Purgatorio: Canto XXII

Already was the angel left behind us, the angel that had turned us to the sixth circle, having erased a scar from my face,

and had said to us that those who have their desire to righteousness were blessed, and his words accomplished that with sitiunt, and naught else.

And I, lighter than by the other passages, went on so that without any toil I was following the fleet spirits upward,

when Virgil began: “Love, kindled by virtue, hath ever kindled other love, if but its flame were shown forth:

wherefore from that hour when Juvenal, who made thy affection manifest to me, descended among us in the limbo of Hell

my goodwill towards thee hath been such as never yet did bind to an unseen person, so that now these stairs will seem short to me.

But tell me, and as a friend forgive me if too great confidence slacken my rein, and talk with me now as with a friend:

How could avarice find place in thy breast, amid so much wisdom as by thy diligence thou wast filled with?”

These words first moved Statius a little to laughter; then he answered: “Every word of thine is a precious token of love to me.

Truly many times things appear that give false matter for doubting, because of the true reasons which are hidden.

Thy question proves to me thy belief to be, that I was avaricious in the other life, perchance because of that circle where I was.

Now know that avarice was too far parted from me, and this excess thousands of moons have punished;

and were it not that I set straight my inclination, when I gave heed to the lines where thou exclaimest, angered as ’twere against human nature:

‘Wherefore dost thou not regulate the lust of mortals, O hallowed hunger of gold?’—at the rolling I should feel the grievous jousts.

Then I perceived that our hands could open their wings too wide in spending, and I repented of that as well as of other sins.

How many will rise again with shorn locks, through ignorance, which taketh away repentance of this sin during life and at the last hour!

And know that the offence which repels any sin by its direct opposite, here, together with it, dries up its luxuriance.

Therefore if I, to purge me, have been among that people who bewail avarice, this hath befallen me because of its contrary.”

“Now when thou didst sing of the savage strife of Jocasta’s twofold sorrow,” said the singer of the Bucolic lays,

“by that which Clio touches with thee there, it seems not that faith had yet made thee faithful, without which good works are not enough.

If this be so, what sun or what candles dispelled the darkness for thee, so that thou didst thereafter set thy sails to follow the Fisherman?”

And he to him: “Thou first didst send me towards Parnassus to drink in its caves, and then didst light me on to God.

Thou didst like one who goes by night, and carries the light behind him, and profits not himself, but maketh persons wise that follow him,

when thou saidst: ‘The world is renewed, justice returns and the first age of man, and a new progeny descends from heaven.’

Through thee I was a poet, through thee a Christian, but that thou mayst see better what I outline I will put forth my hand to fill in colour.

Already the whole world was big with the true belief, sown by the apostles of the everlasting kingdom;

and thy words, touched on above, harmonised so with the new preachers, that the habit took me of visiting them.

They then became so holy in my sight, that when Domitian persecuted them, their waitings were not without tears of mine.

And while by me yon world was trod, I succoured them, and their righteous lives made me despise all other sects;

and ere in my poem I had brought the Greeks to Thebes’ rivers, I received baptism, but through fear I was a secret Christian,

long time pretending paganism; and this lukewarmness made me speed round the fourth circle more than four times a hundred years.

Thou therefore, who hast lifted the covering which hid from me the great good I tell of, while we have time to spare on the ascent,

tell me, where is our ancient Terence, Caecilius, Plautus, and Varro if thou knowest; tell me if they are damned, and in what ward.”

“They, and Persius, and I, and many others,” my Leader answered, “are with that Greek to whom the Muses gave suck more than to any other,

in the first circle of the dark prison. Ofttimes we talk of the mount which hath our foster-mothers ever with it.

Euripides is there with us, and Antiphon, Simonides, Agathon, and many other Greeks, who once decked their brows with laurel.

There are seen of thy people Antigone, Deiphyle and Argia, and Ismene so sad as she was.

There is seen she who showed Langia; there is Tiresias’ daughter, and Thetis, and Deidamia with her sisters.”

Now were both poets silent, intent anew on gazing around, freed from the ascent and from the walls;

and already four handmaids of the day were left behind, and the fifth was at the chariot pole, directing yet upward its flaming horn,

when my Leader: “I think it behoves us to turn our right shoulders to the edge and circle the mount as we are wont to do.”

Thus custom there was our guide, and we took up our way with less doubt because of the assent of that worthy spirit.

They journeyed on in front, and I, solitary, behind; and I hearkened to their discourse which gave me understanding in poesy.

But soon the sweet converse was broken by a tree which we found in the midst of the way, with fruit wholesome and pleasant to smell.

And even as a pine tree grows gradually less from bough to bough upwards, so did that downwards; I think so that none may go up.

On the side where our path was blocked, a clear spring fell from the high rock and spread itself above over the leaves.

The two poets drew near the tree; and a voice from within the foliage cried: “Of this food ye shall have scarcity.”

Then it said: “Mary thought more how the wedding-feast might be honourable and complete, than of her own mouth, which now answers for you.

And the Roman women of old were content with water for their drink, and Daniel despised food and gained wisdom.

The first age was fair as gold; it made acorns savoury with hunger, and every stream nectar with thirst.

Honey and locusts were the meat which nourished the Baptist in the wilderness; therefore he is glorious, and so great as in the Gospel is revealed to you.