Binyon's Dante

Laurence Binyon's translation of Dante's Divine Comedy.

Hover over the green Roman numerals for Charles Hall Grandgent's annotations.

The PDF version, with more assured formatting, can be found here.

Purgatorio

Canto XVI

The poets are now on the terrace of the Wrathful, who move in a dark cloud of stinging smoke and are heard praying for peace and mercy. One of the spirits questions them, and Dante enters into talk with him: He is Mark Lombardo, and he mourns over the corruption of the times; which prompts Dante to ask if this is due to the stars or innate human depravity. Mark replies that the stars have their influence, but man has free will; and he attributes the degeneracy of the age to the usurpation by the Papacy of the temporal power.


GLOOM of Hell, gloom of night uncomforted

By any star beneath a niggard sky

Darkened by cloud as far as cloud could spread,

Made not so thick a curtain to the eye

Nor to the feel such rasping frieze as made

The smoke that there was all our canopy.

For the eyelids to keep open in vain essayed;

Wherefore my Escort, trusty and sage, drew close

And offered me his shoulder for my aid.

Just as behind his guide a blind man goes [10]

Lest he should stray or stumble against aught

Whereby he might be hurt, or life ev’n lose,

So through the bitter and foul air I fought,

Listening to my leader, who still would say

“See from my side that thou be parted not.”

I heard voices; and each one seemed to pray

For peace and for compassion on their sin

To the Lamb of God who taketh sins away.

Still Agnus Dei did their prayers begin:

One word was in them all, one tone rang clear, [20]

So that entire concord they seemed to win.

“O Master, are those spirits that I hear?”

Said I; and he: “Rightly dost thou conceive.

The knot of anger are they loosening here.”

“Now who art thou who com’st our smoke to cleave

And speakest of us just as if still time

Thou didst divide and by the calend live?”[i]27. “By the calend”: after the mortal way. The calends was the first day of each month.

This by a voice was spoken. “Answer him,”

My Master therefore said, “and ask if he

Will tell us if from this point we should climb.” [30]

And I: “O creature that art cleansing thee

To return fair to him that made thee, thou

Shalt hear a marvel if thou follow me.”

“As far I'll follow as our laws allow,”

It answered, “and if sight the smoke confounds,

Hearing in lieu of it unites us now.”

Then began I: “With these same swathing bonds

Which death undoes, I journey up the mount

And did come hither through Hell’s gasping wounds.

And if God hath so filled me from his fount [40]

Of grace, and wills that I behold his court

After a fashion beyond latter wont,

Hide not from me who before death thou wert,

But tell me, and tell me if for the pass I am

Set rightly; and let thy words our way escort.”

“I was of Lombardy; Mark was my name;

I knew the world, and that worth did I love

At which now no one bendeth bow to aim.

For mounting up ’tis straight on thou must move.”

Thus answered he, and added: “I pray thee [50]

That thou for me pray when thou art above.”

And I: “By faith that binds my loyalty

To thee, that which thou askest I will do:

But a doubt bursts me unless I get me free.

’Twas simple at first, now twofold doth it grow[ii]55. When the doubt was first suggested to him by the words of Guido del Duca in Canto XIV, 37-41, it was “simple”; now it is “twofold.”

By this thy judgment, certifying, both

Here and elsewhere, that which I couple it to.

The world is utterly despoiled, in truth,

Of all virtue, as thou too dost complain:

Big with iniquity under cloud it goeth. [60]

But make to me the cause, I pray thee, plain,

That I may see it and to others show;

For one sets it in Heaven, and one in man.”[iii]63. “Heaven” means the stars, i.e., planetary influence.

First a deep sigh that grief strained to one “Oh”

Broke from his breast; then he began: “Brother,

The world is blind, and of it truly art thou.

Ye, who are living, every cause refer

Up to the stars, as if with them they swept

All absolutely, and naught could fate deter.

Were it so, the free choice in you had slept [70]

Annulled, nor were it justice that ye still

For good have had joy and for evil wept.

The stars do prompt the motions ye fulfil;

I say not all, but even suppose it said,[iv]74. The stars initiate only bodily impulses; they have no control over the will.

A light is given you to know good and ill,

And Free will which, though oft discomfited

In its first battlings with the stars’ decree,

Wins in the end all, be it but rightly bred.

To a mightier power, a nobler nature, ye

Being free are subject; which creates the mind [80]

In you that the stars hold not in their fee.

And therefore if the world now strayeth blind,

In you the cause is; track and seek it there,

And I shall be thy spy, this cause to find.

From the hands of him who wistly loves her, ere[v]85-86. The subject of “forth comes” is “soul” in line 88. He “who wistly loves her” is God.

She is, forth comes, like a child frolicking

That now weeps and now laughs without a care,

The little, the innocent soul that knows nothing

Saving that, sprung from a Creator’s joy,

She goes to her own joy and there loves to cling. [90]

Ravished at first with good that’s but a toy,

Still runs she back bewitcht to the fond bower

If no guide turn her from delight’s decoy.

Needs then that law bridle her wayward hour

And that she have a king who may far-off

Discern of the true city at least the tower.

The laws are: but what hand puts them to proof?[vi]97-108. The laws still exist, but there is no one left to execute them, since the Papacy has usurped the imperial power and joined the sword of worldly supremacy to the crozier of ecclesiastical authority. It was not so in the old days, when Rome was the seat of two brother monarchs—the Pope and the Emperor.

None; since the shepherd, going before, may chew

The cud, but hath not the divided hoof.

Wherefore the people, who see their guide pursue [100]

What only his greedy appetite hath craved,

Feed upon that nor seek for pastures new.

The evil guidance whereto ’tis enslaved

Thou seest is that which doth the world corrode,

Not nature, that in you may be depraved.

Rome, that the good world made for man’s abode,

Was used to have two suns, by which were clear

Both roads, that of the world and that of God.

One hath put out the other; to crozier

Is joined the sword; and going in union [110]

Necessity compels that ill they fare,

Since, joined now, neither fears the other one.

Consider the ear of corn, if thou still doubt;

For every plant is by its fruiting known.

In the land where Adige and Po spread out[vii]115-116. Lombardy. In 1300 Italy had known no Imperial guidance since the death of Frederick II, fifty years before.

Their waters, before Frederick met with feud

Were worth and courtesy not vainly sought.

Now may pass there without solicitude

Whosoever hath desisted out of shame

To speak with good men or on them intrude. [120]

True, there are still three elders in whose name

The old age reproves the new, and time seems hard

Ere to a better life God carry them,

Conrad of Palazzo and the good Gerard

And Guy of Castel, who is better styled

“The guileless Lombard’ in the Frenchmen’s word.

Henceforward say that Rome’s church, having willed

Confusion of two rules, falls in a slough,

And both she and her burden are defiled.”

“O my Mark,” answered I, “well reasonest thou; [130]

And why the sons of Levi were removed[viii]131. The “sons of Levi,” or Levites, are the priests.

From the inheritance I see well now.

But what Gerard is this thou hast so approved

For sample of the extinct race, by whose side

The barbarous generation goes reproved?”

“Either thy speech deceives me,” he replied,

“Or thou dost tempt me, who in Tuscan tone

Knowledge of the good Gerard hast denied.

By other surname he’s to me unknown,[ix]139. If any other epithet than “good” is needed to identify this Gerardo da Camino (who was captain general of Treviso), the only suitable one is suggested by the name of his daughter “Gaia,” or “joyous.”

Except his daughter Gaia give him it. [140]

Now God be with you, I come no further on.

See, raying through the smoke, now waxeth white

The gleaming of the sun; the angel is there:

Ere I be seen of him, I must be quit.”

So he turned back, nor more from me would hear.



Previous | Next