Purgatorio
Canto XI
The souls of the Proud repeat a paraphrase of the Lord’s Prayer. Virgil asks of them the way to the nearest ascent; he is answered by Humbert Aldobrandesco. Dante then recognises Oderisi of Gubbio, an illuminator of manuscripts, who discourses on the transitoriness of human fame and tells the story of Provenzan Salvani of Siena.
O our Father, who art in heaven above,[i]1-3. The Canto opens with an expanded paraphrase of the Lord’s Prayer. “Thy first creation”: the angels and the heavens.
Not as being circumscribed, but because toward
Thy first creation thou hast greater love,
Hallowed thy name be and thy power adored
By every creature, as is meet and right
To give thanks for the sweetness from thee poured;
May upon us thy kingdom’s peace alight,
For to it of ourselves we cannot rise,
Unless it come itself, with all our wit.
As of their will thine angels’ companies [10]
Make sacrifice, as they Hosanna sing,
So may men make of their will sacrifice.
To us this day our daily manna bring:[ii]13. The “daily manna” is spiritual food.
Else through this desert harsh must he revert
His steps, who most to advance is labouring.
And as we pardon every one the hurt
That we have suffered, do thou pardon too,
Benignant, nor remember our desert.
Try not our will, so easy to subdue,
With the old adversary, and by thine aid [20]
Save us from him who goads it, to our rue.
This last prayer, dear Lord, is for us not made
Any more, since remaineth now no need,
But ’tis for those who have behind us stayed.”
Thus for themselves and us, praying God-Speed
Those shades were going beneath their burden bowed,
Like the oppression that a dream may breed.
Each in his proper pain, a weary crowd,
They circled the first terrace with their tread,
Purging away the murk of the world’s cloud. [30]
And if of us good always there is said,
What can be said and done for them by men
Here, whose good-will is rooted and inbred?
Surely we ought to help them wash the stain
Which they have borne hence, so that cleansed and light
They may go forth the starry spheres to attain.
“Ah, so may pity and justice ease your plight
Soon, that disburdened ye be free to stretch
The wing that lifts you to your longing’s height,
Show us on which hand we may quickest reach [40]
The stair; if there more be than the one road,
That which is least hard show us, we beseech.
For he who comes with me, having the load
Of Adam’s flesh upon him yet to wear,
Mounts, though against his will, in halting mode.”
From whom the words came, answering the prayer
Which to those shades he had addressed, whom still
I followed on the path, was not made clear;
But this was said: “To the right along the hill
Come with us now and there shall ye be shown [50]
The pass for a living person possible.
And if I were not hindered by the stone
Which lies upon me, my proud neck to tame,
Wherefore I needs must carry my face prone,
. Him who yet lives and hath not told his name
Would I behold, to see if ’tis a man
I know, and make him pity this my shame.
Latin was I; son of a great Tuscan.[iii]58-66. Humbert, a member of the mighty Ghibelline family of the Aldobrandeschi, was killed by Sienese troops at his stronghold of Campagnatico, in 1259.—“Our common Mother” is the earth.
William Aldobrandesco fathered me:
I know not if his fame among you ran. [60]
The ancient blood and feats of chivalry
Of my forefathers puffed my pride up so
That, careless of our common Mother’s plea,
Such extreme scorn of all men did I show,
It killed me; how, the Sienese can tell
And every child in Campagnatico.
Tam Humbert; pride not only did compel
Me to that fate; but all my kinsfolk too,
Dragged down by it, into disaster fell.
Here must I therefore bear this load of rue, [70]
Till God be satisfied, among the dead,
Since ‘mid the living this I did not do.”
Listening I stoopt my face down to his head.
And one of them twisted himself about,
(Not he who spoke) beneath what on him weighed
And saw me and knew me and was calling out,
Straining his neck to keep me in his eye
Who, all bent down, went with them foot by foot.
“Art thou not Oderisi,” then said I,[iv]79. Oderisi of Gubbio was a famous illuminator of manuscripts.
“Honour of Gubbio, honour of that art, [80]
The illuminators famed in Paris ply?”
“Brother, the pages smile more on the mart
Which Franco of Bologna paints,” said he:[v]83. Of Franco of Bologna, an illuminator and a painter, little is known.
“Now the honour is all his, mine only in part.
Truly I had not used such courtesy
In life, so great desire within me burned
To excel the rest, which overmastered me.
By such pride such a penalty is earned.
Nor were I here, save that, having the power
Of sinful doing, unto God I turned. [90]
O idle glory of all human dower!
How short a time, save a dull age succeed,
Its flourishing fresh greenness doth devour!
In painting Cimabue thought indeed[vi]94-99. Giovanni Cimabue was regarded as the restorer of painting in Florence. Giotto, Cimabue’s pupil, was the greatest painter of Dante’s time. The poet Guido Cavalcanti surpassed Guido Guinicelli of Bologna. As to the general deduction of line 99, Dante must have known that the reader would immediately apply it to him.
To hold the field; now Giotto has the cry,
So that the fame of the other few now heed.
So our tongue’s glory from one Guido by
The other is taken; and from their nest of fame
Perchance is born one who shall make both fly.
Naught but a wind’s breath is the world’s acclaim, [100]
Which blows now hence, now thence, as it may hap,
And when it changes quarter changes name.
Wilt thou have more fame if old age unwrap
Thy bones from withered flesh than if thy race
Ended ere thou wert done with bib and pap
Before a thousand years pass,—shorter space
To eternity than is a blinked eye-lid
To the circle in heaven that moves at slowest pace?
With him, who moves so slow before me, did[vii]109. “With him . . .”: Provenzano Salvani, a valiant Ghibelline chief, who was all-powerful in Siena in 1260 and nine years later was defeated and beheaded.
All Tuscany once ring: and of him now [110]
Is scarcely a whisper in Siena hid,
Which he was lord of when was forced to bow
The fury of Florence, who at that time grew
In pride as high as now she is fallen low.
Your reputation is as grass in hue,
Which comes and goes, and through him is it brown
Who from the soil its springing freshness drew.”
And I to him: “Thy true word softens down
My swelling heart and healeth it of pride.
But of whom speak’st thou, and of whose renown?” [120]
Tis Provenzan Salvani,” he replied;
“And he is here because so bold he had grown,
Presuming all Siena to bestride.
Thus goes he without rest as he has gone
Since death, and in such coin he needs must pay,
For over-daring upon earth to atone.”
And I: “If such a spirit as makes delay
Of his repentance till life’s utmost rim,
Remains beneath and mounts not up this way,
Save hallowed prayers assist him, till such time [130]
Be measured as his years of living were,
How was the coming hither vouchsafed him?”
“He of his own will in Siena square”[viii]133-138. To save the life of a friend held for ransom by Charles of Anjou, Provenzano meekly begged of the passers-by.
Said he, “when most he gloried among men,
Posted himself, all shame forsworn, and there
To liberate his friend out of the pain
That he endured in Charles’s prison tower,
Constrained himself to tremble in every vein.
Darkly, I know, I speak, and say no more.
But soon thy neighbours’ acts shall be for signs [140]
Whereby to read the riddle thou’lt have power.
This deed delivered him from those confines.”[ix]142. “This deed” enabled him to enter Purgatory.