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take vengeance on those wanton arms that dared embrace our daughter, O Pisistratus!” And then, it seemed, that lord replied to her,
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his face serene, his words gentle and calm: “What shall we do to those who wish us harm if we condemn the ones who show us love?”
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89-90. The first example of Meekness, the virtue opposed to the vice of Wrath (taken, as always, from the life of Mary) is the episode in which Mary and Joseph, having left Jerusalem and traveled an entire day, discover that the boy Jesus is not in their company.
97. The town alluded to here is Athens. Legend has it that both Neptune and Athena desired to give their name to this newly founded capital. A contest ensued, and from it the city came to be called Athens.
103. The second example of Meekness is Pisistratus, the benevolent tyrant of Athens (560-527 B.C); he was famous for his ability to turn away wrath with a soft answer.
And then I saw a mob, raging with hate, stoning a boy to death, as all of them kept screaming to each other, “Kill him, kill!”
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I saw him sinking slowly to his knees, the weight of death forcing him to the earth; but still his eyes were open gates to Heaven,
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while he, in agony, prayed to his Lord for the forgiveness of his murderers, his face showing compassion for them all.
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When finally my soul became aware of the reality that lay beyond, I recognized my error and its truth.
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My leader, who saw I was in the plight of someone trying hard to wake from sleep, said: “What is wrong? Have you lost all control?
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You have been walking for a good half-league like someone half-asleep or drunk on wine: your eyes about to close, unsteady legs. ”
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“O my sweet father, listen: I will tell you all of the things that did appear to me while I could scarcely move my legs, ” I said.
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And he: “Were you to put a hundred masks upon your face, still you could never hide from me the slightest thought that comes to you.
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The things you saw were shown that you might learn to let your heart be flooded by the peace that flows eternally from that High Fount.
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I did not ask, ‘What’s wrong?’ as one who looks with eyes that have no gift of insight might, eyes doomed to blindness once the body dies;
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106-114. The third example of Meekness is from the life of St. Stephen, the first Christian martyr. Stephen was stoned to death by an angry crowd, but, even in his final agony, he asked the Lord to forgive his persecutors (Acts 7:54-60). I asked you this to give strength to your limbs; so must the lazy man be spurred to put the time of his reawakening to best use. ”
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We walked along, with evening coming on, into the splendor of the setting sun, looking ahead as far as we could see.
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Then gradually a cloud of smoke took shape; slowly it drifted toward us, dark as night; we were not able to escape its grip:
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it took away our sight, and the pure air.
CANTO XVI
THE PILGRIM IS blinded by the smoke and clings tenaciously to his guide. He hears the voices of the Wrathful singing the Agnus Dei in perfect concord. One of the souls, Marco the Lombard, comes forward to speak with the Pilgrim and, at his invitation, accompanies him (and Virgil) to the end of the smoke-filled space, discussing the problems connected with the present-day corruption of society. He belittles the influence of the stars on human affairs, affirms the existence of Free Will, and laments the lack of good leadership in church and state.
The gloom of Hell or of a night bereft of all its planets, under barren skies, and totally obscured by dark, dense clouds,
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never had wrapped my face within a veil so thick, made of such harsh and stinging stuff, as was that smoke that poured around us there.
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It was too much for open eyes to bear, and so my wise and faithful guide drew near, offering me his shoulder for support.
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Just as the blind man walks close to his guide in order not to stray, or to collide with something that could hurt or even kill him,
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so I moved through that foul and acrid air, hearing my guide keep telling me: “Watch out! Be very careful not to lose me here. ”
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I could hear voices, which all seemed to pray the Lamb of God Who takes away our sins that He be merciful and grant them peace.
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Each prayer they sang began with Agnus Dei; the same words, sung in unison, produced an atmosphere of perfect harmony.
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“Master, those voices—are they shades I hear?” I asked. And he to me, “Yes, you are right, and they are loosening the knot of Wrath. ”
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“And who are you whose body cleaves our smoke? You speak of us as though you still belonged with those who measure time by calendars. ”
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I heard a voice, somewhere, that spoke these words. My master said: “Answer his question, first, then ask him if this is the right way up. ”
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And I: “O creature, you who cleanse your soul to give it back, made beautiful, to God, you will hear wonders if you come with me. ”
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“I’ll come as far as I’m allowed, ” he said, “and if we cannot see each other’s face, we can at least hear one another’s words. ”
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Then I began: “Still wrapped in mortal bonds that death has yet to loose, I climb to Heaven; and through the pains of Hell I have come here.
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19. “Agnus Dei” (“Lamb of God”) is a prayer opener taken from the canon of the Mass. It is significant that the Wrathful are singing to the Lamb of God, to Jesus, the meek One. Since God has given me the special grace of His desire that I should see His court by means unknown to men of our own day,
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please tell me who you were before you died, and tell me, too: is this the way to reach the passage up? Your words shall be our guide. ”
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“I was a Lombard, Marco was my name; I knew about the world, I loved that good at which men now no longer aim their bows.
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The path you’re on will lead you to the stairs. ” Thus he replied, then added: “Now, I pray that you will pray for me when you’re above. ”
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“I promise you to do what you have asked, ” I said. “But there’s a problem haunting me: I can no longer keep it to myself.
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I first was made aware of it below, and now it plagues my mind a second time, for your words second what I first heard there:
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the world, indeed, as you have just declared, is destitute of every virtue known, swarming with evils, ever breeding more.
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What is the cause of this? Please make it clear that I may teach the truth to other men; some see it in the stars, some on the earth. ”
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A deep sigh, wrung by grief into “Alas!” came first, and then: “The world, brother, is blind, and obviously the world is where you’re from!”
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You men on earth attribute everything to the spheres’ influence alone, as if with some predestined plan they moved all things.
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If this were true, then our Free Will would be annihilated: it would not be just to render bliss for good or pain for evil.
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The spheres initiate your tendencies: not all of them—but even if they did, you have the light that shows you right from wrong,
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and your Free Will, which, though it may grow faint in its first struggles with the heavens, can still surmount all obstacles if nurtured well.
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You are free subjects of a greater power, a nobler nature that
creates your mind, and over this the spheres have no control.
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So, if the world today has gone astray, the cause lies in yourselves and only there! Now I shall carefully explain that cause.
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From the fond hands of God, Who loves her even before He gives her being, there issues forth just like a child, all smiles and tears at play,
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the simple soul, pure in its ignorance, which, having sprung from her Creator’s joy, will turn to anything it likes. At first
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she is attracted to a trivial toy, and though beguiled, she will run after it, if guide or curb do not divert her love.
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Men, therefore, needed the restraint of laws, needed a ruler able to at least discern the towers of the True city. True,
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the laws there are, but who enforces them? No one. The shepherd who is leading you can chew the cud but lacks the cloven hoof.
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And so the flock, that see their shepherd’s greed for the same worldly goods that they have craved, are quite content to feed on what he feeds.
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As you can see, bad leadership has caused the present state of evil in the world, not Nature that has grown corrupt in you.
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On Rome, that brought the world to know the good, once shone two suns that lighted up two ways: the road of this world and the road of God.
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The one sun has put out the other’s light; the sword is now one with the crook—and fused together thus, must bring about misrule,
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since joined, now neither fears the other one. If you still doubt, think of the grain when ripe— each plant is judged according to its seed.
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The region of the Po and Adige flowed with true worth, with honest courtesy, until the time of Frederick’s campaign;
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but now, the kind of man who is ashamed to talk with, even meet with, honest folk, may travel there completely reassured!
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There, three old men still live in whom the past rebukes the present. How those three must yearn for God to call them to a better life!—
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Currado da Palazzo, good Gherardo, and Guido da Castel—who’s better named ’the simple Lombard, ’ as the French would say.
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Tell the world this: The church of Rome, which fused two powers into one, has sunk in muck, defiling both herself and her true role. ”
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112. With these words Marco brings to an end the second of his two main topics.
124. Currado was a Guelph from Brescia and acted as vicar to Charles of Anjou in Florence in 1276; he was podestà of Piacenza in 1288.
Gherardo da Camino, born ca. 1240, was the captain-general of Treviso from 1283 to 1306, the year he died.
125. Guido da Castel was a nobleman of Reggio Emilia, born in 1235 and still living in 1315.
“Well argued, my dear Marco, ” I replied, “and now I understand why Levi’s sons were not permitted to inherit wealth.
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But who is this Gherardo whom you give as an example of a race extinct, whose life rebukes this barbarous age of ours?”
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“Your words are meant to trick me or to test me!” he said. “How can you speak the Tuscan tongue and not know who the good Gherardo is?
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I know him by no other name than this, unless he’s known as Gaia’s father, too. God be with you! And now I must go back:
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see how the rays of light through the thick smoke grow brighter now? The angel’s near, and I must leave before he sees me. ” And he turned,
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not giving me a chance to ask him more.
CANTO XVII
ATHE PILGRIM emerges from the cloud of smoke that surrounds the Wrathful, the sun is about to set. He experiences three more visions that offer exempla of Wrath. They center on the stories of Procne, Haman, and Amata, the wife of King Latinus. The angel of Meekness then appears and points to the way by which the two poets may continue their ascent. As they move toward the indicated stairway, they hear the words of the beatitude “Blessed are the Peacemakers. ” Upon reaching the Fourth Terrace, the Pilgrim feels that all strength has left his limbs, and both he and his guide rest from their journey: they have reached the Terrace of the Slothful, and night is about to fall. Virgil takes advantage of this pause to discourse on the nature of love, showing that all the sins purged in Purgatory spring from one of three perversions of love. His words bring the canto to a close.
131. “Levi’s sons” the Levites, members of the tribe of Levi, were designated to serve the Temple, and, in order to prevent corruption and distraction in the performance of their sacred function, Jewish law prohibited them from owning property.
140. Gaia was Gherardo’s daughter by his second wife, Chiara della Torre of Milan. She married Tolbcrto da Camino, a relative, and she died in 1311.
Reader, if ever you have found yourself caught in a mountain fog, trying to see your way through it, as sightless as a mole,
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remember how at last the damp, dense air starts to dissolve, and how the sun’s pale disc feebly begins to penetrate the mist,
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and you will find it easy to recall what it was like when finally I saw the sun again, the sun about to set.
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Matching the faithful footsteps of my guide, I walked out of that cloud into the light whose rays had died out on the shore below.
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O power of fantasy that steals our minds from things outside, to leave us unaware, although a thousand trumpets may blow loud—
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what stirs you if the senses show you nothing? Light stirs you, formed in Heaven, by itself, or by His will Who sends it down to us:
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In my imagination there took shape the impious deed committed by that being transformed into the bird that lives to sing;
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my mind became, at this point, so withdrawn into itself that the reality of things outside could not have entered there.
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9. The Pilgrim’s second day on Mount Purgatory, Easter Monday, is drawing to a close. Then poured into my soaring fantasy, a figure crucified, whose face revealed contempt and fury even as he died.
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By him the great Ahasuerus stood, Esther his wife, and the just Mordecai, integrity in word and deed was his.
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Then, when this image of its own accord burst like a bubble when the watery film around it breaks—another vision rose
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in my imagination: a young girl bitterly weeping, saying: “O my queen, why did you let your rage destroy your life?
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You killed yourself rather than lose Lavinia? Now you have lost me! I am she who mourns your death, Mother, before another’s ruin!”
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When suddenly closed eyes are struck by light, our sleep is broken, though it lingers on a little while before it fully dies,
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just so my vision slipped away from me when I was struck by light across my eyes, a light far brighter than is known on earth.
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Looking around to find out where I was, I heard a voice: “Here is the place to climb. ” This drove all other thoughts out of my mind
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and left me burning with desire to see the one who spoke—a wish that will not cease till it comes face to face with its desire;
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but, as if looking at the burning sun whose brilliance overwhelms the sight and veils its very form, I felt my powers fail.
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26. Haman was a minister of Ahasuerus, the king of Persia. Enraged that the Jew Mordecai refused to do him homage, Haman persuaded the king to decree the death of all the Jews in the land; a cross was constructed especially for Mordecai. 35. The queen is Amata, wife of Latin
us and mother of Lavinia. “This is an angel of the Lord who comes to show us the ascent before we ask, and hides himself in his own radiance.
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He treats us as a man would treat himself: who sees the need but waits for the request, already is half-guilty of denial;
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so, let our feet obey his call, and climb as far as possible while there is light, for we may not ascend once it grows dark. ”
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These were my leader’s words; and then, as one, the two of us went over to the stairs. As soon as I had taken one step up,
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I felt what seemed to be a wing that moved and fanned my face; I heard the words: “Beati pacifici, who feel no sinful wrath. ”
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The day’s last rays, which night would follow soon, already were so high above us now that stars began to show through, here and there.
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“Why is my strength fading away like this?” I kept repeating to myself, as I felt all my forces draining from my legs.
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We had just reached the last step of the stairs, and there we found ourselves immobilized, just like a vessel having run ashore.
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I waited for a moment, listening to hear some sound come from this unknown round; then, turning to my master, I inquired:
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“O my sweet father, what offense is purged here on this terrace? Though our steps have stopped, don’t you stop speaking to me. ” So he said:
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67. The angel, with his wing, has removed another P, leaving four more to be erased. 68-69. Beati pacifici (“Blessed are the Peacemakers”) is the Beatitude for the Terrace of the Wrathful. “Who feel no sinful wrath” is a gloss added by Dante to the biblical text. “That love of good which failed to satisfy the call of duty, here is fortified: the oar once sluggish now is plied with zeal.
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But if you want to better understand, give me your full attention: you will reap excellent fruit from this delay of ours.
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Neither Creator nor his creatures ever, my son, lacked love. There are, as you well know, two kinds: the natural love, the rational.
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Natural love may never be at fault; the other may: by choosing the wrong goal, by insufficient or excessive zeal.
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