Purgatorio (9 page)

               
‘These people crowding us are many

               
and they have come to seek your favor,’ said the poet,

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‘but keep on walking, listening as you go.’   
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‘O soul who go to blessedness

               
in the body you were born to,’ they called

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as they came up, ‘here pause a while

               
‘to see if one of us is known to you

               
that you may carry news of him into the world.

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Ah, why do you go on? Why don’t you stop?

               
‘Sinners to the final hour,

               
we were all at the point of violent death   
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when a light from Heaven brought us understanding,

               
‘so that, repenting and forgiving,   
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we parted from our lives at peace with God,

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who with desire to see Him wrings our hearts.’

               
And I replied: ‘However hard I gaze into your faces,   
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none do I recognize. But if in anything

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I can please you, spirits born for bliss,

               
‘by the very peace I seek

               
from world to world, following the steps

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of such a guide, that I will do.’

               
And one of them began: ‘Each of us trusts   
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in your good offices without your oath,

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provided lack of power does not thwart your will.

               
‘Therefore, speaking before the others do,

               
I beg you, should you ever see the region

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between Romagna and King Charles’s land,   
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‘that you be kind enough to seek in Fano

               
heartfelt prayers for me   
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to help me purge my grievous sins.

               
‘There I was born, but the deep wounds

               
that poured my blood out with my life   
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were given me among the sons of Antenor,

               
‘where I most thought myself secure.

               
He of Este had it done, who was incensed   
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against me more than justice warranted.

               
‘Had I but gone on to La Mira,   
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leaving Oriago, where I was found and taken,

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I would still be back there where men breathe.

               
‘I fled to the marsh. Entrapped in reeds

               
and mire I fell, and in that mud   
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I watched a pool of blood form from my veins.’

               
Then another spoke: ‘Pray, so may the desire

               
be satisfied that draws you to this mountain,

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do you with gracious pity help with mine.

               
‘I was of Montefeltro, I am Buonconte.   
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Not Giovanna nor another has a care for me,   
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so that I move among the rest with downcast brow.’

               
And I to him: ‘What force or chance   
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took you so far from Campaldino

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that your burial-place was never found?’

               
‘Ah,’ he replied, ‘at Casentino’s border   
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runs a stream called Archiano

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that springs above the Hermitage among the Apennines.

               
‘To where its name is lost I made my way,

               
wounded in the throat, fleeing on foot,

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and dripping blood across the plain.

               
‘There I lost sight and speech.

               
I ended on the name of Mary—there I fell,

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and only my flesh remained.

               
‘I will tell the truth—you tell it to the living.

               
God’s angel took me, and he from hell cried out:   
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“O you from Heaven, why do you rob me?

               
‘ “You carry off with you this man’s eternal part.

               
For a little tear he’s taken from me,

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but with the remains I’ll deal in my own way.”

               
‘Surely you know how a column of moist air,   
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rising to colder heights, condenses

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and once again is changed to water.

               
‘That evil will, seeking only evil, he joined   
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with intellect, and with his natural powers

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he roused the fog and wind.

               
‘Then, when the day was spent, he shrouded

               
the valley from Pratomagno to the alps   
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in mist, and darkened the sky with clouds   
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‘so that the pregnant air was turned to water.

               
The rain fell and the overflow that earth

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could not absorb rushed to the gullies

               
‘and, gathering in surging torrents, poured

               
headlong down the seaward stream   
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with so much rage nothing could hold it back.

               
‘At its mouth the blood-red Archiano found

               
my frozen corpse and swept it down the Arno,

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undoing at my chest the cross   
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‘my arms had made when I was overcome by pain.

               
It spun me past its banks and to the bottom,   
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then covered and enclosed me with its spoils.’

               
‘Pray, once you have gone back into the world   
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and are rested from the long road,’

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the third spirit followed on the second,

               
‘please remember me, who am La Pia.   
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Siena made me, in Maremma I was undone.   
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He knows how, the one who, to marry me,   
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first gave the ring that held his stone.’

               
When the game of dice breaks up,   
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the loser, left dejected,

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rehearses every throw and sadly learns,

               
while all the others crowd around the winner.

               
One goes in front, one grabs him from the back,

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and, at his side, another calls himself to mind.

               
The winner does not stop, but listens first to one

               
and then another. Those to whom he gives his hand

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then let him be, and so he gets away.

               
Such was I among that pressing throng,

               
turning my face this way and that,

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and through my promises I freed myself of them.

               
The Aretine was there who met his death   
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at the fierce hands of Ghino di Tacco,

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and the other who was drowned in the frenzied chase.   
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There Federico Novello was beseeching   
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with outstretched hands, and he of Pisa

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who made the good Marzucco show his strength.