Purgatorio (11 page)
Authors: Dante
II. The Valley of the Princes
is the hymn sung by the souls there
III. The princes
Once the courteous and joyful greetings
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had been repeated a third time and a fourth,
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Sordello drew back and asked: ‘Who then are You?’
‘Before souls worthy of ascent to God
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could be directed to this mountain,
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Octavian interred my bones.
Like one who of a sudden sees a thing before him
at which he wonders, who both believes and doesn’t,
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saying to himself: ‘It is—but no, it cannot be,’
such seemed the other. He bowed his head,
humbly drew near again and, opening his arms,
‘O glory of the Latins,’ he exclaimed,
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‘through whom our language showed what it could do,
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O eternal honor of the town where I was born,
‘what merit or what grace brings you to me?
If I am worthy of your words, tell me
‘Through all the circles of the woeful kingdom
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I have made my way,’ he answered. ‘Power
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from Heaven moved me and with that power I come.
‘Not for what I did but what I did not do
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I lost the vision of the lofty Sun you long for
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and which I came to know too late.
‘There is a place down there, not sad with torments
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but only darkness, where lamentations sound,
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not loud as wailing but soft as sighs.
‘There I abide with the innocent little ones
seized in the fangs of death
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before they could be cleansed of mortal guilt.
‘There I abide with those who were not clothed
in the three holy virtues, yet, blameless,
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knew the others and followed every one.
‘But if you know the way and are permitted,
show us how to go, so that we may come sooner
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where purgatory has its true beginning.’
He answered: ‘We are set in no fixed place.
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I may ascend and move about, and I will walk
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with you and be your guide as far as I’m allowed.
‘But see, already day is waning
and we may not ascend by night.
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Now is the time to choose a resting place.
‘There, to the right, are spirits set apart.
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I will lead you to them, if you wish.
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And not without pleasure shall you know them.’
‘How is that?’ was the reply. ‘If a man should wish
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to climb by night, would he be hindered,
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or would he not ascend because he lacked the power?’
Good Sordello drew his finger through the dust
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and said: ‘See, you would not cross
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even this line once the sun goes down,
‘for nothing hinders the ascent
except the darkness of the night,
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which binds the will with helplessness.
‘After nightfall one might head back down
and wander lost around the hill
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as long as the horizon hides the day.’
At that my lord, as in amazement, said:
‘Lead us, then, to where you say
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we may take pleasure in our rest.’
We had gone but a little way from there
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when I observed the hill was hollowed out,
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as valleys carve out hollows in our mountains.
‘Let us go there,’ said the shade,
‘to where the slope sinks to a bowl,
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and there await the coming of the day.’
A slanting path, connecting steep and flat,
brought us to the border of the glade
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just where the rim around it falls away.
Gold and fine silver, carmine and leaded white,
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indigo, lignite bright and clear,
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an emerald after it has just been split,
placed in that dell would see their brightness fade
against the colors of the grass and flowers,
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as less is overcome by more.
Nature had not only painted there in all her hues
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but there the sweetness of a thousand scents
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was blended in one fragrance strange and new.
Seated in the grass and flowers, I saw
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souls not visible from beyond the sunken valley.
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‘Salve Regina’
was the song they sang.
‘Before the sun’s rim sinks into its nest,’
began the Mantuan soul who’d brought us there,
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‘From this bank you will more easily discern
their gestures and their features
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than if you went among them down below.
‘He who sits the highest—the one with the look
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of a man who shirked his duty—not moving his lips
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to match the singing of the rest,
‘was Emperor Rudolph. He might have healed
the wounds that have brought Italy to death,
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so that, for another to restore her, it is late.
‘The next, who looks as if he gave him comfort,
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ruled the land where the waters from the Moldau
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flow into the Elbe, and from the Elbe to the sea.
‘His name was Ottocar, and in his swaddling clothes
he was of greater worth than Wenceslaus,
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his bearded son, who feasts on lust and idleness.
‘And the one with the small nose, who seems in council
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with the one who is so gracious in his looks,
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died in flight, deflowering the lily.
‘Look how he beats upon his breast!
And see the other, who rests his cheek
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upon his palm and sighs:
‘father and the father-in-law of the plague of France,
they know his foul and vicious life—
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thus comes the grief that pierces them.
‘He who looks so tall and sturdy and who sings
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in time with him who bears a manly nose
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was girt with the cord of every virtue.
‘And if the youth who sits behind him
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had come to power on his throne, then indeed
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his virtue would have passed from vessel to vessel,
‘which none can say of the other heirs.
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James and Frederick hold their kingdoms,
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but neither has the better heritage.
‘Rarely does human worth rise through the branches.
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And this He wills who gives it,
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so that it shall be sought from Him.
