Authors: Dante
Purgatorio (43 page)
‘Know that the vessel which the serpent broke
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was and is not. Let those who are to blame
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take heed: God’s vengeance fears no hindrance.
‘The eagle that left its feathers on the car
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so that it first was monster and then prey
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shall not remain without an heir forever.
‘For I see clearly and do thus declare:
stars already near at hand promise us a time
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safe from all delay, from all impediment,
‘when a Five Hundred Ten and Five,
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sent by God, shall slay the thieving wench
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and the giant sinning there beside her.
‘Perhaps my words, obscure as those of Themis
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or the Sphinx, persuade you less
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because, like theirs, they cloud your mind.
‘Events soon to occur shall be the Naiads
that solve this hard enigma
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without the loss of flocks or ears of corn.
‘Mark them, and, as they come from me,
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set these words down for those
‘And keep in mind, when you shall write them,
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not to conceal the story of the tree
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that now not once but twice has here been plundered.
‘Whoever robs that tree or does it harm
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by blasphemous act gives great offense to God,
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since He, with hidden purpose, made it sacred.
‘By eating of that tree the first soul longed
in pain and in desire five thousand years and more
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for Him who in Himself redeemed that bite.
‘Your wits are sleeping if they do not grasp
that for a special reason it stands so tall
‘by such attributes alone you might have seen
the moral sense of the justice of God
‘But since I see your mind has turned to stone
and, petrified, has gone so dark
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that the light of what I say confounds you,
‘I wish that, if not written, then sketched out,
you carry what I’ve said inside you, just as
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a pilgrim brings his staff back wreathed with palm.’
And I: ‘Even as wax maintains the seal
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and does not alter the imprinted image,
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my brain now bears Your stamp.
‘But why is it that Your longed-for words
soar up so far beyond my sight
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the more it strives the more it cannot reach them?’
‘So that you may come to understand,’ she said,
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‘the school that you have followed
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and see if what it teaches follows well my words,
‘and see that your way is as far from God’s
as that highest heaven, which spins the fastest,
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is distant from the earth.’
To that I answered: ‘As far as I remember
I have not ever estranged myself from You,
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nor does my conscience prick me for it.’
‘But if you cannot remember that,’
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she answered, smiling, ‘only recollect
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how you have drunk today of Lethe,
‘and if from seeing smoke we argue there is fire
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then this forgetfulness would clearly prove
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your faulty will had been directed elsewhere.
‘But from now on my words shall be
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as naked as is needed
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to make them plain to your crude sight.’
Now more resplendent and with slower steps
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the sun was keeping its meridian circle, which,
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now here, now there, shifts with one’s point of view,
when, just as a man escorting others
comes to a halt if he discovers
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something unexpected—or some sign of it,
the seven ladies halted just beside dim shadows,
such as, beneath green leaves and darker boughs,
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mountains cast above their icy streams.
In front of the ladies it seemed to me I saw
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Tigris and Euphrates issue from a single source
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and, like friends, slowly part from one another.
‘O light, O glory of the human race,
what water pours here from a single source,
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then separates, departing from itself?’
To my question she replied: ‘Ask your question
of Matelda.’ And that fair lady answered,
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as one who would be free from any blame:
‘This and other things I have already told him.
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And I am certain that Lethe’s waters
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did not conceal it from him.’
And Beatrice: ‘Perhaps a greater care,
which often strips us of remembrance,
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has veiled the eyes of his mind in darkness.
‘But see Eunoe streaming forth there.
Bring him to it and, as you are accustomed,
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revive the powers that are dead in him.’
As a gentle spirit that makes no excuses
but makes another’s will its own
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as soon as any signal makes that clear,
so, once she held me by the hand, the lady moved
and, as though she were mistress of that place,
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said to Statius: ‘Now come with him.’
If, reader, I had more ample space to write,
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I should sing at least in part the sweetness
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of the drink that never would have sated me,
but, since all the sheets
made ready for this second canticle are full,
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the curb of art lets me proceed no farther.
From those most holy waters
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I came away remade, as are new plants
renewed with new-sprung leaves,
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pure and prepared to rise up to the stars.
PURGATORIO I
Per correr miglior acque alza le vele
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omai la navicella del mio ingegno,
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che lascia dietro a sé mar sì crudele;
seguitando il mio canto con quel suono
di cui le Piche misere sentiro
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lo colpo tal, che disperar perdono.
Dolce color d’orïental zaffiro,
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che s’accoglieva nel sereno aspetto
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del mezzo, puro infino al primo giro,
a li occhi miei ricominciò diletto,
tosto ch’io usci’ fuor de l’aura morta
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che m’avea contristati li occhi e ’l petto.
Lo bel pianeto che d’amar conforta
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faceva tutto rider l’orïente,
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velando i Pesci ch’erano in sua scorta.
I’ mi volsi a man destra, e puosi mente
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a l’altro polo, e vidi quattro stelle
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non viste mai fuor ch’a la prima gente.
Goder pareva ’l ciel di lor fiammelle:
oh settentrïonal vedovo sito,
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poi che privato se’ di mirar quelle!