The Divine Comedy Volume Ii Part 10

[1] It is the round on which the sin of acedie, sloth, is purged away.

"Neither Creator nor creature," began he, "son, ever was without love, either natural, or of the mind,[1] and this thou knowest.

The natural is always without error; but the other may err either through an evil object, or through too much or through too little vigor. While love is directed on the primal goods, and on the second moderates itself, it cannot be the cause of ill delight.

But when it is bent to evil,[2] or runs to good with more zeal, or with less, than it ought, against the Creator works his own creature. Hence thou canst comprehend that love needs must be the seed in you of every virtue, and of every action that deserves punishment.

[1] Either native in the soul, as the love of G.o.d, or determined by the choice, through free will, of some object of desire in the mind.

[2] A wrong object of desire.

"Now since love can never bend its sight from the welfare of its subject,[1] all things are safe from hatred of themselves; and since no being can be conceived of divided from the First,[2] and standing by itself, from hating Him[3] every affection is cut off. It follows, if, distinguis.h.i.+ng, I rightly judge, that the evil which is loved is that of one s neighbor; and in three modes is this love born within your clay. There is he who hopes to excel through the abas.e.m.e.nt of his neighbor, and only longs that from his greatness he may be brought low.[4] There is he who fears loss of power, favor, honor, fame, because another rises; whereat he is so saddened that he loves the opposite.[5] And there is he who seems so outraged by injury that it makes him gluttonous of vengeance, and such a one must needs coin evil for others.[6] This triform love is lamented down below.[7]

[1] To however wrong an object love may be directed, the person always believes it to be for his own good.

[2]The source of being.

[3] G.o.d, the First Cause.

[4] This is the nature of Pride.

[5] Envy.

[6] Anger.

[7] In the three lower rounds of Purgatory.

"Now I would that thou hear of the other,--that which runs to the good in faulty measure. Every one confusedly apprehends a good[1]

in which the mind may be at rest, and which it desires; wherefore every one strives to attain it. If the love be slack that draws you to see this, or to acquire it, this cornice, after just repentance, torments you therefor. Another good there is,[2]

which doth not make man happy, is not happiness, is not the good essence, the root of every good fruit. The love which abandons itself too much to this[3] is lamented above us in three circles, but how it is reckoned tripart.i.te, I am silent, in order that thou seek it for thyself."

[1] The supreme Good.

[2] Sensual enjoyment.

[2] Resulting in the sins of avarice, gluttony, and l.u.s.t.

CANTO XVIII. Fourth Ledge The Slothful.--Discourse of Virgil on Love and Free Will.--Throng of Spirits running in haste to redeem their Sin.--The Abbot of San Zone.--Dante falls asleep.

The lofty Teacher had put an end to his discourse, and looked attentive on my face to see if I appeared content; and I, whom a fresh thirst already was goading, was silent outwardly, and within was saying, "Perhaps the too much questioning I make annoys him." But that true Father, who perceived the timid wish which did not disclose itself, by speaking gave me hardihood to speak. Then I, "My sight is so vivified in thy light that I discern clearly all that thy discourse may imply or declare: therefore I pray thee, sweet Father dear, that thou demonstrate to me the love to which thou referrest every good action and its contrary." "Direct," he said, "toward me the keen eyes of the understanding, and the error of the blind who make themselves leaders will be manifest to thee. The mind, which is created apt to love, is mobile unto everything that pleases, soon as by pleasure it is roused to action. Your faculty of apprehension draws an image from a real existence, and within you displays it, so that it makes the mind turn to it; and if, thus turned, the mind incline toward it, that inclination is love, that inclination is nature which is bound anew in you by pleasure.[1]

Then, as the fire moveth upward by its own form,[2] which is born to ascend thither where it lasts longest in its material, so the captive mind enters into longing, which is a spiritual motion, and never rests until the thing beloved makes it rejoice. Now it may be apparent to thee, how far the truth is hidden from the people who aver that every love is in itself a laudable thing; because perchance its matter appears always to be good;[3] but not every seal is good although the wax be good."

[1] In his discourse in the preceding canto, Virgil has declared that neither the Creator nor his creatures are ever without love, either native in the soul, or proceeding from the mind. Here he explains how the mind is disposed to love by inclination to an image within itself of some object which gives it pleasure. This inclination is natural to it; or in his phrase, nature is bound anew in man by the pleasure which arouses the love. All this is a doctrine derived directly from St. Thomas Aquinas. "It is the property of every nature to have some inclination, which is a natural appet.i.te, or love."--Summa Theol., 1, lxxvi. i.

[2] Form is here used in its scholastic meaning. " The active power of anything depends on its form, which is the principle of its action. Fur the form is either the nature itself of the thing, as in those which are pure form; or it is a const.i.tuent of the nature of the thing, as in those which are composed of matter and form."--Summa Theol., 3, xiii. i. Fire by its form, or nature, seeks the sphere of fire between the ether and the moon.

[3] The object may seem desirable to the mind, without being a fit object of desire.

"Thy words, and my understanding which follows," replied I to him, "have revealed love to me; but that has made me more full of doubt. For if love is offered to us from without, and if with other foot the soul go not, if strait or crooked she go is not her own merit."[1] And he to me, "So much as reason seeth here can I tell thee; beyond that await still for Beatrice; for it is a work of faith. Every substantial form that is separate from matter, and is united with it,[2] has a specific virtue residing in itself which without action is not perceived, nor shows itself save by its effect, as by green leaves the life in a plant. Yet, whence the intelligence of the first cognitions comes man doth not know, nor whence the affection for the first objects of desire, which exist in you even as zeal in the bee for making honey: and this first will admits not desert of praise or blame.

Now in order that to this every other may be gathered,[3] the virtue that counsels [4] is innate in you, and ought to keep the threshold of a.s.sent. This is the principle wherefrom is derived the reason of desert in you, according as it gathers in and winnows good and evil loves. Those who in reasoning went to the foundation took note of this innate liberty, wherefore they bequeathed morals[5] to the world. a.s.suming then that every love which is kindled within you arises of necessity, the power exists in you to restrain it. This n.o.ble virtue Beatrice calls the free will, and therefore see that thou have it in mind, if she take to speaking of it with thee."

[1] If love be aroused in the soul by an external object, and if it be natural to the soul to love, how does she deserve praise or blame for loving?

[2] The substantial form is the soul, which is separate from matter but united with it.

[3] In order that every other will may conform with the first, that is, with the affection natural to man for the primal objects of desire.

[4] The faculty of reason, the virtue which counsels and on which free will depends, is "the specific virtue" of the soul.

[5] The rules of that morality which would have no existence were it not for freedom of the will.

The moon, belated[1] almost to midnight, shaped[2] like a bucket that is all ablaze, was making the stars appear fewer to us, and was running counter to the heavens[3] along those paths which the sun inflames, when the man of Rome sees it between Sardinia and Corsica at its setting;[4] and that gentle shade, for whom Pietola[5] is more famed than the Mantuan city, had laid down the burden of my loading:[6] wherefore I, who had harvested his open and plain discourse upon my questions, was standing like a man who, drowsy, rambles. But this drowsiness was taken from me suddenly by folk, who, behind our backs, had now come round to us. And such as was the rage and throng, which of old Ismenus and Asopus saw at night along their banks, in case the Thebans were in need of Bacchus, so, according to what I saw of them as they came, those who by good will and right love are ridden curve their steps along that circle. Soon they were upon us; because, running, all that great crowd was moving on; and two in front, weeping, were crying out, "Mary ran with haste unto the mountain [7] and Caesar, to subdue Ilerda, thrust at Ma.r.s.eilles, and then ran on to Spain."[8] "Swift, swift, that time be not lost by little love," cried the others following, "for zeal in doing well may refreshen grace." "O people, in whom keen fervor now perhaps redeems your negligence and delay, through lukewarmness, in well-doing, this one who is alive (and surely I lie not to you) wishes to go up, soon as the sun may s.h.i.+ne again for us; therefore tell us where is the opening near." These words were of my Guide; and one of those spirits said: "Come thou behind us, and thou shalt find the gap. We are so filled with desire to move on that we cannot stay; therefore pardon, if thou holdest our obligation for churlishness. I was Abbot[9] of San Zeno at Verona, under the empire of the good Barbarossa, of whom Milan, still grieving, doth discourse. And he has one foot already in the grave,[10] who soon will lament on account of that monastery, and will be sorry for having had power there; because in place of its true shepherd he has put his son, ill in his whole body and worse in mind, and who was evil-born." I know not if more he said, or if he were silent, so far beyond us he had already run by; but this I heard, and to retain it pleased me.

[1] In its rising.

[2] Gibbous, like certain buckets still in use in Italy.

[3] "These words describe the daily backing of the moon through the signs from west to east."--Moore.

[4] These islands are invisible from Rome, but the line that runs from Rome between them is a little south of east.

[5] The modern name of Andes, the birthplace of Virgil, and therefore more famous than Mautua itself.

[6] With which I had laden him.

[7] Luke, i. 36.

[8] Examples of zeal.

[9] Unknown, save for this mention of him.

[10] Alberto della Scala, lord of Verona; he died in 1301. He had forced upon the monastery for its abbot his deformed and depraved illegitimate son.

And he who was at every need my succor said: "Turn thee this way; see two of them coming, giving a bite to sloth." In rear of all they were saying: "The people for whom the sea was opened were dead before their heirs beheld the Jordan;[1] and those who endured not the toil even to the end with the son of Anchises,[2]

offered themselves to life without glory."

[1] Numbers, xiv. 28.

[2] But left him, to remain with Acestes in Sicily--Aeneid, v.

751.