Purgatorio (25 page)
Authors: Dante
And he who was my help in every need
said: ‘Turn around and see these two
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who now come nipping at the heels of sloth.’
Coming behind the rest they chanted:
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‘The people for whom the Red Sea opened
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were dead before the Jordan saw their heirs’
and ‘Those who chose not to endure the toil
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to its conclusion with Anchises’ son
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gave themselves to a life without renown.’
Then, when these shades were so far parted
from us we could no longer see them,
from which others, many and diverse, were born.
And I rambled so from one thought to another
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that my eyes closed in drowsy wandering
The second purgatorial dream
VI. The Angel of Zeal
Dante’s desire to understand his dream
I & III. The fifth terrace: the setting and the souls
IV. The speakers (1)
answers Dante’s questions:
At that hour when the heat of day,
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cooled by earth and at times by Saturn,
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can no longer temper the cold of the moon,
when geomancers see their
Fortuna Major
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rise in the east before the dawn,
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which does not long stay dark for it,
there came to me a woman, in a dream,
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stammering, cross-eyed, splayfooted,
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with crippled hands and sickly pale complexion.
I looked at her, and as the sun revives
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cold limbs benumbed by night,
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just so my gaze gave her a ready tongue
and then in very little time
straightened her crooked limbs
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and tinged her sallow face as love desires.
And with her speech set free
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she started singing in a way that would
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have made it hard for me to turn aside.
‘I am,’ she sang, ‘I am the sweet siren
who beguiles mariners on distant seas,
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so great is their delight in hearing me.
‘I drew Ulysses, eager for the journey,
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with my song. And those who dwell with me
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rarely depart, so much do I content them.’
Her lips had not yet closed
when at my side appeared a lady,
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holy and alert, in order to confound her.
‘O Virgil, Virgil, who is this?’
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she asked, indignant. And he came forward
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with his eyes fixed on that virtuous one.
The other he seized and, ripping her garments,
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laid her front bare and exposed her belly.
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The stench that came from there awoke me.
I was looking around, and the good master said:
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‘Three times at least I’ve called you. Arise and come.
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Let us find the opening through which you enter.’
I stood up. All the circles of the holy mountain
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were already filled with the advancing day
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and we went on with the new sun at our backs.
With furrowed brow I followed him,
as though burdened with a thought that bent
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my body like the half-arch of a bridge,
until I heard: ‘Come, here is the passage,’
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spoken in such gentle, gracious tones
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as are not heard within these earthly confines.
With open wings that seemed a swan’s
he that had spoken showed the way on up
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between two walls of flinty stone
and, stirring his feathers, gently fanned us,
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declaring those
qui lugent
to be blessed,
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for their souls shall be comforted.
‘What’s wrong, that you keep staring at the ground?’
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my guide began, once we were on our way,
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leaving the angel just below.
‘I am so distracted going on,’ I said,
‘because this strange new dream so weighs on me
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I cannot keep it from my mind.’
‘You saw,’ he said, ‘that ancient witch
who alone is purged with tears above us here.
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And you saw how man is freed from her.
‘Let that be enough. Press your heels
into the ground. Raise your eyes to the lure
Like the falcon that at first looks at its feet,
and only then turns to the call and stretches up
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in its desire for the food that draws it,
such I became and, so impelled, I went
as far as the cleft rock allowed for the ascent
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to where the circling starts again.
When I came out onto the ledge
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of the fifth round, I saw people on it
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lying face down on the ground and weeping.
‘Adhaesit pavimento anima mea’
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I heard them say with such deep sighs
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the words could hardly be distinguished.
‘O chosen ones of God, whose sufferings
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both hope and justice make less hard,
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direct us to the steps that lead us up.’
‘If you are here exempt from lying prostrate
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and wish to find the quickest way,
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keep to the right along the outer rim.’
Thus the poet asked and thus came the response
from a little way ahead, and I could tell who spoke
I turned my eyes to the eyes of my lord.
With a pleased sign he consented
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to what my pleading look had asked.
When I was free to do what I desired
I drew away and stood above that soul
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whose words had first made me aware of him,
saying: ‘Spirit in whom weeping ripens
that without which there is no return to God,
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for my sake just a while neglect your greater care.
‘Tell me who you were and why you lie face down
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and whether there is something I might do
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for you back there, where I set out alive.’
And he to me: ‘Why Heaven turns our backs
against Itself, that you shall know, but first
