Purgatorio
Canto XXVIII
Dante sees before him the Earthly Paradise, which crowns the Mount, and sets out to explore “the divine forest.” The grass is full of flowers, and birds sing on the boughs. He is stopped by the stream of Lethe, and on the farther side of it perceives a lady gathering flowers and singing. She is Matilda (as we learn from Canto XXXIII), a lady generally identified with a Countess of Tuscany (1046-1115), supporter of Pope Gregory VII, but here representing the active life and the guide of Dante towards Beatrice (the contemplative life). Dante asks her to explain how it is that wind blows and water runs at a height where, according to Statius, there is no disturbance and no rain. She satisfies his curiosity and tells him how the water is supernaturally constant and replenished, pouring from a fountain which on one side is called Lethe and has the property of obliterating memory of sin, and on the other Eunoë, which restores the memory of good deeds. Here, she adds, was the abode of man in his state of innocency.
NOW eager to search out through all its maze
The living green of the divine forest
Which to my eyes tempered the new sun’s rays,
I left the mountain’s rim, nor stayed to rest
But took the plain by slow and slow degrees
Where with sweet smells all the earth around is blest.
Gentle air, having no inconstancies
Within its motion, smote upon my brow
With no more violence than a gracious breeze;
And trembling to the touch of it, each bough [10]
Was bending all its foliage toward that side
Where the holy Mount casteth its first shadow;[i]12. The direction is the west.
Yet not so far from upright was blown wide
But that the small birds on the topmost spray
All their sweet art continually still plied,
And from a full throat singing loud and gay
Welcomed the first thrills in the leaves, that bore
A burden to the descant of their lay
Such as swells up along Chiassi’s shore,[ii]19-22. The pine grove of “Chiassi”: the old port of Ravenna; “Sirocco”: the southeast wind; “Acolus”: the king of the winds.
From branch to branch of the pine-forest blown, [20]
When Æolus has loosed Sirocco’s roar.
Already my slow steps had borne me on
So far within that immemorial wood
That I could no more see whence I had gone;
And lo! a stream that stopped me where I stood;
And at the left the ripple in its train
Moved on the bank the grasses where it flowed.
All waters here that are most pure from stain
Would qualified with some immixture seem
Compared with this, which veils not the least grain, [30]
Altho’ so dark, dark goes the gliding stream
Under the eternal shadow, that hides fast
Forever there the sun’s and the moon’s beam.
With my feet halting, with my eyes I passed
That brook, for the regaling of my sight
With the fresh blossoms in their full contrast.
And then appeared (as in a sudden light
Something appears which from astonishment
Puts suddenly all other thoughts to flight)
A lady who all alone and singing went, [40][iii]40. “A lady”: Matilda.
And as she sang plucked flowers that numberless
All round about her path their colours blent.
“I pray thee, O lovely Lady, if, as I guess,
Thou warm’st thee at the radiance of Love’s fire,—
For looks are wont to be the heart’s witness,—
I pray thee toward this water to draw near
So far,” said I to her, “while thou dost sing,
That with my understanding I may hear.
Thou puttest me in remembrance of what thing
Proserpine was, and where, when by mischance [50]
Her mother lost her, and she lost the spring.”[iv]51. When Proserpine, the daughter of Ceres, was suddenly carried off to the lower world by Pluto, she had been picking flowers.
Even as a lady turns round in the dance
With feet close to each other and to the ground
And hardly foot beyond foot doth advance,
Toward me with maiden mien she turned her round
Upon the floor of flowers yellow and red,
Holding the while her modest eyes earth-bound.
My supplication then she comforted,
So near approaching, that her song divine
Reached me with meaning to the music wed. [60]
Soon as she came to where the grasses line
The fair stream’s bank and stand wet in its wave,
She accorded me to lift her eyes to mine.
I think not that the light such glory gave
Beneath the eye-lids of Venus, being hit
So strangely by the dart her own boy drave.[v]66. “Her own boy”: Cupid.
Erect, she smiled from the bank opposite,
Disposing in her hands those colours fair
Which that land bears without seed sown in it.
Three paces the stream parted me from her; [70]
But Hellespont, where Xerxes bridged the strait[vi]71-74. Xerxes, king of Persia, crossed the Hellespont; this river swelled between Leander in Abydos and his beloved Hero in Sestos.
That still makes human vaunt a bridle wear,
Endured not from Leander keener hate,
’Twixt Sestos and Abydos full in foam,
Than this from me, because it closed the gate.
“It may be,” she began, “since new ye come
And see me smiling in this place elect,
Made for mankind to be their nest and home,
That wonder and some misgiving hold you checkt;
But the psalm Delectasti beams a ray [80][vii]80. The psalm proclaims the final triumph of the righteous.
Which haply shall discloud your intellect.
And thou who art first and didst beseech me, say
If there is aught that doth thy question rouse,
Behold! I am here thy mind’s thirst to allay.”
“The running water,” I said, “and rustling boughs
Perplex me, appearing to serve other laws
Than what a new belief made me espouse.”
Then she: “I'll tell thee how from its own cause
Cometh to pass what doth thy wonder tease,
And purge away the mist that gives thee pause. [90]
The Supreme Good, who himself alone doth please,
Made man good, and for goodness, and this clime
Gave him for pledge of the eternal peace.
By his default he sojourned here small time:
By his default, for tears, labour and sweat
He exchanged honest laughter and sweet pastime.
And lest the tumults that beneath it beat,
From water and earth by exhalation bred,
Which follow, far as they can rise, the heat,
Should vex the peace man here inherited, [100]
This mount thus far up toward the heavens rose,
And, barred secure from storm, lifts up its head.
Now since all the air in one smooth circuit flows,[viii]103-108. The two mobile elements—air and fire—are swept around the earth by the heavens in their “primal motion,” or daily circuit. On the surface of the earth the air encounters many obstacles; but this mountain-top receives the atmospheric current unobstructed.
And, save its circle is broken by some fret,
Revolving with the primal motion goes,
Such motion, striking here, where without let
In living air this peak upholds its height,
Makes the wood sound, since it is thickly set,
And all the plants, so smitten, contain such might
In them, that with their virtue the air they strew [110]
Which scatters it abroad in circling flight.
The rest of the earth, according to its due
Of soil and climate doth conceive and bear
Trees of each kind and each diverse virtue.
No marvel will it then on earth appear,
(This known,) when some plant without seed hath struck
Invisibly its root, to burgeon there.
Know that the blest plain whereon thou dost look
Is pregnant of all seed beneath the skies
And bears fruit in it no hand there doth pluck. [120]
The water which thou seèst doth not rise
From veins, that mist, by cold condensed, restores,
Like rivers that now gain, now lose in size,
But issues from a spring’s unfailing stores
Which God’s will, plenishing it, still re-makes
So that on either side it freely pours.
On this side it streams virtue such as takes
Soilure of sin out of the memory;
On the other, memory of good deeds awakes.
On this side, Lethe, the other, Eunoë [130][ix]130. “Lethe” and “Eunoë”: see the Argument.
Its name is; nor comes healing from this well
Unless upon both sides it tasted be.
This savour doth all savours far excel.—
Now, though it may be all thy thirstiness
Is quenched, even were this all that I should tell
I give thee this corollary as a grace;
Nor do I think my words shall less be prized
By thee, that they exceed my promises.
They who in old time dreaming poetised
Of the felicity of the Age of Gold [140][x]140-142. The golden age was “poetised” by the ancient poets. When they sang of Parnassus (“Helicon”), they may have been dimly conscious of the real origin of man.
On Helicon perchance this place agnised.
Innocent here was man’s first root of old;
Here blooms perpetual Spring, all fruits abound:
This is the nectar whereof each hath told.”
Then full upon my poets I moved me round;
And I perceived that they with smiles had learned
The interpretation that her discourse crowned.
To the fair lady then my face I turned.