Purgatorio: Canto XIX
It was the hour
when the diurnal heat
No
more can warm the coldness of the moon,
Vanquished by earth, or peradventure Saturn,
When geomancers
their Fortuna Major
See
in the orient before the dawn
Rise by a path that long remains not dim,
There came to me in
dreams a stammering woman,
Squint
in her eyes, and in her feet distorted,
With hands dissevered and of sallow hue.
I looked at her;
and as the sun restores
The
frigid members which the night benumbs,
Even thus my gaze did render voluble
Her tongue, and
made her all erect thereafter
In
little while, and the lost countenance
As love desires it so in her did colour.
When in this wise
she had her speech unloosed,
She
'gan to sing so, that with difficulty
Could I have turned my thoughts away from her.
"I am," she sang,
"I am the Siren sweet
Who
mariners amid the main unman,
So full am I of pleasantness to hear.
I drew Ulysses from
his wandering way
Unto
my song, and he who dwells with me
Seldom departs so wholly I content him."
Her mouth was not
yet closed again, before
Appeared
a Lady saintly and alert
Close at my side to put her to confusion.
"Virgilius, O
Virgilius! who is this?"
Sternly
she said; and he was drawing near
With eyes still fixed upon that modest one.
She seized the
other and in front laid open,
Rending
her garments, and her belly showed me;
This waked me with the stench that issued from it.
I turned mine eyes,
and good Virgilius said:
"At
least thrice have I called thee; rise and come;
Find we the opening by which thou mayst enter."
I rose; and full
already of high day
Were
all the circles of the Sacred Mountain,
And with the new sun at our back we went.
Following behind
him, I my forehead bore
Like
unto one who has it laden with thought,
Who makes himself the half arch of a bridge,
When I heard say,
"Come, here the passage is,"
Spoken
in a manner gentle and benign,
Such as we hear not in this mortal region.
With open wings,
which of a swan appeared,
Upward
he turned us who thus spake to us,
Between the two walls of the solid granite.
He moved his
pinions afterwards and fanned us,
Affirming
those 'qui lugent' to be blessed,
For they shall have their souls with comfort filled.
"What aileth thee,
that aye to earth thou gazest?"
To
me my Guide began to say, we both
Somewhat beyond the Angel having mounted.
And I: "With such
misgiving makes me go
A
vision new, which bends me to itself,
So that I cannot from the thought withdraw me."
"Didst thou
behold," he said, "that old enchantress,
Who
sole above us henceforth is lamented?
Didst thou behold how man is freed from her?
Suffice it thee,
and smite earth with thy heels,
Thine
eyes lift upward to the lure, that whirls
The Eternal King with revolutions vast."
Even as the hawk,
that first his feet surveys,
Then
turns him to the call and stretches forward,
Through the desire of food that draws him thither,
Such I became, and
such, as far as cleaves
The
rock to give a way to him who mounts,
Went on to where the circling doth begin.
On the fifth circle
when I had come forth,
People
I saw upon it who were weeping,
Stretched prone upon the ground, all downward turned.
"Adhaesit pavimento
anima mea,"
I
heard them say with sighings so profound,
That hardly could the words be understood.
"O ye elect of God,
whose sufferings
Justice
and Hope both render less severe,
Direct ye us towards the high ascents."
"If ye are come
secure from this prostration,
And
wish to find the way most speedily,
Let your right hands be evermore outside."
Thus did the Poet
ask, and thus was answered
By
them somewhat in front of us; whence I
In what was spoken divined the rest concealed,
And unto my Lord's
eyes mine eyes I turned;
Whence
he assented with a cheerful sign
To what the sight of my desire implored.
When of myself I
could dispose at will,
Above
that creature did I draw myself,
Whose words before had caused me to take note,
Saying: "O Spirit,
in whom weeping ripens
That
without which to God we cannot turn,
Suspend awhile for me thy greater care.
Who wast thou, and
why are your backs turned upwards,
Tell
me, and if thou wouldst that I procure thee
Anything there whence living I departed."
And he to me:
"Wherefore our backs the heaven
Turns
to itself, know shalt thou; but beforehand
'Scias quod ego fui successor Petri.'
Between Siestri and
Chiaveri descends
A
river beautiful, and of its name
The title of my blood its summit makes.
A month and little
more essayed I how
Weighs
the great cloak on him from mire who keeps it,
For all the other burdens seem a feather.
Tardy, ah woe is
me! was my conversion;
But
when the Roman Shepherd I was made,
Then I discovered life to be a lie.
I saw that there
the heart was not at rest,
Nor
farther in that life could one ascend;
Whereby the love of this was kindled in me.
Until that time a
wretched soul and parted
From
God was I, and wholly avaricious;
Now, as thou seest, I here am punished for it.
What avarice does
is here made manifest
In
the purgation of these souls converted,
And no more bitter pain the Mountain has.
Even as our eye did
not uplift itself
Aloft,
being fastened upon earthly things,
So justice here has merged it in the earth.
As avarice had
extinguished our affection
For
every good, whereby was action lost,
So justice here doth hold us in restraint,
Bound and
imprisoned by the feet and hands;
And
so long as it pleases the just Lord
Shall we remain immovable and prostrate."
I on my knees had
fallen, and wished to speak;
But
even as I began, and he was 'ware,
Only by listening, of my reverence,
"What cause," he
said, "has downward bent thee thus?"
And
I to him: "For your own dignity,
Standing, my conscience stung me with remorse."
"Straighten thy
legs, and upward raise thee, brother,"
He
answered: "Err not, fellow-servant am I
With thee and with the others to one power.
If e'er that holy,
evangelic sound,
Which
sayeth 'neque nubent,' thou hast heard,
Well canst thou see why in this wise I speak.
Now go; no longer
will I have thee linger,
Because
thy stay doth incommode my weeping,
With which I ripen that which thou hast said.
On earth I have a
grandchild named Alagia,
Good
in herself, unless indeed our house
Malevolent may make her by example,
And she alone
remains to me on earth."