The Portable Dante (53 page)

He said, somewhat annoyed to see me fixed and stubborn there, “Now, don’t you see, my son: only this wall keeps you from Beatrice. ”

As Pyramus, about to die, heard Thisbe utter her name, he raised his eyes and saw her there, the day mulberries turned blood red—

just so, my stubbornness melted away: hearing the name which blooms eternally within my mind, I turned to my wise guide.

He shook his head and smiled, as at a child won over by an apple, as he said: “Well, then, what are we doing on this side?”

And, entering the flames ahead of me, he asked of Statius, who, for some time now had walked between us two, that he come last.

Once in the fire, I would have gladly jumped into the depths of boiling glass to find relief from that intensity of heat.

My loving father tried to comfort me, talking of Beatrice as we moved: “Already I can see her eyes, it seems!”

From somewhere else there came to us a voice, singing to guide us; listening to this, we emerged at last where the ascent begins.

Venite, benedicti Patris mei,
came pouring from a radiance so bright, I was compelled to turn away my eyes.

Then, the voice said: “The sun is setting now and night is near; do not lose time, make haste before the west has given up its light. ”

The passageway cut straight up through the rock, at such an angle that my body blocked the sun’s last rays that fell upon my back.

We had not climbed up many steps when I and my two guides knew that the sun had set because my shadow had just disappeared.

Before the colors of the vast expanse of the horizon melted into one, and Night was in possession of the sky,

each of us chose a step to make his bed: the nature of the mountain took from us as much the power as the desire to climb.

Like goats first fast and frisky on the mount, before they stop their play to crop the grass, then settling down in ruminating calm,

quiet in the shade, free from the burning sun, watched by the shepherd leaning on his staff, protecting their repose; or yet again,

a herdsman who beds down beneath the sky, watching beside his peaceful flock all night, lest they be scattered by some beast of prey—

so were the three of us there on the stair: I was the goat, and they the shepherds, all shut in by walls of stone, this side and that.

Beyond that height little was visible, but through that little I could see the stars, larger, brighter than they appear to us.

While meditating, staring up at them, sleep overcame me—sleep, which often brings the knowledge of events before the fact.

At just about the hour when Cytherea, who always seems to burn with love’s own flames, first sent her eastern rays down on the mount,

I dreamed I saw a young and lovely girl walking within a meadow picking flowers; and, as she moved along, she sang these words:

“If anyone should want to know my name, I am called Leah. And I spend all my time weaving garlands of flowers with my fair hands,

to please me when I stand before my mirror; my sister Rachel sits all the day long before her own and never moves away.

She loves to contemplate her lovely eyes; I love to use my hands to adorn myself: her joy is in reflection, mine in act. ”

And now, before the splendor of the dawn (more welcomed by the homebound pilgrim now, the closer he awakes to home each day),

night’s shadows disappeared on every side; my sleep fled with them: I rose to my feet, for my great teachers were already up.

“That precious fruit which all men eagerly go searching for on many different boughs will give, today, peace to your hungry soul. ”

These were the words that Virgil spoke to me, and never was a more auspicious gift received, or given, with more joyfulness.

Growing desire, desire to be up there, was rising in me: with every step I took I felt my wings were growing for the flight.

Once the stairs, swiftly climbed, were all behind and we were standing on the topmost step, Virgil addressed me, fixing his eyes on mine:

“You now have seen, my son, the temporal and the eternal fire, you’ve reached the place where my discernment now has reached its end.

I led you here with skill and intellect; from here on, let your pleasure be your guide: the narrow ways, the steep, are far below.

Behold the sun shining upon your brow, behold the tender grass, the flowers, the trees, which, here, the earth produces of itself.

Until those lovely eyes rejoicing come, which, tearful, once urged me to come to you, you may sit here, or wander, as you please.

Expect no longer words or signs from me. Now is your will upright, wholesome and free, and not to heed its pleasure would be wrong:

I crown and miter you lord of yourself!”

Now eager to explore on every side the heavenly forest thick with living green, which made the bright new morning light more soft,

without delay I left the bank behind and slowly made my way across the plain, whose soil gave its own fragrance to the air.

My forehead felt the stirring of sweet air, whose flowing rhythm always stayed the same, and struck no harder than the gentlest breeze;

and, in the constant, moving air, each branch with trembling leaves was bending to one side toward where the holy mount first casts its shade;

they did not curve so sharply toward the ground that little birds among the topmost leaves could not continue practicing their art:

they welcomed in full-throated joyful sound the day’s beginning to their leafy boughs whose soughing sound accompanied their song—

that sound we hear passed on from branch to branch, in the pine forest on the shore of Chiassi when Aeolus sets free Sirocco winds.

By now, although my steps were slow, I found myself so deep within the ancient wood I could not see the place where I came in;

then suddenly, I saw blocking my way a stream whose little waves kept pushing back, leftwards, the grass that grew along its bank.

The clearest of all waters on our earth would seem to have, somehow, a cloudy tinge compared to this flowing transparency—

transparent though it flows dark, very dark beneath an everlasting shade, which will never admit a ray of sun or moon.

I had to stop, but with my eyes I crossed beyond the rivulet to contemplate the many-colored splendors of the boughs,

and there appeared—as sometimes will appear an unexpected sight so marvelous, all other thoughts are driven from the mind—

a solitary lady wandering there, and she was singing as she gathered flowers from the abundance painted on her path.

“Oh, lovely lady, glowing with the warmth and strength of Love’s own rays—if I may trust your look, which should bear witness of the heart—

be kind enough, ” I said to her, “to come a little nearer to the river’s bank, that I may understand the words you sing.

You bring to mind what Proserpine was like, and where she was, that day her mother lost her, and she, in her turn, lost eternal Spring. ”

Just as a lady in the dance will turn, keeping her feet together on the ground, and one before the other hardly moves,

so she, among the red and yellow flowers, turned round toward me, her virgin modesty enjoining her to look with downcast eyes,

and, satisfying my desire, she started moving toward me and, with the melody, there came to me the sweetness of the words.

When she had come to where the tender grass is barely touched by ripples from that stream, she graciously did raise her eyes to mine.

The eyes of Venus surely were not lit so radiantly that day her loving son quite innocently pierced her with his dart.

Smiling, she stood there on the other bank, arranging in her hands the many colors that grew from no seeds planted on that height.

The stream kept us only three feet apart, but Hellespont, where it was crossed by Xerxes (whose fate should be a lesson to the proud),

hurling its waves from Sestos to Abydos, was hated by Leander less than I hated this one: it would not open up! 7.5 “This place is new to each of you, ” she said, “it could be that you find yourself amazed, perplexed to see me smiling in this place

once chosen as the cradle of mankind; but let the
Delectasti me
shed light and clear away the mist that clouds your minds.

And you who are in front and spoke to me, if there is something more you want to know, I came prepared to tell you what you wish. ”

“The flowing water and the woodland sounds seem to be inconsistent, ” I began, “with what I have been told about the mount. ”

She said, “I shall explain the logical necessity of what perplexes you, and thus remove what has obscured your mind.

That Highest Good, Himself pleasing Himself, made Adam good, to do good, then gave this place as earnest of eternal peace.

Because he sinned, he could not stay here long; because he sinned, he changed his childlike mirth, his playful joy, for anguish and for toil.

In order that the storms that form below (caused by the vapors from the earth and sea as they arc drawn upwards to solar heat)

should not disturb the garden’s peacefulness, this mount was made to rise so high toward Heaven that past the gate no storm is possible.

Now, since the air is moving constantly, moving as primal revolution moves (unless its circulation is disturbed),

here on the mountain’s height, completely free in the encircling air, this movement strikes and makes the dense leaves of the forest sing;

and every smitten plant begins to make the pure air pregnant with its special power, which, then, the whirling scatters everywhere;

all lands elsewhere conceive and bring to flower the different plants endowed with different powers, according to the climate and the soil.

If they knew down on earth what you know now, no one would be surprised to see a plant start growing where no seed was sown before.

And know, the holy land you stand on now is rich in every species and brings forth fruit that no man has ever plucked on earth.

The water here does not spring from a source that needs to be restored by changing mists, like streams on earth that lose, then gain, their force:

it issues from a spring of constant flow, immutable, which, by the will of God, regains what it pours forth on either side.

The water here on this side flows with power to erase sin’s memory; and on that side the memory of good deeds is restored;

it is called Lethe here, Eunoe there beyond, and if one does not first drink here, he will not come to know its powers there—

the sweet taste of its waters has no peer. And even though your thirst may now be quenched by what you know already of this place,

I offer you a corollary gift: I think you will not cherish my words less if you learn more than I first promised you.

Perhaps those poets of long ago who sang the Age of Gold, its pristine happiness, were dreaming on Parnassus of this place.

The root of mankind’s tree was guiltless here; here, in an endless Spring, was every fruit, such is the nectar praised by all these poets. ”