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 XXX

• When the Septentrion of the highest heaven, —
• which never either setting knew, or rising,
• or veil of other mist than that of guilt,
• and which was causing every creature there
• to know his duty, as the lower one
• makes him who turns the helm to reach a port, —
• stopped suddenly; the people of the truth,
• who first had come between it and the Griffon,
• turned around toward the Car, as toward their peace;
• and one of them, as though from Heaven sent down,
• sang thrice aloud: “Come thou from Lebanon,
• my spouse!” and all the rest sang after him.

• As at the last trump-call each of the blest
• will quickly rise from out his tomb, and sing
• the Halleluiah with a voice regained;
• even so there rose upon the Car divine,
• at such an elder’s voice, a hundred servants
• and message-bearers of eternal life.
• They all were saying: “Blest be thou that comest!”
• and, strewing flowers on high and all around,
• “Oh, scatter forth your lilies with full hands!”

• I ’ve seen ere now when day began to dawn,
• the eastern skies all rosy, and the rest
• adorned with beauty and serenity;
• and then the sun rise with its face o’ershadowed
• in such a way that, through the tempering
• of mists, the human eye could long endure it;
• so likewise standing in a cloud of flowers,
• which rose from angel hands, and fell again
• within and out the Car, a Lady, crowned
• with a wreath of olives o’er a pure white veil,
• appeared before me, ’neath a cloak of green,
• clothed with the color of a living flame.

• My spirit hereupon, which for so long
• a time had not been trembling in her presence,
• or felt itself all broken down with awe,
• with no more knowledge of her by mine eyes,
• but through a hidden virtue issuing from her,
• felt the great power of the olden love.

• As soon as that high virtue smote my sight,
• which formerly had pierced me through and through,
• ere I had passed beyond my boyhood’s years,
• round to the left I turned me with the trust
• wherewith an infant to its mother runs,
• whenever terrified or in distress,
• to say to Virgil: “Less now than a drachm
• of blood remains in me that is not trembling;
• I feel the tokens of the olden flame.”

• But Virgil now had left us of himself
• deprived, Virgil, my dearest father, Virgil,
• to whom for my salvation I had giv’n me;
• nor yet did all our ancient mother lost
• avail to keep my cheeks, though cleansed with dew,
• from turning dark again because of tears.

• “Dante, though Virgil leave, weep thou not yet,
• weep thou not yet; for thou wilt need to weep
• by reason of another sword than this.”

• Even as an admiral, who, both on stern
• and prow, comes to behold the men that serve
• on the other ships, and urge them to do well;
• so likewise on the left side of the Car,
• when I had turned around me at the sound
• of mine own name, which here must needs be mentioned,
• I saw the Lady who had first appeared
• concealed beneath the Angels’ festival,
• direct her eyes toward me across the stream.

• Although the veil, which from her head hung down,
• encircled by Minerva’s olive leaves,
• did not allow her to appear distinctly;
• she went on royally, still stern in mien,
• as one doth who, when speaking, holdeth back
• his warmest words: “Look at us well, for we,
• indeed, are, we, indeed, are Beatrice!
• How wast thou able to approach the Mountain?
• Didst thou not know that man is happy here?”

• My lowered eyes fell on the limpid stream;
• but when I saw myself reflected there,
• I drew them to the grass, so great the shame
• that weighed my forehead down! As to her child
• a mother seems severe, so she to me,
• for bitter tastes the savor of harsh pity.

• Silent she kept, then suddenly the Angels
• chanted: “In Thee, Lord, have I set my trust,”
• but further than “my feet” they did not go.

• Even as the snow among the living beams
• grown on the back of Italy is frozen,
• when blown and hardened by Slavonian winds;
• and then, when melting, trickles through itself,
• if but the land that loses shadows breathe,
• and thus seems like a fire that melts a candle;
• ev’n so was I with neither tears nor sighs,
• before the song of those who ever tune
• their notes to music of eternal spheres.

• But when I heard in their sweet harmonies
• the sympathy they had for me, far more
• than had they said: “Why, Lady, shame him so?”
• the ice bound tightly round my heart was turned
• to breath and water, and through mouth and eyes
• issued with anguish from my inmost breast.

• Then she, still standing motionless
• upon the same side of the Car, addressed
• those sympathetic creatures with these words:

• “Ye keep your watches through the eternal day,
• so that nor night nor slumber robs from you
• one step the world may take upon its course;
• my answer, hence, is made with greater care,
• that he, who yonder weeps, may understand,
• and guilt and sorrow of one measure be.

• Not only through the work of those great spheres,
• which to some end directly guide each seed,
• according as the stars are its companions;
• but through the bounty of the Grace divine,
• which for its rain hath clouds so very high,
• our eyes cannot approach them; this one here
• was such potentially in early life,
• that all right dispositions would have had
• wondrous results in him. But all the more
• malign and savage doth a soil become,
• when sown with evil seed and left untilled,
• the better and more vigorous it is.
• I for a while sustained him with my face;
• and showing him my youthful eyes, I led him
• along with me turned in the right direction.
• But when the threshold of my second age
• I reached, and changed my life, he took himself
• away from me, and gave him to another.
• And when from flesh to spirit I had risen,
• and beauty and virtue had increased in me,
• less dear and pleasing was I then to him;

• and o’er an untrue path he turned his steps,
• following deceitful images of good,
• which naught that they have promised pay in full.
• Nor yet did it avail me to obtain
• the inspirations, wherewith both in dreams
• and otherwise I called him back; he cared
• so little for them! So low down he fell,
• that short were now all means for his salvation,
• save showing him the people that are lost.
• I visited the Gateway of the dead
• for this, and unto him who guided him
• up hither, fraught with tears, my prayers were borne.
• God’s high, fate-ordered Will would broken be,
• if Lethe should be passed, and should such food
• be tasted without paying first the scot
• of penitence made manifest by tears.”