Purgatorio
Canto I
Having emerged from Hell, Virgil and Dante find themselves on the eastern shores of the island-mountain of Purgatory, which is at the antipodes of Jerusalem. It is the dawn of Easter Day, 1300. Four stars, symbols of the cardinal virtues (perhaps suggested by descriptions of the Southern Cross), blaze in the sky. Cato, the Guardian of Purgatory, appears to the poets and questions them. Being satisfied by Virgil, he tells them to wait for the daylight; but first Virgil is to wash Dante’s face with dew and to gird him with a reed.
Now hoisteth sail the pinnace of my wit
For better waters, and more smoothly flies
Since of a sea so cruel she is quit,
And of that second realm, which purifies
Man’s spirit of its soilure, will I sing,
Where it becometh worthy of Paradise.
Here let dead Poesy from her grave up-spring,
O sacred Muses, whom I serve and haunt,
And sound, Calliope, a louder string[i]9-11. The Magpies were the nine daughters of King Pieros; they challenged the Muses to a contest and, being worsted by one of them, Calliope, became so insolent that they were turned into birds.
To accompany my song with that high chant [10]
Which smote the Magpies’ miserable choir
That they despaired of pardon for their vaunt.
Tender colour of orient sapphire
Which on the air’s translucent aspect grew,
From mid heaven to horizon deeply clear,
Made pleasure in mine eyes be born anew
Soon as I issued forth from the dead air
That had oppressed both eye and heart with rue.
The planet that promoteth Love was there,
Making all the East to laugh and be joyful, [20]
And veiled the Fishes that escorted her.
I turned to the right and contemplated all[ii]22. Venus was dimming, by her brighter light, the constellation of the Fishes; the time indicated is an hour or more before sunrise.
The other pole; and four stars o’er me came,[iii]23-24. Dante invents here a constellation of four bright lights, corresponding to the Great Bear of the north. These luminaries symbolise the four cardinal virtues: Prudence, Temperance, Fortitude, and Justice. Adam and Eve before the fall (“the first people”), dwelling at the top of the mountain of Purgatory, beheld these stars.
Never yet seen save by the first people.
All the heavens seemed exulting in their flame.
O widowed Northern clime, from which is ta’en
The happy fortune of beholding them!
When from my gaze I had severed them again,
Turned somewhat to the other pole, whose law
By now had sunken out of sight the Wain, [30]
Near me an old man solitary I saw,[iv]31. This custodian of Purgatory (an example of that free will which the souls in his domain are striving, by purification, to regain), is Cato the Younger, who on earth killed himself in Utica rather than submit to Caesar.
In his aspect so much to be revered
That no son owes a father more of awe.
Long and with white hairs brindled was his beard,
Like to his locks, of which a double list
Down on his shoulders and his breast appeared.
The beams of the four sacred splendours kist
His countenance, and they glorified it so
That in its light the sun’s light was not missed.
“Who are ye, that against the blind stream go,” [40]
Shaking those venerable plumes, he said,
“And flee from the eternal walls of woe?
Who hath guided you? what lamp your footsteps led,
Issuing from that night without fathom
Which makes a blackness of the vale of dread?
Is the law of the abyss thus broken from?
Or is there some new change in Heaven’s decrees,
That, being damned, unto my crags ye come?”
Then did my leader on my shoulder seize
And with admonishing hand and word and sign [50]
Make reverent my forehead and my knees;
Then spoke: “I come not of my own design.
From Heaven came down a Lady, at whose prayer,
To help this man, I made his pathway mine.
But since it is thy will that we declare
More of our state, needs must that I obey
And tell thee all: deny thee I would not dare.
He hath never yet seen darken his last day,
Yet so near thereto through his folly went
That short time was there to re-shape his way. [60]
Even as I said, to his rescue I was sent,
Nor other way appeared that was not vain
But this on which our footsteps now are bent.
I have shown him all the sinners in their pain,
And now intend to show him those who dwell
Under thy charge and cleanse themselves of stain.
How I have brought him were too long to tell.
Our steps a Virtue, helping from on high,
That he might see thee and hear thee, did impel.
Now on his coming look with gracious eye. [70]
He seeketh freedom, that so precious thing,
How precious, he knows who for her will die.
Thou knowest: for her sake, death had no sting
In Utica, where thou didst leave what yet
The great day shall for thy bright raiment bring.
The eternal laws are still inviolate;
For he doth live, nor me doth Minos bind.[v]77-79. Minos, the Judge of Hell, does not bind Virgil, who dwells in the Limbus. “Marcia” was Cato’s wife.
But I am of the circle where the chaste eyes wait
Of Marcia, visibly praying that thy mind,
O sainted breast, still hold her for thine own. [80]
For love of her, then, be to us inclined.
Suffer that thy seven realms to us be shown;
And thanks of thee shall unto her be brought,
If there below thou deign still to be known.”
“Marcia was so pleasing to my thought
Yonder,” he answered, “and myself so fond,
Whate’er she willed, I could refuse her naught.
Now no more may she move me, since beyond[vi]88-90. When Cato was released from Limbus by Christ, he became subject to the law forbidding the blessed to be moved by the fate of the damned.
The evil stream she dwells, by the decree
Made when I was delivered from that bond. [90]
But if a heavenly lady hath missioned thee,
As thou hast said, of flattery is no need.
Enough, that in her name thou askest me.
Go then; first gird this man with a smooth reed,
And see thou bathe his features in such wise
That from all filthiness they may be freed.
It were not meet that mist clouded his eyes
To dim their vision, when he goes before
The first of those that serve in Paradise.
This little isle, there where for evermore [100]
The waters beat all round about its foot,
Bears rushes on the soft and oozy shore.
No other plant that would put forth a shoot
Or harden, but from life there is debarred,
Since to the surf it yields not from its root.
And then return not this way afterward.
The sun, at point to rise now, shall reveal
Where the mount yieldeth an ascent less hard.”
So he vanished; and I rose up on my heel
Without word spoken, and all of me drew back [110]
Toward my guide, making with mine eyes appeal.
He began: “Son, follow thou in my track.
Turn we on our footsteps, for this way the lea
Slopes down, where the low banks its boundary make.”
The dawn was moving the dark hours to flee
Before her, and far off amid their wane
I could perceive the trembling of the sea.
We paced along the solitary plain,
Like one who seeks to his lost road a clue,
And till he reach it deems he walks in vain. [120]
When we had come there where the melting dew
Contends against the sun, being in a place
Where the cool air but little of it updrew,
My Lord laid both hands out on the lank grass
Gently, amid the drops that it retained:
Wherefore I, conscious what his purpose was,
Lifted to him my cheeks that tears had stained;
And at his touch the colour they had worn,
Ere Hell had overcast it, they regained.
Then came we down to the land’s desert bourne, [130]
Which never yet saw man that had essayed
Voyage upon that water and knew return.
There did he gird me as that other bade.
O miracle! even as it was before,
The little plant put forth a perfect blade
On the instant in the place his fingers tore.