Authors: Dante
Purgatorio (16 page)
but we heard: ‘Come with us on the bank,
keeping to the right, to find the stairs
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a living man can climb.
‘If I were not encumbered by the stone
that serves to bend my stiff-necked pride
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so that I cannot lift my face,
‘I would look at this man, still alive
but nameless, to see if he is known to me
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and make him take pity for my heavy load.
‘I was Italian, a noble Tuscan’s son.
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Guglielmo Aldobrandesco was my father—
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I do not know if you have ever heard his name.
‘The ancient blood and gallant deeds
done by my forebears raised such arrogance in me
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that, forgetful of our common mother,
‘I held all men in such great scorn
it caused my death—how, all in Siena know,
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and every child in Campagnatico.
‘I am Omberto. Pride has undone
not only me but all my kinsmen,
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whom it has dragged into calamity.
‘And for this pride, here must I bear this burden—
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here among the dead, since I did not
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among the living—until God is satisfied.’
Listening, I bent down my face, and one of them,
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not he who spoke, twisted himself
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beneath the load that weighed him down,
saw me and knew me and called out,
with difficulty keeping his eyes fixed on me,
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as I, all hunched, trudged on beside them.
‘Oh,’ I said to him, ‘are you not Oderisi,
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the honor of Gubbio and of that art
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which they in Paris call illumination?’
‘Brother,’ he said, ‘the pages smile brighter
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from the brush of Franco of Bologna.
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The honor is all his now—and only mine in part.
‘Indeed, I hardly would have been so courteous
while I still lived—an overwhelming need
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to excel at any cost held fast my heart.
‘For such pride here we pay our debt.
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I would not be here yet, except, while living,
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and with the means to sin, I turned to God.
‘O vanity of human powers,
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how briefly lasts the crowning green of glory,
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unless an age of darkness follows!
‘In painting Cimabue thought he held the field
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but now it’s Giotto has the cry,
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so that the other’s fame is dimmed.
‘Thus has one Guido taken from the other
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the glory of our tongue, and he, perhaps, is born
‘Worldly fame is nothing but a gust of wind,
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first blowing from one quarter, then another,
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changing name with every new direction.
‘Will greater fame be yours if you put off
your flesh when it is old than had you died
‘after a thousand years have passed? To eternity,
that time is shorter than the blinking of an eye
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is to one circling of the slowest-moving sphere.
‘All Tuscany resounded with the name—
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now barely whispered even in Siena—
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of him who moves so slow in front of me.
‘He was the ruler there when they put down
the insolence of Florence,
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a city then as proud as now she is a whore.
‘Your renown is but the hue of grass, which comes
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and goes, and the same sun that makes it spring
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green from the ground will wither it.’
And I to him: ‘Your true words pierce my heart
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with fit humility and ease a heavy swelling there.
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But who is he of whom you spoke just now?’
‘That,’ he replied, ‘is Provenzan Salvani,
and he is here because in his presumption
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he sought to have Siena in his grasp.
‘Thus burdened he has gone, and goes on without rest,
ever since he died. Such coin he pays,
And I said: ‘If the spirit that puts off
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repentance to the very edge of life
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must stay below, before he comes up here,
‘While he was living in his greatest glory,’ he said,
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‘he willingly sat in the marketplace
‘and there, to redeem his friend
from the torment he endured in Charles’s prison,
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he made himself tremble in every vein.
‘I say no more, and know my speech obscure.
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It won’t be long before they act, your townsmen,
in such a way that you’ll know how to gloss it.
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It was that deed which brought him past those confines.’
IV. The penitent prideful
(continued)
V. Exemplars of Pride
summarizing exemplar:
Troy
VI. The angel of Humility
VII. Farewell to Pride
As oxen go beneath their yoke
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that overladen soul and I went side by side
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as long as my dear escort granted.
But when he said: ‘Leave him and hurry on,
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for it is fitting here, with all your strength,
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to speed your ship with wings and oars,’
I straightened up, erect,
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as one should walk, but still my thoughts
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remained bowed down and shrunken.
I set out, following gladly
in my master’s steps, and our easy stride
And he to me: ‘Cast down your eyes.
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It will be good for you and calm you on your way
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to look down at the bed beneath your feet.’
As gravestones set above the buried dead
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bear witness to what once they were,
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their carven images recalling them to mind,
making us grieve with frequent tears
when recollection pricks and spurs
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the faithful heart with memories,