The Portable Dante (41 page)

Thus, praying for their welfare and for ours, those souls moved slowly bent beneath their weights— the slowness that oppresses us in dreams—

unequally tormented by their loads, making their tired way on the First Round, purging away the filth of worldliness.

If they, up there, pray always for our good, think of what we down here can do for them, when praying hearts are rooted in good will!

We ought, indeed, to help them wash away the stains they bring from earth, that they may rise, weightless and pure, into the wheeling stars.

“Ah, so may justice joined with pity free you from your load, that you may spread your wings and fly up to the goal of your desire,

show us how we may find the shortest way to reach the stairs; if there are many paths, direct us to the one least steep to climb:

this man who comes here with me bears a weight; he is invested still with Adam’s flesh, and so, against his will, is slow to climb. ”

Some words then came in answer to the ones that had been spoken by my leader, but it was not clear to me from whom they came;

someone, however, said: “Follow this bank along the right with us, and you will find the road a living man can surely climb.

If I were not prevented by this stone that curbs the movement of my haughty neck, and makes me keep my face bent to the ground,

I would look up to see if I might know this unnamed living man, and hope to move him to compassion for my burdened back.

I was Italian, born of a great Tuscan: Guglielmo Aldobrandesco was my sire. Perhaps you never heard the name before.

My ancient lineage, the gallant deeds of my forebears had made me arrogant: forgetful of our common Mother Earth,

I held all men in such superb disdain, I died for it, as all Siena knows and every child in Compagnatico.

I am Omberto. And the sin of Pride has ruined not only me but all my house, dragging them with it to calamity.

This weight which I refused while I still lived, I now am forced to bear among the dead, until the day that God is satisfied. ”

I had my head bent low, to hear his words, and someone—not the one who spoke just now— twisted around beneath his punishment,

and saw my face, and knew me, and called out, straining to keep his eyes on me, as I moved with those souls, keeping my body bent.

“Oh!” I said, “
you
must be that Oderisi, honor of Gubbio, honor of the art which men in Paris call ‘Illuminating. ’ “

“The pages Franco Bolognese paints, ” he said, “my brother, smile more radiantly;
his
is the honor now—mine is far less.

Less courteous would I have been to him, I must admit, while I was still alive and my desire was only to excel.

For pride like that the price is paid up here; I would not even be here, were it not that, while I still could sin, I turned to God.

Oh, empty glory of all human power! How soon the green fades from the topmost bough, unless the following season shows no growth!

Once Cimabue thought to hold the field as painter; Giotto now is all the rage, dimming the lustre of the other’s fame.

So, one Guido takes from the other one poetic glory; and, already born, perhaps, is he who’ll drive both from fame’s nest.

Your earthly fame is but a gust of wind that blows about, shifting this way and that, and as it changes quarter, changes name.

Were you to reach the ripe old age of death, instead of dying prattling in your crib, would you have more fame in a thousand years?

What are ten centuries to eternity? Less than the blinking of an eye compared to the turning of the slowest of the spheres.

You see that soul ahead crawling along? All Tuscany resounded with his name; now hardly is it whispered in Siena,

where once he ruled, and managed to destroy the mad attack of Florence—once, so proud but, now, become as venal as a whore.

Your earthly fame is like the green in grass: it comes and goes, and He who makes it grow green from the earth will make it fade again. ”

And I to him: “Your words of truth have humbled my heart; they have reduced my swollen pride. But who is he you spoke about just now?”

“That’s Provenzan Salvani, ” he replied, “and he is here because presumptuously he sought to gain control of all Siena.

So he crawls on, and has crawled since he died, knowing no rest. And such coin is paid here by those who were presumptuous down there. ”

And I: “If it is true that any soul who has delayed repentance till the last must wait down there before he can ascend,

the same amount of time he lived on earth (unless he’s helped by efficacious prayer)— then how has he arrived so fast up here?”

He said: “While at the apex of his glory, in Siena’s marketplace, of his free will, putting aside all shame, he took his stand,

and there, to ransom from his suffering a friend who was immured in Charles’s jail, he brought himself to do what chilled his veins!

(I say no more. My words, I know, are vague, but your own neighbors not too long from now will help you to interpret what I’ve said.)

It was this deed of his that sped him here. ”

Like oxen keeping step beneath their yoke, we moved along, that burdened soul and I, as long as my kind teacher would allow;

but when he said: “Now leave him and move on, for each one here must drive his boat ahead with sail and oar, and all the might he has, ”

I stood up straight to walk the way man should, but, though my body was erect, my thoughts were bowed and shrunken to humility.

Now I was moving, happily following the footsteps of my master, both of us showing how light of foot we had become,

when, “Now look down, ” he said. “You will be pleased, and it will make your journey easier, to see this bed of stone beneath your feet. ”

As tombs set in a church floor often bear carved indications of the dead man’s life, in preservation of his memory

(pierced by such recollection of the dead, a man is very often brought to tears—though only those with piety are moved):

just so, I saw—but far more true to life, being divinely wrought—stone carvings there covering the path that juts out from the mount.

I saw, on one side, him who was supposed to be the noblest creature of creation, plunge swift as lightning from the height of Heaven.

I saw Briareus on the other side, pierced through by the celestial thunderbolt, heavy upon the ground, frozen in death.

I saw Thymbraeus, saw Pallas and Mars still armed, close to their father, looking down at severed, scattered members of the giants.

I saw the mighty Nimrod by his tower, standing there stunned and gazing at the men who shared at Shinar his bold fantasy.

O Niobe, I saw your grieving eyes: they wept from your carved image on the road, between your seven and seven children slain.

O Saul, transfixed by your own sword, how dead you seemed to lie on Mount Gilboa’s plain—which since that time has known no rain or dew.

O mad Arachne, I could see you there, half-turned to spider, sad above the shreds of your own work of art that sentenced you.

O Rehoboam, the image of you here no longer threatens: in a chariot, it flees fear-stricken, though no man pursues.

Depicted, too, in that hard pavement stone was Alcmeon, who made his mother pay so dearly for the accursèd ornament.

Depicted were Sennacherib’s own sons assaulting him at prayer within the temple, and their departure, as he lay there dead.

Depicted was Tomyris with the ruin and slaughter that she wrought, her words to Cyrus: “Blood you have thirsted for—now, drink your own!”

Depicted was the rout of the Assyrians who fled at Holofernes’ death—it showed the remnants of his mutilated corpse.

I saw Troy gaping from its ashes there: O Ilium, how you were fallen low, depicted on the sculptured road of stone.

What master artist with his brush or pen could reproduce these shapes and shadings here? Such art must overwhelm the subtlest mind!

The dead seemed dead, the living seemed alive; no witness to the scene itself saw better than I who trod upon it, head bent low.

Be proud, then! Onward, haughty heads held high, you sons of Eve! Yes, never bow your head to see how evil is the road you tread!

We had, by now, gone farther round the mount, and much more of the sun’s course had been traced, than I, preoccupied, could have conceived—

when he who always kept a watchful eye as he moved on said: “Raise your head up now, you have spent time enough lost in your thoughts.