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 XXII

• Already was the Angel left behind,
• the Angel who had toward the sixth ring turned us,
• after erasing from my face a wound;
• and he had said to us that those are blest,
• whose longing is for justice, and his words,
• with nothing further, ended this with “thirst.”

• Hence, lighter now than at the other passes,
• I so advanced, that I, without fatigue,
• was following up the spirits who were swift,
• when Virgil thus began: “A love that flames,
• by virtue kindled, always lights another,
• if but its flame be outwardly revealed.
• And therefore from the hour when Juvenal,
• who let me know thy love for me, came down
• among us in the Borderland of Hell,
• my good will hath been such toward thee, that none
• e’er bound me more to one I had not seen;
• these stairs will, therefore, now seem short to me.
• But tell me, and forgive me as a friend,
• if too great confidence relax my rein,
• and as a friend converse with me henceforth:

• how was it avarice could find a place
• within thy breast together with such wisdom,
• as that wherewith thou by thy zeal wast filled?”

• At first these words made Statius smile a little;
• and then he answered: “Every word of thine
• is of thy love for me a precious proof.
• Things, of a truth, quite frequently appear,
• which offer one false arguments for doubt,
• because their real occasions are concealed.
• Thy question makes me sure of thy belief,
• due, maybe, to the ring where I was found,
• that I was in the last life avaricious.
• Know, then, that avarice was too far from me,
• and that this lack of temperance on my part
• thousands of courses of the moon have punished.
• And were it not that I corrected me,
• when I had understood thee in thy cry,
• indignant, as it were, with human nature:
• ‘Why dost thou not, O virtuous love of gold,
• govern the appetite of mortal men?’
• I ’d now, by rolling, feel the wretched jousts.
• I then perceived that hands could ope their wings
• too much in spending, and repented me
• of that, as well as of my other sins.
• How many from the grave shall hairless rise
• through ignorance which, in life and at the last,
• deprives them of repentance for this fault!

• Know, too, that any fault which of a sin
• is just the opposite, together with it
• drieth its green leaves here. If, therefore, I,
• to purge myself, have been among the folk
• who avarice bewail, to me it happened
• because of what was contrary thereto.”

• “When thou didst sing, then, of the cruel strife
• between the two afflictions of Jocasta,”
• said he who sang bucolic songs, “by that
• which Clio singeth with thee there, the faith,
• without which doing good is not enough,
• had not, it seems, yet made thee a believer.
• If this be so, what sun, or else what candles
• lightened thy darkness so, that thou thereafter
• didst set thy sails behind the Fisherman?”

• “Thou first didst send me to Parnassus’ slopes
• to drink,” he said to him, “and then the first
• thou wast, who, next to God, illumined me.
• Thou didst like him, who, when he walks by night,
• a light behind him bears nor helps himself,
• but maketh those that follow after see,
• when thou didst say: ‘The age renews itself;
• Justice returns, and man’s primeval times,
• as down from Heaven a new-born race descends.’
• Through thee a poet I became, through thee
• a Christian! But, that thou mayst better see
• my sketch, I ’ll set my hand to color it.

• Pregnant already with the true belief,
• sowed by the eternal Kingdom’s messengers,
• was every portion of the whole wide world;
• and now thy words, to which I ’ve just referred,
• with these new preachers harmonized so well,
• that I became accustomed to frequent them.
• Thereat so holy did they come to seem,
• that when Domitian persecuted them,
• their lamentations did not lack my tears;
• and while I still remained in yonder world,
• I helped them; and their upright mode of life
• caused me to treat with scorn all other sects.
• And ere in poetry I led the Greeks
• to see the streams of Thebes, baptized I was;
• and yet, through fear, a secret Christian only,
• I long pretended faith in paganism;
• this lukewarmness around the fourth ring moved me
• till far beyond the fourth centennial year.
• Thou, therefore, that didst lift the covering veil
• which hid from me the good whereof I speak,
• tell me, while we have still a little more
• to climb, where our old Terence is, and where
• Cecilius, Plautus, Varro, if thou know;
• tell me if they are damned, and in what ward.”

• “Both they and Persius, I and many others”
• my Leader answered him, “are with the Greek,
• whom more than any else the Muses nursed,

• in the first circle of the sightless Prison;
• and frequently we talk about the mount,
• which always hath our nurses on its slopes.
• Euripides and Antiphon are there
• with us, Simonides and Agathon,
• and many other Greeks, who once adorned
• their brows with laurel. There, of thine own folk,
• Antigone is seen, Deìphile,
• Argìa, and, as sad as once, Ismène.
• There, too, may she be seen, who showed Langìa;
• there is Tiresias’ daughter, Thetis also,
• and with her sisters there, Deidamìa.”

• And now the Poets, both of them, were silent,
• intent again on looking round, since free
• from climbing up and free from walls; and while
• four handmaids of the day had dropped behind,
• the fifth was at the sun-car’s pole, still upward
• pointing its burning horn; whereat my Leader:
• “I think that it behooves us now to turn
• our right sides toward the outer edge, and circle
• the Mountain as our wont it is to do.”

• Thus was our custom our instructor there;
• and with less doubt we started on again,
• because of that deserving soul’s assent.
• In front they went, and I behind, alone,
• listening the while to what they had to say,
• which gave me understanding for my verse.

• But soon their pleasant talk a Tree broke off,
• which in the middle of the road we found,
• with fruit agreeable and sweet to smell;
• and as a fir-tree tapers up from branch
• to branch, so likewise this one tapered down,
• in order, I believe, that none may climb it.
• And on the side on which our path was closed,
• down from the lofty cliff a limpid stream
• was falling, and spraying upward o’er its leaves.

• Then toward the Tree the two Bards turned their steps;
• and from among its leaves a voice cried out:
• “Of this food there will be for you a dearth!”
• Then: “More did Mary think of honoring,
• the marriage feast, and making it complete,
• than of her mouth, which pleadeth now for you;
• the ancient Roman women were content
• with water for their only drink; and Daniel
• thought little of his food, but wisdom gained.
• The primal age was beautiful as gold;
• with hunger it made acorns sweet to taste,
• and nectar every little brook, with thirst.
• Honey and flying locusts were the food
• which fed the Baptist in the wilderness;
• hence he is now as glorious and as great,
• as by the Gospel is revealed to you.”