Purgatorio (41 page)

               
While my soul, filled with wonder and with joy,   
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tasted the food that, satisfying in itself,   
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yet for itself creates a greater craving,

               
the other three, who by their bearing

               
showed themselves of a higher order, moved forward,   
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dancing to their angelic roundelay.   
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‘Turn, Beatrice, turn your holy eyes   
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upon your faithful one’—thus ran their song—

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‘who, to see you, now has come so far.

               
‘Of your grace do us a grace: unveil

               
your mouth to him so that he may observe

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the second beauty that you still conceal.’   
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O splendor of eternal living light—   
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even he who has grown pale in the shadow of Parnassus

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or has drunk deeply from its well,

               
would not even he appear to have his mind confounded,

               
attempting to describe you as you looked,   
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Heaven with its harmonies reflected in you,

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when in the wide air you unveiled yourself?

               
My eyes were fixed and so intent   
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to satisfy ten years of thirst

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that all my other senses were undone,

               
walled off from anything around them, enclosed   
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in their indifference, so did the holy smile

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ensnare them in its old, familiar net,

               
when by the power of those goddesses

               
my gaze was forced to travel left   
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as they cried out: ‘Too fixed!’   
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And then I shared the temporary blindness

               
of those whose eyes have just been smitten by the sun,

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leaving me sightless for a time.

               
But after my eyes again became accustomed   
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to lesser sights—lesser, I mean, when compared

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to the greater from which they’d been forced to turn—

               
I noted that the glorious army had wheeled around   
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on its right flank and now was facing east,

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with the seven candles and the sun before it.

               
As under cover of its shields a squadron   
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turns to save itself, following the colors,

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before the entire force can rearrange its ranks,

               
the soldiers of the heavenly kingdom

               
who were marching in the front passed by

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before the chariot turned upon its yoke.

               
Then the ladies went back to their wheels

               
and the griffin moved its blessèd load,

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but so that not a feather on it shook.   
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The fair lady who had pulled me through the stream   
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and Statius and I were following the wheel

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that in a smaller arc had made its turn.

               
Then, passing on beneath a vaulting forest,   
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emptied through fault of her who trusted in the snake,

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we measured our steps to an angelic song.

               
We had proceeded perhaps as far as an arrow,

               
loosed three times from the string, would carry,

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when Beatrice descended from the car.

               
I heard all of them murmuring ‘Adam.’

               
Then they circled a tree stripped of its leaves   
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and any other flowering on its branches.

               
The higher its branches grew, the wider was their spread.

               
Its height would cause even the Indian,

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in his towering forest, to gaze in wonder.

               
‘Blessed are you, griffin, for not plundering   
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with your beak this tree’s sweet-tasting fruit

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that later wrenches bellies with its pain.’

               
Thus did those around the mighty tree cry out,

               
and the double-natured animal replied:

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‘This is how the seed of justice is preserved.’

               
Turning to the shaft that he had pulled,

               
he drew it to the foot of the widowed trunk

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and left it bound to the tree from which it came.   
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As our plants, when the great light falls on them,   
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mingled with the light that shines

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in the rays that follow the celestial carp,

               
begin to swell their buds and are renewed,

               
each in its proper color, before the sun

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hitches his steeds to other stars,

               
so, taking on a hue less red than roses

               
yet deeper than violets, the tree renewed itself

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where its branches just before had been so bare.

               
The hymn that company then chanted   
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is not sung on earth nor could I make it out,

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nor bear to hear that music to its end.   
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Could I describe how those pitiless eyes,   
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hearing of Syrinx, were lulled to sleep,

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the eyes whose lengthy vigil cost so dear,

               
I would fashion, as a painter does

               
when painting from a model, how I fell asleep.

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But let him, who can do it, portray his nodding off.

               
I move along, therefore, to when I came awake   
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and say a brightness broke my veil of sleep,

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as did the call: ‘Arise, what are you doing?’   
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As, when brought to see the blossoms on the apple-tree   
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that makes the angels hungry for its fruit

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and celebrates perpetual marriage-feasts in Heaven,

               
Peter and John and James were overcome,

               
called back into themselves at the word

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by which still deeper sleep was broken,   
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and saw their company diminished

               
both by Moses and Elijah

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and their teacher’s raiment changed,

               
such did I become. I saw, standing above me,

               
the same compassionate lady

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who had guided my steps along the river.

               
All in doubt I asked: ‘Where is Beatrice?’   
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And she: ‘Look there beneath the new-sprung blossoms   
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of the tree where she is seated on the root.

               
‘See the company encircling her.   
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The others all ascend behind the griffin   
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with a song more sweet and more profound.’