Purgatorio (34 page)
Authors: Dante
Then some of them came up as near me
as they could, always careful not to venture
‘O you who go along behind the others,
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not from sloth but, it may be, with reverence,
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answer me, since I burn with thirst and fire.
‘It is not I alone who crave your answer.
All these others thirst for it more than the Indian
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or Ethiopian who craves cold water.
‘Tell us, how can it be your body makes
a wall against the sun, as if you were
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not yet entangled in the net of death?’
asked one of them. I would have then
made myself known had I not been intent
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on another strange new sight that now appeared,
for in the middle of the flaming road
came people moving in the opposite direction
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who had me staring, all absorbed.
There I can see that every shade of either group
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makes haste to kiss another, without stopping,
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and is content with such brief salutation,
just as, within their dark-hued files,
one ant will put its face up to the other’s,
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perhaps to inquire of its path and fortune.
When they have ceased their friendly greeting,
before they take a new step to continue,
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each one makes an effort to outshout the rest.
The new ones cry: ‘Sodom and Gomorrah!’
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and the others: ‘Pasiphaë crawls into the cow
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so that the bull may hasten to her lust.’
Then, as though cranes were flying, some toward
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cool Riphean mountains and some toward desert sands,
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these shunning frost and those the sun,
the one crowd goes, the other nears,
and all return, weeping, to their former song
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and to the cry that most befits them.
Then the same shades who had entreated me
drew closer, as they had before,
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and seemed all eagerness to hear me out.
Having twice been made aware of their desire,
I began: ‘O souls secure of gaining,
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whenever it may be, the state of peace,
‘my limbs have not been left on earth,
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whether green or dried, but are here with me
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intact, in all their blood and joints.
‘I climb from here no longer to be blind.
A lady is above through whom I gained the grace
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to bring my mortal parts into your world.
‘But, so may your greatest longing
soon be satisfied and the heaven take you in
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that is so full of love and holds the widest space,
‘tell me, that I may trace it on my pages,
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who you are and who is in that throng
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which is even now receding at your backs?’
Not less astounded is the mountaineer,
struck dumb and staring all around him
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when rough and rustic he comes into a town,
than each shade seemed from its expression.
But once they had recovered from amazement,
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which is quickly overcome in noble hearts,
he who had questioned me began again:
‘Blessed are you, who, to die a better death,
‘Those, who come not with us, all offended
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the same way Caesar did, for which, in triumph,
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he once heard “queen” called out against him.
‘Thus they move on crying “Sodom,”
as you heard, in self-reproach.
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And with their shame they fan the flames.
‘Hermaphroditic was our sin.
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Because we did not follow human law,
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but ran behind our appetites like beasts,
‘when, in our disgrace, we move off from the others
we shout her name who made herself a beast
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inside the beast-shaped rough-hewn wood.
‘Now you know our deeds and know our guilt.
If, perhaps, you would like to know our names,
‘About myself, indeed, I’ll satisfy your wish.
I am Guido Guinizzelli, come so far in my purgation
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As the two sons became on seeing their mother
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caught in Lycurgus’ outraged grief,
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so I became, if with less abandon,
when he gave his name and I knew he had been
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father to me and to others, my betters,
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who always used love’s sweet and graceful rhymes.
For a long time, deep in thought, I went on
without listening or speaking as I gazed at him,
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but did not, for the fire, move closer.
Once my eyes were satisfied,
I owned myself ready to do him service
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with such assurance as compels belief.
He answered: ‘All that I hear you tell
leaves so deep and clear a trace in me
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that Lethe cannot wash it out or make it dim,
‘but if your words just now have sworn the truth,
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tell me what has caused you to disclose
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by speech and look that you still hold me dear.’
And I to him: ‘Your sweet verses,
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which as long as modern custom lasts,
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will make their very ink seem precious.’
‘O brother,’ he said, ‘that one whom I point out—
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and he pointed to a spirit just ahead—
‘In verses of love and tales of romance
he surpassed them all, and let the fools go on
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who think that fellow from Limoges was better.
‘They favor hearsay over truth
and thus arrive at their opinions
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without the use of skill or reason.
‘The same was true of many long ago about Guittone,
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voice after voice shouting praise of him alone,
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until for most the truth at last prevailed.
‘Now, if you possess such ample privilege
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that you are licensed for the cloister
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where Christ is abbot of the brothers,
‘say a Paternoster there for me,
as much of it as we have need in this our world,
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where we no longer have the power to sin.’
Then, perhaps to make room for another
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who was near him, he vanished through the fire
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as fish glide to the bottom through the water.
I edged forward a little toward the other
who had been pointed out and said that my desire
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prepared a place of welcome for his name,
to which he readily made answer:
‘Your courteous question pleases me so much
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I neither can nor would conceal myself from You.
‘I am Arnaut, weeping and singing as I make my way.
I see with grief past follies and I see,
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rejoicing, the joy I hope is coming.
‘Now I pray You, by that power
which guides You to the summit of the stairs,
to remember, when the time is fit, my pain.’
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Then he vanished in the fire that refines them.
VI. The angel of Charity
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here on the mountain
Passing through the flames
