The Portable Dante (35 page)

Just as a crowd, greedy for news, surrounds the messenger who bears the olive branch, and none too shy to elbow-in his way,

so all the happy souls of these Redeemed stared at my face, forgetting, as it were, the way to go to make their beauty whole.

One of these souls pushed forward, arms outstretched, and he appeared so eager to embrace me that his affection moved me to show mine.

O empty shades, whose human forms seem real! Three times I clasped my hands around his form, as many times they came back to my breast.

I must have been the picture of surprise, for he was smiling as he drew away, and I plunged forward still in search of him.

Then, gently, he suggested I not try, and by his voice I knew who this shade was; I begged him stay and speak to me awhile.

“As once I loved you in my mortal flesh, without it now I love you still, ” he said. “Of course I’ll stay. But tell me why you’re here. ”

“I make this journey now, O my Casella, hoping one day to come back here again, ” I said. “But how did you lose so much time?”

He answered: “I cannot complain if he who, as he pleases, picks his passengers, often refused to take me in his boat,

for that Just Will is always guiding his. But for the last three months, indulgently, he has been taking all who wish to cross;

so, when I went to seek the shore again, where Tiber’s waters turn to salty sea, benignly, he accepted me aboard.

Now, back again he flies to Tiber’s mouth, which is the meeting place of all the dead, except for those who sink to Acheron’s shore. ”

“If no new law prevents remembering or practicing those love songs that once brought peace to my restless longings in the world, ”

I said, “pray sing, and give a little rest to my poor soul which, burdened by my flesh, has climbed this far and is exhausted now. ”

Amor che ne la mente mi ragiona.
began the words of his sweet melody— their sweetness still is sounding in my soul.

My master and myself and all those souls that came with him were deeply lost in joy, as if that sound were all that did exist.

And while we stood enraptured by the sound of those sweet notes—a sudden cry: “What’s this, you lazy souls?” It was the Just Old Man.

“What negligence to stand around like this! Run to the mountain, shed that slough which still does not let God be manifest to you!”

Just as a flock of pigeons in a field peacefully feeding on the grain and tares, no longer strutting proud of how they look,

immediately abandon all their food, flying away, seized by a greater need— if something should occur that startles them—

so did that new-formed flock of souls give up their feast of song, and seek the mountainside, rushing to find a place they hoped was there.

And we were just as quick to take to flight.

In sudden flight those souls were scattering, rushing across the plain and toward the hill where Reason spurs the probing of the soul,

but I drew closer to my faithful friend. And where could I have run without his help? Who else but he could take me up the mount?

He looked as if he suffered from remorse— O dignity of conscience, noble, chaste, how one slight fault can sting you into shame!

Now when he had resumed his normal stride, free of the haste that mars man’s dignity, my mind, confined till then to what took place,

broke free, and now was eager to explore: I raised my eyes to marvel at the mount that grew out of the sea toward Heaven’s height.

The sun behind us blazing red with light outlined my human form upon the ground before me, as my body blocked its rays.

I quickly turned around, seized by the fear that I had been abandoned, for I saw the ground was dark only in front of me;

and then my Comfort turned to me and said: “Why are you so uneasy—do you think that I am not here with you, guiding you?

Evening has fallen on the tomb where lies my body that could cast a shadow once; from Brindisi to Naples it was moved.

If now I cast no shadow on the ground, you should not be surprised. Think of the spheres: not one of them obstructs the others’ light.

Yet bodies such as ours are sensitive to pain and cold and heat—willed by that Power which wills its secret not to be revealed;

madness it is to hope that human minds can ever understand the Infinite that comprehends Three Persons in One Being.

Be satisfied with
quia
unexplained, O human race! If you knew everything, no need for Mary to have borne a son.

You saw the hopeless longing of those souls whose thirst, were this not so, would have been quenched, but which, instead, endures as endless pain:

I speak of Plato and of Aristotle, and many others. ” Then he bent his head, remaining silent with his anguished thoughts.

By now we had come to the mountain’s foot, and there we found a rocky slope so steep the nimblest legs would not have served you there.

The craggiest, the cruelest precipice between Turbia and Lerici would seem, compared with this, inviting stairs to climb.

“How can we tell, ” my guide said, stopping short, “just where this mountain face might slope enough to let someone who has no wings ascend?”

While he was standing there, his head bent low, searching his mind to find some helpful way, and I was looking up at all that rock—

along the cliffside to my left, a crowd of souls was coming toward us, moving slow, so slowly that they did not seem to move.

“Master, ” I said, “look over there! You’ll see some people coming who should know the way— if you have not yet found it by yourself. ”

He looked up then, and said with great relief: “Let us go meet them, for they move so slow; and you, dear son, be steadfast in your hopes. ”

We were as yet as far from that long crowd (even after we had gone a thousand steps); as a good slingsman’s hand could throw a stone,

when they all pressed together suddenly and huddled up against the towering rock; too stunned to move, they stared in disbelief.

“O you elect who ended well your lives, ” Virgil began, “I ask you, in the name of that same peace I know awaits you all,

to tell us where the mountain slopes enough for us to start our climb: the more one learns, the more one comes to hate the waste of time. ”

As sheep will often start to leave the fold, first one, then two, then three—then, hesitantly, the rest will move, with muzzles to the ground,

and what the first sheep does, the others do: if it should stop, they all push up against it, resigned to huddle quiet in ignorance—

just so I saw the leaders of that flock of chosen souls take their first steps toward us, their faces meek, their movements dignified.

But when the souls in front saw the sun’s light was broken on the ground to my right side, my shadow stretching to the rising cliff,

they stopped, and started slowly shrinking back; all of the rest that followed on their heels did as they did, not knowing why they did.

“Before you ask me I will answer you: this form you see breaking the sunlight here upon the ground is a man’s body. But,

this should not startle you; you can be sure that not without the power coming from Heaven does he come here seeking to scale this wall. ”

Thus spoke my master. And that worthy group, with gesturing hands that urged us to turn round, replied: “Go lead the way ahead of us. ”

Then one soul cried: “Whoever you may be, look back as you walk on and ask yourself if you have ever seen me down on earth. ”

I turned to him and looked hard at his face: a handsomely patrician blond he was, although a sword wound cut through one eyebrow.

When I, in all humility, confessed I did not recognize him, he said: “Look, ” as he revealed a gash above his breast.

Then with a smile he said, “Manfred I am, grandson of Empress Constance, and I beg you, when you are with the living once again,

go to my lovely child, mother of kings who honor Sicily and Aragon; whatever may be rumored, tell her this:

As I lay there, my body torn by these two mortal wounds, weeping, I gave my soul to Him Who grants forgiveness willingly.

to any man who comes in search of it,

and if the Pastor of Cosenza, sent by Clement in his rage to hunt me out, had understood those words in God’s own book,

my body’s bones would still be where they were: by the bridgehead near Benevento trenched under the guard of a heavy mound of stones.

Now they are swept by wind and drenched by rain outside my kingdom, by the Verde’s banks, where they were brought by him with tapers quenched.

The church’s curse is not the final word, for Everlasting Love may still return, if hope reveals the slightest hint of green.

True, he who dies scorning the Holy Church, although he turns repentant at life’s end, must stay outside, a wanderer on this bank,

for thirty times as long as he has lived in his presumptuousness—although good prayers may shorten the duration of his term.