uttered these words, it was so like his ways of old. Belacqua pretended,
even in another world, that it was of no use to make haste, since the
angel had prohibited his going higher up the mountain. He and his
companions had to walk round the foot of it as many years as they had
delayed repenting; unless, as in the case of Manfredi, their time was
shortened by the prayers of good people.
A little further on, the pilgrims encountered the spirits of such
Delayers of Penitence as, having died violent deaths, repented at the
last moment. One of them, Buonconte da Montefeltro, who died in battle,
and whose body could not be found, described how the devil, having been
hindered from seizing him by the shedding of a single tear, had raised
in his fury a tremendous tempest, which sent the body down the river
Arno, and buried it in the mud.[9]
Another spirit, a female, said to Dante, "Ah! when thou returnest to
earth, and shalt have rested from thy long journey, remember me,--Pia.
Sienna gave me life; the Marshes took it from me. This he knows, who put
on my finger the wedding-ring."[10]
The majority of this party were so importunate with the Florentine
to procure them the prayers of their friends, that he had as much
difficulty to get away, as a winner at dice has to free himself from the
mercenary congratulations of the by-standers. On resuming their way,
Dante quoted to Virgil a passage in the Æneid, decrying the utility of
prayer, and begged him to explain how it was to be reconciled with what
they had just heard. Virgil advised him to wait for the explanation till
he saw Beatrice, whom, he now said, he should meet at the top of the
mountain. Dante, at this information, expressed a desire to hasten their
progress; and Virgil, seeing a spirit looking towards them as they
advanced, requested him to acquaint them with the shortest road.
The spirit, maintaining a lofty and reserved aspect, was as silent as if
he had not heard the request; intimating by his manner that they might
as well proceed without repeating it, and eyeing them like a lion on the
watch. Virgil, however, went up to him, and gently urged it; but the
only reply was a question as to who they were and of what country. The
Latin poet beginning to answer him, had scarcely mentioned the word
"Mantua," when the stranger went as eagerly up to his interrogator as
the latter had done to him, and said, "Mantua! My own country! My name
is Sordello." And the compatriots embraced.
O degenerate Italy! exclaims Dante; land without affections, without
principle, without faith in any one good thing! here was a man who could
not hear the sweet sound of a fellow-citizen's voice without feeling his
heart gush towards him, and there are no people now in any one of thy
towns that do not hate and torment one another.
Sordello, in another tone, now exclaimed, "But who are ye?"
Virgil disclosed himself, and Sordello fell at his feet.[11]
Sordello now undertook to accompany the great Roman poet and his friend
to a certain distance on their ascent towards the penal quarters of the
mountain; but as evening was drawing nigh, and the ascent could not
be made properly in the dark, he proposed that they should await the
dawning of the next day in a recess that overlooked a flowery hollow.
The hollow was a lovely spot of ground, enamelled with flowers that
surpassed the exquisitest dyes, and green with a grass brighter than
emeralds newly broken.[12] There rose from it also a fragrance of a
thousand different kinds of sweetness, all mingled into one that was new
and indescribable; and with the fragrance there ascended the chant of
the prayer beginning "Hail, Queen of Heaven,"[13] which was sung by a
multitude of souls that appeared sitting on the flowery sward.
Virgil pointed them out. They were penitent delayers of penitence, of
sovereign rank. Among them, however, were spirits who sat mute; one
of whom was the Emperor Rodolph, who ought to have attended better to
Italy, the garden of the empire; and another, Ottocar, king of Bohemia,
his enemy, who now comforted him; and another, with a small nose,[14]
Philip the Third of France, who died a fugitive, shedding the leaves of
the lily; he sat beating his breast; and with him was Henry the Third of
Navarre, sighing with his cheek on his hand. One was the father, and one
the father-in-law of Philip the Handsome, the bane of France; and it was
on account of his unworthiness they grieved.
But among the singers Virgil pointed out the strong-limbed King of
Arragon, Pedro; and Charles, king of Naples, with his masculine nose
(these two were singing together); and Henry the Third of England, the
king of the simple life, sitting by himself;[15] and below these, but
with his eyes in heaven, Guglielmo marquis of Montferrat.
It was now the hour when men at sea think longingly of home, and feel
their hearts melt within them to remember the day on which they bade
adieu to beloved friends; and now, too, was the hour when the pilgrim,
new to his journey, is thrilled with the like tenderness, when he hears
the vesper-bell in the distance, which seems to mourn for the expiring
day.[16] At this hour of the coming darkness, Dante beheld one of the
spirits in the flowery hollow arise, and after giving a signal to the
others to do as he did, stretch forth both hands, palm to palm, towards
the East, and with softest emotion commence the hymn beginning,
"Thee before the closing light."[17]
Upon which all the rest devoutly and softly followed him, keeping their
eyes fixed on the heavens. At the end of it they remained, with pale
countenances, in an attitude of humble expectation; and Dante saw the
angels issue from the quarter to which they looked, and descend towards
them with flaming swords in their hands, broken short of the point.
Their wings were as green as the leaves in spring; and they wore
garments equally green, which the fanning of the wings kept in a state
of streaming fluctuation behind them as they came. One of them took his
stand on a part of the hill just over where the pilgrims stood, and the
other on a hill opposite, so that the party in the valley were between
them. Dante could discern their heads of hair, notwithstanding its
brightness; but their faces were so dazzling as to be undistinguishable.
"They come from Mary's bosom," whispered Sordello, "to protect the
valley from the designs of our enemy yonder,--the Serpent."
Dante looked in trepidation towards the only undefended side of the
valley, and beheld the Serpent of Eve coming softly among the grass and
flowers, occasionally turning its head, and licking its polished back.
Before he could take off his eyes from the evil thing, the two angels
had come down like falcons, and at the whirring of their pinions the
serpent fled. The angels returned as swiftly to their stations.
Aurora was now looking palely over the eastern cliff on the other side
of the globe, and the stars of midnight shining over the heads of Dante
and his friends, when they seated themselves for rest on the mountain's
side. The Florentine, being still in the flesh, lay down for weariness,
and was overcome with sleep. In his sleep he dreamt that a golden eagle
flashed down like lightning upon him, and bore him up to the region
of fire, where the heat was so intense that it woke him, staring and
looking round about with a pale face. His dream was a shadowing of
the truth. He had actually come to another place,--to the entrance of
Purgatory itself. Sordello had been left behind, Virgil alone remained,
looking him cheerfully in the face. Saint Lucy had come from heaven,
and shortened the fatigue of his journey by carrying him upwards as he
slept, the heathen poet following them. On arriving where they stood,
the fair saint intimated the entrance of Purgatory to Virgil by a glance
thither of her beautiful eyes, and then vanished as Dante woke.[18]
The portal by which Purgatory was entered was embedded in a cliff. It
had three steps, each of a different colour; and on the highest of these
there sat, mute and watching, an angel in ash-coloured garments, holding
a naked sword, which glanced with such intolerable brightness on Dante,
whenever he attempted to look, that he gave up the endeavour. The angel
demanded who they were, and receiving the right answer, gently bade them
advance.
Dante now saw, that the lowest step was of marble, so white and clear
that he beheld his face in it. The colour of the next was a deadly
black, and it was all rough, scorched, and full of cracks. The third was
of flaming porphyry, red as a man's blood when it leaps forth under
the lancet.[19] The angel, whose feet were on the porphyry, sat on a
threshold which appeared to be rock-diamond. Dante, ascending the steps,
with the encouragement of Virgil, fell at the angel's feet, and, after
thrice beating himself on the breast, humbly asked admittance. The
angel, with the point of his sword, inscribed the first letter of the
word _peccatum_ (sin) seven times on the petitioner's forehead; then,
bidding him pray with tears for their erasement, and be cautious how he
looked back, opened the portal with a silver and a golden key.[20]
The hinges roared, as they turned, like thunder; and the pilgrims, on
entering, thought they heard, mingling with the sound, a chorus of
voices singing, "We praise thee, O God!"[21] It was like the chant that
mingles with a cathedral organ, when the words that the choristers utter
are at one moment to be distinguished, and at another fade away.
The companions continued ascending till they reached a plain. It
stretched as far as the eye could see, and was as lonely as roads across
deserts.
This was the first flat, or table-land, of the ascending gradations of
Purgatory, and the place of trial for the souls of the Proud. It was
bordered with a mound, or natural wall, of white marble, sculptured all
over with stories of humility. Dante beheld among them the Annunciation,
represented with so much life, that the sweet action of the angel seemed
to be uttering the very word, "Hail!" and the submissive spirit of the
Virgin to be no less impressed, like very wax, in her demeanour. The
next story was that of David dancing and harping before the ark,--an
action in which he seemed both less and greater than a king. Michal
was looking out upon him from a window, like a lady full of scorn and
sorrow. Next to the story of David was that of the Emperor Trajan, when
he did a thing so glorious, as moved St. Gregory to gain the greatest of
all his conquests--the delivering of the emperor's soul from hell.
A widow, in tears and mourning, was laying hold of his bridle as he rode
amidst his court with a noise of horses and horsemen, while the Roman
eagles floated in gold over his head. The miserable creature spoke out
loudly among them all, crying for vengeance on the murderers of her
sons. The emperor seemed to say, "Wait till I return."
But she, in the hastiness of her misery, said, "Suppose thou returnest
not?"
"Then my successor will attend to thee," replied the emperor.
"And what hast thou to do with the duties of another man," cried she,
"if thou attendest not to thine own?"
"Now, be of good comfort," concluded Trajan, "for verily my duty shall
be done before I go; justice wills it, and pity arrests me."
Dante was proceeding to delight himself further with these sculptures,
when Virgil whispered hint to look round and see what was coming. He did
so, and beheld strange figures advancing, the nature of which he could
not make out at first, for they seemed neither human, nor aught else
which he could call to mind. They were souls of the proud, bent double
under enormous burdens.
"O proud, miserable, woe-begone Christians!" exclaims the poet; "ye who,
in the shortness of your sight, see no reason for advancing in the
right path! Know ye not that we are worms, born to compose the angelic
butterfly, provided we throw off the husks that impede our flight?"[22]
The souls came slowly on, each bending down in proportion to his burden.
They looked like the crouching figures in architecture that are used
to support roofs or balconies, and that excite piteous fancies in the
beholders. The one that appeared to have the most patience, yet seemed
as if he said, "I can endure no further."
The sufferers, notwithstanding their anguish, raised their voices in
a paraphrase on the Lord's Prayer, which they concluded with humbly
stating, that they repeated the clause against temptation, not for
themselves, but for those who were yet living.
Virgil, wishing them a speedy deliverance, requested them to spew the
best way of going up to the next circle. Who it was that answered him
could not be discerned, on account of their all being so bent down; but
a voice gave them the required direction; the speaker adding, that he
wished he could raise his eyes, so as to see the living creature that
stood near him. He said that his name was Omberto--that he came of
the great Tuscan race of Aldobrandesco--and that his countrymen, the
Siennese, murdered him on account of his arrogance.
Dante had bent down his own head to listen, and in so doing he was
recognised by one of the sufferers, who, eyeing him as well as he could,
addressed him by name. The poet replied by exclaiming, "Art thou not
Oderisi, the glory of Agubbio, the master of the art of illumination?"
"Ah!" said Oderisi, "Franco of Bologna has all the glory now. His
colours make the pages of books laugh with beauty, compared with what
mine do.[23] I could not have owned it while on earth, for the sin which
has brought me hither; but so it is; and so will it ever be, let a man's
fame be never so green and flourishing, unless he can secure a dull age
to come after him. Cimabue, in painting, lately kept the field against
all comers, and now the cry is 'Giotto.' Thus, in song, a new Guido has
deprived the first of his glory, and he perhaps is born who shall drive
both out of the nest.[24] Fame is but a wind that changes about from all
quarters. What does glory amount to at best, that a man should prefer
living and growing old for it, to dying in the days of his nurse and
his pap-boat, even if it should last him a thousand years? A thousand
years!--the twinkling of an eye. Behold this man, who weeps before me;
his name resounded once over all our Tuscany, and now it is scarcely
whispered in his native place. He was lord there at the time that your
once proud but now loathsome Florence had such a lesson given to its
frenzy at the battle of Arbia."
"And what is his name?" inquired Dante.
"Salvani," returned the limner. "He is here, because he had the
presumption to think that he could hold Sienna in the hollow of his
hand. Fifty years has he paced in this manner. Such is the punishment
for audacity."
"But why is he here at all," said Dante, "and not in the outer region,
among the delayers of repentance?"
"Because," exclaimed the other, "in the height of his ascendancy he did
not disdain to stand in the public place in Sienna, and, trembling in
every vein, beg money from the people to ransom a friend from captivity.
Do I appear to thee to speak with mysterious significance? Thy
countrymen shall too soon help thee to understand me."[25]
Virgil now called Dante away from Oderisi, and bade him notice the
ground on which they were treading. It was pavement, wrought all over
with figures, like sculptured tombstones. There was Lucifer among them,
struck flaming down from heaven; and Briareus, pinned to the earth with
the thunderbolt, and, with the other giants, amazing the gods with his
hugeness; and Nimrod, standing confounded at the foot of Babel; and
Niobe, with her despairing eyes, turned into stone amidst her children;
and Saul, dead on his own sword in Gilboa; and Arachne, now half spider,
at fault on her own broken web; and Rehoboam, for all his insolence,
flying in terror in his chariot; and Alcmæon, who made his mother pay
with her life for the ornament she received to betray his father; and
Sennacherib, left dead by his son in the temple; and the head of Cyrus,
thrown by the motherless woman into the goblet of blood, that it might
swill what it had thirsted for; and Holofernes, beheaded; and his
Assyrians flying at his death; and Troy, all become cinders and hollow
places. Oh! what a fall from pride was there! Now, maintain the
loftiness of your looks, ye sons of Eve, and walk with proud steps,
bending not your eyes on the dust ye were, lest ye perceive the evil of
your ways.[26]
"Behold," said Virgil, "there is an angel coming."
The angel came on, clad in white, with a face that sent trembling beams
before it, like the morning star. He skewed the pilgrims the way up to
the second circle; and then, beating his wings against the forehead of
Dante, on which the seven initials of sin were written, told him he
should go safely, and disappeared.
On reaching the new circle, Dante, instead of the fierce wailings that
used to meet him at every turn in hell, heard voices singing, "Blessed
are the poor in spirit."[27] As he went, he perceived that he walked
lighter, and was told by Virgil that the angel had freed him from one of
the letters on his forehead. He put his hand up to make sure, as a man
does in the street when people take notice of something on his head of
which he is not aware; and Virgil smiled.
In this new circle the sin of Envy was expiated. After the pilgrims had
proceeded a mile, they heard the voices of invisible spirits passing
them, uttering sentiments of love and charity; for it was charity itself
that had to punish envy.
The souls of the envious, clad in sackcloth, sat leaning for support and
humiliation, partly against the rocky wall of the circle, and partly on
one another's shoulders, after the manner of beggars that ask alms near
places of worship. Their eyes were sewn up, like those of hawks in
training, but not so as to hinder them from shedding tears, which they
did in abundance; and they cried, "Mary, pray for us!--Michael, Peter,
and all the saints, pray for us!"
Dante spoke to them; and one, a female, lifted up her chin as a blind
person does when expressing consciousness of notice, and said she was
Sapia of Sienna, who used to be pleased at people's misfortunes, and had
rejoiced when her countrymen lost the battle of Colle. "_Sapia_ was
my name," she said, "but _sapient_ I was not[28], for I prayed God to
defeat my countrymen; and when he had done so (as he had willed to do),
I raised my bold face to heaven, and cried out to him, 'Now do thy
worst, for I fear thee not!' I was like the bird in the fable, who
thought the fine day was to last for ever. What I should have done in my
latter days to make up for the imperfect amends of my repentance, I know
not, if the holy Piero Pettignano had not assisted me with his prayers.
But who art thou that goest with open eyes, and breathest in thy talk?"
"Mine eyes," answered Dante, "may yet have to endure the blindness in
this place, though for no long period. Far more do I fear the sufferings
in the one that I have just left. I seem to feel the weight already upon
me."[29]
The Florentine then informed Sapia how he came thither, which, she said,
was a great sign that God loved him; and she begged his prayers. The
conversation excited the curiosity of two spirits who overheard it; and
one of them, Guido del Duca, a noble Romagnese, asked the poet of
what country he was. Dante, without mentioning the name of the river,
intimated that he came from the banks of the Arno; upon which the other
spirit, Rinier da Calboli, asked his friend why the stranger suppressed
the name, as though it was something horrible. Guido said he well might;
for the river, throughout its course, beheld none but bad men and
persecutors of virtue. First, he said, it made its petty way by the
sties of those brutal hogs, the people of Casentino, and then arrived at
the dignity of watering the kennels of the curs of Arezzo, who excelled
more in barking than in biting; then, growing unluckier as it grew
larger, like the cursed and miserable ditch that it was, it found in
Florence the dogs become wolves; and finally, ere it went into the sea,
it passed the den of those foxes, the Pisans, who were full of such
cunning that they held traps in contempt.
"It will be well," continued Guido, "for this man to remember what he
hears;" and then, after prophesying evil to Florence, and confessing to
Dante his sin of envy, which used to make him pale when any one looked
happy, he added, "This is Rinieri, the glory of that house of Calboli
which now inherits not a spark of it. Not a spark of it, did I say, in
the house of Calboli? Where is there a spark in all Romagna? Where is
the good Lizio?--where Manardi, Traversaro, Carpigna? The Romagnese have
all become bastards. A mechanic founds a house in Bologna! a Bernardin
di Fosco finds his dog-grass become a tree in Faenza! Wonder not,
Tuscan, to see me weep, when I think of the noble spirits that we have
lived with--of the Guidos of Prata, and the Ugolins of Azzo--of Federigo
Tignoso and his band--of the Traversaros and Anastagios, families now
ruined--and all the ladies and the cavaliers, the alternate employments
and delights which wrapped us in a round of love and courtesy, where now
there is nothing but ill-will! O castle of Brettinoro! why dost thou
not fall? Well has the lord of Bagnacavallo done, who will have no more
children. Who would propagate a race of Counties from such blood as the
Castrocaros and the Conios? Is not the son of Pagani called the Demon?
and would it not be better that such a son were swept out of the family?
Nay, let him live to chew to what a pitch of villany it has arrived.
Ubaldini alone is blest, for his name is good, and he is too old to
leave a child after him. Go, Tuscan--go; for I would be left to my
tears."
Dante and Virgil turned to move onward, and had scarcely done so, when a
tremendous voice met them, splitting the air like peals of thunder, and
crying out, "Whoever finds me will slay me!" then dashed apart, like the
thunder-bolt when it falls. It was Cain. The air had scarcely recovered
its silence, when a second crash ensued from a different quarter near
them, like thunder when the claps break swiftly into one another. "I am
Aglauros," it said, "that was turned into stone." Dante drew closer to
his guide, and there ensued a dead silence.[30]
The sun was now in the west, and the pilgrims were journeying towards
it, when Dante suddenly felt such a weight of splendour on his eyes, as
forced him to screen them with both his hands. It was an angel coming to
show them the ascent to the next circle, a way that was less steep than
the last. While mounting, they heard the angel's voice singing behind
them, "Blessed are the merciful; for they shall obtain mercy!" and on
his leaving them to proceed by themselves, the second letter on Dante's
forehead was found to have been effaced by the splendour.
The poet looked round in wonder on the new circle, where the sin
of Anger was expiated, and beheld, as in a dream, three successive
spectacles illustrative of the virtue of patience. The first was that of
a crowded temple, on the threshold of which a female said to her son, in
the sweet manner of a mother, "Son, why hast thou thus dealt with us?
Behold, thy father and I have sought thee sorrowing:"[31]--and here she
became silent, and the vision ended. The next was the lord of Athens,
Pisistratus, calmly reproving his wife for wishing him to put to death
her daughter's lover, who, in a transport, had embraced her in public.
"If we are to be thus severe," said Pisistratus, "with those that love
us, what is to be done with such as hate?" The last spectacle was that
of a furious multitude shouting and stoning to death a youth, who, as he
fell to the ground, still kept his face towards heaven, making his eyes
the gates through which his soul reached it, and imploring forgiveness
for his murderers.[32]