Purgatorio (4 page)
Authors: Dante
II.
Cato the Younger
III. The shore again
To run its course through smoother water
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the small bark of my wit now hoists its sail,
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leaving that cruel sea behind.
Now I shall sing the second kingdom,
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there where the soul of man is cleansed,
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made worthy to ascend to Heaven.
to accompany my song with those same chords
whose force so struck the miserable magpies
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that, hearing them, they lost all hope of pardon.
Sweet color of oriental sapphire,
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hovering in the calm and peaceful aspect
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of intervening air, pure to the horizon,
pleased my eyes once more
as soon as I had left the morbid air
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that had afflicted both my chest and eyes.
I turned to the right and, fixing my attention
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on the other pole, I saw four stars
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not seen but by those first on earth.
The very sky seemed to rejoice
in their bright glittering. O widowed
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region of the north, denied that sight!
Once I had drawn my gaze from them,
barely turning toward the other pole
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where the constellation of the Wain had set,
I saw beside me an old man, alone,
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who by his looks was so deserving of respect
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that no son owes his father more.
His beard was long and streaked with white,
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as was his hair, which fell
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in double strands down to his chest.
The rays of those four holy stars
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adorned his face with so much light
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he seemed to shine with brightness of the sun.
‘What souls are you to have fled the eternal prison,
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climbing against the dark and hidden stream?’
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he asked, shaking those venerable locks.
‘Who was your guide or who your lantern
to lead you forth from that deep night
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which steeps the vale of hell in darkness?
‘Are the laws of the abyss thus broken,
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or has a new decree been made in Heaven,
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that, damned, you stand before my cliffs?’
My leader then reached out to me
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and by his words and signs and with his hands
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made me show reverence with knee and brow,
then answered him: ‘I came not on my own.
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A lady descended from heaven and at her request
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I lent this man companionship and aid.
‘But since it is your will that I make plain
the true condition of our presence here,
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it cannot be that I deny your wish.
‘This man has not yet seen his final sunset,
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but through his folly was so close to it
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his time was almost at an end.
‘I have shown him all the guilty race
and now intend to let him see those spirits
‘How I have led him would take long to tell.
Descending from on high a power aids me
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to bring him here that he may see and hear you.
‘May it please you to welcome his arrival,
since he’s in search of liberty, which is so dear,
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as he well knows who gives his life for it.
‘You know this well, since death in Utica
did not seem bitter, there where you left
‘Not by us are the eternal edicts broken,
for this man lives and Minos does not bind me,
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‘implores with her chaste eyes, O holy breast,
that you still think of her as yours.
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For love of her, then, I beseech you,
‘allow us passage through your seven kingdoms.
I will report to her your kindness—
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if you deign to be mentioned there below.’
‘Marcia so pleased my eyes while I still lived,’
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he said, ‘that whatever favor
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she sought of me, I granted.
‘Now that she dwells beyond the evil stream
she cannot move me any longer,
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according to the law laid down at my deliverance.
‘But if, as you say, a lady from Heaven
moves and directs you, there is no need of flattery.
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It is enough you ask it in her name.
‘Go then, make sure you gird him
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with a straight reed and bathe his face,
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to wipe all traces of defilement from it,
‘for it would not be fitting to appear,
his eyes still dimmed by any mist,
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before the minister, the first from paradise.
‘This little island, at its lowest point,
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there where the waves beat down on it,
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grows reeds in soft and pliant mud.
‘After you are done, do not come back this way.
The sun, now rising, will disclose
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an easier ascent to gain the peak.’
With that he vanished, and I stood up,
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speechless. Coming closer to my leader,
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I turned my eyes to him.
He began: ‘My son, follow my steps.
Let us turn around, for this plain slopes
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from here, down to its lowest edge.’
Dawn was overtaking the darkness of the hour,
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which fled before it, and I saw and knew
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the distant trembling of the sea.
