The Online Library of Liberty

A project of Liberty Fund, Inc.

• The Peace of God
• Preface
• Purgatorio I
• Purgatorio Ii
• Purgatorio Iii
• Purgatorio Iv
• Purgatorio V
• Purgatorio Vi
• Purgatorio Vii
• Purgatorio Viii
• Purgatorio Ix
• Purgatorio X
• Purgatorio Xi
• Purgatorio Xii
• Purgatorio Xiii
• Purgatorio Xiv
• Purgatorio Xv
• Purgatorio Xvi
• Purgatorio Xvii
• Purgatorio Xviii
• Purgatorio Xix
• Purgatorio Xx
• Purgatorio Xxi
• Purgatorio Xxii
• Purgatorio Xxiii
• Purgatorio Xxiv
• Purgatorio Xxv
• Purgatorio Xxvi
• Purgatorio Xxvii
• Purgatorio Xxviii
• Purgatory Xxix
• Purgatorio Xxx
• Purgatorio Xxxi
• Purgatorio Xxxii
• Purgatorio Xxxiii

PURGATORIO XXI

• The natural thirst, which never can be quenched,
• save by the water asked for by the lowly
• young woman of Samaria as a boon,
• was troubling me, while hurry spurred me on
• behind my Leader o’er the cumbered path,
• and I was grieving for the just revenge.

• Then lo, as Luke records for us that Christ,
• when risen from the burial cave, appeared
• before the two upon the road, a shade
• appeared, and came behind us as we watched
• the crowd, which lay around us at our feet;
• but we perceived him not; hence he spoke first,
• and said: “May God, my brethren, give you peace!”

• We turned at once, and to this greeting Virgil
• replied with that which corresponds to it.
• Then he began: “Within the blest assembly
• mayst thou be set at peace by that just court
• which in eternal exile bindeth me.”

• “What!” he replied, as quickly on we went,
• “If ye are shades whom God deigns not on high,
• who guided you so far along His stairs?”

• My Teacher then: “If thou regard the marks
• which this one bears, and which the Angel draws,
• thou ’lt see that with the good he needs must reign.
• But whereas she, who spinneth night and day,
• had not as yet drawn off for him the flax,
• which Clotho lays and packs for every one,
• his soul, which sister is to thee and me,
• could not, in climbing here, come up alone,
• because it seeth not as we. Hence I
• out of the ample throat of Hell was drawn,
• to show the way to him, and I shall show it,
• as far as e’er my school can lead him on.
• But tell us, if thou knowest, why the Mountain
• shook so just now, and why all seemed to shout
• with one accord down to its oozy base?”

• Thus by his asking he had threaded so
• the needle’s eye of my desire, that, merely
• with hope, my thirst had come to be less craving.

• The former then began: “Nothing exists
• which this Mount’s sacred government can feel,
• that void of order is, or ’gainst its wont.
• From every change this place up here is free;
• whate’er Heaven’s self from its own self receives,
• can be the cause of it, and nothing else;
• for neither rain, nor hail, nor snow, nor dew,
• nor frost falls any higher up than lies
• the little stairway of the three short steps;

• clouds neither dense or rarefied appear,
• nor lightning flashes, nor yet Thaumas’ daughter,
• who often changes quarter in the world.
• Dry vapor goes no higher than the top
• of those three steps whereof I spoke to thee,
• and on which Peter’s vicar hath his feet.
• Below, perhaps, it trembles more or less,
• but never quakes up here because of wind
• concealed, I know not how, inside the earth.
• It trembles here whenever any soul
• feels pure enough to rise, or starts to climb;
• and such a cry as this endorses it.
• Of purity the will alone gives proof,
• which, seizing on the soul, now wholly free
• to change its company, by willing helps it.
• It wills this from the first; but that desire
• which, ’gainst the will, God’s Justice turns toward pain,
• as it was once toward sin, allows it not.
• And I, who have five hundred years and more
• lain in this woe, felt only now within me
• a free volition for a better sphere.
• That ’s why thou didst the earthquake feel, and hear
• the pious spirits on this Mountain praise
• that Lord, who soon, I pray, will send them up.”

• He thus addressed us; and, since one in drink
• delights, according as his thirst is great,
• I could not say how much he did me good.

• And my wise Leader: “Now I see the net
• which holds you here, and how it opens, why
• it trembles here, and why ye all rejoice.
• Now who thou wast be pleased to let me know,
• and also let thy words include for me
• why thou hast lain so many centuries here.”

• “At that time when, helped by the Most High King,
• good Titus took due vengeance for the wounds,
• from which came forth the blood by Judas sold,
• I was in great renown” that spirit said,
• “up yonder with the name which longest lasts,
• and honors most, but not as yet with faith.
• So sweet my song, that, though a Toulousan,
• Rome drew me to herself, where I deserved
• to have my temples crowned with myrtle wreath.
• Statius they call me still up there; of Thebes
• I sang, of great Achilles next; but ’neath
• this second load I sank upon the way.
• The seeds of my enthusiasm were the sparks,
• which warmed me, of that fire divine, wherewith
• more than a thousand poets are enflamed;
• I mean the Aeneid, which my mother was
• and nurse in poetry; and, lacking which,
• not by a drachm’s weight had I stirred the scales.
• And to have lived on earth when Virgil lived,
• to one sun’s period more would I consent
• than what I owe, to issue from my ban.”

• These words turned Virgil toward me with a look,
• which, silently, “Be silent!” said; and yet
• the power that wills can not do everything;
• for tears and laughter follow so the passion,
• from which they each take rise, that least of all
• do they obey the will in those most truthful.
• I only smiled, like one who winks; whereat
• the shade kept still, and looked into my eyes,
• wherein expression is most fixed, and said:
• “So mayst thou bring unto a happy end
• so great a toil, why was it that thy face
• showed me just now the flashing of a smile?”

• I now am caught on one side and the other;
• one asks for silence, the other conjures me
• to speak; I therefore sigh, and by my Teacher
• am understood. “Be not afraid to talk,”
• the latter said to me, “but speak, and tell him
• what he so eagerly desires to know.”

• I therefore said: “Perhaps thou marvellest,
• O ancient spirit, at the smile I gave;
• but I would have still greater wonder seize thee.
• This spirit here, who upward leads mine eyes,
• that Virgil is, from whom thou didst of old
• derive the strength to sing of men and gods.
• If thou hast given my smile some other cause,
• leave it as not the true one, and believe
• it was the words thyself didst say of him.”

• Already was he stooping to embrace
• my Teacher’s feet; but he said: “Brother, no;
• for thou, a shade now, dost a shade behold.”

• Rising, he said: “Thou now canst understand
• the sum of love which warmeth me toward thee,
• since I forget our disembodied state,
• and act with shades as if they solid were.”