Authors: Dante
Purgatorio (39 page)
there, on the sacred chariot, rose up
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ad vocem tanti senis
, one hundred
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ministers and messengers of life eternal.
All were chanting:
‘Benedictus qui venis’
and,
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tossing flowers up into the air and all around them,
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thus, within that cloud of blossoms
rising from angelic hands and fluttering
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back down into the chariot and around it,
olive-crowned above a veil of white
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appeared to me a lady, beneath a green mantle,
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dressed in the color of living flame.
And in my spirit, which for so long a time
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had not been overcome with awe
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that used to make me tremble in her presence—
even though I could not see her with my eyes—
through the hidden force that came from her I felt
As soon as that majestic force,
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which had already pierced me once
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before I had outgrown my childhood, struck my eyes,
I turned to my left with the confidence
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a child has running to his
mamma
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when he is afraid or in distress
to say to Virgil: ‘Not a single drop of blood
remains in me that does not tremble—
But Virgil had departed, leaving us bereft:
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Virgil, sweetest of fathers,
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Virgil, to whom I gave myself for my salvation.
And not all our ancient mother lost
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could save my cheeks, washed in the dew,
‘Dante, because Virgil has departed,
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do not weep, do not weep yet—
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there is another sword to make you weep.’
Just like an admiral who moves from stern to prow
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to see the men that serve the other ships
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and urge them on to better work,
so on the left side of the chariot—
as I turned when I heard her call my name,
I saw the lady, who had just appeared
veiled beneath the angels’ celebration,
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fix her eyes on me from across the stream.
Although the veil, encircled with Minerva’s leaves
and descending from her head,
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did not allow me unrestricted sight,
regally, with scorn still in her bearing,
she continued like one who, even as he speaks,
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holds back his hottest words:
‘Look over here! I am, I truly am Beatrice.
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How did you dare approach the mountain?
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Do you not know that here man lives in joy?’
I lowered my eyes to the clear water.
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But when I saw myself reflected, I drew them back
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toward the grass, such shame weighed on my brow.
As a mother may seem overbearing to her child,
so she seemed to me, for the taste
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of such stern pity is a bitter taste.
Then she fell silent and at once
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the angels sang:
‘In te, Domine, speravi,’
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but did not sing past
‘pedes meos.’
Even as the snow among those living beams
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that grow along the spine of Italy is frozen
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when blown and packed by the Slavonian winds
but then, dissolving, melts into itself
if the land that casts no shadow merely breathes,
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acting like a flame that makes a candle melt,
just so was I with neither tears nor sighs
before they sang who always are in tune
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with notes set down in the eternal spheres,
but, when their lovely harmonies revealed
their sympathy for me, more than if they’d said:
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‘Lady, why do you torment him so?’
the ice that had confined my heart
was turned to breath and water and in anguish
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flowed from my breast through eyes and mouth.
As yet she stood, motionless,
on the same side of the chariot,
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then turned her words to the pitying angels:
‘You keep your watch in the eternal day
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so neither night nor sleep deprives you
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of a single step that time takes in its course.
‘Therefore my response is made with greater care
that he who is weeping over there should listen,
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so that his sin and sorrow be of equal measure.
‘Not only by the working of the wheels above
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that urge each seed to a certain end
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according to the stars that cluster with them,
‘but by grace, abundant and divine,
which rains from clouds so high above
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our sight cannot come near them,
‘this man in his new life potentially was such
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that each good disposition in him
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would have come to marvelous conclusion,
‘but the richer and more vigorous the soil,
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when planted ill and left to go to seed,
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the wilder and more noxious it becomes.
‘For a time I let my countenance sustain him.
Guiding him with my youthful eyes,
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I drew him with me in the right direction.
‘Once I had reached the threshold of my second age,
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when I changed lives, he took himself from me
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and gave himself to others.
‘When I had risen to spirit from my flesh,
as beauty and virtue in me became more rich,
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to him I was less dear and less than pleasing.
‘He set his steps upon an untrue way,
pursuing those false images of good
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that bring no promise to fulfillment—
‘useless the inspiration I sought and won for him,
as both with dreams and other means
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I called him back, so little did he heed them.
‘He sank so low that every instrument
for his salvation now fell short—
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except to make him see souls in perdition.
‘And so I visited the threshold of the dead
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and, weeping, offered up my prayers
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to the one who has conducted him this far.
‘Broken would be the high decree of God
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should Lethe be crossed and its sustenance
be tasted without payment of some fee:
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his penitence that shows itself in tears.’
The Church Triumphant in the Garden: climax
I. Confession
II. Contrition