow,           45   
Hoar frost, or dewy moistness, higher falls      
Than that brief scale of threefold steps: thick clouds,      
Nor scudding rack, are ever seen: swift glance      
Ne’er lightens; nor Thaumantian Iris gleams,      
That yonder often shifts on each side Heaven.           50   
Vapour adust doth never mount above      
The highest of the trinal stairs, whereon      
Peter’s vicegerent stands. Lower perchance,      
With various motion rock’d, trembles the soil:      
But here, through wind in earth’s deep hollow pent,           55   
I know not how, yet never trembled: then      
Trembles, when any spirit feels itself      
So purified, that it may rise, or move      
For rising; and such loud acclaim ensues.      
Purification, by the will alone,           60   
Is proved, that free to change society      
Seizes the soul rejoicing in her will.      
Desire of bliss is present from the first;      
But strong propension hinders, to that wish      
By the just ordinance of Heaven opposed;           65   
Propension now as eager to fulfill      
The allotted torment, as erewhile to sin.      
And I, who in this punishment had lain      
Five hundred years and more, but now have felt      
Free wish for happier clime. Therefore thou felt’st           70   
The mountain tremble; and the spirits devout      
Heard’st, over all his limits, utter praise      
To that liege Lord, whom I entreat their joy      
To hasten.” Thus he spake: and, since the draught      
Is grateful ever as the thirst is keen,           75   
No words may speak my fullness of content.      
  “Now,” said the instructor sage, “I see the net      
That takes ye here; and how the toils are loosed;      
Why rocks the mountain, and why ye rejoice.      
Vouchsafe, that from thy lips I next may learn           80   
Who on the earth thou wast; and wherefore here,      
So many an age, wert prostrate.”—“In that time,      
When the good Titus, 5 with Heaven’s King to help,      
Avenged those piteous gashes, whence the blood      
By Judas sold did issue; with the name 6           85   
Most lasting and most honor’d, there, was I      
Abundantly renown’d,” the shade replied,      
“Nor yet with faith endued. So passing sweet      
My vocal spirit; from Tolosa, Rome      
To herself drew me, where I merited           90   
A myrtle garland to inwreathe my brow.      
Statius they name me still. Of Thebes I sang,      
And next of great Achilles; but i’ the way      
Fell with the second burden. Of my flame      
Those sparkles were the seeds, which I derived           95   
From the bright fountain of celestial fire      
That feeds unnumber’d lamps; the song I mean      
Which sounds Æneas’ wanderings: that the breast      
I hung at; that the nurse, from whom my veins      
Drank inspiration: whose authority           100   
Was ever sacred with me. To have lived      
Coeval with the Mantuan, I would bide      
The revolution of another sun      
Beyond my stated years in banishment.”      
  The Mantuan, when he heard him, turn’d to me;           105   
And holding silence, by his countenance      
Enjoin’d me silence: but the power, which wills,      
Bears not supreme control: laughter and tears      
Follow so closely on the passion prompts them,      
They wait not for the motions of the will           110   
In natures most sincere. I did but smile,      
As one who winks; and thereupon the shade      
Broke off, and peer’d into mine eyes, where best      
Our looks interpret. “So to good event      
Mayst thou conduct such great emprise,” he cried,           115   
“Say, why across thy visage beam’d, but now,      
The lightning of a smile.” On either part      
Now am I straiten’d; one conjures me speak,      
The other to silence binds me: whence a sigh      
I utter, and the sigh is heard. “Speak on,”           120   
The teacher cried: “and do not fear to speak;      
But tell him what so earnestly he asks.”      
Whereon I thus: “Perchance, O ancient spirit!      
Thou marvel’st at my smiling. There is room      
For yet more wonder. He, who guides my ken           125   
On high, he is that Mantuan, led by whom      
Thou didst presume of men and gods to sing.      
If other cause thou deem’dst for which I smiled,      
Leave it as not the true one: and believe      
Those words, thou spakest of him, indeed the cause.”           130   
  Now down he bent to embrace my teacher’s feet;      
But he forbade him: “Brother! do it not:      
Thou art a shadow, and behold’st a shade.”      
He, rising, answer’d thus: “Now hast thou proved      
The force and ardour of the love I bear thee,           135   
When I forget we are but things of air,      
And, as a substance, treat an empty shade.”      
    
Note 1. “The well.” “The woman saith unto him, Sir, give me this water, that I thirst not.”—John, iv. 15. [back]   
Note 2. “Luke.” Chapter xxiv. 13. [back]   
Note 3. “The tokens.” The letter P for Peccata, sins, inscribed upon his forehead by the Angel, in order to his being cleared of them in his passage through Purgatory to Paradise. [back]   
Note 4. “She.” Lachesis, one of the three fates. [back]   
Note 5. “When the good Titus.” When it was so ordered by the divine Providence that Titus, by the destruction of Jerusalem, should avenge the death of our Saviour on the Jews. [back]   
Note 6. “The name.” The name of Poet.

Canto XXII   
    
    
ARGUMENT.—Dante, Virgil, and Statius mount to the sixth cornice, where the sin of gluttony is cleansed, the two Latin Poets discoursing by the way. Turning to the right, they find a tree hung with sweet-smelling fruit, and watered by a shower that issues from the rock. Voices are heard to proceed from among the leaves, recording examples of temperance.   
    
    
NOW we had left the Angel, who had turn’d      
To the sixth circle our ascending step;      
One gash from off my forehead razed; while they,      
Whose wishes tend to justice, shouted forth,      
“Blessed!” 1 and ended with “I thirst”; and I,           5   
More nimble than along the other straits,      
So journey’d, that, without the sense of toil,      
I follow’d upwards the swift-footed shades;      
When Virgil thus began: “Let its pure flame      
From virtue flow, and love can never fail           10   
To warm another’s bosom, so the light      
Shine manifestly forth. Hence, from that hour,      
When, ’mongst us in the purlieus of the deep,      
Came down the spirit of Aquinum’s bard,      
Who told of thine affection, my good will           15   
Hath been for thee of quality as strong      
As ever link’d itself to one not seen.      
Therefore these stairs will now seem short to me.      
But tell me: and, if too secure, I loose      
The rein with a friend’s license, as a friend           20   
Forgive me, and speak now as with a friend:      
How chanced it covetous desire could find      
Place in that bosom, ’midst such ample store      
Of wisdom, as thy zeal had treasured there?”      
  First somewhat moved to laughter by his words,           25   
Statius replied: “Each syllable of thine      
Is a dear pledge of love. Things oft appear,      
That minister false matter to our doubts,      
When their true causes are removed from sight.      
Thy question doth assure me, thou believest           30   
I was on earth a covetous man; perhaps      
Because thou found’st me in that circle placed.      
Know then I was too wide of avarice:      
And e’en for that excess, thousands of moons      
Have wax’d and waned upon my sufferings.           35   
And were it not that I with heedful care      
Noted, where thou exclaim’st, as if in ire,      
With human nature, ‘Why, thou cursed thirst      
Of gold! dost not with juster measure guide      
The appetite of mortals?’ I had met           40   
The fierce encounter of the voluble rock.      
Then was I ware that, with too ample wing,      
The hands may haste to lavishment; and turn’d,      
As from my other evil, so from this,      
In penitence. How many from their grave           45   
Shall with shorn locks 2 arise, who living, ay,      
And at life’s last extreme, of this offence,      
Through ignorance, did not repent! And know,      
The fault, which lies direct from any sin      
In level opposition, here, with that,           50   
Wastes its green rankness on one common heap.      
Therefore, if I have been with those, who wail      
Their avarice, to cleanse me; through reverse      
Of their transgression, such hath been my lot.”      
  To whom the sovran of the pastoral song:           55   
“While thou didst sing that cruel warfare waged      
By the twin sorrow of Jocasta’s womb 3      
From thy discourse with Clio there, it seems      
As faith had not been thine; without the which,      
Good deeds suffice not. And if so, what sun           60   
Rose on thee, or what candle pierced the dark,      
That thou didst after see to hoise the sail,      
And follow where the fisherman had led?”      
  He answering thus: “By thee conducted first,      
I enter’d the Parnassian grots, and quaff’d           65   
Of the clear spring: illumined first by thee,      
Open’d mine eyes to God. Thou didst, as one      
Who, journeying through the darkness, bears a light      
Behind, that profits not himself, but makes      
His followers wise, when thou exclaimed’st, ‘Lo!           70   
A renovated world, Justice return’d,      
Times of primeval innocence restored,      
And a new race descended from above.’      
Poet and Christian both to thee I owed.      
That thou mayst mark more clearly what I trace,           75   
My hand shall stretch forth to inform the lines      
With livelier colouring. Soon o’er all the world,      
By messengers from Heaven, the true belief      
Teem’d now prolific; and that word of thine,      
Accordant, to the new instructors chimed.           80   
Induced by which agreement, I was wont      
Resort to them; and soon their sanctity      
So won upon me, that, Domitian’s rage      
Pursuing them, I mix’d my tears with theirs;      
And, while on earth I stay’d, still succor’d them;           85   
And their most righteous customs made me scorn      
All sects besides. Before I led the Greeks,      
In tuneful fiction, to the streams of Thebes,      
I was baptized; but secretly, through fear,      
Remain’d a Christian, and conform’d long time           90   
To Pagan rites. Four centuries and more,      
I, for that lukewarmness, was fain to pace      
Round the fourth circle. Thou then, who hast raised      
The covering which did hide such blessing from me,      
Whilst much of this ascent is yet to climb,           95   
Say, if thou know, where our old Terence bides,      
Cæcilius, Plautus, Varro: if condemn’d      
They dwell, and in what province of the deep.”      
“These,” said my guide, “with Persius and myself,      
And others many more, are with that Greek, 4           100   
Of mortals, the most cherish’d by the Nine,      
In the first ward 5 of darkness. There, oft-times,      
We of that mount hold converse, on whose top      
For aye our nurses live. We have the bard      
Of Pella, 6 and the Teian, 77 Agatho,           105   
Simonides, and many a Grecian else      
Ingarlanded with laurel. Of thy train,      
Antigone is there, Deiphile,      
Argia, and as sorrowful as erst      
Ismene, and who show’d Langia’s wave: 8           110   
Deidamia with her sisters there,      
And blind Tiresias’ daughter, 9 and the bride      
Sea-born of Peleus.” 10 Either poet now      
Was silent; and no longer by the ascent      
Or the steep walls obstructed, round them cast           115   
Inquiring eyes. Four handmaids of the day      
Had finish’d now their office, and the fifth      
Was at the chariot-beam, directing still      
Its flamy point aloof; when thus my guide:      
“Methinks, it well behoves us to the brink           120   
Bend the right shoulder, circuiting the mount,      
As we have ever used.” So custom there      
Was usher to the road; the which we chose      
Less doubtful, as that worthy shade 11 complied.      
  They on before me went: I sole pursued,           125   
Listening their speech, that to my thoughts convey’d      
Mysterious lessons of sweet poesy.      
But soon they ceased; for midway of the road      
A tree we found, with goodly fruitage hung,      
And pleasant to the smell: and as a fir,           130   
Upward from bough to bough, less ample spreads;      
So downward this less ample spread; that none,      
Methinks, aloft may climb. Upon the side,      
That closed our path, a liquid crystal fell      
From the steep rock, and through the sprays above           135   
Stream’d showering. With associate step the bards      
Drew near the plant; and, from amidst the leaves,      
A voice was heard: “Ye shall be chary of me;”      
And after added: “Mary took more thought      
For joy and honour of the nuptial feast,           140   
Than for herself, who answers now for you.      
The women of old Rome were satisfied      
With water for their beverage. Daniel 12 fed      
On pulse, and wisdom gain’d. The primal age      
Was beautiful as gold: and hunger then           145   
Made acorns tasteful; thirst, each rivulet      
Run nectar. Honey and locusts were the food,      
Whereon the Baptist in the wilderness      
Fed, and that eminence of glory reach’d      
And greatness, which the Evangelist records.”           150   
    
Note 1. “Blessed.” “Blessed are they which do hunger and thirst after righteousness, for they shall be filled.”—Matt. v. 6. [back]   
Note 2. “With shorn locks.” See Hell, Canto vii, 58. [back]   
Note 3. “The twin sorrow of Jocasta’s womb.” Eteocles and Polynices. [back]   
Note 4. “That Greek.” Homer. [back]   
Note 5. “In the first ward.” In Limbo. [back]   
Note 6. Euripides. [back]   
Note 7. “The Teian.” Anacreon. [back]   
Note 8. Hypsipile. [back]   
Note 9. “Tiresias’ daughter.” Dante, as some have thought, had forgotten that he had placed Manto, the daughter of Tiresias, among the sorcerers. See Hell, Canto xx. Vellutello endeavors to reconcile the apparent inconsistency, by observing, that although she was placed there as a sinner, yet, as one of famous memory, she had also a place among the worthies in Limbo. [back]   
Note 10. Thetis. [back]   
Note 11. “That worthy shade.” Statius. [back]   
Note 12. “Daniel.” “Then said Daniel to Melzar, whom the prince of the eunuchs had set over Daniel, Hananiah, Michael, and Azariah, ‘Prove thy servants, I beseech thee, ten days; and let them give us pulse to eat, and water to drink.’”—Dan. i. II, 12. “Thus Melzar took away the portion of their meat, and the wine that they should drink: and gave them pulse. As for these four children, God gave them knowledge and skill in all learning and wisdom: and Daniel had understanding in all visions and dreams.”—Ibid. 16, 17.

Canto XXIII   
    
    
ARGUMENT.—They are overtaken by the spirit of Forese, who had been a friend of our Poet’s on earth, and who now inveighs bitterly against the immodest dress of their countrywomen at Florence.   
    
    
ON the green leaf mine eyes were fix’d, like his      
Who throws away his days in idle chase      
Of the diminutive birds, when thus I heard      
The more than father warn me: “Son! our time      
Asks thriftier using. Linger not: away!”           5   
Thereat my face and steps at once I turn’d      
Toward the sages, by whose converse cheer’d      
I journey’d on, and felt no toil: and lo!      
A sound of weeping, and a song: “My lips, 1      
O Lord!” and these so mingled, it gave birth           10   
To pleasure and to pain. “O Sire beloved!      
Say what is this I hear.” Thus I inquired.      
  “Spirits,” said he, “who, as they go, perchance,      
Their debt of duty pay.” As on their road      
The thoughtful pilgrims, overtaking some           15   
Not known unto them, turn to them, and look,      
But stay not; thus, approaching from behind      
With speedier motion, eyed us, as they pass’d,      
A crowd of spirits, silent and devout.      
The eyes of each were dark and hollow; pale           20   
Their visage, and so lean withal, the bones      
Stood staring through the skin. I do not think      
Thus dry and meagre Erisichthon show’d,      
When pinch’d by sharp-set famine to the quick.      
  “Lo!” to myself I mused, “the race, who lost           25   
Jerusalem, when Mary with dire beak      
Prey’d on her child.” The sockets seem’d as rings,      
From which the gems were dropt. Who reads the name 2      
Of man upon his forehead, there the M      
Had traced most plainly. Who would deem, that scent           30   
Of water and an apple could have proved      
Powerful to generate such pining want,      
Not knowing how it wrought? While now I stood,      
Wondering what thus could waste them, (for the cause      
Of their gaunt hollowness and scaly rind           35   
Appear’d not,) lo! a spirit turn’d his eyes      
In their deep-sunken cells, and fasten’d them      
On me, then cried with vehemence aloud:      
“What grace is this vouchsafed me?” By his looks      
I ne’er had recognized him: but the voice           40   
Brought to my knowledge what his cheer conceal’d.      
Remembrance of his alter’d lineaments      
Was kindled from that spark; and I agnized      
The visage of Forese. 3 “Ah! respect      
This wan and leprous-wither’d skin,” thus he           45   
Suppliant implored, “this macerated flesh.      
Speak to me truly of thyself. And who      
Are those twain spirits, that escort thee there?      
Be it not said thou scorn’st to talk with me.”      
  “That face of thine,” I answer’d him, “which dead           50   
I once bewail’d, disposes me not less      
For weeping, when I see it thus transform’d.      
Say then, by Heaven, what blasts ye thus? The whilst      
I wonder, ask not speech from me: unapt      
Is he to speak, whom other will employs.”           55   
  He thus: “The water and the plant, we pass’d      
With power are gifted, by the eternal will      
Infused; the which so pines me. Every spirit,      
Whose song bewails his gluttony indulged      
Too grossly, here in hunger and in thirst           60   
Is purified. The odour, which the fruit,      
And spray that showers upon the verdure, breathe,      
Inflames us with desire to feed and drink.      
Nor once alone, encompassing our route,      
We come to add fresh fuel to the pain:           65   
Pain, said I? solace rather: for that will,      
To the tree, leads us, by which Christ was led      
To call on Eli, joyful, when he paid      
Our ransom from his vein.” I answering thus:      
“Forese! from that day, in which the world           70   
For better life thou changedst, not five years      
Have circled. If the power of sinning more      
Were first concluded in thee, ere thou knew’st      
That kindly grief which re-espouses us      
To God, how hither art thou, come so soon?           75   
I thought to find thee lower, 4 there, where time      
Is recompense for time.” He straight replied:      
“To drink up the sweet wormwood of affliction      
I have been brought thus early, by the tears      
Stream’d down my Nella’s cheeks. Her prayers devout,           80   
Her sighs have drawn me from the coast, 5 where oft      
Expectance lingers; and have set me free      
From the other circles. In the sight of God      
So much the dearer is my widow prized,      
She whom I loved so fondly, as she ranks           85   
More singly eminent for virtuous deeds.      
The tract, most barbarous of Sardinia’s isle, 6      
Hath dames more chaste, and modester by far,      
Than that wherein I left her. O sweet brother!      
What wouldst thou have me say? A time to come           90   
Stands full within my view, to which this hour      
Shall not be counted of an ancient date,      
When from the pulpit shall be loudly warn’d      
The unblushing dames of Florence, lest they bare      
Unkerchief’d bosoms to the common gaze.           95   
What savage women hath the world e’er seen,      
What Saracens, 7 for whom there needed scourge      
Of spiritual or other discipline,      
To force them walk with covering on their limbs?      
But did they see, the shameless ones, what Heaven           100   
Wafts on swift wing toward them while I speak,      
Their mouths were oped for howling: they shall taste      
Of sorrow (unless foresight cheat me here),      
Or e’er the cheek of him be clothed with down,      
Who is now rock’d with lullaby asleep.           105   
Ah! now, my brother, hide thyself no more:      
Thou seest how not I alone, but all,      
Gaze, where thou veil’st the intercepted sun.”      
Whence I replied: “If thou recall to mind      
What we were once together, even yet           110   
Remembrance of those days may grieve thee sore.      
That I forsook that life, was due to him      
Who there precedes me, some few evenings past,      
When she was round, who shines with sister lamp      
To his that glisters yonder,” and I show’d           115   
The sun. “’Tis. he, who through profoundest night      
Of the true dead has brought me, with this flesh      
As true, that follows. From that gloom the aid      
Of his sure comfort drew me on to climb,      
And, climbing, wind along this mountain-steep,           120   
Which rectifies in you whate’er the world      
Made crooked and depraved. I have his word,      
That he will bear me company as far      
As till I come where Beatrice dwells:      
But there must leave me. Virgil is that spirit,           125   
Who thus hath promised,” and I pointed to him;      
“The other is that shade, for whom so late      
Your realm, as he arose, exulting, shook      
Through every pendent cliff and rocky bound.”      
    
Note 1. “O Lord, open thou my lips; and my mouth shall show forth thy praise.”—Psalm li. 15. [back]   
Note 2. The temples, nose, and forehead are supposed to represent this letter [of the Latin word (H)OMO—man], and the eyes the two O’s. [back]   
Note 3. A brother of Piccarda. See also Canto xxiv. and Paradise, Canto iii. Cionacci is referred to by Lombardi, in order to show that Forese was also the brother of Corso Donati, our author’s political enemy. [back]   
Note 4. In the Ante-Purgatory. See Canto ii. [back]   
Note 5. The wife of Forese. [back]   
Note 6. The Barbagia is a part of Sardinia, to which that name was given, on account of the uncivilized state of its inhabitants, who are said to have gone nearly naked. [back]   
Note 7. “Saracens.” This word, during the Middle Ages, was applied to all nations (except the Jews) who did not profess Christianity.

Canto XXIV   
    
    
ARGUMENT.—Forese points out several others by name who are here, like himself, purifying themselves from the vice of gluttony; and amongst the rest, Buonaggiunta of Lucca, with whom our Poet converses. Forese then predicts the violent end of Dante’s political enemy, Corso, Donati; and when he has quitted them, the Poet, in company with Statius and Virgil, arrives at another tree, from whence issue voices that record ancient examples of gluttony; and proceeding forward, they are directed by an Angel which way to ascend to the next cornice of the mountain.   
    
    
OUR journey was not slacken’d by our talk,      
Nor yet our talk by journeying. Still we spake,      
And urged our travel stoutly, like a ship      
When the wind sits astern. The shadowy forms,      
That seem’d things dead and dead again, drew in           5   
At their deep-delved orbs rare wonder of me,      
Perceiving I had life; and I my words      
Continued, and thus spake: “He journeys up      
Perhaps more tardily than else he would,      
For others’ sake. But tell me, if thou know’st,           10   
Where is Piccarda? Tell me, if I see      
Any of mark, among this multitude      
Who eye me thus.”—“My sister (she for whom,      
’Twixt beautiful and good, I cannot say      
Which name was fitter) wears e’en now her crown,           15   
And triumphs in Olympus.” Saying this,      
He added: Since spare diet hath so worn      
Our semblance out, ’tis lawful here to name      
Each one. This,” and his finger then he raised,      
’Is Buonaggiunta, 1 —Buonaggiunta, he           20   
Of Lucca: and that face beyond him, pierced      
Unto a leaner fineness than the rest,      
Had keeping of the Church; he was of Tours, 2      
And purges by wan abstinence away      
Bolsena’s eels and cups of muscadel.”           25   
  He show’d me many others one by one:      
And all, as they were named, seem’d well content;      
For no dark gesture I discern’d in any.      
I saw, through hunger, Ubaldino 3 grind      
His teeth on emptiness; and Boniface, 4           30   
That waved the crozier o’er a numerous flock.      
I saw the Marquis, who had time erewhile      
To swill at Forli with less drought; yet so,      
Was one ne’er stated. I howe’er, like him      
That, gazing ’midst a crowd, singles out one,           35   
So singled him of Lucca; for methought      
Was none amongst them took such note of me.      
Somewhat I heard him whisper of Gentucca:      
The sound was indistinct and murmur’d there,      
Where justice, that so strips them, fix’d her sting.           40   
  “Spirit!” said I, “it seems as thou wouldst fain      
Speak with me. Let me hear thee. Mutual wish      
To converse prompts, which let us both indulge.”      
  He, answering, straight began: “Woman is born,      
Whose brow no wimple shades yet, that shall make           45   
My city please thee, blame it as they may.      
Go then with this forewarning. If aught false      
My whisper too implied, the event shall tell.      
But say, if of a truth I see the man      
Of that new lay the inventor, which begins           50   
With “Ladies, ye that con the lore of love.’”      
  To whom I thus: “Count of me but as one,      
Who am the scribe of love; that, when he breathes,      
Take up my pen, and, as he dictates, write.”      
  “Brother!” said he, “the hindrance, which once held           55   
The notary, with Guittone and myself,      
Short of that new and sweeter style I hear,      
Is now disclosed: I see how ye your plumes      
Stretch, as the inditer guides them; which, no question,      
Ours did not. He that seeks a grace beyond,           60   
Sees not the distance parts one style from other.”      
And, as contented, here he held his peace.      
  Like as the birds, that winter near the Nile,      
In squared regiment direct their course,      
Then stretch themselves in file for speedier flight;           65   
Thus all the tribe of spirits, as they turn’d      
Their visage, faster fled, nimble alike      
Through leanness and desire. And as a man,      
Tired with the motion of a trotting steed,      
Slacks pace, and stays behind his company,           70   
Till his o’erbreathed lungs keep temperate time;      
E’en so Forese let that holy crew      
Proceed, behind them lingering at my side,      
And saying: “When shall I again behold thee?”      
  “How long my life may last,” said I, “I know not:           75   
This know, how soon soever I return,      
My wishes will before me have arrived:      
Sithence the place, 5 where I am set to live,      
Is, day by day, more scoop’d of all its good;      
And dismal ruin seems to threaten it,”.           80   
  “Go now,” he cried: “lo! he, 6 whose guilt is most,      
Passes before my vision, dragg’d at heels      
Of an infuriate beast. Toward the vale,      
Where guilt hath no redemption, on its speeds,      
Each step increasing swiftness on the last;           85   
Until a blow it strikes, that leaveth him      
A corse most vilely shatter’d. No long space      
Those wheels have yet to roll,” (therewith his eyes      
Look’d up to Heaven,) “ere thou shalt plainly see      
That which my words may not more plainly tell.           90   
I quit thee: time is precious here: I lose      
Too much, thus measuring my pace with thine.”      
  As from a troop of well-rank’d chivalry,      
One knight, more enterprising than the rest,      
Pricks forth at gallop, eager to display           95   
His prowess in the first encounter proved;      
So parted he from us, with lengthen’d strides;      
And left me on the way with those twain spirits,      
Who were such mighty marshals of the world.      
  When he beyond us had so fled, mine eyes           100   
No nearer reach’d him, than my thoughts his words,      
The branches of another fruit, thick hung,      
And blooming fresh, appear’d. E’en as our steps      
Turn’d thither; not far off, it rose to view.      
Beneath it were a multitude, that raised           105   
Their hands, and shouted forth I know not what      
Unto the boughs; like greedy and fond brats,      
That beg, and answer none obtain from him,      
Of whom they beg; but more to draw them on,      
He, at arm’s length, the object of their wish           110   
Above them holds aloft, and hides it not.      
  At length, as undeceived, they went their way:      
And we approach the tree, whom vows and tears      
Sue to in vain; the mighty tree. “Pass on,      
And come not near. Stands higher up the wood,           115   
Whereof Eve tasted: and from it was ta’en      
This plant.” Such sounds from midst the thickets came      
Whence I, with either bard, close to the side      
That rose, pass’d forth beyond. “Remember,” next      
We heard, “those unblest creatures of the clouds, 7           120   
How they their twofold bosoms, overgorged,      
Opposed on fight to Theseus: call to mind      
The Hebrews, how, effeminate, they stoop’d      
To ease their thirst; whence Gideon’s ranks were thinn’d,      
As he to Midian 8 march’d adown the hills.”           125   
  Thus near one border coasting, still we heard      
The sins of gluttony, with woe erewhile      
Reguerdon’d. Then along the lonely path,      
Once more at large, full thousand paces on      
We travel’d, each contemplative and mute.           130   
  “Why pensive journey so ye three alone?”      
thus suddenly a voice exclaim’d: whereat      
I shook, as doth a scared and paltry beast;      
Then raised my head, to look from whence it came.      
  Was ne’er, in furnace, glass, or metal, seen           135   
So bright and glowing red, as was the shape      
I now beheld. “If ye desire to mount,”      
He cried; “here must ye turn. This way he goes,      
Who goes in quest of peace.” His countenance      
Had dazzled me; and to my guides I faced           140   
Backward, like one who walks as sound directs.      
  As when, to harbinger the dawn, springs up      
On Freshen’d wing the air of May, and breathes      
Of fragrance, all impregn’d with herb and flowers;      
E’en such a wind I felt upon my front           145   
Blow gently, and the moving of a wing      
Perceived, that, moving, shed ambrosial smell;      
And then a voice: “Blessed are they, whom grace      
Doth so illume, that appetite in them      
Exhaleth no inordinate desire,           150   
Still hungering as the rule of temperance wills.”      
    
Note 1. “Buonaggiunta.” Buonaggiunta Urbiciani, of Lucca. [back]   
Note 2. “He was of Tours.” Simon of Tours became Pope with the title of Martin IV in 1281, and died in 1285. [back]   
Note 3. “Ubaldino degli Ubaldini, of Pila, in the Florentine territory. [back]   
Note 4. “Boniface,” Archbishop of Ravenna. By Venturi he is called Bonifazio de’ Fieschi, a Genoese; by Vellutello, the son of the above-mentioned Ubaldini; and by Landino, Francioso, a Frenchman. [back]   
Note 5. “The place.” Florence. [back]   
Note 6. “He.” Corso Donati was suspected of aiming at the sovereignty of Florence. To escape the fury of his fellow-citizens, he fled away on horseback, but falling, was overtaken and slain, A. D. 1308. The contemporary annalist, after relating at length the circumstances of his fate, adds, “that he was one of the wisest and most valorous knights, the best speaker, the most expert statesman, the most renowned and enterprising man of his age in Italy, a comely knight and of graceful carriage, but very worldly, and in his time had formed many conspiracies in Florence, and entered into many scandalous practices for the sake of attaining state and lordship.” G. Villani, lib. v. [back]   
Note 7. The Centaurs. [back]   
Note 8. Judges, vii.