Purgatorio (4 page)

               
To run its course through smoother water   
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the small bark of my wit now hoists its sail,

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leaving that cruel sea behind.

               
Now I shall sing the second kingdom,   
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there where the soul of man is cleansed,

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made worthy to ascend to Heaven.

               
Here from the dead let poetry rise up,   
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O sacred Muses, since I am yours.

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Here let Calliope arise

               
to accompany my song with those same chords

               
whose force so struck the miserable magpies

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that, hearing them, they lost all hope of pardon.

               
Sweet color of oriental sapphire,   
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hovering in the calm and peaceful aspect   
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of intervening air, pure to the horizon,

               
pleased my eyes once more

               
as soon as I had left the morbid air

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that had afflicted both my chest and eyes.

               
The fair planet that emboldens love,   
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smiling, lit up the east,

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veiling the Fishes in her train.

               
I turned to the right and, fixing my attention   
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on the other pole, I saw four stars

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not seen but by those first on earth.

               
The very sky seemed to rejoice

               
in their bright glittering. O widowed   
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region of the north, denied that sight!

               
Once I had drawn my gaze from them,

               
barely turning toward the other pole   
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where the constellation of the Wain had set,

               
I saw beside me an old man, alone,   
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who by his looks was so deserving of respect   
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that no son owes his father more.

               
His beard was long and streaked with white,   
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as was his hair, which fell

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in double strands down to his chest.

               
The rays of those four holy stars   
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adorned his face with so much light

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he seemed to shine with brightness of the sun.

               
‘What souls are you to have fled the eternal prison,   
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climbing against the dark and hidden stream?’

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he asked, shaking those venerable locks.

               
‘Who was your guide or who your lantern

               
to lead you forth from that deep night

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which steeps the vale of hell in darkness?

               
‘Are the laws of the abyss thus broken,   
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or has a new decree been made in Heaven,

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that, damned, you stand before my cliffs?’

               
My leader then reached out to me   
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and by his words and signs and with his hands

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made me show reverence with knee and brow,

               
then answered him: ‘I came not on my own.   
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A lady descended from heaven and at her request

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I lent this man companionship and aid.

               
‘But since it is your will that I make plain

               
the true condition of our presence here,

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it cannot be that I deny your wish.

               
‘This man has not yet seen his final sunset,   
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but through his folly was so close to it

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his time was almost at an end.

               
‘I was sent to him, as I have said,

               
for his deliverance. No other way

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but this could he be saved.

               
‘I have shown him all the guilty race

               
and now intend to let him see those spirits

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who cleanse themselves within your charge.   
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‘How I have led him would take long to tell.

               
Descending from on high a power aids me   
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to bring him here that he may see and hear you.

               
‘May it please you to welcome his arrival,

               
since he’s in search of liberty, which is so dear,   
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as he well knows who gives his life for it.

               
‘You know this well, since death in Utica

               
did not seem bitter, there where you left

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the garment that will shine on that great day.   
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‘Not by us are the eternal edicts broken,

               
for this man lives and Minos does not bind me,   
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but I am of the circle where your Marcia   
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‘implores with her chaste eyes, O holy breast,

               
that you still think of her as yours.

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For love of her, then, I beseech you,

               
‘allow us passage through your seven kingdoms.

               
I will report to her your kindness—

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if you deign to be mentioned there below.’

               
‘Marcia so pleased my eyes while I still lived,’   
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he said, ‘that whatever favor

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she sought of me, I granted.

               
‘Now that she dwells beyond the evil stream

               
she cannot move me any longer,

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according to the law laid down at my deliverance.

               
‘But if, as you say, a lady from Heaven

               
moves and directs you, there is no need of flattery.

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It is enough you ask it in her name.

               
‘Go then, make sure you gird him   
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with a straight reed and bathe his face,

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to wipe all traces of defilement from it,

               
‘for it would not be fitting to appear,

               
his eyes still dimmed by any mist,

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before the minister, the first from paradise.

               
‘This little island, at its lowest point,   
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there where the waves beat down on it,

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grows reeds in soft and pliant mud.

               
‘There no other plant can leaf,

               
or harden to endure,

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without succumbing to the battering waves.

               
‘After you are done, do not come back this way.

               
The sun, now rising, will disclose   
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an easier ascent to gain the peak.’

               
With that he vanished, and I stood up,   
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speechless. Coming closer to my leader,

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I turned my eyes to him.

               
He began: ‘My son, follow my steps.

               
Let us turn around, for this plain slopes

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from here, down to its lowest edge.’

               
Dawn was overtaking the darkness of the hour,   
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which fled before it, and I saw and knew

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the distant trembling of the sea.

               
We went along the lonely plain,   
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like someone who has lost the way

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and thinks he strays until he finds the road.

               
When we came to a place where the dew   
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can hold its own against the sun

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because it is protected by a breeze,