While it is fixed on the Eternal Good, and observes temperance loving worldly goods, it cannot be the cause of sinful joys;
99
but when it turns toward evil or pursues some good with not enough or too much zeal— the creature turns on his Creator then.
102
So, you can understand how love must be the seed of every virtue growing in you, and every deed that merits punishment.
105
Now, since it is a fact that love cannot ignore the welfare of its loving self, there’s nothing in the world can hate itself;
108
and since no being can be conceived as being all in itself, severed from the First Being, no creature has the power to hate his God.
111
And so it follows, if I argue well, the evil that man loves must be his neighbor’s. This love springs up three ways in mortal clay:
114
There is the man who sees his own success connected to his neighbor’s downfall; thus, he longs to see him fall from eminence.
117
Next, he who fears to lose honor and fame, power and favor, if his neighbor rise: vexed by this good, he wishes for the worst.
120
Finally, he who, wronged, flares up in rage: with his great passion for revenge, he thinks only of how to harm his fellow man.
123
This threefold love is purged by those below. Now, I would have you know the other kind: love that without measure pursues its good.
126
All of you, vaguely, apprehend and crave a good with which your heart may be at rest; and so, each of you strives to reach that goal.
129
If you aspire to it or grasp at it with only lukewarm love, then on this ledge you will be punished, once you have confessed.
132
Another good there is: it brings not joy, not perfect joy, for it is not the True Essence, the fruit and root of every good;
135
the love that yields excessively to this is purged above us on three terraces, but how the nature of such love is threefold,
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I would have you discover for yourself. ”
CANTO XVIII
IN RESPONSE TO the Pilgrim’s request, Virgil continues his lecture on love. More than satisfied with the explanations of his guide, the Pilgrim lets his thoughts wander aimlessly and sleepily, when, suddenly, a group of souls rushes upon them from behind. These are the Slothful. Two souls out in front of the frenzied pack shout out two exempla of the virtue of Zeal, one involving the Virgin Mary, the other, Julius Caesar. As the crowd rushes by, one soul, the Abbott of San Zeno, exchanges a few hasty words with Virgil. The exempla of Sloth are proclaimed by two souls at the rear of the rapidly moving group: they involve the recalcitrant Israelites wandering with Moses in the desert, and certain companions of Aeneas who refused to continue the voyage to Latium with him.
128. This good is, of course, God. These words reflect the famous Augustinian formulation that is never far from the thematic surface of the Divine Comedy: “Our hearts are restless till they rest in Thee” (Confessions I, i).
When he had brought his lecture to an end, the lofty scholar looked into my face, searching to see if I seemed satisfied;
3
and I; already thirsting for more drink, kept silent, wondering: “Could he, perhaps, be tired of all this questioning of mine?”
6
But that true father, sensing my desire, which was too timid to express itself, spoke first, and thus encouraged me to speak.
9
I said: “Master, the light you shed has made my sight so keen that now I clearly see all that your words mean or what they imply.
12
So I beseech you, father, kind and dear, define love for me, please, which is, you say the source of every virtue, every vice. ”
15
“Now focus your mind’s eye on what I say, ” he said, “and you will clearly understand the error of the blind who lead the blind.
18
The soul at birth, created quick to love, will move toward anything that pleases it, as soon as pleasure causes it to move.
21
From what is real your apprehensive power extracts an image it displays within you, forcing your mind to be attentive to it;
24
and if, attentive, it inclines toward this, that inclination is love: Nature it is which is through pleasure bound anew in you.
27
Just as a fire’s flames always rise up, inspired by its own nature to ascend, seeking to be in its own element,
30
just so, the captive soul begins its quest, the spiritual movement of its love, not resting till the thing loved is enjoyed.
33
It should be clear to you by now how blind to truth those people are who make the claims that every love is, in itself, good love.
36
They think this, for love’s substance, probably, seems always good, but though the wax is good, the impression made upon it may be bad. ”
39
“Thanks to your words and my keen interest, I know what love is now, ” I answered him, “but knowing this brings more uncertainty:
42
if love comes from a source outside of us, the soul having no choice, how can you praise or blame it for its love of good or bad?”
45
And he to me: “I can explain to you as much as reason sees; for the rest, wait for Beatrice—it is the work of faith.
48
Every substantial form, being distinct from matter, yet somehow conjoined with it, contains within itself a certain power
51
35. The people are the philosophers, particularly the Epicureans, and their followers (the “blind” of line 18), who maintain that every kind of love is praiseworthy because it is a natural tending to the good.
38-39. As a poor seal may stamp on good wax a bad imprint, so may some object that is unworthy kindle the good instinct of love to a wrongful passion.
49. In scholastic terminology, substantial form is that which gives to anything its own particular essence. The substantial form in man is, of course, his intellectual soul.
not visible except as it is made manifest through its workings and effects: as life in plants is proved by their green leaves.
54
So, man cannot know where his cognizance of primal concepts comes from—or his bent for those primary objects of desire;
57
these are a part of you, just like the zeal of bees for making honey; the primal will is neither laudable nor blamable.
60
That other wills conform to this first one, you have the innate faculty of reason, which should defend the threshold of consent.
63
This is the principle on which is based the judgment of your merit—according as it winnows out the good love from the bad.
66
Those men who with their reason probed the depths, perceived this liberty innate in man, thereby bequeathing ethics to the world.
69
Let us assume that every love that burns in you arises through necessity; you still have power to restrain such love.
72
This noble power Beatrice knows as Freedom of the Will: remember that, if ever she should mention it to you. ”
75
The moon was shining close to midnight now, like a brass bucket burnished bright as fire, and, thinning out the stars that we could see,
78
61. The “other wills, ” on a more intellective plane, should have the innocence of the primal instinctive will.
67. “Those men” are the philosophers Plato and Aristotle, who, using their reason, perceived the free will innate in man and founded the study of ethics or the science of morality.
72. Just as Marco Lombardo in Canto XVI had assured the Pilgrim that free will could protect him from exterior forces (e. g., astral influences), so Virgil points out that, posses
sing free will, man need not be the victim of inner forces (e. g., his own temperament).
was following that course against the sky made fiery by the sun, when Romans see it set between the Sards and Corsicans.
81
That noble shade, who had made Pietola renowned above all Mantuan towns, was now free of the burden I had laid on him,
84
and I, having been privileged to reap such clear, plain answers to my questioning, let my thoughts wander vaguely, sleepily;
87
but this somnolent mood did not last long, for suddenly we heard a rush of souls coming around the mount behind our backs:
90
And as Ismenus and Asopus saw in ancient times at night along their banks the rush and rage of Theban bacchanalia,
93
just such a frenzied urge I thought I saw when that thick rush of souls curved round the bank spurred in their race by good will and just love.
96
And then they were upon us—that entire, enormous mass of spirits on the run; two out in front were shouting as they wept:
99
“Mary in haste ran to the hills, ” cried one, the other: “Caesar, Ilerda to subdue, thrust at Marseilles, and then rushed down to Spain. ”
102
79. The moon is following its monthly course in the direction from west to east.
82-83. The “noble shade” is Virgil, who, according to legend, was born at Pietola, a village near Mantua. The fame and glory of the poet has caused his birthplace to outshine all the other surrounding Mantuan towns.
91. Ismenus and Asopus were two rivers of Bretia near Thebes, along which the orgiastic rites of the god Bacchus were observed.
100. This biblical exemplum refers to Mary’s visit to Elizabeth, wife of Zachariah (who lived in the hill country), soon after the angel of the Annunciation had appeared to her.
101. On his way to Ilerda (today Lerida) in Spain, Caesar began the siege of Marseilles; then, leaving part of his army there under Brutus to complete the task, he hurried on to his main goal.
“Faster! faster, we have no time to waste, for time is love, ” cried others from behind, “strive to do good, that grace may bloom again. ”
105
“O souls in whom keen eagerness atones, perhaps, for past delay and negligence, induced by lukewarm love of doing good—
108
this man, who is, I swear to you, alive, would like to climb above when day returns; show us the nearest way to reach the cleft. ”
111
These were my leader’s words. One of the shades called out as he rushed by: “Follow our path, and you will find the passage by yourself.
114
We cannot stop; desire to race keeps on running through us; we beg your pardon, then, if penance seems to be discourtesy.
117
I was San Zeno’s abbott in Verona, when the good emperor Barbarossa reigned— of him Milan still speaks with bitterness.
120
There is a man with one foot in the grave who soon will have good cause to rue the power he wielded once over that monastery:
123
in place of its true pastor he has put as head a bastardly born son of his, deformed in body and maimed worse in mind. ”
126
118. This abbot was probably a certain Gherardo II, who died in 1187 and was abbot of the church of San Zeno in Verona during the time of Emperor Frederick I.
119. Barbarossa was Emperor Frederick I, who ruled from 1152 to 1190 and was in conflict with Pope Alexander III, by whom he was excommunicated.
121. The man is Alberto della Scala, Lord of Verona, who died in 1301, and hence, in 1300, had one foot in the grave.
124-126. Alberto’s illegitimate son, Giuseppe (1263-1313), despite being mentally retarded, crippled, and a bastard, served as the abbot of San Zeno from 1292 to 1313.
If he said more, I did not hear the words, the two of us were left so far behind; but I was glad to hear as much as this.
129
And he who always was my help in need said: “Turn around, look at those racing souls straining themselves to put the curb on Sloth. ”
132
Two at the end were shouting: “All of those for whom the Red Sea’s waters opened wide were dead before the Jordan saw their heirs;
135
and those who found the task too difficult to keep on striving with Anchises’ son, gave themselves up to an inglorious life. ”
138
Then, when those souls had sped so far ahead that they were now completely out of sight, a new thought started forming in my mind,
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creating others, many different ones: from one to another to another thought I wandered sleepily, then closed my eyes,
144
letting my floating thoughts melt into dreams.
CANTO XIX
JUST BEFORE DAWN the Pilgrim dreams of a hideous female, stuttering, cross-eyed, maimed, and with sallow skin. But as he stares intently at her, she loses all her deformity and takes on a very desirable aspect. She
133-135. The first exemplum of Sloth, taken from the Bible (Numbers 14:1-39), is that of the Israelites, who were sluggish in crossing the desert with Moses after the Lord had opened up the Red Sea so that they could escape from Egypt.
136-138. The second exemplum, from classical lore, indicts the followers of Aeneas, who, instead of following him to Latium, stopped and settled with Akestes in Sicily, thus giving up their share of the glory of founding Rome (Aeneid V, 605-640).
is a Siren, and her singing captivates the Pilgrim and holds him entranced, until a saintly lady appears and rouses Virgil to go to the aid of his charge. Virgil rips open the Siren’s garment, to reveal her belly, the stench from which startles the Pilgrim from his dream. As the two poets begin to climb again, the angel of Zeal appears to show them the way and pronounces the beatitude “Blessed are they who mourn. ” When the two pilgrims reach the next terrace, they see souls everywhere stretched out upon the ground, weeping and sighing as they recite the psalm Adhaesit pavimento anima mea. This group is the Avaricious. The Pilgrim’s attention is attracted by one of the souls, and, with Virgil’s consent, he goes over to speak to him. It is the shade of the former Pope Adrian V, who explains that since the Avaricious turned their backs on Heaven and fixed their eyes on earthly goods, so Justice has here bound them face down to the ground. He rebukes the Pilgrim for kneeling to him, citing a verse from the gospels to indicate that earthly relationships no longer hold in the spiritual realm, and finally expresses the desire that his niece Alagia be preserved from the corruption surrounding her.
It was the hour when the heat of day, quenched by Earth’s cold (at times by Saturn’s too), cannot prevail against the lunar chill—
3
when geomancers see far in the east Fortuna Major rise before the dawn along a path soon to be bathed in light.
6
There came into my dream a woman, stuttering, cross-eyed, stumbling along on her maimed feet, with ugly yellow skin and hands deformed.
9
I stared at her. And as the sun revives a body numbed by the night’s cold, just so my eyes upon her worked to free her tongue
12
4. Geomancers were those who foretold the future by reading random arrangements of points on a surface and attempting to match them with certain configurations of stars.
7. This loathsome female, as we shall learn later, symbolizes the vices of Avarice, Gluttony, and Lust, which the Pilgrim will see being purged on the upper three terraces.
and straighten out all her deformities, gradually suffusing her wan face with just the color Love would have desired.
15
And once her tongue was loosened by my gaze, she started singing, and the way she sang captured my mind—it could not free itself.
18
“I am, ” she sang, “the sweet Siren, I am, whose song beguiles the sailors in mid-sea, enticin
g them, inviting them to joy!
21
My singing made Ulysses turn away from his desired course; who dwells with me seldom departs, I satisfy so well. ”
24
Her lips had not yet closed when there appeared a saintly lady standing at my side, ready to foil the Siren’s stratagem.
27
“Virgil, O Virgil, who is this?” she cried with indignation. Virgil moved toward her, keeping his gaze fixed on that noble one.
30
He seized the other, ripped her garment off, exposing her as far down as the paunch! The stench pouring from her woke me from sleep.
33
I looked at my good master, and he said: “Three times at least I called you. Get up, come, let us find the passageway for you. ”
36
So, I stood up. Daylight had now spread out through all the circles of the sacred mount as we moved on, the new sun at our back.
39
Following in his footsteps, brow bent low, so heavy with my thoughts (I must have looked like half a bridge’s arch), I suddenly
42
heard a voice say, “Come here, here is the pass, ” words spoken in soft tones of graciousness, tones never heard within our mortal bounds.
45
Then angel’s wings, that could have been a swan’s outstretched, invited us to make our way upward between the two high hard stone walls,
48
and then he moved his wings and fanned us both, declaring those qui lugent to be blest, for consolation shall be theirs in Heaven.
51
“What is it that disturbs you?” said my guide, “what causes you to stare so at the ground?” (By then we had climbed past the angel’s post.)
54
I said: “It is that strange dream which I had, a vision that still fills me full of dread—I cannot get the thought out of my mind. ”
57
“You saw, ” he said, “that ageless sorceress for whom alone the souls above must weep; you also saw how men escape from her.
60
Let these words be enough. Move faster, now, and look up at the lure of mighty spheres that the Eternal King forever spins. ”
63
The hawk who has been staring at its feet will, when he hears the cry, stretch wide his wings ready to soar toward food he knows is there;