The Divine Comedy Volume Ii Part 13

[1] The fifth P.

[2] The Angel had not recited all the words of the Beat.i.tude, but only, "Blessed are they which do thirst after righteousness,"

contrasting this thirst with the thirst for riches.

These words first moved Statius a little to smiling; then he replied, "Every word of thine is a dear sign to me of love. Truly oftentimes things have such appearance that they give false material for suspicion, because the true reasons lie hid. Thy question a.s.sures me of thy belief, perhaps because of that circle where I was, that I was avaricious in the other life; know then that avarice was too far removed from me, and this want of measure thousands of courses of the moon have punished. And had it not been that I set right my care, when I understood the pa.s.sage where thou dost exclaim, as if indignant with human nature, "O cursed hunger of gold, to what dost thou not impel the appet.i.te of mortals?"[1] I, rolling, should share the dismal jousts.[2] Then I perceived that the bands could spread their wings too much in spending; and I repented as well of that as of my other sins. How many shall rise with cropped hair[3] through ignorance, which during life and in the last hours prevents repentance for this sin! And know, that the vice which rebuts any sin with direct opposition,[4] together with it here dries up its verdure. Wherefore if to purify myself I have been among the people who lament their avarice, because of its contrary this has befallen me." "Now when thou wast singing[5]the cruel strife of the twofold affliction[6] of Jocasta," said the Singer of the Bucolic songs, "it does not appear from that which Clio touches[7] with thee there,[8] that the faith, without which good works suffice not, had yet made thee faithful. If this be so, what sun, or what candles dispersed thy darkness so that thou didst thereafter set thy sails behind the Fisherman?"[9] And he to him, "Thou first directedst me toward Parna.s.sus to drink in its grots, and then, on the way to G.o.d, thou enlightenedst me.

Thou didst like him, who goes by night, and carries the light behind him, and helps not himself, but makes the persons following him wise, when thou saidst, 'The ages are renewed; Justice returns, and the primeval time of man, and a new progeny descends from heaven.'[10] Through thee I became a poet, through thee a Christian. But in order that thou mayst better see that which I sketch, I will stretch out my hand to color it. Already was the whole world teeming with the true belief, sown by the messengers of the eternal realm; and these words of thine touched upon just now were in harmony with the new preachers, wherefore I adopted the practice of visiting them. They came to me then appearing so holy, that, when Domitian persecuted them, not without my tears were their lamentings. And so long as I remained on earth I succored them; and their upright customs made me scorn all other sects. And before I had led the Greeks to the rivers of Thebes in my verse, I received baptism; but out of fear I was a secret Christian, for a long while making show of paganism: and this lukewarmness made me circle round the fourth circle,[11] longer than to the fourth century. Thou, therefore, that didst lift for me the covering that was hiding from me such great good as I say, while we have remainder of ascent, tell me where is our ancient Terence, Caecilius, Plautus, and Varro, if thou knowest it; tell me if they are d.a.m.ned, and in what region?"

"They, and Persius, and I, and many others," replied my Leader, "are with that Greek whom the Muses suckled more than any other ever, in the first girdle of the blind prison. Oftentimes we discourse of the mountain[12] that hath our nurses[13] always with itself. Euripides is there with us, and Antiphon, Simonides, Agathon, and many other Greeks who of old adorned their brows with laurel. There of thine own people[14] are seen Antigone, Deiphile, and Argia, and Ismene sad[15] even as she was. There she is seen who showed Langia;[16] there is the daughter of Tiresias and Thetis,[17] and Deidamia with her sisters."

[1] Quid non mortalia peetora yogis, Auri sacra fames?

Aeneid. iii. 56-57.

[2] I should be in h.e.l.l among the prodigals rolling heavy weights and striking them against those rolled by the avaricious. See h.e.l.l, Canto VII.

[3] A reference to the symbolic short hair of prodigals in h.e.l.l.

[4] As, for instance, avarice and prodigality.

[5] In the Thebaid.

[6] Eteocles and Polynices, the two sons of Jocasta. See h.e.l.l, Canto XXVI.

[7] On her lyre.

[8] From the general course of thy poems.

[9] St. Peter.

[10] The famous prophecy of the c.u.maean Sibyl, very early applied to the coming of Christ:-- Magnus ab integro saeclorum nascitur ordo.

Jam redit et virgo, redeunt Saturnia regna: Jam nova progenies caelo demitt.i.tur alto.--Ecloga, iv. 5-7.

[11] Where love too slack is punished.

[12] Parna.s.sus.

[13] The Muses.

[14] The people celebrated in thy poems.

[15] Two pairs of sisters, and, of the four, Ismene, sister of Antigone, had the hardest lot.

[16] Hypsipyle, who showed the fountain Langia to Adrastus, and the other kings, when their army was perishing with thirst.

[17] Manto is the only daughter of Tiresias, who is mentioned by Statius; but Manto is in the eighth circle in h.e.l.l. See Canto XX.

Now both the poets became silent, once more intent on looking around, free from the ascent and from the walls; and four of the handmaids of the day were now remaining behind,[1] and the fifth was at the pole,[2] directing still upward its burning horn, when my Leader, "I think that it behoves us to turn our right shoulders to the outer edge, circling the Mount as we are wont to do." Thus usage was there our guide, and we took the way with less doubt because of the a.s.sent of that worthy soul.

[1] The first four hours of the day were spent. It was between ten and eleven o'clock.

[2] Of the car.

They were going on in front, and I solitary behind, and I was listening to their speech which gave me understanding in poesy.

But soon the pleasant discourse was interrupted by a tree which we found in the mid road, with apples sweet and pleasant to the smell. And as a fir-tree tapers upward from branch to branch, so downwardly did that, I think in order that no one may go up. On the side on which our way was closed, a clear water fell from the high rock and spread itself over the heaves above. The two poets approached the tree, and a voice from within the heaves cried: "Of this food ye shall have want." Then it said, "Mary thought more, how the wedding[1] should be honorable and complete, than of her mouth,[2] which answers now for you; and the ancient Roman women were content with water for their drink; and Daniel despised food and gained wisdom. The primal age, which was beautiful as gold, with hunger made acorns savory, and with thirst every streamlet nectar. Honey and locusts were the viands that nourished the Baptist in the desert, wherefore he is in glory, and so great as by the Gospel is revealed to you.

[1] At Cana.

[2] Than of gratifying her appet.i.te.

CANTO XXIII. Sixth Ledge: the Gluttonous.--Forese Donati.--Nella.--Rebuke of the women of Florence.

While I was fixing my eyes upon the green leaf.a.ge, just as he who wastes his life following the little bird is wont to do, my more than Father said to me, "Son, come on now, for the time that is a.s.signed to us must be parcelled out more usefully." I turned my face, and no less quickly my step after the Sages, who were speaking so that they made the going of no cost to me; and ho! a lament and song were heard, "l.a.b.i.a mea, Domine,"[1] in such fashion that it gave birth to delight and pain. "O sweet Father, what is that which I hear?" I began, and he, "Shades which go, perhaps loosing the knot of their debt."

[1] "Lord, open thou my lips." -- Psalm li. 15.

Even as do pilgrims rapt in thought, who, overtaking on the road unknown folk, turn themselves to them, and stay not; so behind us, moving more quickly, coming up and pa.s.sing by, a crowd of souls, silent and devout, gazed at us. Each was dark and hollow in the eyes, pallid in the face, and so wasted that the skin took its shape from the bones. I do not think that Erisichthon[1] was so dried up to utter rind by hunger, when he had most fear of it.

I said to myself in thought, "Behold the people who lost Jerusalem, when Mary struck her beak into her son."[2] The sockets of their eyes seemed rings without gems. Whoso in the face of men reads OMO,[3] would surely there have recognized the M. Who would believe that the scent of an apple, begetting longing, and that of a water, could have such mastery, if he knew not how?

[1] Punished for sacrilege by Ceres with insatiable hunger, so that at last he turned his teeth upon himself. See Ovid, Metam.,viii. 738 sqq.

[2] The story of this wretched woman is told by Josephus in his narrative of the siege of Jerusalem by t.i.tus: De Bello Jud., vi. 3.

[3] Finding in each eye an O, and an M in the lines of the brows and nose, making the word for "man."

I was now wondering what so famished them, the cause of their meagreness and of their wretched husk not yet being manifest, and lo! from the depths of its head, a shade turned his eyes on me, and looked fixedly, then cried out loudly, "What grace to me is this!" Never should I have recognized him by his face; but in his voice that was disclosed to me which his aspect in itself had suppressed.[1] This spark rekindled in me all my knowledge of the altered visage, and I recognized the face of Forese.[2]

[1] His voice revealed who he was, which his actual aspect concealed.

[2] Brother of the famous Corso Donati, and related to Dante, whose wife was Gemma de' Donati.

"Ah, strive not [1] with the dry scab that discolors my skin," he prayed, "nor with my lack of flesh, but tell me the truth about thyself; and who are these two souls, who yonder make an escort for thee: stay not thou from speaking to me." "Thy face, which once I wept for dead, now gives me for weeping no less a grief,"

replied I, "seeing it so disfigured; therefore, tell me, for G.o.d's sake, what so despoils you; make me not speak while I am marvelling; for ill can he speak who is full of another wish."

And he to me, "From the eternal council falls a power into the water and into the plant, now left behind, whereby I become so thin. All this folk who sing weeping, because of following their appet.i.te beyond measure, here in hunger and in thirst make themselves holy again. The odour which issues from the apple and from the spray that spreads over the verdure kindles in us desire to eat and drink. And not once only as we circle this floor is our pain renewed; I say pain, and ought to say solace, for that will leads us to the tree which led Christ gladly to say, 'Eli,'[2] when with his blood he delivered us." And I to him, "Forese, from that day on which thou didst change world to a better life, up to this time five years have not rolled round. If the power of sinning further had ended in thee, ere the hour supervened of the good grief that to G.o.d reweds us, how hast thou come up hither?[3] I thought to find thee still down there below, where time is made good by time." And he to me, "My Nella with her bursting tears has brought me thus quickly to drink of the sweet wormwood of these torments. With her devout prayers and with sighs has she drawn me from the sh.o.r.e where one waits, and has delivered me from the other circles. So much the more dear and more beloved of G.o.d is my little widow, whom I loved so much, as she is the more solitary in good works; for the Barbagia[4] of Sardinia is far more modest in its women than the Barbagia where I left her. O sweet brother, what wouldst thou that I say? A future time is already in my sight, to which this hour will not be very old, in which from the pulpit it shall be forbidden to the brazen-faced dames of Florence to go displaying the bosom with the paps. What Barbarian, what Saracen women were there ever who required either spiritual or other discipline to make them go covered? But if the shameless ones were aware of that which the swift heaven is preparing for them, already would they have their mouths open for howling. For if foresight here deceives me not, they will be sad ere he who is now consoled with the lullaby covers his cheeks with hair. Ak brother, now no longer conceal thyself from me; thou seest that not only I but all these people are gazing there where thou dost veil the sun." Whereon I to him: "If thou bring back to mind what thou wast with me, and what I was with thee, the present remembrance will even now be grievous.

From that life he who goes before me turned me the other day, when the sister of him yonder," and I pointed to the sun, "showed herself round. Through the deep night, from the truly dead, he has led me, with this true flesh which follows him. Thence his counsels have drawn me up, ascending and circling the mountain that sets you straight whom the world made crooked. So long he says that he will bear me company till I shall be there where Beatrice will be; there it behoves that I remain without him.

Virgil is he who says thus to me," and I pointed to him, "and this other is that shade for whom just now your realm, which from itself releases him, shook every slope."

[1] Do not, for striving to see me through my changed look, delay to speak.

[2] Willingly to accept his suffering, even when he exclaimed, "My G.o.d, my G.o.d, why hast thou forsaken me?"--Matthew, xxvii. 46.

[3] If thou didst delay repentance until thou couldst sin no more, how is it that so speedily thou hast arrived here?