Purgatorio: Canto XIX

In the hour when the day’s heat, overcome by Earth or at times by Saturn, can no more warm the cold of the moon;

when the geomancers see their Fortuna Major, rising in the East, before the dawn, by a way which short time remains dark to it,

there came to me in a dream, a stuttering woman, with eyes asquint, and crooked on her feet, with maimed hands, and of sallow hue.

I gazed upon her; and, as the sun comforteth the cold limbs which night weighs down, so my look made ready

her tongue, and then set her full straight in short time, and her pallid face even as love wills did colour.

When she had her tongue thus loosed, she began to sing, so that with difficulty should I have turned my attention from her.

“I am,” she sang, “I am the sweet Siren, who leads mariners astray in mid-sea, so full am I of pleasantness to hear.

I turned Ulysses from his wandering way with my song, and whoso liveth with me rarely departs, so wholly do I satisfy him.”

Her mouth was not yet shut, when a lady appeared holy and alert alongside me, to put her to confusion.

“O Virgil, Virgil, who is this?” angrily she said; and he came with eyes ever fixed on that honest one.

He seized the other, and, rending her clothes, laid her open in front and showed me her belly; that awakened me with the stench which issued therefrom.

I turned my eyes, and the good Virgil said: “At least three calls have I uttered to thee; arise and come, find we the opening by which thou mayst enter.”

Up I lifted me, and all the circles of the holy mount were now filled with the high day, and we journeyed with the new sun at our backs.

Following him, I was bearing my brow like one that hath it burdened with thought, who makes of himself half an arch of a bridge,

when I heard: “Come, here is the pass,” spoken in a tone so gentle and kind as is not heard in this mortal confine.

With outspread wings which swanlike seemed, he who thus spoke to us did turn us upward, between the two walls of the hard stone.

He stirred his pinions then, and fanned us, affirming qui lugent to be blessed, for they shall have their souls rich in consolation.

“What aileth thee, that thou gazest ever to the ground?” my Guide began to say to me; both of us having mounted a little above the angel.

And I: “In such dread I am made to go by a strange vision, which bends me to itself, so that I cannot keep me from thinking thereon.”

“Sawest thou,” he said, “that ancient witch because of whom alone above us now they weep? Sawest thou how man frees him from her?

Let that suffice thee, and spurn the earth with thy heels, turn thine eyes to the lure which the eternal King spinneth round with the mighty spheres.”

Like the falcon, that first gazes at his feet, then turns at the call, and spreads his wings with desire of the repast which draws him there,

such I became; and, far as the rock is cleft to give passage to him who mounts, such I went, up to where the circling is begun.

When I was in the open, on the fifth circle, I saw people about it who wept, lying on the ground all turned downwards.

“Adhaesit pavimento anima mea,” I heard them say with such deep sighs that hardly were the words understood.

“O chosen of God, whose sufferings both justice and hope make less hard, direct us towards the high ascents.”

“If ye come secure from lying prostrate, and desire to find the way most quickly, let your right hands be ever to the outside.”

Thus prayed the poet, and thus a little in front of us was answer made; wherefore I noted what else was concealed in the words,

and turned mine eyes then to my Lord; whereat he gave assent with glad sign to what the look of my desire was craving.

When I could do with me according to my own mind, I drew forward above that creature whose words before made me take note,

saying: “Spirit, in whom weeping matures that without which one cannot turn to God, stay a while for me thy greater care.

Who thou wast, and why ye have your backs turned upward, tell me, and if thou woulds that I obtain aught for thee yonder, whence living I set forth.”

And he to me: “Wherefore heaven turneth our backs to itself shalt thou know; but first, scias quod ego fui successor Petri.

Between Sestri and Chiaveri flows down a fair river, and from its name the title of my race takes origin.

One month, and little more, I learned how the great mantle weighs on him who keeps it from the mire, so that all other burdens seem feathers.

My conversion, ah me! was late; but when I was made Pastor of Rome, so I discovered the life which is false.

I saw that there the heart was not at rest, nor could one mount higher in that life; wherefore love of this was kindled within me.

Up to that moment, I was a soul wretched and parted from God, wholly avaricious; now, as thou seest, here am I punished for it.

What avarice works, here is declared in the purgation of the down-turned souls, and no more bitter penalty hath the mount.

Even as our eye, fixed on earthly things, did not lift itself on high, so here justice hath sunk it to earth.

As avarice quenched our love for every good, wherefore our works were lost, so justice here doth hold us fast,

bound and seised by feet and hands; and so long as it shall be the pleasure of the just Lord, so long shall we lie here motionless and outstretched.”

I had kneeled down, and was about to speak; but as I began, and he perceived my reverence merely by listening,

“What reason,” he said, “thus bent thee down?” And I to him: “Because of your dignity my conscience smote me for standing.”

“Make straight thy legs, uplift thee, brother,” he answered; “err not, a fellowservant am I with thee and with the others unto one Power.

If ever thou didst understand that hallowed gospel sound which saith, ‘Neque nubent,’ well canst thou see why thus I speak.

Now get thee hence; I desire not that thou stay longer, for thy tarrying disturbs my weeping, whereby I mature that which thou didst say.

A niece have I yonder, by name Alagia, good in herself, if but our house make her not evil by ensample; and she alone is left me yonder.”