The Portable Dante (39 page)

My eyes could see with ease their golden hair, but could not bear the radiance of their faces: light that makes visible can also blind.

“From Mary’s bosom both of them descend to guard us from the serpent in the vale, ” Sordello said. “He’ll be here soon, you’ll see. ”

Not knowing from what point he would appear, I turned around and, frozen by my fear, I pressed close to those shoulders I could trust.

Sordello spoke again: “Now it is time for us to join the noble shades below and speak with them—I know they will be pleased. ”

I only had to take three steps, I think, before I reached the bottom. I saw a shade peering at me, trying to know my face.

By now, the air had started turning dark, but not so dark that we could not see clear (so close we were) what was concealed before.

He made his way toward me, and I toward him— Noble Judge Nino, how I did rejoice to see that you were not among the Damned!

No loving words of welcome did we spare; then he: “How long since you have come across the boundless waters to the mountain’s base?”

“Oh, ” I replied, “I left the realm of grief this morning; I am still in my first life, but hope to gain the other by this road. ”

When Nino and Sordello heard my words, both of them backed away from me, amazed, unable to believe what they had heard.

One turned to Virgil, and the other one turned to a soul nearby. “Corrado, rise!” he cried: “Come here! See what God’s grace has willed!”

He turned to me: “I beg you in the name of that grace shown to you by Him who hides His primal cause too deep for man to delve—

when you have crossed the enormous gulf once more, tell my Giovanna she should plead for me, for prayers from guiltless hearts are listened to.

I think her mother has stopped loving me, for she has put aside those bands of white which she, poor soul, will soon be longing for.

From her it is not difficult to learn how long love’s flame burns in a woman’s heart, if sight and touch do not rekindle it.

The snake that leads the Milanese to war will not provide an emblem for her tomb as splendid as Gallura’s cock would be. ”

These were his words, and his whole countenance displayed the signs of righteous zeal, the kind which flares up when it should within the heart.

My eyes kept looking at the sky just where the stars move slowest—as, within a wheel, the axle moves more slowly than the rest.

My guide said: “Son, what are you staring at?” I answered him: “At those three brilliant torches lighting up all the polar region here. ”

And he to me: “Those four bright stars you saw this morning, now are underneath the mount, and these have risen here to take their place. ”

But then Sordello clutched his arm and said: “Behold our adversary over there!”— he pointed to the place where we should look.

Along the little valley’s open side a serpent moved—the very one, perhaps, that offered Eve the bitter fruit to eat.

Through grass and flowers slid the vicious streak, stopping from time to time to turn its head and lick its back to make its body sleek.

I did not see, so I cannot describe, how the two holy falcons took to flight, but I saw clearly both of them fly down.

Hearing those green wings cutting through the air, the serpent fled, the angels wheeled around, flying in perfect time back to their posts.

The shade who had drawn close to Nino’s side, when called by him, did not at any time during the skirmish take his eyes from me.

“So may the lamp that lights your upward path find in your will enough sustaining fuel to take you to the enamelled mountaintop, ”

he then began, “if you have recent news of Val di Magra or parts thereabout, tell me, for in that land I once was great.

Corrado Malaspina was my name— but not the elder, though I sprang from him; and here I cleanse the love I bore my own. ”

“Oh, ” I replied, “I’ve never visited the lands you ruled; the whole of Europe, though, has heard about your glorious domain.

The fame that honors your great family proclaims resoundingly its lords and lands, even to those who never travelled there.

And, as I hope to reach the top, I swear that your great lineage maintains intact the glorious honor of the purse and sword.

Habit and virtue have so shaped your race that while the Wicked Head perverts the world, they shun the path of evil, they alone. ”

He said: “Know that the sun will not repose a seventh time on the large bed the Ram spreads over and bestrides with all four feet,

before the kind opinion you just gave shall be nailed hard into your brain with nails truer than words you may have heard of us—

unless God’s course of justice be cut short!”

Now, pale upon the eastern balcony, appeared the concubine of old Tithonus, arisen now from her sweet lover’s arms;

her brow was glittering with precious stones set in the shape of that cold-blooded beast that strikes and poisons people with its tail;

and of the hour-steps that Night ascends, already, where we were, two had been climbed, and now the third was folding down its wings,

when I, who carried with me Adam’s weight, conquered by sleep, stretched out upon the grass on which all five of us were sitting then.

At the hour when the swallow, close to dawn, begins to sing her melancholy lays, perhaps remembering her ancient woes,

and when our mind, far straying from the flesh, less tangled in the network of its thoughts, becomes somehow prophetic in its dreams,

dreaming, I seemed to see hovering above, a golden-feathered eagle in the sky, with wings outspread, and ready to swoop down;

I seemed to find myself in that same place where Ganymede was forced to leave his friends, caught up to serve the conclave of the gods.

I wondered: “Could this be the only place the eagle strikes? Perhaps he does not deign to snatch his prey from anywhere but here. ”

Dreaming, I saw him circle for a while, then terrible as lightning, he struck down, swooping me up, up to the sphere of fire.

And there it seemed the bird and I both burned; the heat of that imaginary blaze was so intense it woke me from my sleep.

Just as Achilles woke up in a daze, glancing around himself with startled eyes, not knowing where he was or whence he came,

when he, asleep, was taken by his mother, borne in her arms, from Chiron’s care to Skyros from where the Greeks would lure him finally—

so I was dazed, when sleep had fled my face; I turned the deathly color of a man feeling the freezing grip of fright on him.

Beside me was my Comfort, all alone. Now it was day, the sun two hours high, and what I saw before me was the sea.

“You must not be afraid, ” my leader said, “take heart, for we are well along our way; do not hold back, push on with all your strength,

you have arrived at Purgatory now. You see the rampart that surrounds it all and, where you see the cleft, that is the gate.

Before the break of day, while your soul slept within your body, still at rest below upon the flowers of that painted glen,

a lady came. She said ‘I am Lucia. Come, let me take this man who lies asleep; I wish to speed him on his journey up. ’

Sordello and the other shades remained. She took you in her arms at break of day and brought you here. I followed after her.

Before she set you down, her lovely eyes showed me the open entrance; then she left, and as she went, she took away your sleep. ”

As one who, first perplexed, is reassured, and feels his fear replaced by confidence, once what is true has been revealed to him—

such was the change in me. And when he saw me free of care, my leader made his way up and along the bank with me behind.

Reader, you see how lofty is my theme! You should not be surprised if now I try to match its grandeur with more subtle art.

Close to the top, we reached a point from where I saw a gate (it first appeared to be merely a gap, a break within the wall)

and, leading up to it, there were three steps, each one a different color; and I saw the silent figure of someone on guard.

I slowly raised my eyes: I saw that he was sitting on the highest step, his face too splendid for my eyes—I looked away!

And in his hand he held a naked sword; so dazzling were the rays reflected thence, each time I tried to look I could not see.

He said to us: “Speak up from where you are. What is it that you want? Where is your guide? Beware, you may regret your coming here. ”

“A while ago, a lady sent from Heaven acquainted with such matters, ” said my guide, “told me: ‘Behold the gate. You must go there. ’ “

“May she continue guiding you to good, ” the courteous keeper of the gate replied, “and so, come forward now up to our stairs. ”

We reached the steps. White marble was the first, and polished to the glaze of a looking glass: I saw myself reflected as I was.

The second one was deeper dark than perse, of rough and crumbling, fire-corroded stone, with cracks across its surface—length and breadth.

The third one, lying heavy at the top, appeared to be of flaming porphyry, red as the blood that spurts out from a vein;

upon this step the angel of the Lord rested his feet; he sat upon the sill which seemed to be of adamantine rock.

Up the three steps my master guided me benevolently, saying: “Ask him now, in all humility, to turn the key. ”

Falling devoutly at his holy feet, in mercy’s name I begged to be let in; but, first of all, three times I smote my breast.