Authors: Dante
Purgatorio (29 page)
Mary, Roman matrons, Daniel
Golden Age
(acorns and water) and
John the Baptist
(honey and locusts) for temperance
The angel who had shown the way
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to the sixth circling now was left behind,
3
having erased another swordstroke from my brow
as he declared that those who long for righteousness
are blessed, ending on
sitiunt
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without the other words he might have said.
And now I could move on, lighter
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than at the other entrances, so that I followed
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the swifter spirits up with ease,
when Virgil began: ‘A love that is kindled by virtue
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has always ignited another, as long as its flame
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was shining where it could be seen.
‘From the hour, therefore, when Juvenal descended
into the limbo of hell, among us,
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and made your affection known to me,
‘my good will toward you was as great
as anyone has ever felt for someone never seen,
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so that to me these stairs will now seem short.
‘But tell me—and as a friend forgive me
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if with too much assurance I relax the reins,
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and as a friend speak with me now—
‘how could avarice find room
amidst such wisdom in your breast,
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the wisdom that you nourished with such care.’
These words made Statius smile a little
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before he answered: ‘Every word of yours
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is to me a welcome token of your love.
‘But, in truth, things often are misleading
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when their true causes remain hidden,
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thus leading us to false conclusions.
‘Your question shows me you believe,
perhaps because of the terrace I was on,
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that I was avaricious in the other life.
‘Know then that avarice was much too far
removed from me and that this lack of measure
‘And had I not reformed my inclination
when I came to understand the lines in which,
→
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as if enraged at human nature, you cried out:
‘ “To what end, O cursèd hunger for gold,
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do you not govern the appetite of mortals?”
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I would know the rolling weights and dismal jousts.
‘Then I learned that we can spread
our wings too wide with spending hands,
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and I repented that and other sins.
‘How many more will have to rise again, hair shorn
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through ignorance, which takes away repentance
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of this sin in life and in the hour of death!
‘Note this also: the fault that runs
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directly counter to a sin
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is here grouped with it and is withered of its green.
‘Therefore, if I, to purge my sins, have been
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among those shades who weep for avarice,
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this has befallen me for the opposing fault.’
‘But, when you sang the savage warfare
→
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between the twofold sorrows of Jocasta,’
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said the singer of the
Eclogues
,
‘it does not seem, from what you wrote with Clio’s help,
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that you had found as yet the faith,
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that faith without which good works fail.
‘If that is so, what sun, what candles
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dispelled your darkness so that afterwards
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you hoisted sail, following the fisherman?’
And the other answered him: ‘It was you who first
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set me toward Parnassus to drink in its grottoes,
→
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and you who first lit my way toward God.
‘You were as one who goes by night, carrying
the light behind him—it is no help to him,
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but instructs all those who follow—
‘when you said: “The centuries turn new again.
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Justice returns with the first age of man,
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and new progeny descends from heaven.”
‘Through you I was a poet, through you a Christian.
But, that you may see better what I outline,
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I will set my hand to fill the colors in.
‘Already all the world was pregnant
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with the true faith, inseminated
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by the messengers of the eternal kingdom,
‘and the words of yours I have just recited
did so accord with the new preachers
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that I began to visit them.
‘More and more they seemed to me so holy
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that when Domitian started with his persecutions
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their weeping did not lack my tears.
‘While I remained on earth,
I gave them comfort. Their upright ways
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made me despise all other sects.
‘I was baptized before, in my verses,
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I had led the Greeks to the rivers of Thebes,
‘long pretending I was still a pagan.
More than four centuries, because I was lukewarm,
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did I circle the fourth terrace.
‘You, then, who have raised the veil
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that hid from me the great good I describe,
‘where is our ancient Terence, where Cecilius,
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Plautus, Varius, if you know.
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Tell me if they are damned and in what place.’
‘Those, Persius, and I, and many more,’
replied my leader, ‘are with that Greek
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the Muses suckled more than any other,
‘in the first circle of the dark prison.
We often talk about that mountain
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where those who nursed us ever dwell.
‘Euripides is with us there and Antiphon,
Simonides and Agathon and many other Greeks
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whose brows were once adorned with laurel.
‘Among those from your works who may be seen
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are Antigone, Deïphyle, Argia,
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and Ismene, still sad as once she was.
‘She that revealed Langìa also may be seen,
as well as the daughter of Tiresias,
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and Thetis, and Deïdamìa with her sisters.’
Both the poets now were silent,
again intent on looking all around them,
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freed from the constraint of stairs and walls.
Already four handmaids of the day were left behind
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and the fifth was at the chariot-shaft,
120
guiding its gleaming tip still higher,
when my leader said: ‘It might be better if we turned
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our right side’s shoulders to the outer edge,
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circling the mountain as we are accustomed.’
Thus habit was our teacher there,
and we took our way with less uncertainty
126
because that other worthy soul encouraged us.
They went along in front and I, alone,
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came on behind, listening to their discourse,
129
which gave me understanding of the art of verse.
But soon their pleasant talk was interrupted
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by a tree found in the middle of the path,
132
with fruits that smelled both savory and good,
and, as a fir tree narrows as it branches upward,
this one tapered down from branch to branch,
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so that, I think, no one could climb it.