Purgatorio
Canto XXV
It is afternoon of the third day. One by one the poets mount the stair; and Dante, perplexed to know how it is that immaterial shades, not needing food, can suffer hunger and become emaciated, lays the problem before Virgil, who refers it to Statius. Statius then expounds a theory, derived from Aristotle and Aquinas, of the formation of the body, into which the rational soul is infused by the Creator, drawing into its substance the vital functions it finds already there (the vegetative and sensitive souls). At death the soul, freed from the flesh but retaining memory, intelligence and will and the other faculties in a dormant state, goes at once to its appointed place, whether Tiber-mouth or Acheron, and impresses its form upon the air; and this aerial body, the “shade,” forms organs for every sense. The philosopher to whom Statius refers as erroneously supposing the intellectual faculty to be separate from the soul is Averroes. They have now arrived at the seventh and uppermost circle, that of the Lustful. Here they have to go warily because of a great fire burning on their path, into which spirits are passing, while voices from within the flames celebrate examples of chastity (the Virgin, Diana).
AN HOUR ’twas that indulged no loitering,
For now the sun had to the Bull resigned,
Night to the Scorpion, the meridian ring;
Wherefore as he does, who looks not behind
But goes straight on, whatever his eye sees,
If sharp necessity spur on his mind,
So through the gap we entered by degrees,
And one before the other took the stair
That unlinks climbers by its narrowness.
And as the young stork lifts its wing to dare [10]
The flight it wishes, and attempteth not
To leave the nest, and drooping flutters there,
Such was I, with desire to ask both hot
And chilled; and last came to the gesture shown
By him whose lips prepare to speak his thought.
My sweet Father, for all we hasted on,
Overlooked it not, but said: “Discharge the bow
Of speech which thou hast to the iron drawn.”
Then, set at ease, I opened lips, and: “How,”
Began I, “can one famish and be pined [20]
There, where of food there is no need to know?”
“If thou hadst Meleager called to mind,[i]22. The life of Meleager was made by the fates to depend on that of a firebrand.
Consumed with the consuming of a brand,
Thou would’st not here so much discordance find.
And if thou thinkest how your image, scanned
Within the mirror, stirs quick as you stir,
What seems hard would seem easy to understand.
But that thou may’st reach haven in thy desire,
Lo, Statius here; and him do I adduce
And pray him to thy wounds to minister.” [30]
“If I unfold to him,” answered Statius,
“Where thou art, the eternal sight, that I
Cannot deny thee shall be my excuse.”
Then he said: “Son, if thou thy mind apply
And well absorb my words, they shall afford
Light to thee on the How thou art troubled by.
Blood perfected, which never is drunk or stored[ii]37-51. Man's blood contains potentially all the parts of his frame. Some of it remains intact and unsullied in the heart, retaining its complete formative power. This “perfected blood” becomes the parent seed.
By thirsting veins and is left over, as if
‘Twere food which thou removest from the board,
Takes in the heart a virtue informative [40]
To all the human members, like that blood
Which courses through the veins to make those live.
Refined yet more, it flows down where ’tis good
Not to speak but be silent, and thence pours
Into another’s blood in natural mode.
There the one is mingled with the other’s course,
Ordained, one to be passive, the other to act
Because it comes from a so perfect source.
Thereto joined, it begins its part to enact,
Coagulating first, then quickening whole [50]
What for material it had made compact.
The active virtue growing into a soul[iii]52-60. The embryo’s life is at first merely that of a plant—the “vegetative soul.” Then the senses are developed, and its life is that of the “sensitive soul.” Both “souls” are perishable.
Like a plant’s, only with the difference
That this is on the way, that at the goal,
So works that it has motion now and sense
Like a sea-fungus; then sets out to find
For the powers it is the seed of, instruments.
Now, son, the virtue expandeth unconfined
Which from the heart of the begetter flows
Where nature all man’s members hath designed. [60]
But how from animal it human grows
Thou see’st not yet: and this point caused a wit
Wiser than thou art wrongly to suppose;
So that he falsely by his teaching split
The possible intellect from the soul, since no
Organ he found that was possessed by it.
Open thy breast to coming truth, and know
That when the articulation of the brain
Is consummated in the embryo,
The First Mover turns to it, glad and fain [70]
Over such art of nature, and, to abound
In virtue, inbreathes a spirit of new strain,[iv]72. The “spirit of new strain” is the “rational soul” (see the Argument).
Which, drawing what it there has active found
Into its substance, makes one soul complete
That lives and feels and on itself turns round.
And that thou may’st less marvel at this, the heat
Of the sun consider, that becometh wine
When with it the vine’s flowing juices meet.
When Lachesis hath no more thread to spin[v]79. “Lachesis”: the Fate.
It sheds the flesh, and bears away therefrom [80]
Virtually both the human and divine:
The other faculties inert and dumb;
And will and memory and intelligence,
Which now in act far keener have become.
It stays not, but is borne in its suspense
To one or the other shore, in wondrous mode.[vi]86. “To one or the other shore”: to the bank of Acheron or of Tiber (see the Argument).
Here first it learns what path it must take thence.
Soon as ’tis circumscribed by its abode,
The formative virtue radiates without let
As much as in the living members showed. [90]
And as the air when it is charged with wet,
Through another’s ray that it reflects, reveals
The divers colours in their glory set,
Thus here the neighbouring air itself anneals
Into that form which, by the virtue it owes,
The still surviving soul upon it seals.
And then like to the flame that, following close
The fire, wherever it shifteth, to it cleaves,
So the new form after the spirit goes.
Since visible aspect it therefrom receives, [100]
Well is it called a shade, and thence its own[vii]101. “A shade”: see the Argument.
Organ to each sense, even to sight, it gives,
We speak, we laugh, by this, and this alone;
By this we liberate the tears and sighs
Thou mayst have heard about the mount make moan.
The shade takes form as the desires devise
And the other stings of feeling that we share.
And this it was occasioned thy surprise.”
And now we had come to the last twisting stair
And to the right hand had wheeled round our steps, [110]
And all our thoughts were turned to other care.
Here from the bank an arrowy fire outleaps[viii]112. “An arrowy fire”: the symbol of purification from lust.
And from the ground beats up a blast whose brawl
Bends the flames backward and at distance keeps.
Thus on the free side must we needs go all,
One after the other; and the fire I feared
On this side, and on that side feared to fall.
My Leader said: “Along this place keep guard
With the curb tight over the eyes, for sore
Mishap might come, if one but a little erred.” [120]
Summae Deus clementiae at the core
Of the great burning I heard chanted, so
That to turn thither it made me hunger more,
And through the flames I beheld spirits go.
Wherefore I eyed them and my steps, at feud
Each moment, as my glance went to and fro.
After the end which doth that hymn conclude
They Virum non cognosco cried aloud;[ix]128. “I know not a man,” is the reply of Mary to the angel at the Annunciation. After each singing of the hymn the souls call aloud an example of chastity.
Then with soft voices all the hymn renewed.
That finished, they cried on: “To Dian vowed [130]
The wood was, whence was Helice in shame[x]131. The nymph Helice had been seduced by Jupiter.
Driven, who had Venus’ poison in her blood.”
Then, to their chanting turned, they cried the name
Of women and of husbands who were chaste,
As virtue and marriage do their fealty claim.
This ritual, I think, for them doth last
For all the time the fire upon them glows.
And with such cure and diet of such taste
Behoveth that the wound at last should close.