Purgatorio
Canto XXIII
The cry is heard of spirits who now overtake the pilgrims. Gluttons in life, they are now emaciated to an extreme degree, reminding Dante of Erysichthon, punished with hunger by Demeter, and of Mary, a Jewess, who devoured her own child during the siege of Jerusalem. So it is only by the voice that Dante recognises the friend of his youth, Forese Donati. Each is eager to learn about the other. Forese explains the nature of the punishment in this pots and tells how it is through the intercession of his widow Nella that he has been spared the long delay in Ante-Purgatory; and denounces the dissoluteness of the women of Florence, shameless as those of Barbagia, a wild district in Sardinia.
WHILE I was thus fixing mine eyes at gaze
Through the green foliage, even as is done
By him who on the small birds wastes his days,
My more than father said to me: “My son,
Come now, the time allotted to our need
Must to more profitable use be won.”
I turned my face, and foot with no less speed,
Toward the two sages, who as they conferred
Made me the cost of going not to heed.
And lo, a weeping and a singing heard, [10]
Labia mea, Domine, that filled my ear[i]11. Ps. 51:15: “O Lord, open Thou my lips.”
In such mode that delight and grief it stirred.
“O sweet father, what is it that I hear?”
Said I; and he: “Shades loosening the knot
Of their old debt perchance thus persevere.”
Even.as pilgrims full of their own thought
O’ertaking unknown people upon the road
Turn themselves round to eye them, and tarry not,
So behind us, moving more quickly, a crowd
Of spirits coming up and passing by, [20]
Mute and devout, at us their wonder showed.
Each one was dark and hollow in the eye,
Pallid of face, and with the flesh so lost
As made the skin with the bones’ form comply.
I think not Erysichthon at such cost[ii]25. “Erysichthon”: see the Argument.
Was shrivelled to the outer rind by drouth
Of hunger, when he dreaded it the most.
I said within me, thinking in my ruth,
“Behold the folk that lost Jerusalem
When Mary upon her own child fleshed her tooth.” [30][iii]30. “Mary”: see the Argument.
Their eye-sockets seemed rings without a gem.
He who reads “omo” in the face of man[iv]32-33. Capital M, resembled two O's side by side. Inasmuch as this figure is not unlike a nose between two eye-sockets, it was said that man (“omo”) had his name written in his face.
Would clearly there have recognized the “m.”
Who would believe, did none to him explain,
That scent of fruit and of a liquid spring
By gendering desire could thus ordain?
I stood astonished at their famishing,
The cause not yet being manifest that made
Their leanness and their scabby shrivelling,
When lo! from the deep hollow of a head [40]
A shade turned on me eyes of fixèd quest.
Then, crying aloud, “What grace is this?” it said.
Him from his aspect had I never guessed,
But in his voice was given to me the clue
Of what was in his countenance suppressed.
This spark within me kindled all anew
Familiarity with lip and cheek
So altered; and Forese’s face I knew.[v]48. “Forese” Donati: see the Argument.
“Ah, stare not,” pleading he began to speak,
“At the dry skin which the scab blotches so [50]
Nor at the flesh that on me is so to seek.
Truth of thyself tell me, and who those two
Shades are, thou hast there for companions.
Speak with me, I entreat thee, and be not slow.”
Then I: “Thy face which dead I wept for once
Grieves me not less, nay, tears it moves me to,
Seeing it now so drawn upon the bones.
Say then, in God’s name, what so strippeth you.
Make me not talk while I am marvelling still.
Ill can he speak who other things would do.” [60]
And he: “A virtue from the eternal will
Descends into the water and the tree
We have left behind, whereby I waste thus ill.
And those who, singing, weep, as thou dost see,
That appetite they followed with such heat,
Holy again through hunger and thirst shall be.
The scent that from the apple comes so sweet
And from the sprinkling of the leaves with spray
Fires us with craving both to drink and eat.
And not once only, while the appointed way [70]
We circle, is renewed for us the pain—
I say pain, but I ought ‘solace’ to say—
For that Will leads us to the tree again
Which led Christ to say ‘Eli’ and be glad,[vi]74. “Eli”: Matt. 27:46: “My God, my God, why hast Thou forsaken me?”
Freeing us with the blood out of his vein.”
And I: “Forese, from that day which made
Exchange of worlds for thee to a better mode
Of life, five years till now thou hast not had.
If power to sin more had its period
Ended in thee before the hour came on [80]
Of the good grief which re-weds us to God,
How art thou come so high, and how so soon?
I had thought to find thee on yonder terraces
Where time repairs itself by time alone.”
Wherefore he answered me: “My Nella ’tis[vii]85. “Nella”: see the Argument.
Brought me to drink thus, by her gushing tears,
Of the sweet wormwood of the penances.
With her devout prayers and those sighs of hers
She has drawn me from the shore where one must wait,
And from the other circles freed my fears. [90]
My widow, whom I loved with love so great,
Is to God dearer, and more his love doth win,
As in good works the lonelier is her state.
Barbagia in Sardinia ne’er hath been[viii]94. “Barbagia”: a wild region in Sardinia.
Immodest in its women as today
Is the Barbagia that I left her in.
O sweet brother, what would’st thou have me say?
A time to come already I see indeed,
Wherefrom this hour shall not be far away,
In which from pulpit shall it be forbid [100]
To the unashamed women of Florence then
To go showing the breast with paps not hid.
What woman of, Barbary, what Saracen,
Did ever need, to make her go covered,
Spiritual or other regimen?
But if the unabashed ones were assured
Of what swift heaven prepares for them on high
Their mouths would open and their howls be heard
If my fore-sight deceives not, they shall cry
In sorrow, ere he clothes his cheek with down [110]
Who now is quieted with lullaby.
Ah, brother, hide thee not, let all be known!
Thou seèst, not only I but this folk all
Are gazing where thou intercept’st the sun.”
Then I to him: “If thou to mind recall
What thou wast with me and I was with thee,[ix]116. “And I was with thee”: Forese and Dante had led together a sinful life.
Still heavy will the present memory fall.
From that life he who goes in front of me
Turned me the other day, when full and round
The sister of him there showed herself to be.” [120][x]120. “The sister of him”: the moon.
I pointed to the sun. “Through the profound
Night, from the real dead convoyed was I
In real flesh that still is upward bound.
Thence hath his aid supported me thus high,
Circle by circle, to ascend the Hill
Which straightens you whom the world bent awry.
So long he means to comrade me, until
I shall be there where shall be Beatrice:
Without him thence must I the rest fulfil.
Virgil is he who hath assured me this” [130]
I pointed to him; “and this other shade[xi]131. “This other shade’: Statius.
Is he for whom shook in each precipice
Your realm, from which his quittance now is paid.”