Purgatorio: Canto XXV

’Twas an hour when the ascent brooked no impediment, for the sun to the Bull, and night to the Scorpion, had left the meridian circle.

Wherefore as does a man who halts not, but goes on his way whatever may appear to him, if the spur of necessity prick him,

so we entered by the gap, one in front of the other, mounting the stairway, which by its straitness parts the climbers.

And like the little stork that lifts its wing through desire to fly, and, venturing not to abandon the nest, drops it down,

even so was I with desire to ask kindled and quenched, going so far as the movement which he makes who is preparing to speak.

My sweet Father did not cease, even though the pace was swift, but said: “Discharge the bow of thy speech which thou hast drawn to the iron.”

Then securely I opened my mouth, and began: “How can one grow lean there where the need of food is not felt?”

“If thou wouldst call to mind how Meleager was consumed at the consuming of a firebrand,” said he, “this would not be so difficult to thee;

and if thou wouldst think how, to your every movement your image flits about in the mirror, that which seems hard would seem easy to thee.

But in order that thou mayst find rest in thy desire, lo here Statius, and him I call and pray, that he now be the healer of thy wounds.”

“If,” answered Statius, “I unfold to him in thy presence the eternal things he has seen, let my excuse be that I may not deny thee.”

Then he began: “Son, if thy mind heed and receive my words, they shall be a light unto thee on the how which thou utterest.

Perfect blood, which never is drunk by the thirsty veins, and is left behind, as ’twere food which thou removest from the table,

acquires in the heart a virtue potent to inform all human members, like that blood which flows through the veins to become those.

Refined yet again, it descends there whereof to be silent is more seemly than to speak, and thence afterwards distils upon other’s blood, in natural vessel.

There the one is mingled with the other; one designed to be passive, the other to be active, by reason of the perfect place whence it springs;

and, joined thereto, it begins to operate, first coagulating, and then giving life to that which it had solidified for its own material.

The active virtue having become a soul, like that of a plant, in so far different that the former is on the way, and the latter is already at the goal,

then effects so much that now it moves and feels, like a sea-fungus; and then sets about developing organs for the powers whereof it is the germ.

Now, son, expands, now distends, the virtue which proceeds from the heart of the begetter, where nature intends all human members;

but how from an animal it becomes a human being thou seest not yet; this is that point which made one wiser than thou to err;

so that by his teaching he made the intellectual faculty separate from the soul, because he saw no organ occupied by it.

Open thy breast to the truth which is coming, and know that so soon as the organisation of the brain is perfect in the embryo,

the First Mover turns him to it, rejoicing over such handiwork of nature, and breathes into it a new spirit with virtue filled,

which draws into its substance that which it finds active there, and becomes one single soul, that lives, and feels, and turns round upon itself.

And that thou mayst marvel less at my words, look at the sun’s heat, that is made wine when combined with the juice which flows from the vine.

And when Lachesis has no more thread, it frees itself from the flesh, and bears away in potency both the human and the divine;

the other powers, the whole of them mute; memory, intelligence and will, keener far in action than they were before.

Staying not, it falls of itself in wondrous wise to one of the shores; there it first learns its ways.

Soon as it is circumscribed in place there, the formative virtue radiates around, in form and quantity as in the living members;

and as the air, when it is full saturate, becomes decked with divers colours through another’s rays which are reflected in it,

so the neighbouring air sets itself into that form which the soul that is there fixed impresses upon it by means of its virtue;

and then, like the flame which follows the fire wheresoever it moves, the spirit is followed by its new form.

Inasmuch as therefrom it afterwards has its semblance, it is called a shade; and therefrom it forms the organs of every sense even to sight.

By this we speak, and by this we laugh, by this we make the tears and the sighs which thou mayst have heard about the mount.

The shade takes its form according as the desires and the other affections prick us, and this is the cause of that whereof thou marvellest.”

And now had we come to the last turning, and had wheeled round to the right hand, and were intent on other care.

There the bank flashes forth flames, and the cornice breathes a blast upward, which bends them back, and keeps them away from it;

wherefore it behoved us to go on the side which was free one by one; and on this side I feared the fire, and on that I feared to fall downward.

My Leader said: “Along this place the rein must be kept tight on the eyes, because lightly a false step might be taken.”

“Summae Deus clementiae” I then heard sung in the heart of the great burning, which made me no less eager to turn aside;

and I saw spirits going through the flames; wherefore I looked at them and at my steps, with divided gaze from time to time.

After the end which is made to that hymn, they cried aloud: “Virum non cognosco”; then softly began the hymn again.

It being finished, they further cried: “Diana kept in the wood, and chased Helice forth who had felt the poison of Venus.”

Then turned they to their chanting; then cried they women and husbands who were chaste, as virtue and marriage require of us.

And this fashion I think suffices them for all the time the fire burns them: with such treatment, and with such diet, must the last wound be healed.