The Divine Comedy Volume Ii Part 9

[1] See Acts, vii. 55-60.

When my mind returned outwardly to the things which outside of it are true, I recognized my not false errors. My Leader, who could see me do like a man who looses himself from slumber, said, "What ails thee, that thou canst not support thyself? but art come more than a half league veiling thine eyes, and with thy legs staggering like one whom wine or slumber bends." "O sweet Father mine, if thou harkenest to me I will tell thee," said I, "what appeared to me when my legs were thus taken from me." And he, "If thou hadst a hundred masks upon thy face, thy thoughts howsoever small would not be hidden from me. That which thou hast seen was in order that thou excuse not thyself from opening thy heart to the waters of peace which are poured forth from the eternal fountain. I did not ask, 'What ails thee?' for the reason that he does who looks only with the eye which hath no seeing when the body lies inanimate; but I asked, in order to give vigor to the foot; thus it behoves to spur the sluggards, slow to use their wakefulness when it returns."

We were going on through the vesper time, forward intent so far as the eyes could reach against the bright evening rays; when, lo, little by little, a smoke came toward us, dark as night; iior was there place to shelter ourselves from it. This took from us our eyes and the pure air.

CANTO XVI. Third Ledge the Wrathful.--Marco Lombardo.--His discourse on Free Will, and the Corruption of the World.

Gloom of h.e.l.l, or of night deprived of every planet, under a barren sky, obscured by clouds as much as it can be, never made so thick a veil to my sight nor to my feeling so harsh of tissue as that smoke which covered us there; so that my eye endured not to stay open[1] wherefore my sage and trusty Escort drew to my side and offered me his shoulder. Even as a blind man goes behind his guide, in order not to stray, and not to b.u.t.t against anything that may hurt or perhaps kill him, I went along, through the bitter and foul air, listening to my Leader, who was ever saying, "Take care that thou be not cut off from me."

[1] The gloom and the smoke symbolize the effects of anger on the soul.

I heard voices, and each appeared to be praying for peace and mercy to the Lamb of G.o.d that taketh sins away. Only "Agnus Dei[1] were their exordiums: one word there was in all, and one measure; so that among them seemed entire concord. "Are these spirits, Master, that I hear?" said I. And he to me, "Thou apprehendest truly; and they go loosening the knot of anger."

"Now who art thou that cleavest our smoke, and yet dost speak of us even as if thou didst still divide the time by calends?" [2]

Thus by one voice was said: whereon my Master said, "Reply, and ask if by this way one goeth up." And I, "O creature, that cleansest thyself in order to return beautiful unto Him who made thee, a marvel shalt thou hear if thou accompanyest me." "I will follow thee, so far as is permitted me," it replied, "and if the smoke allows not seeing, in its stead hearing shall keep us joined." Then I began, "With that swathing band which death unbinds I go upward, and I came hither through the infernal anguish. And if G.o.d bath so enclosed me in His grace that He wills that I should see His court by a mode wholly out of modern usage, conceal not from me who thou wert before thy death, but tell it to me, and tell me if I am going rightly to the pa.s.s; and let thy words be our guides." "Lombard I was, and was called Marco; the world I knew, and that worth I loved, toward which every one hath now unbent his bow. For mounting thou art going rightly." Thus he replied, and added, "I pray thee that thou pray for me when thou shalt he above." And I to him, "I pledge my faith to thee to do that which thou askest of me; but I am bursting inwardly with a doubt, if I free not myself of it; at first it was simple, and now it is made double by thy words which make certain to me, here as elsewhere, that wherewith I couple it.[3] The world is indeed as utterly deserted by every virtue as thou declarest to me, and with iniquity is big and covered; but I pray that thou point out to me the cause, so that I may see it, and that I may show it to others; for one sets it in the heavens, and one here below."

[1] "The Lamb of G.o.d."

[2] By those in the eternal world dine is not reckoned by earth divisions.

[3] The doubt was occasioned by Guido del Duca's words (Canto XV.), in regard to the prevalence of evil in Tuscany, arising either from misfortune of the place, or through the bad habits of men. The fact of the iniquity of men was now reaffirmed by Marco Lombardo; Dante accepts the fact as certain, and his doubt is coupled with it.

A deep sigh that grief wrung into "Ay me!" he first sent forth, and then began, "Brother, the world is blind, and thou forsooth comest from it. Ye who are living refer every cause upward to the heavens only, as if they of necessity moved all things with themselves. If this were so, free will would be destroyed in you, and there would be no justice in having joy for good, and grief for evil. The heavens initiate your movements: I do not say all of them; but, supposing that I said it, light for good and for evil is given to you; and free will, which, if it endure fatigue in the first battles with the heavens, afterwards, if it be well nurtured, conquers everything. To a greater force, and to a better nature, ye, free, are subjected, and that creates the mind in you, which the heavens have not in their charge.' Therefore if the present world goes astray, in you is the cause, in you let it be sought; and of this I will now be a true informant for thee.

[1] The soul of man is the direct creation of G.o.d, and is in immediate subjection to His power; it is not in charge of the Heavens, and its will is free to resist their mingled and imperfect influences.

"Forth from the hand of Him who delights in it ere it exist, like to a little maid who, weeping and smiling, wantons childishly, issues the simple little soul, which knows nothing, save that, proceeding from a glad Maker, it willingly turns to that which allures it. Of trivial good at first it tastes the savor; by this it is deceived and runs after it, if guide or bridle bend not its love. Wherefore it was needful to impose law as a bridle; needful to have a king who could discern at least the tower of the true city. The laws exist, but who set hand to them? Not one: because the shepherd who is in advance can ruminate, but has not his hoofs divided?[1] Wherefore the people, who see their guide only at that good[2] whereof they are greedy, feed upon that, and seek no further. Well canst thou see that the evil leading is the cause that has made the world guilty, and not nature which in you may be corrupted. Rome, which made the world good, was wont to have two Suns,[3] which made visible both one road and the other, that of the world and that of G.o.d. One has extinguished the other; and the sword is joined to the crozier; and the two together must of necessity go ill, because, being joined, one feareth not the other. If thou believest rue not, consider the grain,[4] for every herb is known by its seed.

[1] The shepherd who precedes the flock, and should lead it aright, is the Pope. A mystical interpretation of the injunction upon the children of Israel (Leviticus, xi.) in regard to clean and unclean beasts was familiar to the schoolmen. St. Augustine expounds the cloven hoof as symbolic of right conduct, because it does not easily slip, and the chewing of the cud as signifying the meditation of wisdom. Dante seems here to mean that the Pope has the true doctrine, but makes not the true use of it for his own guidance and the government of the world.

[2] Material good.

[3] Pope and Emperor.

[4] The results that follow this forced union.

"Within the land which the Adige and the Po water, valor and courtesy were wont to be found before Frederick had his quarrel;[1] now safely anyone may pa.s.s there who out of shame would cease discoursing with the good, or drawing near them.

Truly three old men are still there in whom the antique age rebukes the new, and it seems late to them ere G.o.d restore them to the better life; Currado da Palazzo, and the good Gherardo,[2]

and Guido da Castel, who is better named, after the manner of the French, the simple Lombard.[3]

[1] Before the Emperor Frederick II. had his quarrel with the Pope; that is, before Emperor and Pope had failed in their respective duties to each other.

[2] Gherardo da Camino, "who was n.o.ble in his life, and whose memory will always be n.o.ble," says Dante in the Convito, iv. 14.

[3] "The French," says Benvenuto da Linda, "call all Italians Lombards, and repute them very astute."

"Say thou henceforth, that the Church of Rome, through confounding in itself two modes of rule,[1] falls in the mire, and defiles itself and its burden."

[1] The spiritual and the temporal.

"O Marco mine," said I, "thou reasonest well; and now I discern why the sons of Levi were excluded from the heritage;[1] but what Gherardo is that, who, thou sayest, remains for sample of the extinct folk, in reproach of the barbarous age?" "Either thy speech deceives me, or it is making trial of me," he replied to me, "in that, speaking Tuscan to me, it seems that of the good Gherardo thou knowest naught. By other added name I know him not, unless I should take it from his daughter Gaia.[2] May G.o.d be with you! for further I come not with you. Behold the brightness which rays already glimmering through the smoke, and it behoves me to depart--the Angel is there--ere I appear to him."[3] So he turned, and would not hear me more.

[1] "The Lord separated the tribe of Levi, to bear the ark of the covenant of the Lord, to stand before the Lord to minister unto him, and to bless in his name, unto this day. Wherefore Levi hath no part nor inheritance with his brethren; the Lord is his inheritance."--Deuteronomy, x. 8-9.

[2] Famed for her virtues, says Buti; for her vices, say the Ottimo and Benvenuto.

[3] His time of purgation is not yet finished; not yet is he ready to meet the Angel of the Pa.s.s.

CANTO XVII. Third Ledge the Wrathful.--Issue from the Smoke.--Vision of examples of Anger.--Ascent to the Fourth Ledge, where Sloth is purged.--Second Nightfall.--Virgil explains how Love is the root of Virtue and of Sin.

Recall to mind, reader, if ever on the alps a cloud closed round thee, through which thou couldst not see otherwise than the mole through its skin, how, when the humid and dense vapors begin to dissipate, the ball of the sun enters feebly through them: and thy imagination will easily come to see, how at first I saw again the sun, which was already at its setting. So, matching mine to the trusty steps of my Master, I issued forth from such a cloud to rays already dead on the low sh.o.r.es.

O power imaginative, that dost sometimes so steal us from outward things that a man heeds it not, although around him a thousand trumpets sound, who moveth thee if the sense afford thee naught?

A light, that in the heavens is formed, moveth thee by itself, or by a will that downward guides it?

[1] If the imagination is not stirred by some object of sense, it is moved by the influence of the stars, or directly by the Divine will.

In my imagination appeared the impress of the impiety of her[1]

who changed her form into the bird that most delights in singing.

And here was my mind so shut up within itself that from without came nothing which then might he received by it. Then rained down within my high fantasy, one crucified,[2] scornful and fierce in his look, and thus was dying. Around him were the great Ahasuerus, Esther his wife, and the just Mordecai, who was in speech and action so blameless. And when this imagination burst of itself, like a bubble for which the water fails, beneath which it was made, there rose in my vision a maiden,[3] weeping bitterly, and she was saying, "O queen, wherefore through anger hast thou willed to be naught? Thou hast killed thyself in order not to lose Lavinia: now thou hast lost me: I am she who mourns, mother, at thine, before another's ruin.

[1] Progne or Philomela, according to one or the other version of the tragic myth, was changed into the nightingale, after her anger had led her to take cruel vengeance on Tereus.

[2] Haman, who, according to the English version, was hanged, but according to the Vulgate, was crucified--Esther, vii.

[3] Lavinia, whose mother, Amata, killed herself in a rage at hearing premature report of the death of Turnus, to whom she desired that Lavinia should be married.--Aeneid, xii. 595-607.

As sleep is broken, when of a sudden the new light strikes the closed eyes, and, broken, quivers ere it wholly dies, so my imagining fell down, soon as a light, greater by far than that to which we are accustomed, struck my face. I turned me to see where I was, when a voice said, "Here is the ascent;" which from every other object of attention removed me, and made my will so eager to behold who it was that was, speaking that it never rests till it is face to face. But, as before the sun which weighs down our sight, and by excess veils its own shape, so here my power failed. "This is a divine spirit who directs us, without our asking, on the way to go up, and with his own light conceals himself. He does for us as a man doth for himself; for he who sees the need and waits for asking, malignly sets himself already to denial. Now let us grant our feet to such an invitation; let us hasten to ascend ere it grows dark, for after, it would not be possible until the day returns." Thus said my Guide; and I and he turned our steps to a stairway. And soon as I was on the first step, near use I felt a motion as of wings, and a fanning on my face,[1] and I heard said, "Beati pacifici,'[2] who are without ill anger."

[1] By which the angel removes the third P from Dante's brow.

[2] "Blessed are the peacemakers."

Now were the last sunbeams on which the night follows so lifted above us, that the stars were appearing on many sides. "O my virtue, why dost thou so melt away?" to myself I said, for I felt the power of my legs put in truce. We had come where the stair no farther ascends, and we were stayed fast even as a s.h.i.+p that arrives at the sh.o.r.e. And I listened a little, if I might hear anything in the new circle. Then I turned to my Master, and said, "My sweet Father, say what offence is purged here in the circle where we are: if the feet are stopped, let not thy discourse stop." And he to me, "The love of good, less than it should have been, is here restored;[1] here is plied again the ill-slackened oar. But that thou mayst still more clearly understand, turn thy mind to me, and thou shalt gather some good fruit from our delay.