Purgatorio (28 page)

               
‘What?’ the other asked—even as we hurried on—   
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‘if you are shades whom God does not deem worthy,

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who has led you up so far along His stairs?’

               
And my teacher said: ‘If you behold the signs   
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that this man bears, traced by the angel,

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you will know that he must reign among the good.

               
‘Since she that spins both day and night   
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had not used up the flax that for each mortal

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Clotho loads and winds upon the distaff,

               
‘his soul, which is your sister—mine as well,

               
could not attempt the climb unaided

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because it cannot see things quite as we do.

               
‘I, for this reason, was drawn from hell’s wide jaws

               
to be his guide, and I shall guide him

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as far as my own teaching will allow.   
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‘But tell us, if you can, why did the mountain shake   
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so hard just now and why did it emit

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such clamor, down to its wave-washed base?’

               
With this question he threaded the needle of my wish

               
with such precision that, with only hope

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for an answer, he made my thirst less parching.

               
The other offered this response:   
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‘The mountain’s holy law does not allow

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anything disordered or that violates its rule.

               
‘Here nothing ever changes.

               
Only by that which Heaven gathers from Itself,

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and from nothing else, can any change be wrought,

               
‘so that not rain nor hail nor snow

               
nor dew nor hoarfrost falls above

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the gentle rise of those three steps below.

               
‘Clouds, dense or broken, do not appear,

               
nor lightning-flash, nor Thaumas’ daughter,

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who appears in many places in the sky down there,

               
‘nor does dry vapor rise above the highest

               
of those three steps of which I spoke,

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where Peter’s vicar sets his feet.

               
‘Lower down, perhaps, it trembles more or less,

               
but from the wind concealed in earth

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it has not, I know not why, ever trembled here above.

               
‘Here it trembles when a soul feels it is pure,

               
ready to rise, to set out on its ascent,

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and next there follows that great cry.

               
‘Of its purity the will alone gives proof,   
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and the soul, wholly free to change its convent,

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is taken by surprise and allows the will its way.

               
‘It wills the same before, but holy Justice sets

               
the soul’s desire against its will,

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and, as once it longed to sin, it now seeks penance.

               
‘And I, who have been prostrate in this pain   
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five hundred years and more, just now felt

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my freed will seek a better threshold.

               
‘That is why you felt the earth shake

               
and heard the pious spirits of this mountain

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praise the Lord—may He soon raise them!’

               
Thus he spoke to us, and since it is true   
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the greater the thirst the more the drinking pleases,

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I cannot begin to tell the benefit to me.

               
And my wise leader: ‘Now I see the net

               
that here ensnares you and how you are released,

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why the earth trembled and why you rejoiced.   
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‘May it please you to tell me who you were

               
and to let me understand from your own words

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why you have lain here for so many centuries.’   
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‘In the time when worthy Titus,   
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aided by the King most high, avenged the wounds

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from which had poured the blood that Judas sold,

               
‘on earth I bore the name that most endures   
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and honors most,’ replied that spirit.

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‘Fame I had found, but not yet faith.

               
‘So sweet was my poetic recitation,   
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Rome drew me from Toulouse and deemed me worthy

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to have my brows adorned with myrtle.   
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‘Statius is my name. On earth men often say it.

               
I sang of Thebes and then of great Achilles,

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but fell along the way with the second burden.   
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‘The sparks that kindled the fire in me   
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came from the holy flame

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from which more than a thousand have been lit—

               
‘I mean the
Aeneid
. When I wrote my poems   
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it was my
mamma
and my nurse.

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Without it, I would not have weighed a dram.

               
‘To have lived on earth when Virgil lived   
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I would have stayed one year’s sun longer than I owed

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before I came forth from my exile.’

               
These words made Virgil turn to me   
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with a look that, silent, said: ‘Keep silent.’

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But the power that wills cannot do all it wills,

               
for laughter and tears so closely follow feelings

               
from which they spring, they least can be controlled

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in those who are most truthful.

               
I only smiled, like one who gives a hint,

               
at which the shade was silent, probing my eyes,

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where the soul’s expression is most clearly fixed.

               
‘So your great labor may end in good,’

               
he said, ‘why did your face just now

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give off the sudden glimmer of a smile?’

               
Now I am caught between one side and the other:

               
one bids me hold my tongue,

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the other urges me to speak,

               
so that I sigh and my master understands.

               
‘Don’t be afraid to speak,’ he says to me,

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‘yes, speak—tell him what he is so keen to know.’

               
And I begin: ‘Perhaps you wonder,

               
ancient spirit, at my smiling,

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but I would have a greater wonder seize you.

               
‘This one who guides my eyes on high

               
is the very Virgil from whom you took the power   
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to sing of men and of the gods.

               
‘If you believed another reason caused my smile,

               
dismiss that as untrue and understand

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it was those words you spoke of him.’

               
Already he was stooping to embrace my teacher’s feet,   
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but Virgil said: ‘Brother, do not do so,

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for you are a shade and you behold a shade.’

               
And the other, rising: ‘Now you can understand

               
the measure of the love for you that warms me,

               
when I forget our emptiness

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and treat our shades as bodied things.’