[1] This legend of Trajan had great vogue during the Middle Ages. It was believed that Pope Gregory the Great interceded for him, praying that he might be delivered from Hell; "then God because of these prayers drew that soul from pain and put it into glory." This was Gregory's great victory. See Paradise, XX., p. 131.

[2] God, to whom nothing can be new.

While I was delighting me with regarding the images of such great humilities, and for their Maker's sake dear to behold, "Lo, on this side many people, but they make few steps," murmured the Poet. "They will put us on the way to the high stairs." My eyes that were intent on looking in order to see novelties whereof they are fain, in turning toward him were not slow.

I would not, indeed, Reader, that thou be dismayed at thy good purpose, through hearing how God wills that the debt be paid. Attend not to the form of the suffering; think on what follows; think that at worst beyond the Great Judgment it cannot go!

I began, "Master, that which I see moving toward us, seems to me not persons, but what I know not, my look is so in vain." And he to me, "The heavy condition of their torment so presses them to earth, that mine own eyes at first had contention with it. But look fixedly there, and disentangle with thy sight that which cometh beneath those stones; now thou canst discern how each is smitten."

O proud Christians, wretched weary ones, who, diseased in vision of the mind, have confidence in backward steps, are ye not aware that we are worms born to form the angelic butterfly which flies unto judgment without defence? Why doth your mind float up aloft, since ye are as it were defective insects, even as a worm in which formation fails?

As sometimes for support of ceiling or roof, by way of corbel, a figure is seen joining its knees to its breast, which out of its unreality makes a real pang rise in him who sees it, thus fashioned saw I these when I gave good heed. True it is that they were more or less contracted according as they had more or less upon their backs; and he who had most patience in his looks, weeping, appeared to say, "I can no more."



CANTO XI. First Ledge: the Proud.—Prayer.—Omberto Aldobrandeschi.—Oderisi d' Agubbio.—Provinzan Salvani.

"O our Father who art in Heaven, not circumscribed, but through the greater love which to the first effects on high Thou hast,[1] praised be Thy name and Thy power by every creature, even as it is befitting to render thanks to Thy sweet effluence. May the peace of Thy Kingdom come towards us, for we to it cannot of ourselves, if it come not, with all our striving. As of their will Thine angels, singing Hosanna, make sacrifice to Thee, so may men make of theirs. Give us this day the daily manna, without which through this rough desert he backward goes, who toils most to go on. And as we pardon every one for the wrong that we have suffered, even do Thou, benignant, pardon and regard not our desert. Our virtue which is easily overcome put not to proof with the old adversary, but deliver from him who so spurs it. This last prayer, dear Lord, truly is not made for ourselves, for it is not needful, but for those who behind us have remained."

[1] Not circumscribed by Heaven, but having Thy seat there because of the love Thou bearest to the first effects —the angels, and the heavens—of Thyself the First Cause.

Thus praying for themselves and us good speed, those souls were going under the weight, like that of which one sometimes dreams, unequally in anguish, all of them round and round, and weary, along the first cornice, purging away the mists of the world. If good they ask for us always there, what can here be said and done for them by those who have a good root for their will? Truly we ought to aid them to wash away the marks which they bore hence, so that pure and light they may go forth unto the starry wheels.

"Ah! so may justice and pity unburden you speedily that ye may be able to move the wing, which according to your desire may lift you, show on which hand is the shortest way towards the stair; and if there is more than one pass, point out to us that which least steeply slopes; for this man who comes with me, because of the load of the flesh of Adam wherewith he is clothed, is chary against his will of mounting up." It was not manifest from whom came the words which they returned to these that he whom I was following had spoken, but it was said, "To the right hand along the bank come ye with us, and ye will find the pass possible for a living person to ascend. And if I were not hindered by the stone which tames my proud neck, wherefore I needs must carry my face low, I would look at that one who is still alive and is not named, to see if I know him, and to make him pitiful of this burden. I was Italian, and born of a great Tuscan; Guglielmo Aldobrandesco was my father: I know not if his name was ever with you.[1] The ancient blood and the gallant deeds of my ancestors made me so arrogant that, not thinking on the common mother, I held every man in scorn to such extreme that I died therefor, as the Sienese know, and every child in Campagnatico knows it. I am Omberto: and not only unto me Pride doth harm, for all my kinsfolk bath she dragged with her into calamity; and here must I heap this weight on her account till God be satisfied,—here among the dead, since I did it not among the living."

[1] The Aldobrandeschi were the counts of Santa Fiore (see Canto VI.) in the Sienese Maremma. Little is known of them, but that they were in constant feud with Siena. The one who speaks was murdered in his own stronghold of Campagnatico, in 1259.

Listening, I bent down my face; and one of them, not he who was speaking, twisted himself under the weight that hampers him; and he saw me, and recognized me and called out, keeping his eyes with effort fixed on me, who was going along all stooping with him.[1] "Oh," said I to him, "art thou not Oderisi, the honor of Gubbio, and the honor of that art which in Paris is called illumination?" "Brother," said he, "more smiling are the leaves that Franco of Bologna pencils; the honor is now all his, and mine in part.[2] Truly I should not have been so courteous while I lived, because of the great desire of excelling whereon my heart was intent. Of such pride here is paid the fee; and yet I should not be here, were it not that, still having power to sin, I turned me unto God. Oh vainglory of human powers! how little lasts the green upon the top, if it be not followed by dull ages.[3] Cimabue thought to hold the field in painting, and now Giotto has the cry, so that the fame of him is obscured. In like manner one Guido hath taken from the other the glory of the language; and he perhaps is born who shall drive both one and the other from the nest.[4] Worldly renown is naught but a breath of wind, which now comes hence and now comes thence, and changes name because it changes quarter. What more fame shalt thou have, if thou strippest old flesh from thee, than if thou hadst died ere thou hadst left the pap and the chink,[5] before a thousand years have passed?—which is a shorter space compared to the eternal than a movement of the eyelids to the circle that is slowest turned in Heaven. With him who takes so little of the road in front of me, all Tuscany resounded, and now he scarce is lisped of in Siena, where he was lord when the Florentine rage was destroyed,[6] which at that time was proud, as now it is prostitute. Your reputation is color of grass that comes and goes, and he[7] discolors it through whom it came up fresh from the earth." And I to him, "Thy true speech brings good humility to my heart, and thou allayest a great swelling in me; but who is he of whom thou now wast speaking?" "He is," he answered, "Provinzan Salvani;[8] and he is here, because he was presumptuous in bringing all Siena to his hands. He has gone thus—and he goes without repose—ever since he died: such money doth he pay in satisfaction, who is on earth too daring." And I, "If that spirit who awaits the verge of life ere he repents abides there below, and unless good prayer further him ascends not hither, ere as much time pass us he lived, how has this coining been granted unto him?" "When he was living most renowned," said he, "laying aside all shame, of his own accord he planted himself in the Campo of Siena,[9] and there, to draw his friend from the punishment he was enduring in the prison of Charles, brought himself to tremble in every vein. More I will not say, and I know that I speak darkly; but little time will pass, before thy neighbors will so act that thou wilt he able to gloss it.[10] This deed released him from those limits."[11]

[1] This stooping is the symbol of Dante's consciousness of pride as his own besetting sin.

[2] Oderisi of Gubbio and Franco of Bologna were both eminent in the art called miniare in Italian, enluminer in French.

[3] Ages in which no progress is made.

[4] The first Guido is doubtless Guido Guinicelli, whom Dante calls (see Canto XXVI.) his master; the other probably Dante's friend, Guido Cavalcanti.

[5] Dante's words are pappo and dindi, childish terms for "bread" and "money."

[6] The mad Florentine people were utterly cast down in 1260, at the battle of Montaperti.

[7] The sun.

[8] Provinzano Salvani was one of the chief supporters of the Ghibelline cause in Tuscany. He was a man of great qualities and capacity, but proud and presumptuous. Defeated and taken prisoner at the battle of Colle, in 1269, he was beheaded.

[9] The Campo of Siena is her chief public square and marketplace, set round with palaces. The friend of Provinzano is said by the old commentators to have fought for Conradin against Charles of Anjou, and, being taken captive, to have been condemned to death. His ransom was fixed at ten thousand florins. Provinzano, not being able to pay this sum from his own means, took his seat in the Campo and humiliated himself to beg of the passers-by.

[10] The meaning of the dark words seems to be: Exile and poverty will compel thee to beg, and begging to tremble in every vein.

[11] This deed of humility and charity released him from the necessity of tarrying outside the gate of Purgatory.



CANTO XII. First Ledge: the Proud.—Examples of the punishment of Pride graven on the pavement.—Meeting with an Angel who removes one of the P's.—Ascent to the Second Ledge.

Side by side, like oxen who go yoked, I went on with that burdened spirit so long as the sweet Pedagogue allowed it; but when he said, "Leave him, and come on, for here it is well that, both with sail and oars, each as much as he can should urge his bark," I straitened up my body again, as is required for walking, although my thoughts remained both bowed down and abated.

I was moving on, and following willingly the steps of my Master, and both now were showing how light we were, when he said to me, "Turn thine eyes downward; it will be well for thee, in order to solace the way, to look upon the bed of thy footprints." As above the buried, so that there may be memory of them, their tombs in earth bear inscribed that which they were before,—whence oftentimes is weeping for them there, through the pricking of remembrance, which only to the pious gives the spur,—so saw I figured there, but of better semblance in respect of skill, all that for pathway juts out from the mountain.

I saw him who was created more noble than any other creature,[1] down from heaven with lightning flash descending, at one side.

[1] Lucifer.

I saw Briareus[1] transfixed by the celestial bolt, lying at the other side, heavy upon the earth in mortal chill. I saw Thymbraeus,[2] I saw Pallas and Mars, still armed, around their father, gazing at the scattered limbs of the giants.

[1] Examples from classic and biblical mythology alternate.

[2] Apollo, so called from his temple at Thymbra, not far from Troy, where Achilles is said to have slain Paris. Virgil (Georgics, iv. 323) uses this epithet.

I saw Nimrod at the foot of his great toil, as if bewildered, and gazing at the people who in Shinar had with him been proud.

O Niobe! with what grieving eyes did I see thee portrayed upon the road between thy seven and seven children slain!

O Saul! how on thine own sword here didst thou appear dead on Gilboa, that after felt not rain or dew![1]

[1] I Samuel, xxxi. 4, and 2 Samuel, i. 24.

O mad Arachne,[1] so I saw thee already half spider, wretched on the shreds of the work that to thy harm by thee was made!

[1] Changed to a spider by Athena, whom she had challenged to a trial of skill at the loom.

O Rehoboam! here thine image seems not now to threaten, but full of fear, a chariot bears it away before any one pursues it.[1]

[1] 1 Kings, xii. 13-18.

The hard pavement showed also how Alcmaeon made the ill-fated ornament seem costly to his mother.[1]

[1] Amphiaraus, the soothsayer, foreseeing his own death if he went to the Theban war, hid himself to avoid being forced to go. His wife, Eriphyle, bribed by a golden necklace, betrayed his hiding-place, and was killed by her son Alcmaeon, for thus bringing about his father's death.

It showed how his sons threw themselves upon Sennacherib within the temple, and how they left him there dead.[1]

[1] 2 Kings, xix. 37.

It showed the ruin and the cruel slaughter that Tomyris wrought, when she said to Cyrus, "For blood thou hast thirsted, and with blood I fill thee."

[1] Herodotus (i. 214) tells how Tomyris, Queen of the Massagetae, having defeated and slain Cyrus, filled a skin full of human blood, and plunged his head in it with words such as Dante reports, and which he derived from Orosius, Histor. ii. 7.

It showed how the Assyrians fled in rout after Holofernes was killed, and also the remainder of the punishment.[1]

[1] Judith, xv. 1.

I saw Troy in ashes, and in caverns. O Ilion! how cast down and abject the image which is there discerned showed thee!

What master has there been of pencil or of style that could draw the shadows and the lines which there would make every subtile genius wonder? Dead the dead, and the living seemed alive. He who saw the truth saw not better than I all that I trod on while I went bent down.—Now be ye proud, and go with haughty look, ye sons of Eve, and bend not down your face so that ye may see your evil path!

More of the mountain had now been circled by us, and of the sun's course far more spent, than my mind, not disengaged, was aware, when he, who always in advance attent was going on, began, "Lift up thy head; there is no more time for going thus abstracted. See there an Angel, who is hastening to come toward us: see how from the service of the day the sixth hand-maiden returns.[1] With reverence adorn thine acts and thy face so that he may delight to direct us upward. Think that this day never dawns again."

[1] The sixth hour of the day is coming to its end, near noon.

I was well used to his admonition ever to lose no time, so that on that theme he could not speak to me obscurely.

To us came the beautiful creature, clothed in white, and in his face such as seems the tremulous morning star. Its arms it opened, and then it opened its wings; it said, "Come: here at hand are the steps, and easily henceforth one ascends. To this invitation very few come. O human race, born to fly upward, why before a little wind dost thou so fall?"

He led us to where the rock was cut; here he struck his wings across my forehead,[1] then promised me secure progress.

[1] Removing the first P that the Angel of the Gate had incised on Dante's brow.

As on the right hand, in going up the mountain,[1] where sits the church that dominates her the well-guided[2] city above Rubaconte,[3] the bold flight of the ascent is broken by the stairs, which were made in an age when the record and the stave were secure,[4] in like manner, the bank which falls here very steeply from the next round is slackened; but on this side and that the high rock grazes.[5] As we turned our persons thither, voices sang "Beati pauperes spiritu"[6] in such wise that speech could not tell it. Ah, how different are these passes from those of Hell! for here through songs one enters, and there below through fierce lamentings.

[1] The hill of San Miniato, above Florence.

[2] Ironical.

[3] The upper bridge at Florence across the Arno, named after Messer Rubaconte di Mandella, podesta of Florence, who laid the first stone of it in 1237; now called the Ponte alle Grazie, after a little chapel built upon it in 1471, and dedicated to Our Lady of Grace.

[4] In the good old time when men were honest. In 1299 one Messer Niccola Acciaioli, in order to conceal a fraudulent transaction, had a leaf torn out from the public notorial record; and about the same time an officer in charge of the revenue from salt, for the sake of private gain, measured the salt he received with an honest measure, but that which he sold with a measure diminished by the removal of a stave.

[5] The stairway is so narrow.

[6] "Blessed are the poor in spirit." As Dante passes from each round of Purgatory, an angel removes the P which denotes the special sin there purged away. And the removal is accompanied with the words of one of the Beatitudes.

Now we were mounting up over the holy stairs, and it seemed to me I was far more light than I had seemed on the plain before. Whereon I, "Master, say, what heavy thing has been lifted from me, so that almost no weariness is felt by me as I go on?" He answered, "When the P's that almost extinct[1] still remain on thy countenance shall be, as one is, quite erased, thy feet will be so conquered by good will that not only they will not feel fatigue, but it will be delight to them to be urged up." Then I did like those who are going with something on their head, unknown by them unless the signs of others make them suspect; wherefore the hand assists to ascertain, and seeks and finds, and performs that office which cannot be accomplished by the sight; and with the fingers of my right hand outspread, I found only six those letters which he of the keys had encised upon my temples: looking at which my Leader smiled.

[1] Almost extinct, because, as St. Thomas Aquinas says, "Pride by which we are chiefly turned from God is the first and the origin of all sins." He adds, "Pride is said to be the beginning of every sin, not because every single sin has its source in pride, but because every kind of sin is born of pride." Summa Theol., II. 2, quaest. 162, art. 7.



CANTO XIII. Second Ledge the Envious.—Examples of Love.—The Shades in haircloth, and with sealed eyes.—Sapia of Siena.

We were at the top of the stairway, where the mountain, ascent of which frees one from ill, is the second time cut back. There a cornice binds the hill round about, in like manner as the first, except that its arc bends more quickly. No shadow is there, nor mark which is apparent [1] so that the bank appears smooth and so the path, with the livid color of the stone.

[1] No sculptured or engraved scenes.

"If to enquire one waits here for people," said the Poet, "I fear that perhaps our choice will have too much delay." Then he set his eyes fixedly upon the sun, made of his right side the centre for his movement, and turned the left part of himself. "O sweet light, with confidence in which I enter on the new road, do thou lead us on it," he said, "as there is need for leading here within. Thou warmest the world, thou shinest upon it; if other reason prompt not to the contrary, thy rays ought ever to be guides."

As far as here on earth is counted for a mile, so far had we now gone there, in little time because of ready will; and towards us were heard to fly, not however seen, spirits uttering courteous invitations to the table of love. The first voice that passed flying, "Virum non habent,"[1] loudly said, and went on behind us reiterating it. And before it had become quite inaudible through distance, another passed by, crying, "I am Orestes," [2] and also did not stay. "O Father," said I, "what voices are these?" and even as I was asking, lo! the third, saying, "Love them from whom ye have had wrong." And the good Master: "This circle scourges the sin of envy, and therefore from love are drawn the cords of the scourge. The curb must be of the opposite sound; I think that thou wilt hear it before thou arrivest at the pass of pardon.[3] But fix thine eyes very fixedly through the air, and thou wilt see in front of us people sitting, and each is seated against the rock." Then more than before I opened my eyes; I looked in front of me, and saw shades with cloaks in color not different from the stone. And when we were a little further forward, I heard them crying, "Mary, pray for us!" crying, "Michael," and "Peter," and all the Saints.

[1] "They have no wine."—John ii. 3. The words of Mary at the wedding feast of Cana, symbolic of a kindness that is a rebuke of envy.

[2] The words of Pylades, before Aegisthus, when contending with Orestes to be put to death in his stead.

[3] At the stair to the third ledge, at the foot of which stands the angel who cancels the sin of envy.



I do not believe there goes on earth to-day a man so hard that he had not been pricked by compassion at that which I then saw. For when I had approached so near to them that their actions came surely to me, tears were drawn from my eyes by heavy grief. They seemed to me covered with coarse haircloth, and one supported the other with his shoulders, and all were supported by the bank. Thus the blind, who lack subsistence, stand at pardons[1] to beg for what they need, and one bows his head upon another, so that pity may quickly be moved in others, not only by the sound of the words, but by the sight which implores no less. And as to the blind the sun profits not, so to the shades, there where I was now speaking, the light of Heaven wills not to make largess of itself; for a wire of iron pierces and sews up the eyelids of all; even as is done to a wild sparrow-hawk, because it stays not quiet.

[1] On occasion of special indulgences the beggars gather at the door of churches frequented by those who seek the pardons to be obtained within.

It seemed to me I was doing outrage as I went on, seeing others, not myself being seen, wherefore I turned me to my sage Counsel; well did he know what the dumb wished to say, and therefore waited not my asking, but said, "Speak, and be brief and to the point."

Virgil was coming with me on that side of the cornice from which one may fall, because it is encircled by no rim. On the other side of me were the devout shades, that through the horrible stitches were pressing out the tears so that they bathed their cheeks. I turned me to them, and, "O folk secure," I began, "of seeing the lofty light which alone your desire holds in its care, may grace speedily dissolve the scum of your consciences so that the stream of memory through them may descend clear,[1] tell me, for it will be gracious and dear to me, if there be a soul here among you that is Latin, and perhaps it will be good for him if I learn it." "O my brother, each is a citizen of one true city,[2] but thou meanest, who lived in Italy while a pilgrim."[3] This it seemed to me to hear for answer somewhat further on than where I was standing; wherefore I made myself heard still more that way. Among the others I saw a shade that was expectant in look; and, if any one should wish to ask, How?—like a blind man it was lifting up its chin. "Spirit," said I, "that humblest thyself in order to ascend, if thou art that one which answered me, make thyself known to me either by place or by name." "I was a Sienese," it answered, "and with these others I cleanse here my guilty life, weeping to Him that He grant Himself to us. Sapient I was not, although I was called Sapia, and I was far more glad of others' harm than of my own good fortune. And that thou mayst not believe that I deceive thee, bear if I was foolish as I tell thee. The arch of my years already descending, my fellow-citizens were joined in battle near to Colle[4] with their adversaries, and I prayed God for that which He willed. They were routed there, and turned into the bitter passes of flight; and I, seeing the pursuit, experienced a joy unmatched by any other; so much that I turned upward my audacious face, crying out to God, 'Now no more I fear thee;' as the blackbird doth because of a little fair weather. At the very end of my life I desired peace with God; and even yet my debt would not be lessened by penitence,[5] had it not been that Pier Pettinagno,[6] who out of charity was sorry for me, held me in memory in his holy prayers. But thou, who art thou that goest asking of our conditions, and bearest thine eyes loose as I think, and breathing dost speak?" "My eyes," said I, "will yet be taken from me here but a little time, for small is the offence committed through their being turned with envy. Far greater is the fear, with which my soul is in suspense, of the torment beneath, and already the load down there weighs upon me. And she to me, "Who then hath led thee here up among us, if thou thinkest to return below?" And I, "This one who is with me, and says not a word: and I am alive; and therefore ask of me, spirit elect, if thou wouldst that I should yet move for thee on earth my mortal feet." "Oh, this is so strange a thing to hear," she replied, "that it is great sign that God loves thee; therefore assist me sometimes with thy prayer. And I beseech thee, by that which thou most desirest, if ever thou tread the earth of Tuscany, that with my kindred thou restore my fame. Thou wilt see them among that vain people which hopes in Talamone,[7] and will waste more hope there, than in finding the Diana[8] but the admirals will stake the most there.[9]

[1] Being purified from sin they will retain no memory of it.

[2] "Fellow-citizens with the saints, and of the household of God."—Ephesians, ii. 19.

[3] "For here have we no continuing city, but we seek one to come."—Hebrews, xiii. 14.

[4] This was the battle in 1259, in which the Florentines routed die Sienese Ghibellines, at whose head was Provenzan Salvani. who was slain. See Canto XI.

[5] I should not yet within Purgatory have diminished my debt of expiation, but, because I delayed repentance till the hour of Death, I should still be outside the gate.

[6] A poor comb-dealer, a man of kind heart, honest dealings, and good deeds, and still remembered for them in Siena. He died in 1289.

[7] A little port on the coast of Tuscany, on which the Sienese wasted toil and money in the vain hope that by strengthening and enlarging it they could make themselves rivals at sea of the Pisans and Genoese.

[8] A subterranean stream supposed to flow beneath the city.

[9] Of these last words the meaning is obscure.



CANTO XIV. Second Ledge: the Envious—Guido del Duca.—Rinieri de' Calboli.—Examples of the punishment of Envy.

"Who is this that circles our mountain ere death have given him flight, and opens and shuts his eyes at his own will?"[1] "I know not who he is, but I know that he is not alone. Do thou, who art nearer to him, ask him; and sweetly, so that he may speak, accost him." Thus two spirits, leaning one to the other, discoursed of me there on the right hand, then turned up their faces to speak to me. And one of them said, "O soul that still fixed in thy body goest on toward heaven, for charity console us, and tell us whence thou comest, and who thou art; for thou makest us so marvel at this thy grace, as needs must a thing that never was before." And I, "Through mid Tuscany there wanders a little stream, that has its rise on Falterona,[2] and a hundred miles of coarse does not suffice it. From thereupon I bring this body. To tell you who I am would be to speak in vain, for my name as yet makes no great sound." "If I grasp aright thy meaning with my understanding," then replied to me he who had spoken first, "thou speakest of the Arno." And the other said to him, "Why did he conceal the name of that river, even as one does of horrible things?" And the shade of whom this was asked, delivered itself thus, "I know not, but truly it is fit that the name of such a valley perish, for from its source (where the rugged mountain chain, from which Pelorus[3] is cut off, is so teeming that in few places it passes beyond that mark), far as there where it gives back in restoration that which heaven dries up of the sea (wherefrom the rivers have what flows in them), virtue is driven away as an enemy by all men, like a snake, either through misfortune of the place, or through evil habit that incites them. Wherefore the inhabitants of the wretched valley have so changed their nature that it seems as though Circe had had them in her feeding. Among foul hogs,[4] more fit for acorns than for other food made for human use, it first directs its poor path. Then, coming down, it finds curs more snarling, than their power warrants,[5] and at them disdainfully it twists its muzzle.[6] It goes on falling, and the more it swells so much the more the accursed and ill-fated ditch finds the dogs becoming wolves.[7] Descending then through many hollow gulfs, it finds foxes[8] so full of fraud, that they fear not that wit may entrap them. Nor will I leave to speak though another hear me: and well it will be for this one if hereafter he mind him of that which a true spirit discloses to me.

[1] These words are spoken by Guido del Duca, who is answered by Rinieri de' Calboli; both of them from the Romagna.

[2] One of the highest of the Tuscan Apennines.

[3] The north-eastern promontory of Sicily.

[4] The people of the Casentino, the upper valley of the Arno.

[5] The Aretines.

[6] Turning westward.

[7] The wolves of Florence.

[8] The Pisans.

"I see thy grandson,[1] who becomes hunter of those wolves upon the bank of the fierce stream, and terrifies them all. He sells their flesh,[2] it being yet alive; then he slays them, like an old wild beast; many of life, himself of honor he deprives. Bloody he comes forth from the dismal wood;[3] he leaves it such, that from now for a thousand years, in its primal state it is not rewooded." As at the announcement of grievous ills, the face of him who listens is disturbed, from whatsoever side the danger may assail him, so I saw the other soul, that was turned to hear, become disturbed and sad, when it had gathered to itself the words.

[1] Fulcieri da Calvoli, so named by Villani (viii. 69), "a fierce and cruel man," was made podesta of Florence in 1302. He put to death many of the White Guelphs, and banished more of them.

[2] Bribed by the opposite party.

[3] Florence, spoiled and undone.

The speech of one and the look of the other made me wishful to know their names, and I made request for it, mixed with prayers. Wherefore the spirit which first had spoken to me began again, "Thou wishest that I abase myself in doing that for thee which thou wilt not do for me; but since God wills that such great grace of His shine through in thee, I will not be chary to thee; therefore know that I am Guido del Duca. My blood was so inflamed with envy, that had I seen a man becoming joyful, thou wouldst have seen me overspread with livid hue. Of my sowing I reap this straw. O human race, why dost thou set thy heart there where is need of exclusion of companionship?

"This one is Rinier; this is the glory and the honor of the house of Calboli,[1] where no one since has made himself heir of his worth. And between the Po and the mountain,[2] and the sea[3] and the Reno,[4] not his blood alone has become stripped of the good required for truth and for delight; for within these limits the ground is so full of poisonous stocks, that slowly would they now die out through cultivation. Where is the good Lizio, and Arrigo Manardi, Pier Traversaro, and Guido di Carpigna? O men of Romagna turned to bastards! When in Bologna will a Fabbro take root again? When in Faenza a Bernardin di Fosco, the noble scion of a mean plant? Marvel not, Tuscan, if I weep, when I remember with Guido da Prata, Ugolin d' Azzo who lived with us, Federico Tignoso and his company, the house of Traversara, and the Anastagi, (both the one race and the other is without heir), the ladies and the cavaliers, the toils and the pleasures for which love and courtesy inspired our will, there where hearts have become so wicked. O Brettinoro! why dost thou not flee away, since thy family hath gone, and many people, in order not to be guilty? Well doth Bagnacaval that gets no more sons; and ill doth Castrocaro, and worse Conio that takes most trouble to beget such counts. Well will the Pagani do when their Demon shall go from them;[6] yet not so that a pure report of them can ever remain. O Ugolin de' Fantolin! thy name is secure, since one who, degenerating, can make it dark is no longer awaited. But go thy way, Tuscan, now; for now it pleases me far more to weep than to speak, so much hath our discourse wrung my mind."

[1] A noble Guelph family of Forli.

[2] The Apennines.

[3] The Adriatic.

[4] Near Bologna.

[5] These and the others named afterwards were well-born, honorable, and courteous men in Romagna in the thirteenth century. What is known of them may be found in Benvenuto da Imola's comment, and in that of Scartazzini.

[6] The Pagani were lords of Faenza and Imola (see Hell, Canto XXVII); the Demon was Mainardo, who died in 1302.

We knew that those dear souls heard us go; therefore by silence they made us confident of the road. After we had become alone by going on, a voice that seemed like lightning when it cleaves the air, came counter to us, saying, "Everyone that findeth me shall slay me," [1] and fled like thunder which rolls away, if suddenly the cloud is rent. Soon as our hearing had a truce from it, lo! now another with so great a crash that it resembled thunderings in swift succession: "I am Aglauros who became a stone."[2] And then to draw me close to the Poet, I backward and not forward took a step. Now was the air quiet on every side, and he said to me, "That was the hard curb[3] which ought to hold man within his bound; but ye take the bait, so that the hook of the old adversary draws you to him, and therefore little avails bridle or lure. Heaven calls you, and around you circles, displaying to you its eternal beauties, and your eye looks only on the ground; wherefore He who discerns everything scourges you.

[1] The words of Cain—Genesis, iv. 14.

[2] Daughter of Cecrops, changed to stone because of envy of her sister.

[3] These examples of the fatal consequences of the sin.



CANTO XV. Second Ledge: the Envious.—An Angel removes the second P from Dante's forehead.—Discourse concerning the Sharing of Good.—Ascent to the Third Ledge: the Wrathful.—Examples of Forbearance seen in Vision.

As much as appears, between the beginning of the day and the close of the third hour, of the sphere that ever in manner of a child is sporting, so much now, toward the evening, appeared to be remaining of his course for the sun.[1] It was vespers[2] there,[3] and here midnight; and the rays struck us across the nose,[4] because the mountain had been so circled by us that we were now going straight toward the sunset, when I felt my forehead weighed down by the splendor far more than at first, and the things not known were a wonder to me.[5] Wherefore I lifted my hands toward the top of my brows, and made for myself the visor that lessens the excess of what is seen.

[1] The sun was still some three hours from his setting. The sphere that ever is sportive like a child has been variously interpreted; perhaps Dante only meant the sphere of the heavens which by its ever varying aspect suggests the image of a playful spirit.

[2] Dante uses "vespers" as the term for the last of the four canonical divisions of the day; that is, from three to six P.M. See Convito, iv. 23. Three o'clock in Purgatory corresponds with midnight in Italy.

[3] In Italy.

[4] Full in the face.

[5] The source of this increase of brightness being unknown, it caused him astonishment.

As when from water, or from the mirror, the ray leaps to the opposite quarter, and, mounting up in like manner to that in which it descends, at equal distance departs as much from the falling of the stone,[1] as experiment and art show; so it seemed to me that I was struck by light reflected there in front of me, from which my sight was swift to fly. "What is that, sweet Father, from which I cannot screen my sight so that it avails me," said I, "and which seems to be moving toward us?" "Marvel not if the family of Heaven still dazzle thee," he replied to me; "it is a messenger that comes to invite men to ascend. Soon will it be that to see these things will not be grievous to thee, but will be delight to thee as great as nature fitted thee to feel."

[1] I.e., the perpendicular, at the point of incidence.

When we had reached the blessed Angel, with a glad voice he said, "Enter ye here to a stairway far less steep than the others."

We were mounting, already departed thence, and "Beati misericordes"[1] had been sung behind us, and "Rejoice thou that overcomest." [2] My Master and I, we two alone, were going on upward, and I was thinking to win profit as we went from his words; and I addressed me to him, thus enquiring, "What did the spirit from Romagna mean, mentioning exclusion and companionship?"[3] Wherefore he to me, "Of his own greatest fault he knows the harm, and therefore it is not to be wondered at if he reprove it, in order that there may be less lamenting on account of it. Because your desires are directed there, where, through companionship, a share is lessened, envy moves the bellows for your sighs. But if the love of the highest sphere[4] had turned your desire on high, that fear would not be in your breast; for the more there are who there say 'ours,' so much the more of good doth each possess, and the more of charity burns in that cloister."[5] "I am more hungering to be contented," said I, "than if I had at first been silent, and more of doubt I assemble in my mind. How can it be that a good distributed makes more possessors richer with itself, than if by few it is possessed?"[6] And he to me, "Because thou fastenest thy mind only on earthly things, from true light thou gatherest darkness. That infinite and ineffable Good which is on high, runs to love even as the sunbeam comes to a lucid body. As much of itself it gives as it finds of ardor; so that how far soever charity extends, beyond it doth the eternal bounty increase. And the more the people who are intent on high the more there are for loving well, and the more love is there, and like a mirror one reflects to the other. And if my discourse appease not thy hunger, thou shalt see Beatrice, and she will fully take from thee this and every other longing. Strive only that soon may be extinct, as two already are, the five wounds that are closed up by being painful."[7]

[1] "Blessed are the merciful."

[2] At the passage from each round, the Angel at the foot of the stairs repeats words from the Beatitudes adapted to those purified from the sin punished upon the ledge which is being left.

[3] In the last canto, Guido del Duca had exclaimed, "O human race, why dost thou set thy heart there where companionship must needs be excluded!"

[4] The Empyrean.

[5] "Since good, the more Communicated, the more abundant grows." Milton, Paradise Lost, v. 73.

[6] "True love in this differs from gold and clay, That to divide is not to take away."—Shelley, Epipsychidion.

[7] The pain of contrition.

As I was about to say "Thou satisfiest me," I saw myself arrived on the next round,[1] so that my eager eyes made me silent. There it seemed to me I was of a sudden rapt in an ecstatic vision, and saw many persons in a temple, and a lady at the entrance, with the sweet action of a mother, saying, "My son, why hast thou done thus toward us? Lo, sorrowing, thy father and I were seeking thee;" and when here she was silent, that which first appeared, disappeared.

[1] Where the sin of anger is expiated.

Then appeared to me another, with those waters down along her cheeks which grief distils when it springs from great despite toward others, and she was saying, "If thou art lord of the city about whose name was such great strife among the gods, and whence every science sparkles forth, avenge thyself on those audacious arms, that have embraced our daughter, O Pisistratus." And the lord appeared to me, benign and mild, to answer her, with temperate look, "What shall we do to him who desires ill for us, if he who loves us is by us condemned?"[1]

[1] Dante translated this story from Valerius Maximus, Facta et dicta mem., vi. 1.

Then I saw people kindled with fire of wrath, killing a youth with stones, loudly crying to each other only, "Slay, slay." And I saw him bowed by death, which now was weighing on him, toward the ground, but in such great strife he ever made of his eyes gates for heaven, praying to the high Lord, that He would pardon his persecutors, with that aspect which unlocks pity.[1]

[1] See Acts, vii. 55-60.

When my mind returned outwardly to the things which outside of it are true, I recognized my not false errors. My Leader, who could see me do like a man who looses himself from slumber, said, "What ails thee, that thou canst not support thyself? but art come more than a half league veiling thine eyes, and with thy legs staggering like one whom wine or slumber bends." "O sweet Father mine, if thou harkenest to me I will tell thee," said I, "what appeared to me when my legs were thus taken from me." And he, "If thou hadst a hundred masks upon thy face, thy thoughts howsoever small would not be hidden from me. That which thou hast seen was in order that thou excuse not thyself from opening thy heart to the waters of peace which are poured forth from the eternal fountain. I did not ask, 'What ails thee?' for the reason that he does who looks only with the eye which hath no seeing when the body lies inanimate; but I asked, in order to give vigor to the foot; thus it behoves to spur the sluggards, slow to use their wakefulness when it returns."

We were going on through the vesper time, forward intent so far as the eyes could reach against the bright evening rays; when, lo, little by little, a smoke came toward us, dark as night; iior was there place to shelter ourselves from it. This took from us our eyes and the pure air.



CANTO XVI. Third Ledge the Wrathful.—Marco Lombardo.—His discourse on Free Will, and the Corruption of the World.

Gloom of hell, or of night deprived of every planet, under a barren sky, obscured by clouds as much as it can be, never made so thick a veil to my sight nor to my feeling so harsh of tissue as that smoke which covered us there; so that my eye endured not to stay open[1] wherefore my sage and trusty Escort drew to my side and offered me his shoulder. Even as a blind man goes behind his guide, in order not to stray, and not to butt against anything that may hurt or perhaps kill him, I went along, through the bitter and foul air, listening to my Leader, who was ever saying, "Take care that thou be not cut off from me."

[1] The gloom and the smoke symbolize the effects of anger on the soul.

I heard voices, and each appeared to be praying for peace and mercy to the Lamb of God that taketh sins away. Only "Agnus Dei[1] were their exordiums: one word there was in all, and one measure; so that among them seemed entire concord. "Are these spirits, Master, that I hear?" said I. And he to me, "Thou apprehendest truly; and they go loosening the knot of anger." "Now who art thou that cleavest our smoke, and yet dost speak of us even as if thou didst still divide the time by calends?" [2] Thus by one voice was said: whereon my Master said, "Reply, and ask if by this way one goeth up." And I, "O creature, that cleansest thyself in order to return beautiful unto Him who made thee, a marvel shalt thou hear if thou accompanyest me." "I will follow thee, so far as is permitted me," it replied, "and if the smoke allows not seeing, in its stead hearing shall keep us joined." Then I began, "With that swathing band which death unbinds I go upward, and I came hither through the infernal anguish. And if God bath so enclosed me in His grace that He wills that I should see His court by a mode wholly out of modern usage, conceal not from me who thou wert before thy death, but tell it to me, and tell me if I am going rightly to the pass; and let thy words be our guides." "Lombard I was, and was called Marco; the world I knew, and that worth I loved, toward which every one hath now unbent his bow. For mounting thou art going rightly." Thus he replied, and added, "I pray thee that thou pray for me when thou shalt he above." And I to him, "I pledge my faith to thee to do that which thou askest of me; but I am bursting inwardly with a doubt, if I free not myself of it; at first it was simple, and now it is made double by thy words which make certain to me, here as elsewhere, that wherewith I couple it.[3] The world is indeed as utterly deserted by every virtue as thou declarest to me, and with iniquity is big and covered; but I pray that thou point out to me the cause, so that I may see it, and that I may show it to others; for one sets it in the heavens, and one here below."

[1] "The Lamb of God."

[2] By those in the eternal world dine is not reckoned by earth divisions.

[3] The doubt was occasioned by Guido del Duca's words (Canto XV.), in regard to the prevalence of evil in Tuscany, arising either from misfortune of the place, or through the bad habits of men. The fact of the iniquity of men was now reaffirmed by Marco Lombardo; Dante accepts the fact as certain, and his doubt is coupled with it.

A deep sigh that grief wrung into "Ay me!" he first sent forth, and then began, "Brother, the world is blind, and thou forsooth comest from it. Ye who are living refer every cause upward to the heavens only, as if they of necessity moved all things with themselves. If this were so, free will would be destroyed in you, and there would be no justice in having joy for good, and grief for evil. The heavens initiate your movements: I do not say all of them; but, supposing that I said it, light for good and for evil is given to you; and free will, which, if it endure fatigue in the first battles with the heavens, afterwards, if it be well nurtured, conquers everything. To a greater force, and to a better nature, ye, free, are subjected, and that creates the mind in you, which the heavens have not in their charge.' Therefore if the present world goes astray, in you is the cause, in you let it be sought; and of this I will now be a true informant for thee.

[1] The soul of man is the direct creation of God, and is in immediate subjection to His power; it is not in charge of the Heavens, and its will is free to resist their mingled and imperfect influences.

"Forth from the hand of Him who delights in it ere it exist, like to a little maid who, weeping and smiling, wantons childishly, issues the simple little soul, which knows nothing, save that, proceeding from a glad Maker, it willingly turns to that which allures it. Of trivial good at first it tastes the savor; by this it is deceived and runs after it, if guide or bridle bend not its love. Wherefore it was needful to impose law as a bridle; needful to have a king who could discern at least the tower of the true city. The laws exist, but who set hand to them? Not one: because the shepherd who is in advance can ruminate, but has not his hoofs divided?[1] Wherefore the people, who see their guide only at that good[2] whereof they are greedy, feed upon that, and seek no further. Well canst thou see that the evil leading is the cause that has made the world guilty, and not nature which in you may be corrupted. Rome, which made the world good, was wont to have two Suns,[3] which made visible both one road and the other, that of the world and that of God. One has extinguished the other; and the sword is joined to the crozier; and the two together must of necessity go ill, because, being joined, one feareth not the other. If thou believest rue not, consider the grain,[4] for every herb is known by its seed.

[1] The shepherd who precedes the flock, and should lead it aright, is the Pope. A mystical interpretation of the injunction upon the children of Israel (Leviticus, xi.) in regard to clean and unclean beasts was familiar to the schoolmen. St. Augustine expounds the cloven hoof as symbolic of right conduct, because it does not easily slip, and the chewing of the cud as signifying the meditation of wisdom. Dante seems here to mean that the Pope has the true doctrine, but makes not the true use of it for his own guidance and the government of the world.

[2] Material good.

[3] Pope and Emperor.

[4] The results that follow this forced union.

"Within the land which the Adige and the Po water, valor and courtesy were wont to be found before Frederick had his quarrel;[1] now safely anyone may pass there who out of shame would cease discoursing with the good, or drawing near them. Truly three old men are still there in whom the antique age rebukes the new, and it seems late to them ere God restore them to the better life; Currado da Palazzo, and the good Gherardo,[2] and Guido da Castel, who is better named, after the manner of the French, the simple Lombard.[3]

[1] Before the Emperor Frederick II. had his quarrel with the Pope; that is, before Emperor and Pope had failed in their respective duties to each other.

[2] Gherardo da Camino, "who was noble in his life, and whose memory will always be noble," says Dante in the Convito, iv. 14.

[3] "The French," says Benvenuto da Linda, "call all Italians Lombards, and repute them very astute."

"Say thou henceforth, that the Church of Rome, through confounding in itself two modes of rule,[1] falls in the mire, and defiles itself and its burden."

[1] The spiritual and the temporal.

"O Marco mine," said I, "thou reasonest well; and now I discern why the sons of Levi were excluded from the heritage;[1] but what Gherardo is that, who, thou sayest, remains for sample of the extinct folk, in reproach of the barbarous age?" "Either thy speech deceives me, or it is making trial of me," he replied to me, "in that, speaking Tuscan to me, it seems that of the good Gherardo thou knowest naught. By other added name I know him not, unless I should take it from his daughter Gaia.[2] May God be with you! for further I come not with you. Behold the brightness which rays already glimmering through the smoke, and it behoves me to depart—the Angel is there—ere I appear to him."[3] So he turned, and would not hear me more.

[1] "The Lord separated the tribe of Levi, to bear the ark of the covenant of the Lord, to stand before the Lord to minister unto him, and to bless in his name, unto this day. Wherefore Levi hath no part nor inheritance with his brethren; the Lord is his inheritance."—Deuteronomy, x. 8-9.

[2] Famed for her virtues, says Buti; for her vices, say the Ottimo and Benvenuto.

[3] His time of purgation is not yet finished; not yet is he ready to meet the Angel of the Pass.



CANTO XVII. Third Ledge the Wrathful.—Issue from the Smoke.—Vision of examples of Anger.—Ascent to the Fourth Ledge, where Sloth is purged.—Second Nightfall.—Virgil explains how Love is the root of Virtue and of Sin.

Recall to mind, reader, if ever on the alps a cloud closed round thee, through which thou couldst not see otherwise than the mole through its skin, how, when the humid and dense vapors begin to dissipate, the ball of the sun enters feebly through them: and thy imagination will easily come to see, how at first I saw again the sun, which was already at its setting. So, matching mine to the trusty steps of my Master, I issued forth from such a cloud to rays already dead on the low shores.

O power imaginative, that dost sometimes so steal us from outward things that a man heeds it not, although around him a thousand trumpets sound, who moveth thee if the sense afford thee naught? A light, that in the heavens is formed, moveth thee by itself, or by a will that downward guides it?

[1] If the imagination is not stirred by some object of sense, it is moved by the influence of the stars, or directly by the Divine will.

In my imagination appeared the impress of the impiety of her[1] who changed her form into the bird that most delights in singing. And here was my mind so shut up within itself that from without came nothing which then might he received by it. Then rained down within my high fantasy, one crucified,[2] scornful and fierce in his look, and thus was dying. Around him were the great Ahasuerus, Esther his wife, and the just Mordecai, who was in speech and action so blameless. And when this imagination burst of itself, like a bubble for which the water fails, beneath which it was made, there rose in my vision a maiden,[3] weeping bitterly, and she was saying, "O queen, wherefore through anger hast thou willed to be naught? Thou hast killed thyself in order not to lose Lavinia: now thou hast lost me: I am she who mourns, mother, at thine, before another's ruin.

[1] Progne or Philomela, according to one or the other version of the tragic myth, was changed into the nightingale, after her anger had led her to take cruel vengeance on Tereus.

[2] Haman, who, according to the English version, was hanged, but according to the Vulgate, was crucified—Esther, vii.

[3] Lavinia, whose mother, Amata, killed herself in a rage at hearing premature report of the death of Turnus, to whom she desired that Lavinia should be married.—Aeneid, xii. 595-607.

As sleep is broken, when of a sudden the new light strikes the closed eyes, and, broken, quivers ere it wholly dies, so my imagining fell down, soon as a light, greater by far than that to which we are accustomed, struck my face. I turned me to see where I was, when a voice said, "Here is the ascent;" which from every other object of attention removed me, and made my will so eager to behold who it was that was, speaking that it never rests till it is face to face. But, as before the sun which weighs down our sight, and by excess veils its own shape, so here my power failed. "This is a divine spirit who directs us, without our asking, on the way to go up, and with his own light conceals himself. He does for us as a man doth for himself; for he who sees the need and waits for asking, malignly sets himself already to denial. Now let us grant our feet to such an invitation; let us hasten to ascend ere it grows dark, for after, it would not be possible until the day returns." Thus said my Guide; and I and he turned our steps to a stairway. And soon as I was on the first step, near use I felt a motion as of wings, and a fanning on my face,[1] and I heard said, "Beati pacifici,'[2] who are without ill anger."

[1] By which the angel removes the third P from Dante's brow.

[2] "Blessed are the peacemakers."

Now were the last sunbeams on which the night follows so lifted above us, that the stars were appearing on many sides. "O my virtue, why dost thou so melt away?" to myself I said, for I felt the power of my legs put in truce. We had come where the stair no farther ascends, and we were stayed fast even as a ship that arrives at the shore. And I listened a little, if I might hear anything in the new circle. Then I turned to my Master, and said, "My sweet Father, say what offence is purged here in the circle where we are: if the feet are stopped, let not thy discourse stop." And he to me, "The love of good, less than it should have been, is here restored;[1] here is plied again the ill-slackened oar. But that thou mayst still more clearly understand, turn thy mind to me, and thou shalt gather some good fruit from our delay.

[1] It is the round on which the sin of acedie, sloth, is purged away.

"Neither Creator nor creature," began he, "son, ever was without love, either natural, or of the mind,[1] and this thou knowest. The natural is always without error; but the other may err either through an evil object, or through too much or through too little vigor. While love is directed on the primal goods, and on the second moderates itself, it cannot be the cause of ill delight. But when it is bent to evil,[2] or runs to good with more zeal, or with less, than it ought, against the Creator works his own creature. Hence thou canst comprehend that love needs must be the seed in you of every virtue, and of every action that deserves punishment.

[1] Either native in the soul, as the love of God, or determined by the choice, through free will, of some object of desire in the mind.

[2] A wrong object of desire.

"Now since love can never bend its sight from the welfare of its subject,[1] all things are safe from hatred of themselves; and since no being can be conceived of divided from the First,[2] and standing by itself, from hating Him[3] every affection is cut off. It follows, if, distinguishing, I rightly judge, that the evil which is loved is that of one s neighbor; and in three modes is this love born within your clay. There is he who hopes to excel through the abasement of his neighbor, and only longs that from his greatness he may be brought low.[4] There is he who fears loss of power, favor, honor, fame, because another rises; whereat he is so saddened that he loves the opposite.[5] And there is he who seems so outraged by injury that it makes him gluttonous of vengeance, and such a one must needs coin evil for others.[6] This triform love is lamented down below.[7]

[1] To however wrong an object love may be directed, the person always believes it to be for his own good.

[2]The source of being.

[3] God, the First Cause.

[4] This is the nature of Pride.

[5] Envy.

[6] Anger.

[7] In the three lower rounds of Purgatory.

"Now I would that thou hear of the other,—that which runs to the good in faulty measure. Every one confusedly apprehends a good[1] in which the mind may be at rest, and which it desires; wherefore every one strives to attain it. If the love be slack that draws you to see this, or to acquire it, this cornice, after just repentance, torments you therefor. Another good there is,[2] which doth not make man happy, is not happiness, is not the good essence, the root of every good fruit. The love which abandons itself too much to this[3] is lamented above us in three circles, but how it is reckoned tripartite, I am silent, in order that thou seek it for thyself."

[1] The supreme Good.

[2] Sensual enjoyment.

[2] Resulting in the sins of avarice, gluttony, and lust.



CANTO XVIII. Fourth Ledge The Slothful.—Discourse of Virgil on Love and Free Will.—Throng of Spirits running in haste to redeem their Sin.—The Abbot of San Zone.—Dante falls asleep.

The lofty Teacher had put an end to his discourse, and looked attentive on my face to see if I appeared content; and I, whom a fresh thirst already was goading, was silent outwardly, and within was saying, "Perhaps the too much questioning I make annoys him." But that true Father, who perceived the timid wish which did not disclose itself, by speaking gave me hardihood to speak. Then I, "My sight is so vivified in thy light that I discern clearly all that thy discourse may imply or declare: therefore I pray thee, sweet Father dear, that thou demonstrate to me the love to which thou referrest every good action and its contrary." "Direct," he said, "toward me the keen eyes of the understanding, and the error of the blind who make themselves leaders will be manifest to thee. The mind, which is created apt to love, is mobile unto everything that pleases, soon as by pleasure it is roused to action. Your faculty of apprehension draws an image from a real existence, and within you displays it, so that it makes the mind turn to it; and if, thus turned, the mind incline toward it, that inclination is love, that inclination is nature which is bound anew in you by pleasure.[1] Then, as the fire moveth upward by its own form,[2] which is born to ascend thither where it lasts longest in its material, so the captive mind enters into longing, which is a spiritual motion, and never rests until the thing beloved makes it rejoice. Now it may be apparent to thee, how far the truth is hidden from the people who aver that every love is in itself a laudable thing; because perchance its matter appears always to be good;[3] but not every seal is good although the wax be good."

[1] In his discourse in the preceding canto, Virgil has declared that neither the Creator nor his creatures are ever without love, either native in the soul, or proceeding from the mind. Here he explains how the mind is disposed to love by inclination to an image within itself of some object which gives it pleasure. This inclination is natural to it; or in his phrase, nature is bound anew in man by the pleasure which arouses the love. All this is a doctrine derived directly from St. Thomas Aquinas. "It is the property of every nature to have some inclination, which is a natural appetite, or love."—Summa Theol., 1, lxxvi. i.

[2] Form is here used in its scholastic meaning. " The active power of anything depends on its form, which is the principle of its action. Fur the form is either the nature itself of the thing, as in those which are pure form; or it is a constituent of the nature of the thing, as in those which are composed of matter and form."—Summa Theol., 3, xiii. i. Fire by its form, or nature, seeks the sphere of fire between the ether and the moon.

[3] The object may seem desirable to the mind, without being a fit object of desire.

"Thy words, and my understanding which follows," replied I to him, "have revealed love to me; but that has made me more full of doubt. For if love is offered to us from without, and if with other foot the soul go not, if strait or crooked she go is not her own merit."[1] And he to me, "So much as reason seeth here can I tell thee; beyond that await still for Beatrice; for it is a work of faith. Every substantial form that is separate from matter, and is united with it,[2] has a specific virtue residing in itself which without action is not perceived, nor shows itself save by its effect, as by green leaves the life in a plant. Yet, whence the intelligence of the first cognitions comes man doth not know, nor whence the affection for the first objects of desire, which exist in you even as zeal in the bee for making honey: and this first will admits not desert of praise or blame. Now in order that to this every other may be gathered,[3] the virtue that counsels [4] is innate in you, and ought to keep the threshold of assent. This is the principle wherefrom is derived the reason of desert in you, according as it gathers in and winnows good and evil loves. Those who in reasoning went to the foundation took note of this innate liberty, wherefore they bequeathed morals[5] to the world. Assuming then that every love which is kindled within you arises of necessity, the power exists in you to restrain it. This noble virtue Beatrice calls the free will, and therefore see that thou have it in mind, if she take to speaking of it with thee."

[1] If love be aroused in the soul by an external object, and if it be natural to the soul to love, how does she deserve praise or blame for loving?

[2] The substantial form is the soul, which is separate from matter but united with it.

[3] In order that every other will may conform with the first, that is, with the affection natural to man for the primal objects of desire.

[4] The faculty of reason, the virtue which counsels and on which free will depends, is "the specific virtue" of the soul.

[5] The rules of that morality which would have no existence were it not for freedom of the will.

The moon, belated[1] almost to midnight, shaped[2] like a bucket that is all ablaze, was making the stars appear fewer to us, and was running counter to the heavens[3] along those paths which the sun inflames, when the man of Rome sees it between Sardinia and Corsica at its setting;[4] and that gentle shade, for whom Pietola[5] is more famed than the Mantuan city, had laid down the burden of my loading:[6] wherefore I, who had harvested his open and plain discourse upon my questions, was standing like a man who, drowsy, rambles. But this drowsiness was taken from me suddenly by folk, who, behind our backs, had now come round to us. And such as was the rage and throng, which of old Ismenus and Asopus saw at night along their banks, in case the Thebans were in need of Bacchus, so, according to what I saw of them as they came, those who by good will and right love are ridden curve their steps along that circle. Soon they were upon us; because, running, all that great crowd was moving on; and two in front, weeping, were crying out, "Mary ran with haste unto the mountain [7] and Caesar, to subdue Ilerda, thrust at Marseilles, and then ran on to Spain."[8] "Swift, swift, that time be not lost by little love," cried the others following, "for zeal in doing well may refreshen grace." "O people, in whom keen fervor now perhaps redeems your negligence and delay, through lukewarmness, in well-doing, this one who is alive (and surely I lie not to you) wishes to go up, soon as the sun may shine again for us; therefore tell us where is the opening near." These words were of my Guide; and one of those spirits said: "Come thou behind us, and thou shalt find the gap. We are so filled with desire to move on that we cannot stay; therefore pardon, if thou holdest our obligation for churlishness. I was Abbot[9] of San Zeno at Verona, under the empire of the good Barbarossa, of whom Milan, still grieving, doth discourse. And he has one foot already in the grave,[10] who soon will lament on account of that monastery, and will be sorry for having had power there; because in place of its true shepherd he has put his son, ill in his whole body and worse in mind, and who was evil-born." I know not if more he said, or if he were silent, so far beyond us he had already run by; but this I heard, and to retain it pleased me.

[1] In its rising.

[2] Gibbous, like certain buckets still in use in Italy.

[3] "These words describe the daily backing of the moon through the signs from west to east."—Moore.

[4] These islands are invisible from Rome, but the line that runs from Rome between them is a little south of east.

[5] The modern name of Andes, the birthplace of Virgil, and therefore more famous than Mautua itself.

[6] With which I had laden him.

[7] Luke, i. 36.

[8] Examples of zeal.

[9] Unknown, save for this mention of him.

[10] Alberto della Scala, lord of Verona; he died in 1301. He had forced upon the monastery for its abbot his deformed and depraved illegitimate son.

And he who was at every need my succor said: "Turn thee this way; see two of them coming, giving a bite to sloth." In rear of all they were saying: "The people for whom the sea was opened were dead before their heirs beheld the Jordan;[1] and those who endured not the toil even to the end with the son of Anchises,[2] offered themselves to life without glory."

[1] Numbers, xiv. 28.

[2] But left him, to remain with Acestes in Sicily—Aeneid, v. 751.

Then when those shades were so far parted from us that they could no more be seen, a new thought set itself within me, from which many others and diverse were born; and I so strayed from one unto another that, thus wandering, I closed my eyes, and transmuted my meditation into dream.



CANTO XIX. Fourth Ledge: the Slothful—Dante dreams of the Siren.—The Angel of the Pass.—Ascent to the Fifth Ledge.—Pope Adrian V.

At the hour when the diurnal heat, vanquished by the Earth or sometimes by Saturn,[1] can warm no more the coldness of the moon,—when the geomancers see their Greater Fortune[2] in the east, rising before the dawn along a path which short while stays dark for it,—there came to me in dream[3] a woman stammering, with eyes asquint, and crooked on her feet, with hands lopped off, and pallid in her color. I gazed at her; and as the sun comforts the cold limbs which the night bennmbs, so my look made her tongue nimble, and then set her wholly straight in little while, and so colored her wan face as love requires. Then, when she had her speech thus unloosed, she began to sing, so that with difficulty should I have turned my attention from her. "I am," she sang, "I am the sweet Siren, and the mariners in mid sea I bewitch, so full am I of pleasantness to hear. I turned Ulysses from his wandering way by my song; and whoso abides with me seldom departs, so wholly I content him."

[1] Toward dawn, when the warmth of the preceding day is exhausted, Saturn was supposed to exert a frigid influence.

[2] "Geomancy is divination by points in the ground, or pebbles arranged in certain figures, which have peculiar names. Among these is the figure called the Fortuna Major, which by an effort of imagination can also be formed out of some of the last stars of Aquarius and some of the first of Pisces." These are the signs that immediately precede Aries, in which the Sun now was, and the stars forming the figure of the Greater Fortune would be in the east about two hours before sunrise.

[3] The hour when this dream comes to Dante is "post mediam noctem ... cum somnia vera,"—the hour in which it was commonly believed that dreams have a true meaning. The woman seen by Dante is the deceitful Siren, who symbolizes the temptation to those sins of sense from which the spirits are purified in the three upper rounds of Purgatory.

Not yet was her mouth closed when at my side a Lady[1] appeared, holy, and ready to make her confused. "O Virgil, Virgil, who is this?" she sternly said; and he came with his eyes fixed only on that modest one. She took hold of the other, and in front she opened her, rending her garments, and showed me her belly; this waked me with the stench that issued from it. I turned my eyes, and the good Virgil said, "At least three calls have I given thee; arise and come; let us find the opening through which thou mayst enter."

[1] This lady seems to be the type of the conscience, virtus intellectualis, that calls reason to rescue the tempted soul.

Up I rose, and now were all the circles of the sacred mountain full of the high day, and we went on with the new sun at our backs. Following him, I bore my forehead like one who has it laden with thought, and makes of himself the half arch of a bridge, when I heard, "Come ye! here is the passage," spoken in a mode soft and benign, such as is not heard in this mortal region. With open wings, which seemed of a swan, he who thus had spoken to us turned us upward between the two walls of the hard rock. He moved his feathers then, and fanned us, affirming qui lugent[1] to be blessed, for they shall have their souls mistresses of consolation.[2] "What ails thee that ever on the ground thou lookest?" my Guide began to say to me, both of us having mounted up a little from the Angel. "With such apprehension a recent vision makes me go, which bends me to itself so that I cannot from the thought withdraw me." "Hast thou seen," said he, "that ancient sorceress who above us henceforth is alone lamented? Hast thou seen how from her man is unbound? Let it suffice thee, and strike thy heels on the ground;[3] turn thine eyes to the lure that the eternal King whirls with the great circles."

[1] "They that mourn."

[2] The meaning seems to be, "they shall be possessed of comfort." Donne (i.e."mistresses ) is a rhyme-word, and affords an instance of a straining of the meaning compelled by the rhyme.

[3] Hasten thy steps.

Like the falcon that first looks down, then turns at the cry, and stretches forward, through desire of the food that draws him thither; such I became, and such, so far as the rock is cleft to afford a way to him who goeth up, did I go on as far as where the circling[1] is begun. When I was come forth on the fifth round, I saw people upon it who were weeping, lying upon the earth all turned downward. "Adhoesit pavimento anima mea,"[2] I heard them saying with such deep sighs that the words were hardly understood. "O elect of God, whose sufferings both justice and hope make less hard, direct us toward the high ascents." "If ye come secure from the lying down, and wish to find the speediest way, let your right hands always be outside." So prayed the Poet, and so a little in front was replied to us by them; wherefore I, in his speaking, marked the hidden one;[3] and then turned my eyes to my Lord, whereon he granted me, with cheerful sign, that which the look of my desire was asking for. Then when I could do with myself according to my will, I drew me above that creature whose words had first made me note him, saying, "Spirit in whom weeping matures that without which no one can turn to God, suspend a little for me thy greater care. Tell me who thou wast; and why ye have your backs turned upward; and if thou wishest that I obtain aught for thee there whence I alive set forth." And he to me, "Thy heaven turns to itself our hinder parts thou shalt know; but first, scias quod ego fui successor Petri.[4] Between Sestri and Chiaveri[5] descends a beautiful stream,[6] and of its name the title of my race makes its top.[7] One month and little more I proved how the great mantle weighs on him who guards it from the mire, so that all other burdens seem a feather. My conversion, ah me! was tardy; but when I had become the Roman Shepherd, then I found out the lying life. I saw that there the heart was not at rest; nor was it possible to, mount higher in that life; wherefore the love of this was kindled in me. Up to that time a wretched soul and parted from God had I been, avaricious of everything; now, as thou seest, I am punished for it here. That which avarice doth is displayed here in the purgation of these converted souls, and the Mountain has no more bitter penalty.[8] Even as our eye, fixed upon earthly things, was not lifted on high, so justice here to earth has depressed it. As avarice, in which labor is lost, quenched our love for every good, so justice here holds us close, bound and captive in feet and hands; and, so long as it shall be the pleasure of the just Lord, so long shall we stay immovable and outstretched."

[1] The level of the fifth round.

[2] "My soul cleaveth to the dust."— Psalm cxix. 25.

[3] The face of the speaker, turned to the ground, was concealed.

[4] "Know that I was a successor of Peter." This was the Pope Adrian V., Ottobono de' Fieschi, who died in 1276, having been Pope for thirty-eight days.

[5] Little towns on the Genoese sea-coast.

[6] The Lavagna, from which stream the Fieschi derived their title of Counts of Lavagna.

[7] Its chief boast.

[8] Others may be greater, but none more humiliating.

I had knelt down and wished to speak; but when I began, and he became aware, only by listening, of my reverence, "What cause," said he, "hath bent thee thus downward?" And I to him, "Because of your dignity my conscience stung me for standing." "Straighten thy legs, and lift thee up, brother," he replied; "err not, fellow servant of one power am I with thee and with the rest.[1] If ever thou hast understood that holy gospel sound which says neque nubent,[2] thou mayst well see why I speak thus. Now go thy way. I will not that thou longer stop; for thy stay hinders my weeping, with which I ripen that which thou hast said. A grandchild I have on earth who is named Alagia,[3] good in herself, if only our house make her not wicked by example; and she alone remains to me yonder."[4]

[1] And I fell at His feet to worship him. And He said unto me, See thou do it not: I am thy fellow servant."—Revelation xix. 10.

[2] They neither marry."—Matthew, xxii. 80. The distinctions of earths do not exist in the spiritual world.

[3] Alagia was the wife of the Marquis Moroello Malaspina. See the close of Canto VIII. Dante had probably seen her in 1306, when he was a guest of the house, in the Lunigiana.

[4] Not that she was his only living relative, but the only one whose prayers, coming from a good heart, would avail him.



CANTO XX. Fifth Ledge: the Avaricious.—The Spirits celebrate examples of Poverty and Bounty.—Hugh Capet.—His discourse on his descendants.—Trembling of the Mountain.

Against a better will the will fights ill: wherefore against my own pleasure, in order to please him, I drew from the water the sponge not full.

I moved on, and my Leader moved on through the space vacant only alongside of the rock, as upon a wall one goes close to the battlements. For on the other side the people, that through their eyes are pouring drop by drop the evil that possesses all the world, approach too near the edge.[1]

[1]Too close to leave a space for walking.

Accursed be thou, old she-wolf, who more than all the other beasts hast prey, because of thy hunger hollow without end! O Heaven! by whose revolution it seems that men believe conditions here below are transmuted, when will he come through whom she shall depart?[1] We were going on with slow and scanty steps, and I attentive to the shades whom I heard piteously lamenting and bewailing; and peradventure I heard in front of us one crying out, "Sweet Mary," in his lament, even as a woman does who is in travail; and continuing, "So poor wast thou as may be seen by that inn where thou didst lay down thy holy burden." And following this I heard, "O good Fabricius,[2] thou didst rather wish for virtue with poverty than to possess great riches with vice." These words were so pleasing to me that I drew myself further on to have acquaintance with that spirit from whom they seemed to come. He was speaking furthermore of the largess which Nicholas[3] made to the damsels in order to conduct their youth to honor. "O soul that discoursest so well," said I, "tell me who thou wast, and why thou alone renewest these worthy praises. Not without meed will be thy words, if I return to complete the short journey of that life which flies towards its end." And he, "I will tell thee, not for comfort that I may expect from yonder,[4] but because such grace shineth on thee ere thou art dead. I was the root of the evil plant which so overshadows all the Christian land[5] that good fruit is rarely plucked therefrom. But if Douai, Lille, Ghent, and Bruges had power, soon would there be vengeance on it;[6] and I implore it from him who judges everything. Yonder I was called Hugh Capet: of me are born the Philips and the Louises, by whom of late times France is ruled. I was the son of a butcher of Paris.[7] When the ancient kings had all died out, save one, who had assumed the grey garb,[8] I found me with the bridle of the government of the realm fast in my hands, and with so much power recently acquired, and so full of friends, that to the widowed crown the head of my son was promoted, from whom the consecrated bones[9] of these began.

[1] The old she-wolf is avarice, the same who at the outset (Hell, Canto I.) had driven Dante back and made him lose hope of the height. The likeness of the two passages is striking.

[2] Caius Fabricius, the famous poor and incorruptible Roman consul, who refused the bribes of Pyrrhus, King of Epirus. Dante extols his worth also in the Convito, iv. 5.

[3] St. Nicholas, Bishop of Mira, who, according to the legend, knowing that owing to the poverty of their father, three maidens were exposed to the risk of leading lives of dishonor, secretly, at night, threw into the window of their house money enough to provide each with a dowry.

[4] The earth.

[5] In 1300 the descendants of Hugh Capet were ruling France, Spain, and Naples.

[6] Phillip the Fair gained possession of Flanders, by force and fraud, in 1299; but in 1802 the French were driven out of the country, after a fatal defeat at Courtrai, here dimly prophesied.

[7] Dante here follows the incorrect popular tradition.

[8] Who had become a monk. The historical reference is obscure.

[9] An ironical reference to the ceremony of consecration at the coronation of the kings.

"So long as the great dowry of Provence[1] took not the sense of shame from my race, it was little worth, but still it did not ill. Then it began its rapine with force and with falsehood; and, after, for amends,[2] Ponthieu and Normandy it took, and Gascony; Charles[3] came to Italy, and, for amends, made a victim of Conradin,[4] and then thrust Thomas[5] back to heaven for amends. A time I see, not long after this day, that draws forth another Charles[6] from France to make both himself and his the better known. Without arms he goes forth thence alone, but with the lance with which Judas jousted;[7] and that he thrusts so that he makes the paunch of Florence burst. Therefrom he will gain not land,[8] but sin and shame so much the heavier for himself, as he the lighter reckons such harm. The other,[9] who has already gone out a prisoner from his ship, I see selling his daughter, and bargaining over her, as do the corsairs with other female slaves. O Avarice, what more canst thou do with us, since thou hast so drawn my race unto thyself that it cares not for its own flesh? In order that the ill to come and that already done may seem the less, I see the fleur-de-lis entering Anagna, and in his Vicar Christ made a captive.[10] I see him being mocked a second time; I see the vinegar and the gall renewed, and between living thieves him put to death. I see the new Pilate so cruel that this does not sate him, but, without decretal, he bears his covetous sails into the Temple.[11] O my Lord, when shall I be glad in seeing thy vengeance which, concealed, makes sweet thine anger in thy secrecy?

[1] Through the marriage in 1245 of Charles of Anjou, brother of St. Louis (Louis IX.), with Beatrice, the heiress of the Count of Provence.

[2] The bitterness of Dante's irony is explained by the part which France had played in Italian affairs.

[3] Of Anjou.

[4] The youthful grandson of Frederick II., who, striving to wrest Naples and Sicily, his hereditary possessions, from the hands of Charles of Anjou, was defeated and taken prisoner by him in 1267, and put to deaths by him in 1268. His fate excited great compassion.

[5] Charles was believed to have had St. Thomas Aquinas poisoned.

[6] Charles of Valois, brother of Philip the Fair, sent by Boniface VIII., in 1301, to Florence as peacemaker. But there he wrought great harm, and siding with the Black party, the Whites, including Dante, were driven into exile.

[7] The lance of treachery.

[8] A reference to his nickname of Senza terra, or Lackland.

[9] Charles II., son of Charles of Anjou. In 1283 he was made captive in a sea fight, by Ruggieri de Loria, the Admiral of Peter II. of Aragon. In 1300, according to common report, he sold his young daughter in marriage to the old Marquis of Este.

[10] Spite of his hostility to Boniface VIII., the worst crime of the house of France was, in Dante's eyes, the seizure of the Pope at Anagni, in 1303, by the emissaries of Philip the Fair.

[11] The destruction of the Order of the Temple.

"What I was saying of that only bride of the Holy Spirit, and which made thee turn toward me for some gloss, is ordained for all our prayers so long as the day lasts, but when the night comes, we take up a contrary sound instead. Then we rehearse Pygmalion,[1] whom his gluttonous longing for gold made a traitor and thief and parricide; and the wretchedness of the avaricious Midas which followed on his greedy demand, at which men must always laugh. Then of the foolish Achan each one recalls how he stole the spoils, so that the anger of Joshua seems still to sting him, here.[2] Then we accuse Sapphira with her husband; we praise the kicks that Heliodorus received,[3] and in infamy Polymnestor who slew Polydorus[4] circles the Whole mountain. Finally our cry here is, 'Crassus, tell us, for thou knowest, what is the taste of gold?'[5] At times one speaks loud, and another low, according to the affection which spurs us to speak now at a greater, now at a less pace. Therefore in the good which by day is here discoursed of, of late I was not alone, but here near by no other person lifted up his voice."

[1] The brother of Dido, and the murderer of her husband for the sake of his riches—Aeneid, i. 353-4.

[2] Joshua, vii.

[3] For his attempt to plunder the treasury of the Temple.—2 Maccabees, iii. 25.

[4] Priam had entrusted Polydorus, his youngest son, to Polymnestor, King of Thrace, who, when the fortunes of Troy declined, slew Polydorus, that he might take possession of the treasure sent with him.

[5] Having been slain in battle with the Parthians, their king poured molten gold down his throat in derision, because of his fame as the richest of men.

We had already parted from him, and were striving to advance along the road so far as was permitted to our power, when I felt the Mountain tremble, like a thing that is falling; whereupon a chill seized me such as is wont to seize him who goes to death. Surely Delos shook not so violently, before Latona made her nest therein to give birth to the two eyes of heaven.[1] Then began on all sides such a cry that the Master drew towards me, saying: "Distrust not, while I guide thee." "Gloria in excelsis Deo,"[2] all were saying, according to what I gathered from those near at hand whose cry it was possible to understand. We stopped, motionless and in suspense, like the shepherds who first heard that song, until the trembling ceased, and it was ended. Then we took up again our holy journey, looking at the shades that were lying on the ground, returned already to their wonted plaint. No ignorance ever with so sharp attack made me desirous of knowing—if my memory err not in this—as it seemed to me I then experienced in thought. Nor, for our haste, did I dare to ask, nor of myself could I see aught there. So I went on timid and thoughtful.