With us are many of your people too: Antigone, Dei’phyle, Argia, Ismene, sad as she has ever been,
111
and she who showed Langia to the Greeks, and Thetis, and the daughter of Tiresias, Dei’damia with her sisters, too. ”
114
The poets now were free of walls and stairs, both of them standing silent on the ledge, eager again to gaze at everything.
117
Already the four handmaids of the day were left behind, and at the chariot-pole, the fifth was tilting up the blazing tip,
120
when my guide said: “I think we ought to move with our right shoulders to the outer edge, the way we always have gone round this mount. ”
123
So, habit was our guide there, and we went our way with much less hesitation now, since worthy Statius gave us his assent.
126
They walked ahead and I, behind, alone, was paying close attention to their words, which taught me things about the art of verse.
129
But then, right in the road a tree appeared, laden with fruit whose fragrance filled the air, and instantly that pleasant talk was stopped!
132
Just as a fir tree tapers toward the top from branch to branch, so this one tapered down, to keep the souls from climbing, I suppose.
135
On that side where our way was bounded, poured clear water from the high rock to the tree, sprinkling the topmost leaves in its cascade.
138
118-120. Since the fifth handmaid is at her post, and the sun rises at 6:00, it is now between 10:00 and 11:00 A.M.
As the two poets drew close, there came a voice that shouted at us from within the tree: “This fruit and water is denied to you. ”
141
Then the voice said: “Mary was more intent on gracing the wedding feast with plenitude than on her own mouth, which now pleads for you!
144
In ancient Rome the women were content with water as their drink! And Daniel, too, acquired wisdom by despising food!
147
Mankind’s first age was beautiful as gold, and hunger made the acorns savory, and thirst made nectar run in every stream!
150
Locusts and honey were the only foods that fed the Baptist in the wilderness; to that he owes his glory and his fame,
153
which in the Gospel is revealed to you!”
CANTO XXIII
AS THE THREE poets turn from the tree, they hear the tones of the psalm Labia mea Domine. Soon a quickly moving band of emaciated spirits with famished faces comes from behind them. These are the Gluttonous. The Pilgrim recognizes one of these souls by his voice —his features have been so altered by starvation — as his old friend Forese Donati. Although a late repentant and dead only five years, Forese has been able to advance so far up the mountain on account of the prayers of his widow, Nella. The thought of the virtuous Nella provokes from Forese a diatribe against the shameless women of Florence. The canto ends with the Pilgrim describing to his old friend the nature of the journey he has undertaken.
142-144. This is the second example from the wedding feast at Cana. Purgatory XIII, 29, shows the generosity of Mary; here we see her temperance.
146-147. Daniel (Daniel 1:3-20) spurned the meat and drink of the king’s table and was given by God the gift of interpreting visions and dreams.
154. The Gospel states “Amen, I say unto you, among those born of women there has not risen a greater than John the Baptist” (Matthew 11:11).
While I peered up through that green foliage, trying to see what might be hidden there, like one who wastes his lifetime hunting birds,
3
my more than father called to me: “Dear son, come with me now; the time allotted us ought to be spent more profitably. ” So,
6
I quickly turned and, just as quickly, moved to follow the two poets whose talk was such that every step I took cost me no strain.
9
Then suddenly we heard the tearful chant of Labia mea Domine, in tones inspiring a sweet blend of joy and pain.
12
“Dear father, tell me, what is this I hear?” I asked, and he replied: “They may be shades loosing the knot of their great debt to God. ”
15
As pilgrims wrapped in meditation pass someone they do not know along the road and turn to stare and then go quickly on,
18
so, from behind us, moving swiftly, came and passed us by with a quick look of doubt, a band of spirits, silent and devout,
21
their eyes dark-shadowed, sunken in their heads, their faces pale, their bodies worn so thin that every bone was molded to their skin.
24
11. “Labia mea Domine” is the prayer of the Gluttonous, who are punished on the Sixth Terrace of Purgatory. It is taken from the Miserere (Psalm 50), and the verse that Dante evokes here is the following: “Open my lips, O Lord, and my mouth shall proclaim your praises. ”
I do not think that wretched Erysichthon had come to such a state of skin and bones, not even when he feared starvation most.
27
And I said to myself, “Look at those souls! They could be those who lost Jerusalem, when Miriam sunk her beak into her son. ”
30
The sockets of their eyes were gemless rings; one who reads omoin the face of men, could easily have recognized the m. 33 Who would believe, ignorant of the cause, that nothing but the smell of fruit or spring could bring them to this withered greediness?
36
I was still marveling at their famishing, since I did not yet understand what caused their leanness and their scabby shriveling,
39
when suddenly a shadow turned his eyes toward me and stared from deep within his skull, then cried: “What grace has been bestowed on me!”
42
I never would have known him by his looks, but in his voice I clearly recognized the features that his starving face disguised.
45
25. Son of King Triopas, Erysichthon committed an outrage against the goddess Ceres by cutting trees in her sacred grove. Ceres then afflicted him with a ravenous hunger, which drove him to sell his own daughter for food and, finally, to devour his own flesh.
30. Josephus reports (in The Jewish War VI, 3) that during the Roman siege of Jerusalem (A.D. 70), a certain Miriam, driven by hunger, killed and ate her own infant son. Dante describes her as sinking “her beak into her son, ” as though she were some horrible bird of prey.
32. The word omo(Latin homo, “man”) can be “read” on the face of a man, if the eyes are the o’s and the m is formed by the nose, eyebrows, and cheekbones. It was believed in the Middle Ages that God had thus signed and identified his creation.
This spark rekindled in my memory the image of those features now so changed, and I could see again Forese’s face.
48
“Oh, please forget about the crusty scurf discoloring my sickly skin, ” he begged, “pay no attention to my shriveled flesh;
51
tell me about yourself. And those two with you, tell me who they are too. Please answer me, do not withhold from me what I desire!”
54
“When death was on your face, I wept, ” I said, “and now the grief I feel is just as great, seeing your face so piteously disfigured.
57
In God’s name tell me what strips you so bare. Do not ask me to speak, I am benumbed! And one speaks ill whose thoughts are somewhere else. ”
60
And he: “From the Eternal Mind a power descends into the water and the tree that you just passed: this is what makes me lean.
63
All of us here who sing while we lament for having stuffed our mouths too lovingly, make ourselves pure, thirsting and hungering.
66
The fragrance of the fruit and of the spray that trickles down the leaves stirs up in us a hungering desir
e for food and drink—
69
and not just once: as we go running round this road, our pain is constantly renewed. Did I say pain? Solace is what I mean!
72
For that same will that leads us to the tree led Christ to cry out joyously, ‘Eli, ’ when he delivered us with His own blood. ”
75
48. Forese is Dante’s friend, Forese Donati, also known as Bicci Novello, who engaged with him in a facetious poetical correspondence consisting of six sonnets.
74. Christ cried out to Eli in Matthew 27:46: “But about the ninth hour Jesus cried out with a loud voice, saying ‘Eli, Eli, lema sabachthani, ’ that is, ‘My God, my God, why has thou forsaken me?’ “
And I: “Forese; since that day when you abandoned our world for a better life, less than five years from your last day have passed!
78
If, when you knew that moment of sweet grief that weds the soul to God again, you were close to your death, able to sin no more—
81
how have you climbed so high up on the mount? I thought, surely, to find you down below where souls who wasted time must pay with time. ”
84
“It was my Nella with her flowing tears, ” he answered me, “who brought me here so soon to let me drink the sweet wormwood of pain.
87
It was her pious prayers and her laments that raised me from the slope where souls must wait, and set me free from all the other rounds.
90
All the more dear and pleasing to the Lord is my sweet widow that I greatly loved, the more she is unique in doing good;
93
for the Barbagia of Sardinia counts among its women many far more chaste than those in the Barbagia where she lives.
96
My dear brother, how can I tell you this: I see a future time—it won’t be long—in which bans from the pulpit shall clamp down
99
on those ladies of Florence who, bold-faced, now walk our city streets as they parade their bosom to the tits! What barbarous girl,
102
what female Saracen, had to be taught spiritual discipline, or anything, to keep her body decently concealed?
105
85. Nella was Forese’s virtuous wife, Giovanella.
94. The Barbagia was the wild, mountainous region of Sardinia inhabited by the Barbacini, a clan of bandits said to have descended from a settlement of prisoners established by the Vandals.
But if these shameless creatures only knew what the swift heavens have in store for them, they would by now be screaming their heads off!
108
For if our foresight here does not deceive, they shall have cause to grieve before the cheeks of those now soothed by lullabies grow beards.
111
My brother, now tell me about yourself. You see how everyone, including me, is staring there where you block out the sun. ”
114
I answered him: “Whenever you recall what we were like together, you and I, the memory of those days must torture you.
117
From that life I was called away by him who leads me here—just a few days ago, when his sister (I pointed to the sun)
120
was shining full. Still wearing this true flesh I came into and through the darkest night of the true dead with this soul as my guide;
123
from there, sustained by him, I came up here climbing and ever circling round this mount which straightens in you what the world has bent.
126
He says that I shall have his company until I am where Beatrice is—and from then on, without him I must go.
129
Virgil (I pointed to him) told me this. The other spirit standing over there is he for whom this mountain’s terraces
132
trembled just now, releasing him to Heaven. ”
121. The Pilgrim is referring to the full moon that was shining on the night of Holy Thursday, when he entered the Dark Wood, in the opening canto of the Comedy.
CANTO XXIV
THE PILGRIM AND Forese continue their conversation. Forese says that his sister, Piccarda, has already been taken up into Heaven, and then he points out a number of the souls of the Gluttonous, among them Bonagiunta Orbicciani of Lucca, Pope Martin V of Tours, Ubaldino della Pila, Boniface de’ Fieschi, archbishop of Ravenna, and the Marchese degli Orgoliosi of Forlì. The Pilgrim chooses to speak to the shade of Bonagiunta, who seems particularly anxious to approach him. Bonagiunta prophesies that a woman named Gentucca will someday make the Pilgrim appreciate the city of Lucca. He then asks Dante if he is the author of the poem “Ladies who have intelligence of Love, ” and a brief discussion of the “dolce stil nuovo” ensues. As this discussion comes to an end, the souls of the Gluttonous turn and speed away. Only Forese remains behind to converse further with the Pilgrim, and he prophesies the ignominious death of his brother, Corso Donati. When Forese has departed, the Pilgrim encounters a second tree, from whose branches a voice shouts exempla of Gluttony; these include the drunken centaurs at the wedding feast of Theseus and the unworthy soldiers of Gideon’s band, who drank greedily, putting their faces in the water. Finally the angel of Abstinence shows the three poets the way to the next terrace.
Talking did not slow down our walk, nor did walking our talk: conversing, on we sped like ships enjoying favorable winds.
3
And all those shades, looking like things twice dead, absorbed the miracle through caved-in eyes: this was a living man which they beheld!
6
And I, continuing where I left off, said: “He is climbing at a slower pace because of his companion, I suppose.
9
If you can, tell me where Piccarda is. And, are there any here that I should know among these shades that stare at me like this?”
12
10. Piccarda was the sister of Forese Donati, whom Dante later meets in Paradise (Paradise III, 34-123).
“My sister, who was just as virtuous as she was lovely, is in triumph now on High Olympus, joyful in her crown. ”
15
This he said first, and then: “No reason why I should not tell their names—especially since abstinence has milked our features dry.
18
There”—and he pointed—“Bonagiunta goes, the Luccan Bonagiunta; the one behind—see that face withered more than all the rest—
21
once held within his arms the Holy Church: he was from Tours, and here he fasts to purge Bolsena’s eels cooked in Vernaccia wine. ”
24
Then, many others he named, one by one, and all seemed quite content at being named— no one, at least, gave him an angry look.
27
I saw two souls for hunger chewing air: Ubaldino della Pila, Boniface, who with his crook led multitudes to graze.
30
I saw Milord Marchese. He, in Forlì, drank endlessly and with less thirst than here— yet no one ever saw him satisfied.
33
15. High Olympus is Heaven.
19. Bonagiunta Orbicciani of Lucca was a poet, many of whose verses survive, as well as an orator of some repute. He was born around 1220.
21. The face is that of Simon de Brie of Tours, who served as Pope Martin IV from 1281 to 1285.
29. Ubaldino degli Ubaldini della Pila was a great feaster and entertainer, who devoted much care to the preparation of meals.
29. Boniface (Bonifazio de’ Fieschi of Genoa), archbishop of Ravenna from 1274 to 1294, was very wealthy and served as an arbitrator and ambassador, bringing about a reconciliation between Alfonso III of Aragon and Philip the Fair, and negotiating the release of Charles II of Naples.
31. Milord Marchese was a member of the Argogliosi family of Forlì and podestà of Faenza in 1296. A great wine drinker, when told that people thought he did nothing but drink, he replied that they should instead think of him as being always thirsty.
Often a face will stand
out in a crowd; this happened here: I singled out the shade from Lucca, who seemed interested in me.
36
He mumbled something—something like “Gentucca” I heard come from his lips, where he felt most emaciating Justice strip him bare.
39
“O, soul, ” I said, “you seem so much to want to talk to me; speak up so I can hear; that way your words can satisfy us both. ”
42
“A woman has been born, ” he said, “and she is still unmarried, who will give you cause to love my city, which all men revile.
45
Remember well this prophecy of mine, and if the words I muttered are not clear, future events will clarify their sense.
48
But, tell me, do I not see standing here him who brought forth the new poems that begin: ’Ladies who have intelligence of Love. ’ “
51
I said to him, “I am one who, when Love inspires me, takes careful note and then, gives form to what he dictates in my heart. ”
54
37. Though nothing regarding Gentucca is known with certainty, she was probably one who befriended Dante during his exile.
45. This city that “all men revile” is Lucca, which had the reputation of being a hotbed of political corruption.
51. This is the opening verse of the first canzone of the Vita nuova.
52-54. This is a description of Dante’s new poetic method: he follows the dictates of love, of the selfless, nonerotic love of which he learned in the Vita nuova, and of love as the desire for the highest good (love as explained at length in the Purgatory by Virgil in Cantos XVI1-XVIII).
“My brother, now I see, ” he said, “the knot that held Guittone and the Notary and me back from the sweet new style I hear!
57
Now, I see very clearly how your wings fly straight behind the dictates of that Love— this, certainly, could not be said of ours;