<h2><SPAN name="CantoII.XVII"></SPAN>Purgatorio: Canto XVII</h2>
<p>
Remember, Reader, if e’er in the Alps<br/>
A mist o’ertook thee, through which thou couldst see<br/>
Not otherwise than through its membrane mole,</p>
<p>
How, when the vapours humid and condensed<br/>
Begin to dissipate themselves, the sphere<br/>
Of the sun feebly enters in among them,</p>
<p>
And thy imagination will be swift<br/>
In coming to perceive how I re-saw<br/>
The sun at first, that was already setting.</p>
<p>
Thus, to the faithful footsteps of my Master<br/>
Mating mine own, I issued from that cloud<br/>
To rays already dead on the low shores.</p>
<p>
O thou, Imagination, that dost steal us<br/>
So from without sometimes, that man perceives not,<br/>
Although around may sound a thousand trumpets,</p>
<p>
Who moveth thee, if sense impel thee not?<br/>
Moves thee a light, which in the heaven takes form,<br/>
By self, or by a will that downward guides it.</p>
<p>
Of her impiety, who changed her form<br/>
Into the bird that most delights in singing,<br/>
In my imagining appeared the trace;</p>
<p>
And hereupon my mind was so withdrawn<br/>
Within itself, that from without there came<br/>
Nothing that then might be received by it.</p>
<p>
Then reigned within my lofty fantasy<br/>
One crucified, disdainful and ferocious<br/>
In countenance, and even thus was dying.</p>
<p>
Around him were the great Ahasuerus,<br/>
Esther his wife, and the just Mordecai,<br/>
Who was in word and action so entire.</p>
<p>
And even as this image burst asunder<br/>
Of its own self, in fashion of a bubble<br/>
In which the water it was made of fails,</p>
<p>
There rose up in my vision a young maiden<br/>
Bitterly weeping, and she said: “O queen,<br/>
Why hast thou wished in anger to be naught?</p>
<p>
Thou’st slain thyself, Lavinia not to lose;<br/>
Now hast thou lost me; I am she who mourns,<br/>
Mother, at thine ere at another’s ruin.”</p>
<p>
As sleep is broken, when upon a sudden<br/>
New light strikes in upon the eyelids closed,<br/>
And broken quivers ere it dieth wholly,</p>
<p>
So this imagining of mine fell down<br/>
As soon as the effulgence smote my face,<br/>
Greater by far than what is in our wont.</p>
<p>
I turned me round to see where I might be,<br/>
When said a voice, “Here is the passage up;”<br/>
Which from all other purposes removed me,</p>
<p>
And made my wish so full of eagerness<br/>
To look and see who was it that was speaking,<br/>
It never rests till meeting face to face;</p>
<p>
But as before the sun, which quells the sight,<br/>
And in its own excess its figure veils,<br/>
Even so my power was insufficient here.</p>
<p>
“This is a spirit divine, who in the way<br/>
Of going up directs us without asking,<br/>
And who with his own light himself conceals.</p>
<p>
He does with us as man doth with himself;<br/>
For he who sees the need, and waits the asking,<br/>
Malignly leans already tow’rds denial.</p>
<p>
Accord we now our feet to such inviting,<br/>
Let us make haste to mount ere it grow dark;<br/>
For then we could not till the day return.”</p>
<p>
Thus my Conductor said; and I and he<br/>
Together turned our footsteps to a stairway;<br/>
And I, as soon as the first step I reached,</p>
<p>
Near me perceived a motion as of wings,<br/>
And fanning in the face, and saying, “‘Beati<br/>
Pacifici,’ who are without ill anger.”</p>
<p>
Already over us were so uplifted<br/>
The latest sunbeams, which the night pursues,<br/>
That upon many sides the stars appeared.</p>
<p>
“O manhood mine, why dost thou vanish so?”<br/>
I said within myself; for I perceived<br/>
The vigour of my legs was put in truce.</p>
<p>
We at the point were where no more ascends<br/>
The stairway upward, and were motionless,<br/>
Even as a ship, which at the shore arrives;</p>
<p>
And I gave heed a little, if I might hear<br/>
Aught whatsoever in the circle new;<br/>
Then to my Master turned me round and said:</p>
<p>
“Say, my sweet Father, what delinquency<br/>
Is purged here in the circle where we are?<br/>
Although our feet may pause, pause not thy speech.”</p>
<p>
And he to me: “The love of good, remiss<br/>
In what it should have done, is here restored;<br/>
Here plied again the ill-belated oar;</p>
<p>
But still more openly to understand,<br/>
Turn unto me thy mind, and thou shalt gather<br/>
Some profitable fruit from our delay.</p>
<p>
Neither Creator nor a creature ever,<br/>
Son,” he began, “was destitute of love<br/>
Natural or spiritual; and thou knowest it.</p>
<p>
The natural was ever without error;<br/>
But err the other may by evil object,<br/>
Or by too much, or by too little vigour.</p>
<p>
While in the first it well directed is,<br/>
And in the second moderates itself,<br/>
It cannot be the cause of sinful pleasure;</p>
<p>
But when to ill it turns, and, with more care<br/>
Or lesser than it ought, runs after good,<br/>
’Gainst the Creator works his own creation.</p>
<p>
Hence thou mayst comprehend that love must be<br/>
The seed within yourselves of every virtue,<br/>
And every act that merits punishment.</p>
<p>
Now inasmuch as never from the welfare<br/>
Of its own subject can love turn its sight,<br/>
From their own hatred all things are secure;</p>
<p>
And since we cannot think of any being<br/>
Standing alone, nor from the First divided,<br/>
Of hating Him is all desire cut off.</p>
<p>
Hence if, discriminating, I judge well,<br/>
The evil that one loves is of one’s neighbour,<br/>
And this is born in three modes in your clay.</p>
<p>
There are, who, by abasement of their neighbour,<br/>
Hope to excel, and therefore only long<br/>
That from his greatness he may be cast down;</p>
<p>
There are, who power, grace, honour, and renown<br/>
Fear they may lose because another rises,<br/>
Thence are so sad that the reverse they love;</p>
<p>
And there are those whom injury seems to chafe,<br/>
So that it makes them greedy for revenge,<br/>
And such must needs shape out another’s harm.</p>
<p>
This threefold love is wept for down below;<br/>
Now of the other will I have thee hear,<br/>
That runneth after good with measure faulty.</p>
<p>
Each one confusedly a good conceives<br/>
Wherein the mind may rest, and longeth for it;<br/>
Therefore to overtake it each one strives.</p>
<p>
If languid love to look on this attract you,<br/>
Or in attaining unto it, this cornice,<br/>
After just penitence, torments you for it.</p>
<p>
There’s other good that does not make man happy;<br/>
’Tis not felicity, ’tis not the good<br/>
Essence, of every good the fruit and root.</p>
<p>
The love that yields itself too much to this<br/>
Above us is lamented in three circles;<br/>
But how tripartite it may be described,</p>
<p>
I say not, that thou seek it for thyself.”</p>
<h2><SPAN name="CantoII.XVIII"></SPAN>Purgatorio: Canto XVIII</h2>
<p>
An end had put unto his reasoning<br/>
The lofty Teacher, and attent was looking<br/>
Into my face, if I appeared content;</p>
<p>
And I, whom a new thirst still goaded on,<br/>
Without was mute, and said within: “Perchance<br/>
The too much questioning I make annoys him.”</p>
<p>
But that true Father, who had comprehended<br/>
The timid wish, that opened not itself,<br/>
By speaking gave me hardihood to speak.</p>
<p>
Whence I: “My sight is, Master, vivified<br/>
So in thy light, that clearly I discern<br/>
Whate’er thy speech importeth or describes.</p>
<p>
Therefore I thee entreat, sweet Father dear,<br/>
To teach me love, to which thou dost refer<br/>
Every good action and its contrary.”</p>
<p>
“Direct,” he said, “towards me the keen eyes<br/>
Of intellect, and clear will be to thee<br/>
The error of the blind, who would be leaders.</p>
<p>
The soul, which is created apt to love,<br/>
Is mobile unto everything that pleases,<br/>
Soon as by pleasure she is waked to action.</p>
<p>
Your apprehension from some real thing<br/>
An image draws, and in yourselves displays it<br/>
So that it makes the soul turn unto it.</p>
<p>
And if, when turned, towards it she incline,<br/>
Love is that inclination; it is nature,<br/>
Which is by pleasure bound in you anew</p>
<p>
Then even as the fire doth upward move<br/>
By its own form, which to ascend is born,<br/>
Where longest in its matter it endures,</p>
<p>
So comes the captive soul into desire,<br/>
Which is a motion spiritual, and ne’er rests<br/>
Until she doth enjoy the thing beloved.</p>
<p>
Now may apparent be to thee how hidden<br/>
The truth is from those people, who aver<br/>
All love is in itself a laudable thing;</p>
<p>
Because its matter may perchance appear<br/>
Aye to be good; but yet not each impression<br/>
Is good, albeit good may be the wax.”</p>
<p>
“Thy words, and my sequacious intellect,”<br/>
I answered him, “have love revealed to me;<br/>
But that has made me more impregned with doubt;</p>
<p>
For if love from without be offered us,<br/>
And with another foot the soul go not,<br/>
If right or wrong she go, ’tis not her merit.”</p>
<p>
And he to me: “What reason seeth here,<br/>
Myself can tell thee; beyond that await<br/>
For Beatrice, since ’tis a work of faith.</p>
<p>
Every substantial form, that segregate<br/>
From matter is, and with it is united,<br/>
Specific power has in itself collected,</p>
<p>
Which without act is not perceptible,<br/>
Nor shows itself except by its effect,<br/>
As life does in a plant by the green leaves.</p>
<p>
But still, whence cometh the intelligence<br/>
Of the first notions, man is ignorant,<br/>
And the affection for the first allurements,</p>
<p>
Which are in you as instinct in the bee<br/>
To make its honey; and this first desire<br/>
Merit of praise or blame containeth not.</p>
<p>
Now, that to this all others may be gathered,<br/>
Innate within you is the power that counsels,<br/>
And it should keep the threshold of assent.</p>
<p>
This is the principle, from which is taken<br/>
Occasion of desert in you, according<br/>
As good and guilty loves it takes and winnows.</p>
<p>
Those who, in reasoning, to the bottom went,<br/>
Were of this innate liberty aware,<br/>
Therefore bequeathed they Ethics to the world.</p>
<p>
Supposing, then, that from necessity<br/>
Springs every love that is within you kindled,<br/>
Within yourselves the power is to restrain it.</p>
<p>
The noble virtue Beatrice understands<br/>
By the free will; and therefore see that thou<br/>
Bear it in mind, if she should speak of it.”</p>
<p>
The moon, belated almost unto midnight,<br/>
Now made the stars appear to us more rare,<br/>
Formed like a bucket, that is all ablaze,</p>
<p>
And counter to the heavens ran through those paths<br/>
Which the sun sets aflame, when he of Rome<br/>
Sees it ’twixt Sardes and Corsicans go down;</p>
<p>
And that patrician shade, for whom is named<br/>
Pietola more than any Mantuan town,<br/>
Had laid aside the burden of my lading;</p>
<p>
Whence I, who reason manifest and plain<br/>
In answer to my questions had received,<br/>
Stood like a man in drowsy reverie.</p>
<p>
But taken from me was this drowsiness<br/>
Suddenly by a people, that behind<br/>
Our backs already had come round to us.</p>
<p>
And as, of old, Ismenus and Asopus<br/>
Beside them saw at night the rush and throng,<br/>
If but the Thebans were in need of Bacchus,</p>
<p>
So they along that circle curve their step,<br/>
From what I saw of those approaching us,<br/>
Who by good-will and righteous love are ridden.</p>
<p>
Full soon they were upon us, because running<br/>
Moved onward all that mighty multitude,<br/>
And two in the advance cried out, lamenting,</p>
<p>
“Mary in haste unto the mountain ran,<br/>
And Caesar, that he might subdue Ilerda,<br/>
Thrust at Marseilles, and then ran into Spain.”</p>
<p>
“Quick! quick! so that the time may not be lost<br/>
By little love!” forthwith the others cried,<br/>
“For ardour in well-doing freshens grace!”</p>
<p>
“O folk, in whom an eager fervour now<br/>
Supplies perhaps delay and negligence,<br/>
Put by you in well-doing, through lukewarmness,</p>
<p>
This one who lives, and truly I lie not,<br/>
Would fain go up, if but the sun relight us;<br/>
So tell us where the passage nearest is.”</p>
<p>
These were the words of him who was my Guide;<br/>
And some one of those spirits said: “Come on<br/>
Behind us, and the opening shalt thou find;</p>
<p>
So full of longing are we to move onward,<br/>
That stay we cannot; therefore pardon us,<br/>
If thou for churlishness our justice take.</p>
<p>
I was San Zeno’s Abbot at Verona,<br/>
Under the empire of good Barbarossa,<br/>
Of whom still sorrowing Milan holds discourse;</p>
<p>
And he has one foot in the grave already,<br/>
Who shall erelong lament that monastery,<br/>
And sorry be of having there had power,</p>
<p>
Because his son, in his whole body sick,<br/>
And worse in mind, and who was evil-born,<br/>
He put into the place of its true pastor.”</p>
<p>
If more he said, or silent was, I know not,<br/>
He had already passed so far beyond us;<br/>
But this I heard, and to retain it pleased me.</p>
<p>
And he who was in every need my succour<br/>
Said: “Turn thee hitherward; see two of them<br/>
Come fastening upon slothfulness their teeth.”</p>
<p>
In rear of all they shouted: “Sooner were<br/>
The people dead to whom the sea was opened,<br/>
Than their inheritors the Jordan saw;</p>
<p>
And those who the fatigue did not endure<br/>
Unto the issue, with Anchises’ son,<br/>
Themselves to life withouten glory offered.”</p>
<p>
Then when from us so separated were<br/>
Those shades, that they no longer could be seen,<br/>
Within me a new thought did entrance find,</p>
<p>
Whence others many and diverse were born;<br/>
And so I lapsed from one into another,<br/>
That in a reverie mine eyes I closed,</p>
<p>
And meditation into dream transmuted.</p>
<h2><SPAN name="CantoII.XIX"></SPAN>Purgatorio: Canto XIX</h2>
<p>
It was the hour when the diurnal heat<br/>
No more can warm the coldness of the moon,<br/>
Vanquished by earth, or peradventure Saturn,</p>
<p>
When geomancers their Fortuna Major<br/>
See in the orient before the dawn<br/>
Rise by a path that long remains not dim,</p>
<p>
There came to me in dreams a stammering woman,<br/>
Squint in her eyes, and in her feet distorted,<br/>
With hands dissevered and of sallow hue.</p>
<p>
I looked at her; and as the sun restores<br/>
The frigid members which the night benumbs,<br/>
Even thus my gaze did render voluble</p>
<p>
Her tongue, and made her all erect thereafter<br/>
In little while, and the lost countenance<br/>
As love desires it so in her did colour.</p>
<p>
When in this wise she had her speech unloosed,<br/>
She ’gan to sing so, that with difficulty<br/>
Could I have turned my thoughts away from her.</p>
<p>
“I am,” she sang, “I am the Siren sweet<br/>
Who mariners amid the main unman,<br/>
So full am I of pleasantness to hear.</p>
<p>
I drew Ulysses from his wandering way<br/>
Unto my song, and he who dwells with me<br/>
Seldom departs so wholly I content him.”</p>
<p>
Her mouth was not yet closed again, before<br/>
Appeared a Lady saintly and alert<br/>
Close at my side to put her to confusion.</p>
<p>
“Virgilius, O Virgilius! who is this?”<br/>
Sternly she said; and he was drawing near<br/>
With eyes still fixed upon that modest one.</p>
<p>
She seized the other and in front laid open,<br/>
Rending her garments, and her belly showed me;<br/>
This waked me with the stench that issued from it.</p>
<p>
I turned mine eyes, and good Virgilius said:<br/>
“At least thrice have I called thee; rise and come;<br/>
Find we the opening by which thou mayst enter.”</p>
<p>
I rose; and full already of high day<br/>
Were all the circles of the Sacred Mountain,<br/>
And with the new sun at our back we went.</p>
<p>
Following behind him, I my forehead bore<br/>
Like unto one who has it laden with thought,<br/>
Who makes himself the half arch of a bridge,</p>
<p>
When I heard say, “Come, here the passage is,”<br/>
Spoken in a manner gentle and benign,<br/>
Such as we hear not in this mortal region.</p>
<p>
With open wings, which of a swan appeared,<br/>
Upward he turned us who thus spake to us,<br/>
Between the two walls of the solid granite.</p>
<p>
He moved his pinions afterwards and fanned us,<br/>
Affirming those ‘qui lugent’ to be blessed,<br/>
For they shall have their souls with comfort filled.</p>
<p>
“What aileth thee, that aye to earth thou gazest?”<br/>
To me my Guide began to say, we both<br/>
Somewhat beyond the Angel having mounted.</p>
<p>
And I: “With such misgiving makes me go<br/>
A vision new, which bends me to itself,<br/>
So that I cannot from the thought withdraw me.”</p>
<p>
“Didst thou behold,” he said, “that old enchantress,<br/>
Who sole above us henceforth is lamented?<br/>
Didst thou behold how man is freed from her?</p>
<p>
Suffice it thee, and smite earth with thy heels,<br/>
Thine eyes lift upward to the lure, that whirls<br/>
The Eternal King with revolutions vast.”</p>
<p>
Even as the hawk, that first his feet surveys,<br/>
Then turns him to the call and stretches forward,<br/>
Through the desire of food that draws him thither,</p>
<p>
Such I became, and such, as far as cleaves<br/>
The rock to give a way to him who mounts,<br/>
Went on to where the circling doth begin.</p>
<p>
On the fifth circle when I had come forth,<br/>
People I saw upon it who were weeping,<br/>
Stretched prone upon the ground, all downward turned.</p>
<p>
“Adhaesit pavimento anima mea,”<br/>
I heard them say with sighings so profound,<br/>
That hardly could the words be understood.</p>
<p>
“O ye elect of God, whose sufferings<br/>
Justice and Hope both render less severe,<br/>
Direct ye us towards the high ascents.”</p>
<p>
“If ye are come secure from this prostration,<br/>
And wish to find the way most speedily,<br/>
Let your right hands be evermore outside.”</p>
<p>
Thus did the Poet ask, and thus was answered<br/>
By them somewhat in front of us; whence I<br/>
In what was spoken divined the rest concealed,</p>
<p>
And unto my Lord’s eyes mine eyes I turned;<br/>
Whence he assented with a cheerful sign<br/>
To what the sight of my desire implored.</p>
<p>
When of myself I could dispose at will,<br/>
Above that creature did I draw myself,<br/>
Whose words before had caused me to take note,</p>
<p>
Saying: “O Spirit, in whom weeping ripens<br/>
That without which to God we cannot turn,<br/>
Suspend awhile for me thy greater care.</p>
<p>
Who wast thou, and why are your backs turned upwards,<br/>
Tell me, and if thou wouldst that I procure thee<br/>
Anything there whence living I departed.”</p>
<p>
And he to me: “Wherefore our backs the heaven<br/>
Turns to itself, know shalt thou; but beforehand<br/>
‘Scias quod ego fui successor Petri.’</p>
<p>
Between Siestri and Chiaveri descends<br/>
A river beautiful, and of its name<br/>
The title of my blood its summit makes.</p>
<p>
A month and little more essayed I how<br/>
Weighs the great cloak on him from mire who keeps it,<br/>
For all the other burdens seem a feather.</p>
<p>
Tardy, ah woe is me! was my conversion;<br/>
But when the Roman Shepherd I was made,<br/>
Then I discovered life to be a lie.</p>
<p>
I saw that there the heart was not at rest,<br/>
Nor farther in that life could one ascend;<br/>
Whereby the love of this was kindled in me.</p>
<p>
Until that time a wretched soul and parted<br/>
From God was I, and wholly avaricious;<br/>
Now, as thou seest, I here am punished for it.</p>
<p>
What avarice does is here made manifest<br/>
In the purgation of these souls converted,<br/>
And no more bitter pain the Mountain has.</p>
<p>
Even as our eye did not uplift itself<br/>
Aloft, being fastened upon earthly things,<br/>
So justice here has merged it in the earth.</p>
<p>
As avarice had extinguished our affection<br/>
For every good, whereby was action lost,<br/>
So justice here doth hold us in restraint,</p>
<p>
Bound and imprisoned by the feet and hands;<br/>
And so long as it pleases the just Lord<br/>
Shall we remain immovable and prostrate.”</p>
<p>
I on my knees had fallen, and wished to speak;<br/>
But even as I began, and he was ’ware,<br/>
Only by listening, of my reverence,</p>
<p>
“What cause,” he said, “has downward bent thee thus?”<br/>
And I to him: “For your own dignity,<br/>
Standing, my conscience stung me with remorse.”</p>
<p>
“Straighten thy legs, and upward raise thee, brother,”<br/>
He answered: “Err not, fellow-servant am I<br/>
With thee and with the others to one power.</p>
<p>
If e’er that holy, evangelic sound,<br/>
Which sayeth ‘neque nubent,’ thou hast heard,<br/>
Well canst thou see why in this wise I speak.</p>
<p>
Now go; no longer will I have thee linger,<br/>
Because thy stay doth incommode my weeping,<br/>
With which I ripen that which thou hast said.</p>
<p>
On earth I have a grandchild named Alagia,<br/>
Good in herself, unless indeed our house<br/>
Malevolent may make her by example,</p>
<p>
And she alone remains to me on earth.”</p>
<h2><SPAN name="CantoII.XX"></SPAN>Purgatorio: Canto XX</h2>
<p>
Ill strives the will against a better will;<br/>
Therefore, to pleasure him, against my pleasure<br/>
I drew the sponge not saturate from the water.</p>
<p>
Onward I moved, and onward moved my Leader,<br/>
Through vacant places, skirting still the rock,<br/>
As on a wall close to the battlements;</p>
<p>
For they that through their eyes pour drop by drop<br/>
The malady which all the world pervades,<br/>
On the other side too near the verge approach.</p>
<p>
Accursed mayst thou be, thou old she-wolf,<br/>
That more than all the other beasts hast prey,<br/>
Because of hunger infinitely hollow!</p>
<p>
O heaven, in whose gyrations some appear<br/>
To think conditions here below are changed,<br/>
When will he come through whom she shall depart?</p>
<p>
Onward we went with footsteps slow and scarce,<br/>
And I attentive to the shades I heard<br/>
Piteously weeping and bemoaning them;</p>
<p>
And I by peradventure heard “Sweet Mary!”<br/>
Uttered in front of us amid the weeping<br/>
Even as a woman does who is in child-birth;</p>
<p>
And in continuance: “How poor thou wast<br/>
Is manifested by that hostelry<br/>
Where thou didst lay thy sacred burden down.”</p>
<p>
Thereafterward I heard: “O good Fabricius,<br/>
Virtue with poverty didst thou prefer<br/>
To the possession of great wealth with vice.”</p>
<p>
So pleasurable were these words to me<br/>
That I drew farther onward to have knowledge<br/>
Touching that spirit whence they seemed to come.</p>
<p>
He furthermore was speaking of the largess<br/>
Which Nicholas unto the maidens gave,<br/>
In order to conduct their youth to honour.</p>
<p>
“O soul that dost so excellently speak,<br/>
Tell me who wast thou,” said I, “and why only<br/>
Thou dost renew these praises well deserved?</p>
<p>
Not without recompense shall be thy word,<br/>
If I return to finish the short journey<br/>
Of that life which is flying to its end.”</p>
<p>
And he: “I’ll tell thee, not for any comfort<br/>
I may expect from earth, but that so much<br/>
Grace shines in thee or ever thou art dead.</p>
<p>
I was the root of that malignant plant<br/>
Which overshadows all the Christian world,<br/>
So that good fruit is seldom gathered from it;</p>
<p>
But if Douay and Ghent, and Lille and Bruges<br/>
Had Power, soon vengeance would be taken on it;<br/>
And this I pray of Him who judges all.</p>
<p>
Hugh Capet was I called upon the earth;<br/>
From me were born the Louises and Philips,<br/>
By whom in later days has France been governed.</p>
<p>
I was the son of a Parisian butcher,<br/>
What time the ancient kings had perished all,<br/>
Excepting one, contrite in cloth of gray.</p>
<p>
I found me grasping in my hands the rein<br/>
Of the realm’s government, and so great power<br/>
Of new acquest, and so with friends abounding,</p>
<p>
That to the widowed diadem promoted<br/>
The head of mine own offspring was, from whom<br/>
The consecrated bones of these began.</p>
<p>
So long as the great dowry of Provence<br/>
Out of my blood took not the sense of shame,<br/>
’Twas little worth, but still it did no harm.</p>
<p>
Then it began with falsehood and with force<br/>
Its rapine; and thereafter, for amends,<br/>
Took Ponthieu, Normandy, and Gascony.</p>
<p>
Charles came to Italy, and for amends<br/>
A victim made of Conradin, and then<br/>
Thrust Thomas back to heaven, for amends.</p>
<p>
A time I see, not very distant now,<br/>
Which draweth forth another Charles from France,<br/>
The better to make known both him and his.</p>
<p>
Unarmed he goes, and only with the lance<br/>
That Judas jousted with; and that he thrusts<br/>
So that he makes the paunch of Florence burst.</p>
<p>
He thence not land, but sin and infamy,<br/>
Shall gain, so much more grievous to himself<br/>
As the more light such damage he accounts.</p>
<p>
The other, now gone forth, ta’en in his ship,<br/>
See I his daughter sell, and chaffer for her<br/>
As corsairs do with other female slaves.</p>
<p>
What more, O Avarice, canst thou do to us,<br/>
Since thou my blood so to thyself hast drawn,<br/>
It careth not for its own proper flesh?</p>
<p>
That less may seem the future ill and past,<br/>
I see the flower-de-luce Alagna enter,<br/>
And Christ in his own Vicar captive made.</p>
<p>
I see him yet another time derided;<br/>
I see renewed the vinegar and gall,<br/>
And between living thieves I see him slain.</p>
<p>
I see the modern Pilate so relentless,<br/>
This does not sate him, but without decretal<br/>
He to the temple bears his sordid sails!</p>
<p>
When, O my Lord! shall I be joyful made<br/>
By looking on the vengeance which, concealed,<br/>
Makes sweet thine anger in thy secrecy?</p>
<p>
What I was saying of that only bride<br/>
Of the Holy Ghost, and which occasioned thee<br/>
To turn towards me for some commentary,</p>
<p>
So long has been ordained to all our prayers<br/>
As the day lasts; but when the night comes on,<br/>
Contrary sound we take instead thereof.</p>
<p>
At that time we repeat Pygmalion,<br/>
Of whom a traitor, thief, and parricide<br/>
Made his insatiable desire of gold;</p>
<p>
And the misery of avaricious Midas,<br/>
That followed his inordinate demand,<br/>
At which forevermore one needs but laugh.</p>
<p>
The foolish Achan each one then records,<br/>
And how he stole the spoils; so that the wrath<br/>
Of Joshua still appears to sting him here.</p>
<p>
Then we accuse Sapphira with her husband,<br/>
We laud the hoof-beats Heliodorus had,<br/>
And the whole mount in infamy encircles</p>
<p>
Polymnestor who murdered Polydorus.<br/>
Here finally is cried: ‘O Crassus, tell us,<br/>
For thou dost know, what is the taste of gold?’</p>
<p>
Sometimes we speak, one loud, another low,<br/>
According to desire of speech, that spurs us<br/>
To greater now and now to lesser pace.</p>
<p>
But in the good that here by day is talked of,<br/>
Erewhile alone I was not; yet near by<br/>
No other person lifted up his voice.”</p>
<p>
From him already we departed were,<br/>
And made endeavour to o’ercome the road<br/>
As much as was permitted to our power,</p>
<p>
When I perceived, like something that is falling,<br/>
The mountain tremble, whence a chill seized on me,<br/>
As seizes him who to his death is going.</p>
<p>
Certes so violently shook not Delos,<br/>
Before Latona made her nest therein<br/>
To give birth to the two eyes of the heaven.</p>
<p>
Then upon all sides there began a cry,<br/>
Such that the Master drew himself towards me,<br/>
Saying, “Fear not, while I am guiding thee.”</p>
<p>
“Gloria in excelsis Deo,” all<br/>
Were saying, from what near I comprehended,<br/>
Where it was possible to hear the cry.</p>
<p>
We paused immovable and in suspense,<br/>
Even as the shepherds who first heard that song,<br/>
Until the trembling ceased, and it was finished.</p>
<p>
Then we resumed again our holy path,<br/>
Watching the shades that lay upon the ground,<br/>
Already turned to their accustomed plaint.</p>
<p>
No ignorance ever with so great a strife<br/>
Had rendered me importunate to know,<br/>
If erreth not in this my memory,</p>
<p>
As meditating then I seemed to have;<br/>
Nor out of haste to question did I dare,<br/>
Nor of myself I there could aught perceive;</p>
<p>
So I went onward timorous and thoughtful.</p>
<h2><SPAN name="CantoII.XXI"></SPAN>Purgatorio: Canto XXI</h2>
<p>
The natural thirst, that ne’er is satisfied<br/>
Excepting with the water for whose grace<br/>
The woman of Samaria besought,</p>
<p>
Put me in travail, and haste goaded me<br/>
Along the encumbered path behind my Leader<br/>
And I was pitying that righteous vengeance;</p>
<p>
And lo! in the same manner as Luke writeth<br/>
That Christ appeared to two upon the way<br/>
From the sepulchral cave already risen,</p>
<p>
A shade appeared to us, and came behind us,<br/>
Down gazing on the prostrate multitude,<br/>
Nor were we ware of it, until it spake,</p>
<p>
Saying, “My brothers, may God give you peace!”<br/>
We turned us suddenly, and Virgilius rendered<br/>
To him the countersign thereto conforming.</p>
<p>
Thereon began he: “In the blessed council,<br/>
Thee may the court veracious place in peace,<br/>
That me doth banish in eternal exile!”</p>
<p>
“How,” said he, and the while we went with speed,<br/>
“If ye are shades whom God deigns not on high,<br/>
Who up his stairs so far has guided you?”</p>
<p>
And said my Teacher: “If thou note the marks<br/>
Which this one bears, and which the Angel traces<br/>
Well shalt thou see he with the good must reign.</p>
<p>
But because she who spinneth day and night<br/>
For him had not yet drawn the distaff off,<br/>
Which Clotho lays for each one and compacts,</p>
<p>
His soul, which is thy sister and my own,<br/>
In coming upwards could not come alone,<br/>
By reason that it sees not in our fashion.</p>
<p>
Whence I was drawn from out the ample throat<br/>
Of Hell to be his guide, and I shall guide him<br/>
As far on as my school has power to lead.</p>
<p>
But tell us, if thou knowest, why such a shudder<br/>
Erewhile the mountain gave, and why together<br/>
All seemed to cry, as far as its moist feet?”</p>
<p>
In asking he so hit the very eye<br/>
Of my desire, that merely with the hope<br/>
My thirst became the less unsatisfied.</p>
<p>
“Naught is there,” he began, “that without order<br/>
May the religion of the mountain feel,<br/>
Nor aught that may be foreign to its custom.</p>
<p>
Free is it here from every permutation;<br/>
What from itself heaven in itself receiveth<br/>
Can be of this the cause, and naught beside;</p>
<p>
Because that neither rain, nor hail, nor snow,<br/>
Nor dew, nor hoar-frost any higher falls<br/>
Than the short, little stairway of three steps.</p>
<p>
Dense clouds do not appear, nor rarefied,<br/>
Nor coruscation, nor the daughter of Thaumas,<br/>
That often upon earth her region shifts;</p>
<p>
No arid vapour any farther rises<br/>
Than to the top of the three steps I spake of,<br/>
Whereon the Vicar of Peter has his feet.</p>
<p>
Lower down perchance it trembles less or more,<br/>
But, for the wind that in the earth is hidden<br/>
I know not how, up here it never trembled.</p>
<p>
It trembles here, whenever any soul<br/>
Feels itself pure, so that it soars, or moves<br/>
To mount aloft, and such a cry attends it.</p>
<p>
Of purity the will alone gives proof,<br/>
Which, being wholly free to change its convent,<br/>
Takes by surprise the soul, and helps it fly.</p>
<p>
First it wills well; but the desire permits not,<br/>
Which divine justice with the self-same will<br/>
There was to sin, upon the torment sets.</p>
<p>
And I, who have been lying in this pain<br/>
Five hundred years and more, but just now felt<br/>
A free volition for a better seat.</p>
<p>
Therefore thou heardst the earthquake, and the pious<br/>
Spirits along the mountain rendering praise<br/>
Unto the Lord, that soon he speed them upwards.”</p>
<p>
So said he to him; and since we enjoy<br/>
As much in drinking as the thirst is great,<br/>
I could not say how much it did me good.</p>
<p>
And the wise Leader: “Now I see the net<br/>
That snares you here, and how ye are set free,<br/>
Why the earth quakes, and wherefore ye rejoice.</p>
<p>
Now who thou wast be pleased that I may know;<br/>
And why so many centuries thou hast here<br/>
Been lying, let me gather from thy words.”</p>
<p>
“In days when the good Titus, with the aid<br/>
Of the supremest King, avenged the wounds<br/>
Whence issued forth the blood by Judas sold,</p>
<p>
Under the name that most endures and honours,<br/>
Was I on earth,” that spirit made reply,<br/>
“Greatly renowned, but not with faith as yet.</p>
<p>
My vocal spirit was so sweet, that Rome<br/>
Me, a Thoulousian, drew unto herself,<br/>
Where I deserved to deck my brows with myrtle.</p>
<p>
Statius the people name me still on earth;<br/>
I sang of Thebes, and then of great Achilles;<br/>
But on the way fell with my second burden.</p>
<p>
The seeds unto my ardour were the sparks<br/>
Of that celestial flame which heated me,<br/>
Whereby more than a thousand have been fired;</p>
<p>
Of the Aeneid speak I, which to me<br/>
A mother was, and was my nurse in song;<br/>
Without this weighed I not a drachma’s weight.</p>
<p>
And to have lived upon the earth what time<br/>
Virgilius lived, I would accept one sun<br/>
More than I must ere issuing from my ban.”</p>
<p>
These words towards me made Virgilius turn<br/>
With looks that in their silence said, “Be silent!”<br/>
But yet the power that wills cannot do all things;</p>
<p>
For tears and laughter are such pursuivants<br/>
Unto the passion from which each springs forth,<br/>
In the most truthful least the will they follow.</p>
<p>
I only smiled, as one who gives the wink;<br/>
Whereat the shade was silent, and it gazed<br/>
Into mine eyes, where most expression dwells;</p>
<p>
And, “As thou well mayst consummate a labour<br/>
So great,” it said, “why did thy face just now<br/>
Display to me the lightning of a smile?”</p>
<p>
Now am I caught on this side and on that;<br/>
One keeps me silent, one to speak conjures me,<br/>
Wherefore I sigh, and I am understood.</p>
<p>
“Speak,” said my Master, “and be not afraid<br/>
Of speaking, but speak out, and say to him<br/>
What he demands with such solicitude.”</p>
<p>
Whence I: “Thou peradventure marvellest,<br/>
O antique spirit, at the smile I gave;<br/>
But I will have more wonder seize upon thee.</p>
<p>
This one, who guides on high these eyes of mine,<br/>
Is that Virgilius, from whom thou didst learn<br/>
To sing aloud of men and of the Gods.</p>
<p>
If other cause thou to my smile imputedst,<br/>
Abandon it as false, and trust it was<br/>
Those words which thou hast spoken concerning him.”</p>
<p>
Already he was stooping to embrace<br/>
My Teacher’s feet; but he said to him: “Brother,<br/>
Do not; for shade thou art, and shade beholdest.”</p>
<p>
And he uprising: “Now canst thou the sum<br/>
Of love which warms me to thee comprehend,<br/>
When this our vanity I disremember,</p>
<p>
Treating a shadow as substantial thing.”</p>
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