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Purgatorio
Canto 22
Translated by Robert Hollander
1 The angel who had shown the way
2 to the sixth circling now was left behind,
3 having erased another swordstroke from my brow
4 as he declared that those who long for righteousness
5 are blessed, ending on sitiunt
6 without the other words he might have said.
7 And now I could move on, lighter
8 than at the other entrances, so that I followed
9 the swifter spirits up with ease,
10 when Virgil began: 'A love that is kindled by virtue
11 has always ignited another, as long as its flame
12 was shining where it could be seen.
13 'From the hour, therefore, when Juvenal descended
14 into the Limbo of Hell, among us,
15 and made your affection known to me,
16 'my good will toward you was as great
17 as anyone has ever felt for someone never seen,
18 so that to me these stairs will now seem short.
19 'But tell me--and as a friend forgive me
20 if with too much assurance I relax the reins,
21 and as a friend speak with me now--
22 'how could avarice find room
23 amidst such wisdom in your breast,
24 the wisdom that you nourished with such care.'
25 These words made Statius smile a little
26 before he answered: 'Every word of yours
27 is to me a welcome token of your love.
28 'But, in truth, things often are misleading
29 when their true causes remain hidden,
30 thus leading us to false conclusions.
31 'Your question shows me you believe,
32 perhaps because of the terrace I was on,
33 that I was avaricious in the other life.
34 'Know then that avarice was much too far
35 removed from me and that this lack of measure
36 lunar months in thousands now have punished.
37 'And had I not reformed my inclination
38 when I came to understand the lines in which,
39 as if enraged at human nature, you cried out:
40 '"To what end, O cursèd hunger for gold,
41 do you not govern the appetite of mortals?"
42 I would know the rolling weights and dismal jousts.
43 'Then I learned that we can spread
44 our wings too wide with spending hands,
45 and I repented that and other sins.
46 'How many more will have to rise again, hair shorn
47 through ignorance, which takes away repentance
48 of this sin in life and in the hour of death!
49 'Note, also, that the fault that moves
50 directly opposite to a sin
51 is here grouped with it and is withered of its green.
52 'Therefore, if I, to purge my sins, have been
53 among those shades who weep for avarice,
54 this has befallen me for the opposing fault.'
55 'But, when you sang the cruel warfare
56 between the twofold sorrows of Jocasta,'
57 said the singer of the Eclogues,
58 'it does not seem, from what you wrote with Clio's help,
59 that you had found as yet the faith,
60 that faith without which good works fail.
61 'If that is so, what sun, what candles
62 dispelled your darkness so that afterwards
63 you hoisted sail, following the fisherman?'
64 And the other answered him: 'It was you who first
65 set me toward Parnassus to drink in its grottoes,
66 and you who first lit my way toward God.
67 'You were as one who goes by night, carrying
68 the light behind him--it is no help to him,
69 but instructs all those who follow--
70 'when you said: "The centuries turn new again.
71 Justice returns with the first age of man,
72 new progeny descends from Heaven."
73 'Through you I was a poet, through you a Christian.
74 But, that you may see better what I outline,
75 I will set my hand to fill the colors in.
76 'Already all the world was pregnant
77 with the true faith, inseminated
78 by the messengers of the eternal kingdom,
79 'and the words of yours I have just recited
80 did so accord with the new preachers
81 that I began to visit them.
82 'More and more they seemed to me so holy
83 that when Domitian started with his persecutions
84 their weeping did not lack my tears.
85 'While I remained on earth,
86 I gave them comfort. Their upright ways
87 made me despise all other sects.
88 'I was baptized before, in my verses,
89 I had led the Greeks to the rivers of Thebes,
90 but, from fear, I stayed a secret Christian,
91 'long pretending I was still a pagan.
92 More than four centuries, because I was lukewarm,
93 did I circle the fourth terrace.
94 'You, then, who have raised the veil
95 that hid from me the great good I describe,
96 tell me, while there is time in this ascent,
97 'where is our ancient Terence, where Cecilius,
98 Plautus, Varius, if you know.
99 Tell me if they are damned and in what place.'
100 'Those, Persius, and I, and many more,'
101 replied my leader, 'are with that Greek
102 the Muses suckled more than any other,
103 'in the first circle of the dark prison.
104 We often talk about that mountain
105 where those who nursed us ever dwell.
106 'Euripides is with us there and Antiphon,
107 Simonides and Agathon and many other Greeks
108 whose brows were once adorned with laurel.
109 'Among those from your works who may be seen
110 are Antigone, Deïphyle, Argia,
111 and Ismene, still sad as once she was.
112 'She that revealed Langìa also may be seen,
113 as well as the daughter of Tiresias,
114 and Thetis, and Deïdamìa with her sisters.'
115 Both the poets now were silent,
116 again intent on looking all around them,
117 freed from the constraint of stairs and walls.
118 Already four handmaids of the day were left behind
119 and the fifth was at the chariot-shaft,
120 guiding its gleaming tip still higher,
121 when my leader said: 'It might be better if we turned
122 our right side's shoulders to the outer edge,
123 circling the mountain as we are accustomed.'
124 Thus habit was our teacher there,
125 and we took our way with less uncertainty
126 because that other worthy soul encouraged us.
127 They went along in front and I, alone,
128 came on behind, listening to their discourse,
129 which gave me understanding of the art of verse.
130 But soon their pleasant talk was interrupted
131 by a tree found in the middle of the path,
132 with fruits that smelled both savory and good,
133 and, as a fir tree narrows as it branches upward,
134 this one tapered down from branch to branch,
135 perhaps so that no one can climb it.
136 On that side, where our way was blocked,
137 from the high rock fell pellucid water,
138 which was dispersed among the upper leaves.
139 As the two poets neared the tree
140 a voice from among the boughs called out:
141 'This is a food that you shall lack.'
142 And then it said: 'Mary gave more thought
143 that the marriage-feast be decorous and complete
144 than for the mouth with which she pleads for you.
145 'The Roman matrons of antiquity
146 were glad to have but water as their drink,
147 and Daniel scorned banquets and acquired wisdom.
148 'The first age was as beautiful as gold.
149 Its acorns were made savory by hunger
150 and thirst made nectar flow in every brook.
151 'Honey and locusts were the food
152 that nourished John the Baptist in the desert,
153 for which he is glorious and as great
154 as in the Gospel is revealed to you.'
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