60
and no one who examines the two styles can clarify the difference more than I. ” Then, pleased with what he said, he said no more.
63
As birds that winter down along the Nile take flight massed close together in the air, then, gaining speed, will fly in single file—
66
just so that mass of spirits lined up straight, and then, light with their leanness and desire, all of a sudden, sped away from us.
69
And as a weary racer slows his pace, allowing all the rest to pass him by, until the heaving of his chest subsides,
72
so did Forese let that holy flock rush by him while he still kept step with me as he inquired: “When shall we meet again?”
75
“How long my life will last I do not know, ” I said, “but even if I come back soon, my heart already will have reached the shore,
78
because the place where I was born to live is being stripped of virtue, day by day, doomed, or disposed, to rip itself to ruin. ”
81
56. Guittone d’Arezzo, born ca. 1230 at Santa Firmina, seems to have been responsible for establishing the Sicilian mode of poetry in Tuscany.
56. The Notary was Giacomo da Lentino (or Lentini), a judge at the court of Frederick II, who was the major figure of the Sicilian school of poetry that flourished during the first half of the thirteenth century and that established the poetry of courtly love in Italy.
He said, “Take heart. The guiltiest of them all I see dragged to his death at a beast’s tail down to the pit that never pardons sin.
84
The beast with every stride increases speed, faster and faster, till it suddenly kicks free the body, hideously mangled.
87
Those spheres, ” and he looked up into the heavens, “will not revolve for long before my words, which I have left obscure, will be made clear.
90
Now I must leave you. I have lost much time, walking along with you at your own pace, and time is precious to us in this realm. ”
93
As sometimes from a troop riding to war a horseman at a gallop will rush out to win the honor of attacking first—
96
so he strode faster leaving me to go my way, accompanied by those two shades who were such mighty marshals of the world.
99
When he had raced so far ahead of us my eyes could follow him no better than my mind could understand what his words meant,
102
I took my eyes from him—and, suddenly, there in the road in front of me, appeared another tree with verdant, laden boughs.
105
Beneath the tree I saw shades, arms outstretched, crying out something up into the leaves, like greedy children begging foolishly
108
82. The “guiltiest of them all” was Corso Donati, brother of Forese. He was the leader of the Black faction in Florence and persuaded Boniface VIII to send Charles of Valois to Florence.
to someone who will not answer their plea but who, instead, tempting them all the more, holds in full view the things they cannot reach.
111
At last, the souls gave up and went away. Then we drew close to that imposing tree, which was impervious to prayers and tears.
114
“Pass on. Do not come closer. Higher up, there is a tree which gave its fruit to Eve, and this plant is an offshoot of its root. ”
117
Thus spoke a voice from somewhere in the leaves. So we moved on, Virgil, Statius, and I, close to each other as we hugged the cliff.
120
“Recall, ” the voice went on, “those wicked ones, born of a cloud who, in their drunkenness, fought double-breast to breast with Theseus.
123
Recall those Hebrews drinking at their ease, whom Gideon, then, refused to take along as comrades down the hills to Midian. ”
126
So, walking close to one side of the road, we listened to accounts of Gluttony and learned the wages that these sinners earned.
129
Then, walking freely on the open way, each of us silent, deeply lost in thought, we had gone more than a full thousand steps,
132
when, suddenly, a voice called out: “You there, you three alone, what occupies your mind?” I gave a start like some shy beast in panic.
135
I raised my head to see who just now spoke; and never in a furnace was there seen metal or glass so radiantly red
138
125. In the campaign of the Jews against the Midianites, Gideon was instructed by the Lord to observe how his ten thousand men, when they arrived thirsty at a river, drank. Rejecting those who abandoned caution and put their faces to the water, Gideon led three hundred more prudent soldiers to victory.
as was the being who said to me: “If you are looking for the way to climb, turn here: here is the path for those who search for peace. ”
141
Though blinded by the brilliance of his look, I turned around and groped behind my guides, letting the words just heard direct my feet.
144
Soft as the early morning breeze of May, which heralds dawn, rich with the grass and flowers, spreading in waves their breathing fragrances,
147
I felt a breeze strike soft upon my brow: I felt a wing caress it, I am sure, I sensed the sweetness of ambrosia.
150
I heard the words: “Blessed are those in whom grace shines so copiously that love of food does not arouse excessive appetite,
153
but lets them hunger after righteousness. ”
CANTO XXV
AS THEY CLIMB, the Pilgrim asks how the Gluttonous could be so lean, since they are shades and have no need of food. After a short, metaphorical introduction to the problem, Virgil calls upon Statius, who delivers a lengthy discourse on the relationship of the soul to the body, touching on the generation of the body, on the soul breathed into the embryo by the Creator, and finally on the nature and formation of the diaphanous body. When he has finished, the three have arrived at the seventh and last terrace, where they discover a wall of flame that shoots out and up from the inner bank of the cliff, forcing them to walk at the extreme outer edge of the ledge. From within the flames, the Pilgrim hears the hymn Summae Deus clementiae, and he sees the spirits of the Lustful. After singing the hymn through, they recite together an exemplum of the chastity of the Virgin Mary. Softly they begin the hymn again and conclude with another exemplum: the tenacious virginity of the goddess Diana. After the third singing of the hymn, shouts of praise are heard for the wives and husbands who observe the laws of virtuous wedlock.
151-154. These lines are a lengthy paraphrase of the beatitude of Temperance.
Now was the time to climb without delay, for Taurus held the sun’s meridian, and night had left its own to Scorpio.
3
Even as a man spurred by necessity can never be deterred no matter what, but goes straight on his way until the end,
6
so did wc make our entrance through the gap and, separated by that narrow space, in single file, we started climbing stairs.
9
And as a little stork that longs to fly will lift a wing, then, still not bold enough to leave the nest, will let it drop again—
12
just so was I: my longing to inquire, first bold, then weak; all I did was attempt to speak, and then I quickly changed my mind.
15
My gentle father, though our pace was swift, encouraged me to talk: “Release your bow of speech, I see it drawn right to the tip. ”
18
Then, moved by confidence, I spoke to him, asking: “How could they have become so lean since, anyway, they have no need for food?”
21
“If you recall how Meleager burned as simultaneously the brand burned through, this should not be too hard to understand.
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22. Ovid (Metamorphoses VIII, 445-632) tells the story of Meleager, whose fate it was to live only as long as a piece of wood burning on his mother’s hearth remained unconsumed.
Or think how, when you stand before a glass at every move you make your image moves. Does this not make things clearer than they were?
27
But now to set your anxious mind at ease, we have here Statius: I shall call on him to be the doctor for your open wound. ”
30
“If, in your presence, I explain to him, ” Statius replied, “God’s view of things, it is because I can deny no wish of yours. ”
33
Then he began: “Son, let your mind take in and ponder carefully these words of mine, they will explain the ‘how’ that troubles you.
36
The perfect blood—the blood that’s never drunk by thirsty veins (like food left on the table still unconsumed) but is preserved entire—
39
acquires, within the heart, formative powers to build the members of the human shape (as does the blood that serves to nourish them),
42
then, purified again, flows down into the part best left unmentioned; thence, it sprays in nature’s vessel on another’s blood,
45
and there the two bloods blend. Each is designed to play a passive or an active role, due to its perfect place of origin;
48
this joined to that begins to work on it: first it clots, then it quickens what it made compact to serve as working matter now.
51
The active force, having become a soul (like a plant’s soul, except that this has reached its goal—the active force has just begun),
54
reaches the stage, then, of a jellyfish: it moves and feels. Then organs start to form for faculties of which it is the seed.
57
It keeps on swelling, spreading out, my son, this force that comes from the begetter’s heart, where nature plans for all the body’s parts.
60
But how, from animal, this thing becomes a child, you cannot see yet—and this point has led astray a mind wiser than yours,
63
for in his teaching he would separate possible intellect from soul, because he found no organ for that faculty.
66
Open your heart to what I now reveal: when the articulation of the brain has been perfected in the embryo,
69
then the First Mover turns to it, with joy over such art in Nature, and He breathes a spirit into it, new, and with power
72
to assimilate what it finds active there, so that one single soul is formed complete, that lives and feels and contemplates itself.
75
(And if you find what I have said is strange, consider the sun’s heat that turns to wine when it joins forces with the juice that flows.)
78
Then, when Lachesis has run out of flax, the soul is freed of flesh and takes with it, in essence, both the human and divine;
81
its lower faculties no longer thrive, but memory, intelligence, and will are active and far keener than before.
84
By its own weight it falls, immediately, marvelously, on one or the other shore, and there it learns its course for the first time.
87
Then, once the soul is there, contained in space, the informing power radiates around to reshape what the body had before.
90
And as the air, after a heavy rain, adorns itself with different, fragile hues born of the outer rays reflected there,
93
just so, the air enveloping the soul where it has fallen must assume the form imprinted on it by the soul’s own powers;
96
as flame inevitably goes with fire, following it wherever it may shift, so the new form accompanies the soul.
99
Since air around it makes it visible, it’s called a ‘shade’; and out of air it forms organs for every sense, including sight.
102
And we can speak, we shades, and we can laugh, and we can shed those tears and breathe those sighs which you may well have heard here on the mount.
105
The shade takes on the form of our desire, it changes with the feelings we may have: this, then, is what amazed you earlier. ”
108
We had, by now, arrived at the last round and, having made our usual right turn, our minds became absorbed by something else:
111
there, from the inner bank, flames flashed out straight, while, from the ledge, a blast of air shot up, bending them back, leaving a narrow path
114
along the edge where we were forced to walk in single file; and I was terrified—there was the fire, and here I could fall off!
117
“In such a place as this, ” my leader said, “be sure to keep your eyes straight on the course, for one could slip here easily and fall. ”
120
Summae Deus clementiae, I heard then, sung in the very heart of the great heat; this made me want to look there all the more.
123
And I saw spirits walking in the flames; I watched them, but I also watched my steps, caught between fear and curiosity.
126
When they had sung that hymn through to the end, they cried out loudly: Virum non cognosco, then, softly, they began the hymn again.
129
When it was finished, they cried out, “Diana kept to the woods and chased out Helice, whose blood had felt the poison lust of Venus. ”
132
Then came the hymn again; then came their shouts praising those married pairs who had been chaste, as virtue and the marriage laws require.
135
And this I think, they do continuously as long as they must burn within the fire: the cure of flames, the diet of the hymns—
138
with these the last of all their wounds is healed.
121. “Summae Deus clementiae” (“God of Supreme Clemency”) is the hymn of the Lustful, which asks God to banish Lust and every sinful instinct from their hearts, and to cleanse them with His healing fire. In the liturgy the hymn was traditionally sung at Matins on Saturday.
128. “Virum non cognosco” is the first example of the virtue of Chastity: “I know no man, ” taken, as always, from the life of the Virgin Mary. The incident referred to is the Annunciation.
130-131. The second example of Chastity is taken from classical myth. To preserve her virginity, Diana took refuge in the woods as a huntress. When one of her attendants, the nymph Helice, fell prey to the “poison of Venus” and was seduced by Jove, Diana dismissed her. Helice gave birth to Areas but was later transformed into a she-bear by Jove’s wife, Juno. Jove then placed her in the sky as the constellation Ursa Major.
CANTO XXVI
ONE OF THE souls in the flames asks the Pilgrim, whose body has attracted a good deal of attention, to stop and speak, but as he is about to do so, they are interrupted by another group of souls rushing from the opposite direction. The members of the two groups greet each other quickly and then, before separating, shout out exempla of Lust. One group cites Sodom and Gomorrah, and the other, the shameful lust of Pasiphae for the bull. When the commotion has died down, the Pilgrim sets forth the purpose of his journey, and the same soul who had questioned him earlier speaks again. He explains that the souls who had rushed on and off so hurriedly are the Sodomites, and thus they cry “Sodom” in self-reproach. The others are those whose sins have been heterosexual (or hermaphroditic, as Dante puts it), but since they have not acted like human beings, they cry out, to their shame, the animal lust of Pasiphaë. After these clarifications, the speaker identifies himself as Guido Guinizelli, and the Pilgrim demonstrates a profound affection for the Bolognese poet. But Guido protests that there is a far greater poet among them, and yields his place to Arnaut Daniel. Arnaut is the only (non
-Italian) figure in the Divine Comedy to speak in his native tongue, Provençal.
While we were walking at the ledge’s edge in single file—my good guide telling me from time to time: “I warn you now, take heed!”—
3
the sun shone on my shoulder from the right, and now, the azure of the western sky was slowly turning pale beneath its rays;
6
my shadow made the flames a deeper red, and even this slight evidence, I saw, caused many souls to wonder as they passed.
9
And this was the occasion for those souls to speculate about me. I heard said: “He seems to have a body of real flesh!”
12
Then some of them toward me began to strain, coming as close to me as they could come, most careful not to step out of the fire.
15
“O you who walk behind the other two, surely, as sign of your deep reverence, stop, speak to me whom thirst and fire burn.
18
I’m not the only one—all of us here are thirsty for your words, much thirstier than Ethiopes or Indians for cool drink.
21
Tell us, how is it possible for you to block the sun as if you were a wall, as if you had escaped the net of death?”
24
So said a voice to me. I would have tried already to explain, if something else unusual had not just caught my eye:
27
straight down the middle of the blazing road facing this group, another band of souls was on its way. I stopped to stare, amazed,
30
for I saw shades on either side make haste to kiss each other without lingering, and each with this brief greeting satisfied.
33
The ants in their black ranks do this: they rush to nose each other, as if to inquire which way to go or how their luck has been.
36
As soon as friendly greetings are exchanged, before taking the first step to depart, each one tries to outshout the other’s cry;
39
25. The voice, as we learn later (92), is that of Guido Guinizelli. 29. The group that moves in a direction contrary to the first group and the three travellers is that of the Lustful who practiced homosexuality. This sin will be suggested in line 40 and will be made explicit by Guinizelli in lines 76-81.