Purgatorio (22 page)

               
‘do not conceal from me the life you led

               
before you died: tell it, and tell me if I’m headed

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for the passage—your words shall be our escort.’

               
‘I was a Lombard, known as Marco.   
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I knew the world and loved that valor   
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at which today all aim a slackened bow.

               
‘You are on the path that leads you up.’

               
Thus he replied, then added: ‘I pray you,

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say a prayer for me once you are above.’   
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And I to him: ‘I pledge to do your bidding.

               
But I will burst with my unspoken doubts   
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if I don’t speak and free myself of them.

               
‘A single doubt before, it now is paired

               
by what you said, which here confirms

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what elsewhere I have heard, to which I couple it.

               
‘The world is barren now

               
of every virtue, as you state,

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and heavy with and overgrown by evil.

               
‘Please point out to me the cause

               
that I may know it and make it known to others,

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for both the heavens and the earth receive the blame.’

               
First he heaved a heavy sigh, which grief wrung   
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to a groan, and then began: ‘Brother,

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the world is blind and indeed you come from it.

               
‘You who are still alive assign each cause   
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only to the heavens, as though they drew

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all things along upon their necessary paths.

               
‘If that were so, free choice would be denied you,

               
and there would be no justice when one feels

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joy for doing good or misery for evil.

               
‘Yes, the heavens give motion to your inclinations.

               
I don’t say all of them, but, even if I did,

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you still possess a light to winnow good from evil,

               
‘and you have free will. Should it bear the strain

               
in its first struggles with the heavens,

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then, rightly nurtured, it will conquer all.

               
‘To a greater power and a better nature you, free,   
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are subject, and these create the mind in you

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that the heavens have not in their charge.

               
‘Therefore, if the world around you goes astray,   
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in you is the cause and in you let it be sought.

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In this I will now be your informant.

               
‘From the hand of Him who looks on it with love   
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before it lives, comes forth, like a little girl

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who weeps one moment and as quickly laughs,

               
‘the simple infant soul that has no knowledge

               
but, moved by a joyous maker,

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gladly turns to what delights it.

               
‘At first it tastes the savor of a trifling good.   
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It is beguiled by that and follows in pursuit

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if guide or rein do not deflect its love.

               
‘Therefore, there was need that laws be set   
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to act as curbs, need for a ruler to discern

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at least the tower above the one true city.

               
‘Yes, there are laws, but who takes them in hand?   
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No one, because the shepherd who precedes

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may chew his cud, but does not have cleft hooves.

               
‘The people, then, who see their leader lunge   
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only at the good for which they themselves are greedy,

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graze on that and ask for nothing more.

               
‘As you can plainly see, failed guidance

               
is the cause the world is steeped in vice,

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and not your inner nature that has grown corrupt.

               
‘Rome, which formed the world for good,   
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once had two suns that lit the one road

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and the other, the world’s and that to God.

               
‘The one has snuffed the other out, the sword   
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is fastened to the crook, and these two,

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forced to be together, must perforce go ill,

               
‘since, joined, the one fears not the other.

               
If you don’t believe me, think of a grain of wheat,

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for by its seed each plant is known.

               
‘In the land watered both by the Àdige and Po   
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valor and courtesy could once be found

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before Frederick encountered opposition.

               
‘Now it may with impunity be crossed by anyone

               
who for shame would shun all discourse

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with the virtuous or even coming near them.

               
‘Three old men are left on earth,   
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longing for the better life when God will take them,

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in whom the ancient times rebuke the new:

               
‘Currado da Palazzo and the good Gherardo

               
and Guido da Castel, better called,

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as say the French, the simple, honest Lombard.

               
‘Spread the word, then, that the Church of Rome,   
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confounding in herself two governments, stumbles

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in the mud, befouling herself and her burden.’

               
‘O Marco mine,’ I said, ‘you reason well,

               
and now I understand just why the sons of Levi   
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were disbarred from their inheritance.

               
‘But who is this Gherardo who, you say,   
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is left as an example of a race extinct,

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thus rebuking this barbaric age?’

               
‘Either your speech deceives me,’ he replied,

               
‘or it puts me to the test, for, speaking Tuscan,

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how is it you know nothing of the good Gherardo?

               
‘I know him by no other name unless

               
I were to take one from his daughter, Gaia.

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May God be with you. I come with you no farther.   
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‘You see the brightness shining through the smoke

               
already whitens, and I must take my leave

               
before the angel waiting there can see me.’

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Then he turned back and would not hear me more.

               
Remember, reader, if ever in the mountains   
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you were trapped in fog and could not see

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except as moles do, through their eyelids,

               
how, when the strands of mist, humid and dense,

               
began dispersing, the sun’s disk

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dimly glimmered through,

               
then you can readily imagine

               
how, on my seeing it again, the sun appeared,

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now on the verge of setting.

               
Measuring my steps to the trusted steps   
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of my master, I came out of that haze

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to beams already vanished from the shores below.