The Portable Dante (55 page)

Sometimes, as day approaches, I have seen all of the eastern sky a glow of rose, the rest of heaven beautifully clear,

the sun’s face rising in a misty veil of tempering vapors that allow the eye to look straight at it for a longer time:

even so, within a nebula of flowers that flowed upward from angels’ hands and then poured down, covering all the chariot,

appeared a lady—over her white veil an olive crown and, under her green cloak, her gown, the color of eternal flame.

And instantly—though many years had passed since last I stood trembling before her eyes, captured by adoration, stunned by awe—

my soul, that could not see her perfectly, still felt, succumbing to her mystery and power, the strength of its enduring love.

No sooner were my eyes struck by the force of the high, piercing virtue I had known before I quit my boyhood years, than I

turned to the left—with all the confidence that makes a child run to its mother’s arms, when he is frightened or needs comforting—

to say to Virgil: “Not one drop of blood is left inside my veins that does not throb: I recognize signs of the ancient flame. ”

But Virgil was not there. We found ourselves without Virgil, sweet father, Virgil to whom for my salvation I gave up my soul.

All the delights around me, which were lost by our first mother, could not keep my cheeks, once washed with dew, from being stained with tears.

“Dante, though Virgil leaves you, do not weep, not yet, that is, for you shall have to weep from yet another wound. Do not weep yet. ”

Just as an admiral, from bow or stern, watches his men at work on other ships, encouraging their earnest labors—so,

rising above the chariot’s left rail (when I turned round, hearing my name called out, which of necessity I here record),

I saw the lady who had first appeared beneath the angelic festival of flowers gazing upon me from beyond the stream.

Although the veil that flowed down from her head, fixed by the crown made of Minerva’s leaves, still kept me from a perfect view of her,

I sensed the regal sternness of her face, as she continued in the tone of one who saves the sharpest words until the end:

“Yes, look at me! Yes, I am Beatrice! So, you at last have deigned to climb the mount? You learned at last that here lies human bliss?”

I lowered my head and looked down at the stream, but, filled with shame at my reflection there, I quickly fixed my eyes upon the grass.

I was the guilty child facing his mother, abject before her harshness: harsh, indeed, is unripe pity not yet merciful.

As she stopped speaking, all the angels rushed into the psalm
In te, Domine, speravi,
but did not sing beyond
pedes meos.

As snow upon the spine of Italy, frozen among the living rafters there, blown and packed hard by wintry northeast winds,

will then dissolve, dripping into itself, when, from the land that knows no noonday shade, there comes a wind like flame melting down wax;

so tears and sighs were frozen hard in me, until I heard the song of those attuned forever to the music of the spheres;

but when I sensed in their sweet notes the pity they felt for me (it was as if they said: “Lady, why do you shame him so?”), the bonds

of ice packed tight around my heart dissolved, becoming breath and water: from my breast, through mouth and eyes, anguish came pouring forth.

Still on the same side of the chariot she stood immobile; then she turned her words to that compassionate array of beings:

“With your eyes fixed on the eternal day, darkness of night or sleep cannot conceal from you a single act performed on earth;

and though I speak to you, my purpose is to make the one who weeps on that far bank perceive the truth and match his guilt with grief.

Not only through the working of the spheres, which brings each seed to its appropriate end according as the stars keep company,

but also through the bounty of God’s grace, raining from vapors born so high above they cannot be discerned by human sight,

was this man so endowed, potentially, in early youth—had he allowed his gifts to bloom, he would have reaped abundantly.

But the more vigorous and rich the soil, the wilder and the weedier it grows when left untilled, its bad seeds flourishing.

There was a time my countenance sufficed, as I let him look into my young eyes for guidance on the straight path to his goal;

but when I passed into my second age and changed my life for Life, that man you see strayed after others and abandoned me;

when I had risen from the flesh to spirit, become more beautiful, more virtuous, he found less pleasure in me, loved me less,

and wandered from the path that leads to truth, pursuing simulacra of the good, which promise more than they can ever give.

I prayed that inspiration come to him through dreams and other means: in vain I tried to call him back, so little did he care.

To such depths did he sink that, finally, there was no other way to save his soul except to have him see the Damned in Hell.

That this might be, I visited the Dead, and offered my petition and my tears to him who until now has been his guide.

The highest laws of God would be annulled if he crossed Lethe, drinking its sweet flow, without having to pay at least some scot

of penitence poured forth in guilty tears. ”

“You, standing there, beyond the sacred stream, ” she cried, not pausing in her eloquence and turning now the sword point of her words

toward me, who had already felt its blade, “speak now, is this not true? Speak! You must seal with your confession this grave charge I make!”

I stood before her paralyzed, confused; I moved my lips, my throat striving to speak, but not a single breath of speech escaped.

She hardly paused: “What are you thinking of? Answer me, now! Your bitter memories have not as yet been purged within this stream. ”

My fear and deep chagrin, between them, forced out of my mouth a miserable “yes”— only by ears with eyes could it be heard.

A crossbow, drawn with too much tension, snaps, bowstring and bow together, and the shaft will strike the target with diminished force;

so I was shattered by the intensity of my emotions: tears and sighs burst forth, as I released my voice about to fail.

She: “In your journey of desire for me, leading you toward that Good beyond which naught exists to which a man’s heart may aspire,

what pitfalls did you find, what chains stretched out across your path, that you felt you were forced to abandon every hope of going on?

And what appealed to you, what did you find so promising in all those other things that made you feel obliged to spend your time

in courting them?” I heaved a bitter sigh, and barely found the voice to answer her; my lips, with difficulty, shaped the words.

Weeping, I said: “Those things with their false joys, offered me by the world, led me astray when I no longer saw your countenance. ”

And she: “Had you kept silent or denied what you have just confessed, your guilt would still be clear to the great Judge who knows all things.

But when the condemnation of his sin bursts from the sinner’s lips, here in our Court, the grindstone is turned back against the blade.

Still, so that you may truly feel the shame of all your sins—so that, another time, you will be stronger when the Sirens sing—

master your feelings, listen to my words, and you shall learn just how my buried flesh was meant to guide you in another way.

You never saw in Nature or in Art a beauty like the beauty of my form, which clothed me once and now is turned to dust;

and if that perfect beauty disappeared when I departed from the world, how could another mortal object lure your love?

When you first felt deception’s arrow sting, you should have rushed to rise and follow me, as soon as I lost my deceptive flesh.

No pretty girl or any other brief attraction should have weighed down your wings, and left you waiting for another blow.

The fledgling waits a second time, a third, but not the full-fledged bird: before his eyes in vain the net is spread, the arrow shot. ”

As children scolded into silence stand ashamed, with head bowed staring at the ground, acknowledging their fault and penitent—

so I stood there. Then she: “If listening can cause you so much grief, now raise your beard and look at me and suffer greater grief. ”