Purgatorio (38 page)
Authors: Dante
Then I raised my face again to the high mysteries.
They moved so slowly toward us
The lady scolded: ‘Why is your desire so set
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on the display of living lights
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that you have failed to note what comes behind them?’
Then I saw people, clad in white, who followed,
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as though led by the lights, their garments
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of a whiteness never seen on earth.
The water to my left was all aglow
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and like a shimmering glass gave back
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an image of my left side if I turned to look.
When I was at a point on my edge of the bank,
where only the river flowed between us,
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I paused to have a better view
and saw the flames advance,
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leaving behind them painted air
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as though they had been brushes in a painter’s hand,
so that above us blazed in streaks
the seven bands in all the hues the sun
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takes for his bow and Delia for her girdle.
These banners stretched beyond my sight.
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As near as I could judge,
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the outermost were set ten paces from each other.
All were singing: ‘Blessèd are you
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among the daughters of Adam
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and blessèd is your loveliness forever!’
When the flowers and the verdant grasses
across the river on the other bank
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were left barren of those chosen people,
as, in the heavens, light comes after light,
four living creatures followed them,
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each crowned with green-leaved wreaths,
and every one had six wings as his plumage,
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wings so full of eyes that the eyes of Argus,
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were they to come alive, would be just like them.
To describe their forms, reader, I do not spend
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more rhymes, for other outlay so constrains me
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I cannot deal more lavishly in this.
Go read Ezechiel who depicts them as he saw them,
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descending from the frigid zone
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in wind and cloud and fire.
And just as you shall find them on his pages,
such were they there—but for the wings,
These four marked off a space that held
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a two-wheeled chariot of triumph,
The griffin lifted both its wings between
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the middle band of light and the two sets of three
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so that it did not cut through any band,
wings raised so high that they were lost to sight.
Its parts were golden where it was a bird,
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and all the rest of it was white, with some vermilion.
Never did Rome give joy to Africanus,
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nor indeed Augustus, with such a splendid car.
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Compared to it, the sun’s would seem but poor—
the chariot of the sun, which, gone astray,
at the pious prayer of Earth
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was quite consumed in Jove’s mysterious justice.
Then came three ladies dancing in a round
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near the right wheel, one so flaming red
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she hardly would be noticed in a fire.
Another seemed as though her flesh and bones
were made of emerald, while the third
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seemed white as is new-fallen snow.
Sometimes it seemed the white, and now the red,
led in the dance. And from the red one’s song
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the others took their movements, quick or slow.
Four other ladies, dressed in purple,
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were dancing at the left, keeping to the cadence
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the three-eyed one among them set.
Behind the group I have described
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I made out two old men, unlike in their attire
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but alike in bearing, honorable and grave.
One showed himself conjoined with those
who follow great Hippocrates,
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whom nature shaped for creatures she loves most,
while the other showed a different disposition,
his sword so bright and sharp
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that even from across the stream it made me fear.
Then I saw four, humble in their aspect,
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and, after them, an old man came alone and walked
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as though he slept, despite his keen expression.
All seven of these were dressed just like the group
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that first appeared, except they did not have
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garlands of lilies around their heads—
theirs were of roses and other crimson flowers.
From just a little farther off one would have sworn
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that they were all on fire above the eyebrows.
And when the chariot stood across the stream from me
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a thunder-clap was heard and all that worthy throng
seemed forbidden to go farther and they stopped
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behind the banners that had come before them.
The Church Triumphant in the Garden: climax
When the seven-starred Wain of highest heaven—
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which never sets and never rises
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and never wore a veil of fog except for sin
and which had made all of them mindful of their duty,
as lower down those seven stars direct
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the helmsman making for his port—
came to a stop, the chosen people
that first appeared between it and the griffin
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turned toward the chariot as to their peace.
