Purgatorio
Canto IV
The spirits point out a narrow passage in the rock by which the poets are to ascend, and then leave them. Climbing up with difficulty, Virgil and Dante arrive at a terrace which runs round the mountain. They rest awhile; and Dante is puzzled by the fact that, though he is facing east, the sun strikes him on the left; and Virgil explains that this is because they are now in the southern hemisphere. Behind a rock they find a group of spirits in listless attitudes. One of them, Belacqua, a friend of Dante’s, tells how, because he delayed his repentance, he is delayed from entering into Purgatory.
WHEN, through delight or it may be through pain[i]1-13. When the soul is absorbed in the operation of one of the senses, no impressions can reach it from another sense. Those who maintain that man has several souls are wrong: if we had two souls, we could attend to two things at once.
Conceived by some one faculty of ours,
That faculty doth all the soul enchain,
It seems it gives heed to no other powers;
And this refutes that error which believes
That in us one soul over another flowers;
So when the soul by the ear or the eye receives
What grapples it and strongly clings it round,
Time goes, and naught of it the man perceives.
For ’tis one power that listens to the sound [10]
And another that which keeps the soul entire:
This one is still at large, and that one bound.
Experience of this truth did I acquire,
Hearing that spirit and marvelling to hear;
For fifty full degrees had mounted higher
The sun, and I had been all unaware,
When we came where those spirits to us cried
With one accord: “What you desire is here.”
The villager will in the hedgerow-side
With his fork-full of brambles often block, [20]
What time the grape grows dark, a gap more wide
Than was the cleft by which we scaled the rock,
My leader, and I after him, alone,
As soon as we had parted from that flock.
One goes to San Leo up, to Noli down,[ii]25-26. “San Leo,” “Bismantova” and “Cacuma” are peaks in the Apennines.
One climbs Bismantova to Cacuma’s height
With only feet; but this must needs be flown,
I mean with the swift wings and feathered flight
Of great desire, following behind that lead
Which gave my heart hope and my feet a light. [30]
Up between broken rock did we proceed.
Its face on each hand grazed us, and below
The ground forced us both hands and feet to need.
When we had clambered to the upmost brow
Of the high bank, on the open mountain-side,
“Master mine,” said I, “what course make we now?”
And he to me: “See that no footstep slide.
Only behind me gain thy ground aslant
Till some sage escort Heaven for us provide.”
The lofty summit rose, our sight to daunt, [40]
And the bold slope of it more steeply ran
Than to the centre a line from mid-quadrant.
Weary was I, when: “Turn thee,” I began,
“O sweet father, upon me: see’st thou not
How alone, if thou stay not, I remain?”
“Son,” said he, “drag thee as far as yonder spot,”
Pointing me out a ledge a little beyond
Which on that side circles the mount about.
So did my courage to his spur respond
That I behind him forced myself to crawl [50]
Till the round ledge beneath my feet I found.
There we both sat us down by the cliff-wall,
Turned toward the East, the way that we had clomb,
For to look back is wont to solace all.
I bent my eyes to the low shores; therefrom
I raised them to the sun, and marvelled: lo,
On the left hand I found his beams to come.
The poet saw well why astounded so
Before the chariot of the light I stayed,
Now entering between us and Aquilo. [60][iii]60. “Aquilo”: the north wind.
Wherefore: “If Castor and Pollux,” now he said[iv]61. “Castor and Pollux” compose the sign of Gemini. The clause means: if it were June (instead of April).
“That mirror did for its companions take,
Whose light both upward is and downward led,
Thou wouldst have seen the blazing Zodiac[v]64. The zodiac comprises the belt of constellations through which the sun passes in its annual course. “The blazing Zodiac” is, in other words, the sun itself.
By the two Bears revolving closer yet,
Except it strayed forth from its ancient track.
How that is, if the power thy thought abet,
Fix well thy mind to imagine Zion’s hill
On the earth’s surface with this mountain set
So, that both have a single horizon still [70][vi]70. “Zion’s hill,” or Jerusalem, and the mountain of Purgatory are on opposite sides of the earth.
And different hemispheres; wherefore the way
That Phaëthon to his own hurt drove so ill[vii]72. “Phaëthon” tried to drive the chariot of the sun.
Must on one side of this mount bring the day
When it is on the other side of that,
If thou perceivest what my words convey.”
“Master mine, never did I contemplate”
Said I, “aught clearer than I see now, just
In that point, which it seems I stumbled at,
That of Heaven’s moving circles the mid-most,
In a certain science called the Equator’s girth, [80][viii]80-81. “A certain science”: astronomy. When it is winter in any place, the sun is on the other side of the equator from that place.
Ever abiding ’twixt the sun and frost
For the reason that thou tellest me toward the North
Departs hence far as the Hebrews in their turn
Would see it toward the hottest zone of earth.
But, if it please thee, gladly would I learn
How far we go still, since the mount rises
Higher than my eyes are able to discern.”
And he: “This mountain hath such properties,
That the first steps below are toil extreme,
And the higher a man climbs the less it is. [90]
Thus when to thee it shall so pleasant seem
That the ascent doth smooth and easy grow,
As in a boat that glideth with the stream,
Then is the end; thou need’st no further go.
There of all weariness hope thou to be quit.
No more I answer, and this for truth I know.”
This word he spoke, and when he had ended it,
A voice near sounded: “Ere that thou attain
So far, it may be thou wilt need to sit.”
At the voice, each of us turned round again, [100]
And on the left saw a great bulk of stone
Which neither he nor I perceived till then.
Thither we approached, and there were persons strown
In postures at the rock’s back in the shade
Listless as one who for his rest sinks down.
And one, whose looks the weariness betrayed,
With hands clasping his knees was sitting there,
And had his forehead low between them laid.
“O sweet my Lord,” said I, “turn thine eyes here
Upon that one who more indifferent shows [110]
Himself than if Sloth were his own sister.”
Then, seeming to give heed, he turned to us,
Moving his face only over his thigh,
And said: “Go up now, thou who art valorous!”
I knew who it was then; and that difficulty
Which still a little did my breath impede
Hindered me not from going to him: when I
Had got to him, he scarce lifted his head,
Saying: “Art satisfied then that the sun
Driveth his chariot on thy left indeed?” [120]
His indolent gestures and his curt speech won
My lips into a little smile to part
Ere I began: “Of grief, Belacqua, none
Have I for thee now; but say why thou art
Seated just here? Dost thou await escort,
Or hast thou but resumed thy wonted part?”
And he: “What boots it, brother, to resort
Up there? God’s angel, sitting at the gate
My passage to the penances would thwart.
For me, shut out, first must the heavens rotate [130]
So long as in my life their circlings were,
Because my good sighs I delayed so late,
Unless, ere that, there succour me a prayer
Rising out of a heart that lives in grace.
What profits pleading that Heaven will not hear?”
The poet already had mounted from that place
Before me, saying: “Come, thou seèst stand
The sun at the meridian, and the pace[ix]138. It is noon in Purgatory, midnight in Jerusalem.
Of Night by now touches Morocco’s strand.”