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 XXIII

• While I, as likewise he is wont to do,
• who wastes his life in hunting little birds,
• was piercing thus the green leaves with mine eyes,
• my more than Father said to me: “My son,
• come on now, for the time assigned to us
• should be more usefully distributed.”
• I turned my face, and, no less soon, my steps
• behind the Sages, who so talked, that walking
• they caused to be of no expense to me.

• Then lo, in tearful and in singing tones
• “My lips, O Lord” was heard in such a way,
• that to delight and sorrow it gave birth.

• “O gentle Father, what is that I hear?”
• said I; and he then: “Shades who, moving on,
• loosen, perhaps, the knot of what they owe.”

• As pilgrim travellers do, who lost in thought,
• on meeting unknown people on the road,
• turn round to look at them, but do not stop;
• ev’n so behind us, though more quickly moving,
• there came a band of souls, who as they passed,
• devout and silent, gazed at us in wonder.

• Each was expressionless and hollow-eyed,
• pale in his face, and lacking so in flesh,
• that of his bones his skin assumed the shape.
• I do not think that even Erysìchthon
• became so withered into utter skin,
• because of fasting, when he feared it most.

• Thinking within myself, I said: “Behold
• the people who once lost Jerusalem,
• when Mary thrust her beak into her son!”
• The sockets of their eyes seemed gemless rings;
• and he that OMO reads in human faces,
• would surely there have recognized the M.
• Who would believe the perfume of a fruit
• and odor of a water could so act,
• and cause such craving, if he knew not how?

• I still was wondering what so famished them,
• because the reason of their being lean,
• and of their wretched scurf was not yet clear;
• when lo, a shade from deep within his head
• turning his eyes toward me, looked hard, and then
• cried out aloud: “What grace is this to me?”

• I never should have known him by his face;
• but that to me was in his voice revealed,
• which in itself his aspect had suppressed.
• That spark rekindled all that I had known
• of that disfigured countenance, and thus
• I recognized it as Forese’s face.

• “Ah, prithee, heed thou not the dried up scab,”
• he pleaded, “which discolors thus my skin,
• nor any lack of flesh that I may have!
• But tell the truth about thyself, and who
• those two souls are, who bear thee company;
• refrain no longer from addressing me.”

• I answered him: “Thy face, which once as dead
• I mourned for, gives me now no smaller cause
• for weeping, that I see it so disfigured.
• For God’s sake tell me, then, what strips you thus;
• make me not talk and wonder, too; for ill
• can he converse, who longs for something else.”

• “A virtue from the Eternal Will” he said,
• “comes down into the water and the Tree
• we left behind, whereby I thus grow lean.
• And all these people who in tears are singing,
• because of following unchecked love of food,
• are here resanctified in thirst and hunger.
• The pleasant odor, issuing from the fruit,
• and from the spray which o’er the verdure spreads,
• kindles in us the wish to eat and drink.
• And not once only is our pain renewed,
• as on this floor we move around — our pain,
• I say, though solace ought to be my word;
• for to the Tree doth that same longing lead us,
• which once led Christ in happiness to cry:
• ‘My God!’, when with His blood He set us free.”

• And I to him: “Forese, from the day,
• when thou didst for a better life change world,
• five years have not yet rolled away till now.
• If power of sinning further ended in thee
• before the coming of that happy hour
• of sorrow, which reweddeth us to God,
• how is it thou art come up here? I thought
• that I should find thee still below, down there,
• where time restores itself by means of time.”

• Whence he to me: “My Nella, with the tears
• which streamed from her, enabled me to drink
• the pleasant wormwood of this pain so soon.
• She, with her pious prayers and with her sighs,
• hath drawn me from the hillside where one waits,
• and freed me from the other lower rings.
• So much the dearer a delight to God
• is my poor widow whom I loved so much,
• the more alone she is in doing right;
• for far more modest in its women is
• the wild Barbagia region of Sardinia,
• than the Barbagia which I left her in.
• O my dear brother, what wouldst have me say?
• I have, e’en now, a future time in sight,
• to which this hour will not be very old,
• when from the pulpit shameless Florence women
• will be prohibited to go abroad
• showing their bosoms with the breasts exposed.

• What Barbary women, or what Saracens
• e’er needed spiritual or other laws,
• to keep them covered up when going out?
• But if the shameless ones were sure of what
• a swiftly moving heaven prepares for them,
• their mouths for howling would be open now;
• for, if my foresight here deceive me not,
• they ’ll grieve, ere that one’s cheek grows hair, who still
• is hushed with lullabies. Now, brother, see,
• I pray, that from me thou no longer hide!
• Thou seèst that not only I, but all
• these people gaze where thou dost veil the sun.”

• Hence I to him: “If thou recall to mind
• what thou with me wast once, and with thee I,
• still grievous will our present memory be.
• Who goes before me turned me from that life
• the other day, when that one’s sister round
• was seen by you;” (and at the sun I pointed).
• “Through the deep night hath he conducted me,
• and from among the truly dead, still clothed
• in this real flesh, which follows in his steps.
• Thence his encouragements have drawn me on,
• as up I climbed, and circled round the Mount,
• which straightens you whom crooked made the world.
• He says that he will make me his companion,
• till there I am, where Beatrice shall be;
• up there without him must I needs remain.

• Virgil is he, who tells me so,” (at him
• I pointed), “and this other one, the shade,
• because of whom just now on every slope
• your Realm, which from itself removes him, quaked.”