Purgatorio: Canto XXIII
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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."
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