Purgatory, Canto XXIII

The while among the verdant leaves mine eyes

I riveted, as he is wont to do

Who wastes his life pursuing little birds,

My more than Father said unto me: "Son,

Come now; because the time that is ordained us

More usefully should be apportioned out."

I turned my face and no less soon my steps

Unto the Sages, who were speaking so

They made the going of no cost to me;

And lo! were heard a song and a lament,

"Labia mea, Domine," in fashion

Such that delight and dolence it brought forth.

"O my sweet Father, what is this I hear?"

Began I; and he answered: "Shades that go

Perhaps the knot unloosing of their debt."

In the same way that thoughtful pilgrims do,

Who, unknown people on the road o'ertaking,

Turn themselves round to them, and do not stop,

Even thus, behind us with a swifter motion

Coming and passing onward, gazed upon us

A crowd of spirits silent and devout.

Each in his eyes was dark and cavernous,

Pallid in face, and so emaciate

That from the bones the skin did shape itself.

I do not think that so to merest rind

Could Erisichthon have been withered up

By famine, when most fear he had of it.

Thinking within myself I said: "Behold,

This is the folk who lost Jerusalem,

When Mary made a prey of her own son."

Their sockets were like rings without the gems;

Whoever in the face of men reads 'omo'

Might well in these have recognised the 'm.'

Who would believe the odour of an apple,

Begetting longing, could consume them so,

And that of water, without knowing how?

I still was wondering what so famished them,

For the occasion not yet manifest

Of their emaciation and sad squalor;

And lo! from out the hollow of his head

His eyes a shade turned on me, and looked keenly;

Then cried aloud: "What grace to me is this?"

Never should I have known him by his look;

But in his voice was evident to me

That which his aspect had suppressed within it.

This spark within me wholly re-enkindled

My recognition of his altered face,

And I recalled the features of Forese.

"Ah, do not look at this dry leprosy,"

Entreated he, "which doth my skin discolour,

Nor at default of flesh that I may have;

But tell me truth of thee, and who are those

Two souls, that yonder make for thee an escort;

Do not delay in speaking unto me."

"That face of thine, which dead I once bewept,

Gives me for weeping now no lesser grief,"

I answered him, "beholding it so changed!

But tell me, for God's sake, what thus denudes you?

Make me not speak while I am marvelling,

For ill speaks he who's full of other longings."

And he to me: "From the eternal council

Falls power into the water and the tree

Behind us left, whereby I grow so thin.

All of this people who lamenting sing,

For following beyond measure appetite

In hunger and thirst are here re-sanctified.

Desire to eat and drink enkindles in us

The scent that issues from the apple-tree,

And from the spray that sprinkles o'er the verdure;

And not a single time alone, this ground

Encompassing, is refreshed our pain,--

I say our pain, and ought to say our solace,--

For the same wish doth lead us to the tree

Which led the Christ rejoicing to say 'Eli,'

When with his veins he liberated us."

And I to him: "Forese, from that day

When for a better life thou changedst worlds,

Up to this time five years have not rolled round.

If sooner were the power exhausted in thee

Of sinning more, than thee the hour surprised

Of that good sorrow which to God reweds us,

How hast thou come up hitherward already?

I thought to find thee down there underneath,

Where time for time doth restitution make."

And he to me: "Thus speedily has led me

To drink of the sweet wormwood of these torments,

My Nella with her overflowing tears;

She with her prayers devout and with her sighs

Has drawn me from the coast where one where one awaits,

And from the other circles set me free.

So much more dear and pleasing is to God

My little widow, whom so much I loved,

As in good works she is the more alone;

For the Barbagia of Sardinia

By far more modest in its women is

Than the Barbagia I have left her in.

O brother sweet, what wilt thou have me say?

A future time is in my sight already,

To which this hour will not be very old,

When from the pulpit shall be interdicted

To the unblushing womankind of Florence

To go about displaying breast and paps.

What savages were e'er, what Saracens,

Who stood in need, to make them covered go,

Of spiritual or other discipline?

But if the shameless women were assured

Of what swift Heaven prepares for them, already

Wide open would they have their mouths to howl;

For if my foresight here deceive me not,

They shall be sad ere he has bearded cheeks

Who now is hushed to sleep with lullaby.

O brother, now no longer hide thee from me;

See that not only I, but all these people

Are gazing there, where thou dost veil the sun."

Whence I to him: "If thou bring back to mind

What thou with me hast been and I with thee,

The present memory will be grievous still.

Out of that life he turned me back who goes

In front of me, two days agone when round

The sister of him yonder showed herself,"

And to the sun I pointed. "Through the deep

Night of the truly dead has this one led me,

With this true flesh, that follows after him.

Thence his encouragements have led me up,

Ascending and still circling round the mount

That you doth straighten, whom the world made crooked.

He says that he will bear me company,

Till I shall be where Beatrice will be;

There it behoves me to remain without him.

This is Virgilius, who thus says to me,"

And him I pointed at; "the other is

That shade for whom just now shook every slope

Your realm, that from itself discharges him."