The Divine Comedy Volume Ii Part 19

"Here shalt thou be short time a forester; and thou shalt be with me without end a citizen of that Rome whereof Christ is a Roman.

Therefore for profit of the world that lives ill, keep now thine eyes upon the chariot; amid what thou seest, having returned to earth, mind that thou write." Thus Beatrice; and I, who at the feet of her commands was all devout, gave my mind and my eyes where she willed.

Never with so swift a motion did fire descend from a dense cloud, when it is raining from that region which stretches most remote, as I saw the bird of Jove stoop downward through the tree, breaking the bark, as well as the flowers and new leaves; and he struck the chariot with all his force, whereat it reeled, like a ship in a tempest beaten by the waves now to starboard, now to larboard.[1] Then I saw leap into the body of the triumphal vehicle a she fox,[2] which seemed fasting from all good food; but rebuking her for her foul sins my Lady turned her to such flight as her fleshless bones allowed. Then, from there whence he had first come, I saw the eagle descend down into the ark of the chariot and leave it feathered from himself.[3] And a voice such as issues from a heart that is afflicted issued from Heaven, and thus spake, "O little bark of mine, how ill art thou laden!" Then it seemed to me that the earth opened between the two wheels, and I saw a dragon issue from it, which through the chariot upward fixed his tail: and, like a wasp that retracts its sting, drawing to himself his malign tail, drew out part of the bottom, and went wandering away.[4] That which remained covered itself again, as lively soil with gra.s.s, with the plumage, offered perhaps with sane and benign intention; and both one and the other wheel and the pole were again covered with it in such time that a sigh holds the mouth open longer.[5] Thus transformed, the holy structure put forth heads upon its parts, three upon the pole, and one on each corner. The first were horned like oxen, but the four had a single horn upon the forehead.[6] A like prodigy was never seen before. Secure, as fortress on a high mountain, there appeared to me a loose harlot sitting upon it, with eyes roving around. And, as if in order that she should not be taken from him, I saw standing at her side a giant, and some while they kissed each other. But because she turned her l.u.s.tful and wandering eye on me that fierce paramour scourged her from head to foot. Then full of jealousy, and cruel with anger, he loosed the monster, and drew it through the wood so far that only of that he made a shield from me for the harlot and for the strange beast.[7]

[1] The descent and the attack of the eagle symbolize the rejection of Christianity and the persecution of the Church by the emperors.

[2] The fox denotes the early heresies.

[3] The feathering of the car is the type of the donation of Constantine,--the temporal endowment of the Church.

[4] The dragging off by the dragon of a part of the car probably figures the schism of the Greek Church in the 9th century.

[5] This new feathering signifies the fresh and growing endowments of the Church.

[6] The seven heads have been interpreted as the seven mortal sins, which grew up in the transformed church, the result of its wealth and temporal power.

[7] The harlot and the giant stand respectively for the Pope (both Boniface VIII. and him successor Clement V.) and the kings of France, especially Philip the Fair. The turning of the eyes of the harlot upon Dante seems to signify the dealings of Boniface with the Italians, which awakened the jealousy of Philip; and the dragging of the car, transformed into a monster, through the wood, so far as to hide it from the poet, may be taken as typifying the removal of the seat of the Papacy from Rome to Avignon, in 1305.

CANTO x.x.xIII. The Earthly Paradise.--Prophecy of Beatrice concerning one who shall restore the Empire.--Her discourse with Dante.--The river Eunoe.--Dante drinks of it, and is fit to ascend to Heaven.

"Deus, venerunt gentes,"[1] the ladies began, alternating, now three now four, a sweet psalmody, and weeping. And Beatrice, sighing and compa.s.sionate, was listening to them so moved that scarce more changed was Mary at the cross. But when the other virgins gave place to her to speak, risen upright upon her feet, she answered, colored like fire: "Modic.u.m, et non videbitis me, et iterum, my beloved Sisters, Modic.u.m, et vos videbitis me."[2]

Then she set all the seven in front of her; and behind her, by a sign only, she placed me, and the Lady, and the Sage who had stayed.[3] So she moved on; and I do not think her tenth step had been set upon the ground, when with her eyes my eyes she smote, and with tranquil aspect said to me, "Come more quickly, so that if I speak with thee, to listen to me thou mayst be well placed."

So soon as I was with her as I should be, she said to me, "Brother, why dost thou not venture to ask of me, now thou art coming with me?"

[1] Thus first words of the seventy-ninth Psalm: "O G.o.d, the heathen are come into thine inheritance; thy holy temple have they defiled; they have laid Jerusalem on heaps." The whole Psalm, picturing the actual desolation of the Church, but closing with confident prayer to the Lord to restore his people, is sung by the holy ladies.

[2] "A little while and ye shall not see me: and again, A little while and ye shall see me."--John, xvi. 16. An answer and promise corresponding to the complaint and pet.i.tion of the Psalm.

[3] The lady, Matilda, and the sage, Statius.

Even as befalls those who with excess of reverence are speaking in presence of their superiors, and drag not their voice living to the teeth,[1] it befell me that without perfect sound I began, "My Lady, you know my need, and that which is good for it." And site to me, "From fear and from shame I wish that thou henceforth divest thyself, so that thou speak no more like a man who dreams.

Know thou, that the vessel which the serpent[2] broke was, and is not;[3] but let him who is to blame therefor believe that the vengeance of G.o.d fears not sops.[4] Not for all time shall be without an heir the eagle that left its feathers on the car, whereby it became a monster, and then a prey.[5] For I see surely, and therefore I tell it, stars already close at hand, secure from every obstacle and from every hindrance, to give to us a time in which a Five hundred, Ten, and Five sent by G.o.d[6]

shall slay the thievish woman[7] and that giant who with her is delinquent. And perchance my narration, dark as Themis and the Sphinx,[8] less persuades thee, because after their fashion it clouds the understanding. But soon the facts will be the Naiades[9] that shall solve this difficult enigma, without harm of flocks or of harvest. Do thou note; and even as they are borne from me, do thou so report these words to those alive with that life which is a running unto death; and have in mind when thou writest them, not to conceal what thou hast seen the plant, which now has been twice plundered here. Whoso robs that, or breaks it,[10] with blasphemy in act offends G.o.d, who only for His own use created it holy. For biting that, the first soul, in pain and in desire, five thousand years and more, longed for Him who punished on Himself the bite. Thy wit sleeps, if it deem not that for a special reason it is so high and so inverted at its top.

And if thy vain thoughts had not been as water of Elsa[11] round about thy mind, and their pleasantness as Pyramus to the mulberry,[12] by so many circ.u.mstances only thou hadst recognized morally the justice of G.o.d in the interdict upon the tree. But since I see thee in thy understanding made of stone, and thus stony, dark, so that the light of my speech dazzles thee, I would yet that thou bear it hence within thee,--and if not written, at least depicted,--for the reason that the pilgrim's staff is carried wreathed with palm."[13] And I, "Even as by a seal wax which alters not the imprinted figure, is my brain now stamped by you. But why does your desired word fly so far above my sight, that the more it strives the more it loses it?" "In order that thou mayst know," she said, "that school which thou hast followed, and mayst see how its doctrine can follow my word [14]

and mayst see your path distant so far from the divine, as the heaven which highest hastens is remote from earth." Whereon I replied to her, "I do not remember that I ever estranged myself from you, nor have I conscience of it that may sting me." "And if thou canst not remember it," smiling she replied, "now bethink thee how this day thou hast drunk of Lethe. And if from smoke fire be inferred, such oblivion clearly proves fault in thy will elsewhere intent.[15] Truly my words shall henceforth be naked so far as it shall be befitting to uncover them to thy rude sight."

[1] Are unable to speak with distinct words.

[2] The dragon.

[3] "The beast that thou sawest was, and is not."--Revelation, xvii. 8.

[4] According to a belief, which the old commentators report as commonly held by the Florentines, if a murderer could contrive within nine days of the murder to eat a sop of bread dipped in wine, above the grave of his victim, he would escape from the vengeance of the family of the murdered man.

[5] The meaning is that an Emperor shall come, who shall restore the Church from its captivity, and reestablish the Divine order upon earth, in rise mutually dependent and severally independent authority of Church and Empire.

[6] This prophecy is too obscure to admit of a sure interpretation. Five hundred, ten, and five, in Roman numerals, give the letters D X V; which by transposition form the word Dux, a leader.

[7] The harlot, who had no right in the car, but had stolen her place there, or, in plain words, the Popes who by corruption had secured this papal throne.

[8] Obscure as the oracles of Thiemis or the enigmas of the Sphinx.

[9] According to a misreading of a verse in Ovid's Metam., vii.

759, the Naiades solved the riddles of the oracles, at which Themis, offended, sent forth a wild beast to ravage the flocks and fields.

[10] Robs it as Adam did, splinters it as the Emperors did.

[11] A river of Tuscany, whose waters have a petrifying quality.

[12] Darkening thy mind as the blood of Pyramus dyed the mulberry.

[13] If not clearly inscribed, at least so imprinted on the mind, that, like the palm on the pilgrim's staff, it may be a sign of where thou hast been and of what thou hast seen.

[14] How far its doctrine is from my teaching.

[15] The having been obliged to drink of Lethe is the proof that thou hadst sin to he forgotten, and that thy will had turned thee to other things than me.

And more coruscant, and with slower steps, the sun was holding the circle of the meridian, which is set here or there according to the aspect,[1] when even as he, who goes before a troop as guide, stops if he find some strange thing on his track, the seven ladies stopped at the edge of a pale shade, such as beneath green leaves and black boughs the Alp casts over its cold streams. In front of them, it seemed to me I saw Euphrates and Tigris issue from one fountain, and, like friends, part slow from one another.

[1] Which shifts as seen from one place or another.

"O light, O glory of the human race, what water is this which here spreads from one source, and from itself withdraws itself?"

To this prayer it was said to me, "Pray Matilda[1] that she tell it to thee;" and here the beautiful Lady answered, as one does who frees himself from blame, "This and other things have been told him by me; and I am sure that the water of Lethe has not hidden them from him." And Beatrice, "Perhaps a greater care which oftentimes deprives the memory has darkened the eyes of his mind. But see Eunoe,[2] which flows forth yonder, lead him to it, and, as thou art accustomed, revive his extinct power." As a gentle soul which makes not excuse, but makes its own will of another's will, soon as by a sign it is outwardly disclosed, even so, when I was taken by her, the beautiful Lady moved on, and to Statius said, with manner of a lady, "Come with him."

[1] Here for the first and only time is the beautiful Lady called by name.

[2] Eunoe, "the memory of good," which its waters restore to the purified soul. The poetic conception of this fair stream is exclusively Dante's own.

If I had, Reader, longer s.p.a.ce for writing I would yet partly sing the sweet draught which never would have sated me. But, because all the leaves destined for this second canticle are full, the curb of my art lets me go no further. I returned from the most holy wave, renovated as new plants renewed with new foliage, pure and disposed to mount unto the stars.