Purgatorio (27 page)
Authors: Dante
‘As long as the great dowry of Provence
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had not yet stripped my house of feeling shame,
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it counted little, but at least it did no harm.
‘Then, with fraud and pillage, the rape began
and afterwards, to make amends,
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my heirs took Ponthieu, Normandy, and Gascony.
‘Charles came into Italy and, to make amends,
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made Conradin a victim and then,
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to make amends, drove Thomas back to Heaven.
‘I see a time, not very long from now,
that brings another Charles away from France
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to make himself and then his kin more known.
‘He comes alone, armed only with the lance
that Judas used for jousting. And with one thrust
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he bursts the swollen paunch of Florence.
‘From this he shall acquire, not land,
but sin and shame, so much the heavier for him
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the lighter he considers such disgrace.
‘Still another Charles: once led, a prisoner,
from his own ship, I see him sell his daughter
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after haggling, as pirates do for female slaves.
‘O avarice, what greater harm can you do,
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since my blood is so attached to you
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it has no care for its own flesh?
‘That past and future evil may seem less,
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I see the fleur-de-lis proceed into Anagni
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and, in His vicar, make a prisoner of Christ.
‘I see Him mocked a second time.
I see renewed the vinegar and gall—
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between two living thieves I see Him slain.
‘I see that this new Pilate is so brutal
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this does not sate him, and, unsanctioned,
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I see him spread his greedy sails against the Temple.
‘O my Lord, when shall I be gladdened
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at the sight of vengeance that, as yet concealed,
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hidden in your mind, makes sweet your wrath?
‘The words that I called out before,
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of the Holy Spirit’s one and only bride,
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which made you turn to me for explanation,
‘are the response, as long as it is day,
in all our prayers, but when night falls
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we then intone an opposite refrain.
‘Then we recall Pygmalion,
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whose all-devouring lust for gold
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made him a traitor, thief, and parricide,
‘and the misery of avaricious Midas
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that came on him for his intemperate demand
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and must always be a cause for laughter.
‘Each then remembers reckless Achan
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and how he stole the spoils, so that the wrath
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of Joshua seems here to strike at him again.
‘for slaying Polydorus, circles all the mountain.
Last, the cry is: “Tell us, Crassus,
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since you know, what is the taste of gold?”
‘Sometimes one speaks loud, another low,
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according to the zeal that spurs our speech,
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at times with greater, at times with lesser force.
‘Therefore, in giving voice to goodness,
as here we do by day, I was not alone just now,
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even though no other raised his voice nearby.’
We had already left him there behind us
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and strove to pick our way
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as nimbly as the narrow path allowed,
when I felt the mountain tremble
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as though it might collapse, and a chill,
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like the chill of death, subdued me.
Surely Delos was not so shaken
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before Latona built her nest
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and there gave birth to the twofold eyes of heaven.
Then there rose up a great cry all around us
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so that my master drew up closer to me,
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saying: ‘Have no fear while I’m your guide.’
‘Gloria in excelsis Deo’
all were shouting
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from what I understood from those nearby,
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where their outcry could be better heard.
We stood stock still and in suspense,
like the shepherds who first heard that song,
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until the trembling ceased and the song was done.
Then we continued on our holy path,
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our eyes cast down to see the shades along the ground,
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who had returned to their accustomed weeping.
Never did ignorance attack me with such fury
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against so great a need to know—
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if in this my memory does not err—
as then I felt deep in my thoughts.
But, since we had to hurry, I dared not ask,
nor could I of myself find answers there.
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I went on, afraid to ask and full of thought.
The singular event now explained by the shade
IV. The speakers (3)
Statius
and sang of Thebes and of Achilles, but did not finish that second poem
Aeneid
meant everything to him and to have known Virgil he would gladly spend a year more purging himself
this
is Virgil, the reason for his smile
The natural thirst that never can be quenched
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except with that water the woman Samaritan
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begged to be given as a special grace
tormented me. And in haste I followed my leader
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over bodies strewn along the way,
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still grieved at their just punishment.
And lo, as Luke sets down for us that Christ,
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just risen from the cave that was His sepulcher,
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revealed himself to two He walked with on the road,
there appeared a shade, coming up behind us
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while we, intent upon the crowd prone at our feet,
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were not aware of him until he spoke
