The Portable Dante (49 page)

By now we had already left behind the angel who directs to the Sixth Round and from my brow erased another scar,

saying that all who looked for righteousness are blest—omitting the
esuriunt,
and predicating only
sitiunt.
6 And I, lighter than I had felt before at any other stairs, moved easily upward, behind those swiftly climbing shades.

Now, Virgil was already speaking: “Love, kindled by virtue, always kindles love, if the first flame is clearly visible;

thus, ever since the day that Juvenal came down to Hell’s Limbo to be with us, and told me of the love you felt for me,

I have felt more good will toward you, more than was felt toward any person not yet seen; and so, these stairs will seem much shorter now.

But tell me—speak to me as to a friend, and as a friend, forgive me if I seem too bold in slackening decorum’s reins—

how could your heart find room for avarice, with that abundant store of sound, good sense which you acquired with such diligence?”

These words of Virgil brought to Statius’ lips a briefly lingering smile; then he replied: “All you have said reveals your love for me.

Appearances will often, it is true, give rise to false assumptions, when the truth to be revealed is hidden from our eyes.

Your question makes it clear to me that you believe my sin on earth was Avarice—perhaps because you found me where you did.

In truth, I had no part of Avarice; in fact, too little! The sin I purged below, thousands of months, was Prodigality.

And if I had not come to change my ways while meditating on those lines you wrote, where you, enraged by human nature, cry.

To what extremes, O cursed lust for gold will you not drive man’s appetite?’—I would be rolling weights now in the dismal jousts.

But when I understood how hands could spread their wings too wide in spending, then that sin, and all my others, I repented of.

How many shall rise bald the Final Day through ignorance of this vice, forbidding them repentance during life or on death’s bed?

And know that when the vice of any sin is the rebuttal of its opposite, the two of them wither together here.

So, though to purge myself I spent my time among those souls who weep for Avarice, my sin was just the opposite of theirs. ”

“Now, when you sang about the bitter strife of the twin sources of Jocasta’s grief, ” the bard of the
Bucolics
said to him,

“from what you wrote in Clio’s company, it does not seem that you were faithful then to that faith without which virtue is vain.

If this be so, tell me what heavenly sun or earthly beam lit up your course so that you could set sail behind the Fisherman. ”

Statius said: “It was you directed me to drink Parnassus’ waters—it was you whose radiance revealed the way to God.

You were the lonely traveller in the dark who holds his lamp behind him, shedding light not for himself but to make others wise;

for you once wrote: ‘The world is born again; Justice returns, and the first age of man, and a new progeny descends from heaven. ’

Through you I was a poet, through you, a Christian. And now, to show you better what I mean, I shall fill in my outline with more color.

By then, the world was laboring in the birth of the true faith, sown by the messengers of the Eternal Kingdom; and your words,

which I just quoted now, so harmonized with what the new preachers were saying then, that I would often go to hear them speak.

These men became so holy in my eyes that when Domitian persecuted them, I wept, as they wept in their suffering,

and, for as long as I remained alive, I helped them, and their righteous way of life taught me to scorn all other faiths but theirs.

Before I brought the Greeks to Theban streams with my poetic art, I was baptized, but was a secret Christian out of fear,

pretending to be pagan many years; and for this lack of zeal, I had to run four hundred years on the Fourth Circle. Now,

please tell me, you who did remove the veil that once concealed from me the good I praise, tell me, while there is still some time to climb,

where is our ancient Terence, do you know? And Plautus, and Caecilius and Varius? Have they been damned? If so, where are they lodged?”

“They all, along with Persius and me and others, ” said my guide, “are with that Greek the Muses suckled more than all the rest,

in the First Round of Hell’s unlighted jail. We often talk about the mountain slope where our nine nurses dwell eternally.

Euripides walks with us; Antiphon, Simonides, and Agathon are there, and other Greeks who wear the laurel crown.

With us are many of your people too: Antigone, Dei’phyle, Argia, Ismene, sad as she has ever been,

and she who showed Langia to the Greeks, and Thetis, and the daughter of Tiresias, Dei’damia with her sisters, too. ”

The poets now were free of walls and stairs, both of them standing silent on the ledge, eager again to gaze at everything.

Already the four handmaids of the day were left behind, and at the chariot-pole, the fifth was tilting up the blazing tip,

when my guide said: “I think we ought to move with our right shoulders to the outer edge, the way we always have gone round this mount. ”

So, habit was our guide there, and we went our way with much less hesitation now, since worthy Statius gave us his assent.

They walked ahead and I, behind, alone, was paying close attention to their words, which taught me things about the art of verse.

But then, right in the road a tree appeared, laden with fruit whose fragrance filled the air, and instantly that pleasant talk was stopped!

Just as a fir tree tapers toward the top from branch to branch, so this one tapered down, to keep the souls from climbing, I suppose.

On that side where our way was bounded, poured clear water from the high rock to the tree, sprinkling the topmost leaves in its cascade.

As the two poets drew close, there came a voice that shouted at us from within the tree: “This fruit and water is denied to you. ”

Then the voice said: “Mary was more intent on gracing the wedding feast with plenitude than on her own mouth, which now pleads for you!

In ancient Rome the women were content with water as their drink! And Daniel, too, acquired wisdom by despising food!

Mankind’s first age was beautiful as gold, and hunger made the acorns savory, and thirst made nectar run in every stream!

Locusts and honey were the only foods that fed the Baptist in the wilderness; to that he owes his glory and his fame,

which in the Gospel is revealed to you!”

While I peered up through that green foliage, trying to see what might be hidden there, like one who wastes his lifetime hunting birds,

my more than father called to me: “Dear son, come with me now; the time allotted us ought to be spent more profitably. ” So,

I quickly turned and, just as quickly, moved to follow the two poets whose talk was such that every step I took cost me no strain.

Then suddenly we heard the tearful chant of
Labia mea Domine,
in tones inspiring a sweet blend of joy and pain.

“Dear father, tell me, what is this I hear?” I asked, and he replied: “They may be shades loosing the knot of their great debt to God. ”

As pilgrims wrapped in meditation pass someone they do not know along the road and turn to stare and then go quickly on,

so, from behind us, moving swiftly, came and passed us by with a quick look of doubt, a band of spirits, silent and devout,

their eyes dark-shadowed, sunken in their heads, their faces pale, their bodies worn so thin that every bone was molded to their skin.