Notes.
5 The Beatitude, quoted in Latin by the
angel, is "Blessed are they who hunger and thirst after justice, for they shall be
filled." The phrase "they who hunger" is here omitted to reserve it
for the gluttons on the terrace above.
10 Virgil is continuing his discourse that
began in Canto XVII.
13 Juvenal (d.140 A.D.?) was a Roman satiric
poet who mentions the poverty of Statius in his Satires.
40-41 See Aeneid
III, 56-57. Dante, either on purpose or by mistake, reads into
Virgil's text a meaning not in the original.
42-48 See Inferno VII where the
prodigals and avaricious are punished.
56 Jocasta, mother and wife of Oedipus, saw
her twin sons Eteocles and Polynices slay one another.
58 Clio, the muse of history, is invoked at
the beginning of the Thebaid.
70 Statius quotes the celebrated passage from
Virgil’s fourth Eclogue of his Bucolics which predicts the coming of a
child to issue in a new age.
83 Domitian was emperor of Rome from 81 to 96
A.D.
88 Before reaching the seventh book of the Thebaid,
where the Greeks approach the Theban rivers, Statius became a Christian. No historical
evidence indicates that he was a convert.
97 Terence and the others here were Roman
playwrights; Persius (l. 100) was a satirist.
102 Homer and other
pagan poets are in Limbo.
See Inferno IV.
106 Euripedes and the rest were Greek
playwrights and poets.
110 Antigone and the others are characters in
Statius’ epics. Hypsipyle pointed out the spring of Langia in the Thebaid, and
Manto is the daughter of Tiresias. Dante actually placed Manto not in Limbo but among the
soothsayers in Inferno XX.
142 Five examples of fasting follow: Mary at
the feast of Cana, noble matrons of Rome, Daniel at the king’s table, primitive
people, and John the Baptist who ate locusts and wild honey (Matthew 3:4 and Mark
1:6). |
|
- By
now the angel had been left behind us,
- The
angel who’d turned us to the sixth circle,
-
Having erased a letter from my face,
-
- And
he’d told us that those who crave for justice
- 5
Are blessed, and his words had accomplished this
- With
"they that thirst" and no more of the text.
-
- And,
lighter than through other passes, I
-
Walked on, so that without the least fatigue
- I
followed the swift spirits toward the heights,
-
- 10
When Virgil began, "Love, enkindled by
-
Virtue, has always kindled love in others,
- As
long as its own flame showed outwardly;
-
-
"So from the hour when Juvenal came down
- Among
us in the limbo of that hell
- 15
And made your own affection known to me,
-
-
"My goodwill toward you has been truer than
- That
ever paid a person one’s not seen,
- And
so these stairs shall now seem short to me.
-
-
"But tell me — and forgive me as a friend
- 20
If overconfidence relax my reins,
- And
now as with a friend you talk with me —
-
-
"How was it possible that avarice
-
Lodged in your breast which by your diligence
- You
filled with such abundant store of wisdom?"
-
- 25
These words at first made Statius start to smile
- A
little, and then he replied, "Each word
- Of
yours is for me a dear sign of love.
-
-
"But truly things do often so appear
- That
they give us false grounds for some suspicion
- 30
Because the real reasons remain concealed.
-
-
"Your question makes it clear to me you think —
-
Perhaps based on the circle I was in —
- That
I was greedy in the other life.
-
-
"Know now that avarice was far removed
- 35
From me, but for my want of moderation
-
Thousands of months have meted punishment.
-
-
"And had I not set my endeavors straight
- When
I perused the lines where you call out,
- As if
in anger against human nature:
-
- 40
" ‘Why, O religious hunger after gold,
- Do
you not rule the appetite of mortals?’
- I
would be rolling weights at the grim jousts.
-
-
"Then I perceived our hands could spread their wings
- Too
wide in spending, and I grew repentant
- 45
Of that as well as of my other sins.
-
-
"How many shall rise up again with hair
-
Cropped short, in ignorance which keeps them from
-
Repenting this sin in life and at the end!
-
-
"And know that the offence which counters vice
- 50
With the directly opposite offence
- Loses
here its greenness, and both wither.
-
-
"So then, if I have been among those people
- Who
mourn their avarice, for my purgation,
- It is
its opposite that brings me here."
-
- 55
"Now, when you sang of the cruel clash of arms
-
Between the twins that gave Jocasta sorrow,"
-
Replied the singer of the Bucolic poems,
-
-
"From what Clio inspired in you there,
- It
does not seem that you were yet turned faithful
- 60
To the true faith without which good works falter.
-
-
"If this is so, then what sun or what candles
- So
drove your darkness out that you set sail
-
Straight in the wake behind the Fisherman?"
-
- And
he told him, "You were the first to send me
- 65
Toward Parnassus to drink within its caves,
- And
you the first to light my way to God.
-
-
"You were like one who, traveling by night,
-
Carries the torch behind — no help to him —
- But
he makes those who follow him the wiser,
-
- 70
"When you announced, ‘The ages are made new:
-
Justice returns and the first world of man,
- And a
new progeny comes down from heaven.’
-
-
"Through you I was a poet, through you a Christian.
- But
that you may more clearly see my sketch,
- 75
I will stretch out my hand to color it.
-
-
"By then the whole world was in labor with
- The
one true faith which had been sown abroad
- By
the messengers of the eternal kingdom,
-
-
"And those words of yours which I just mentioned
- 80
Were so in harmony with the new preachers
- That
I would often go to meet with them.
-
-
"They then became so saintly to my sight
- That
when Domitian persecuted them
- My
teardrops mingled with their lamentations.
-
- 85
"And as long as I lived there in the world
- I
gave them aid, and their straightforward ways
- Made
me feel scorn for every other sect.
-
-
"And before I had led the Greeks in my poem
- To
the stream of Thebes, I was baptized;
- 90
But out of fear I was a secret Christian,
-
-
"Long putting on a show of paganism,
- And
for this lukewarmness I had to circle
- The
fourth circle more than four centuries.
-
-
"You, then, who lifted up the covering
- 95
That hid from me the great good I described,
- While
we have time remaining yet to climb,
-
-
"Tell me where our ancient Terence is,
-
Caecilius, Plautus, Varro, if you know;
- Tell
me if they are damned, and in what region?"
-
- 100
"They, and Persius and I, and many others,"
- My
guide replied, "are with that Greek to whom
- The
Muses gave more milk than to the rest,
-
-
"In the first circling of the darkened prison.
- Often
we converse about the mountain
- 105
On which our nurses always have their dwelling.
-
-
"Euripides is with us, Antiphon,
-
Simonides, Agathon, and many more
-
Greeks who once wore laurel on their brows.
-
-
"We see there of the people whom you noted
- 110
Antigone, Deiphyle, and Argia,
- And
Ismene, as sad as she once was.
-
-
"Hypsipyle, who showed men Langia’s spring,
- We
see there; Thetis and Tiresias’ daughter,
- And
there Deidamia with her sisters."
-
- 115
Both the poets had by now grown silent,
-
Intent once more on looking all around,
- Free
of the climbing stairs and of the walls;
-
- And
by now the four handmaids of the day
- Were
left behind, and at the chariot-pole
- 120
The fifth still steered its fiery tip upward,
-
- When
my guide said, "I think that we three should
- Turn
our right shoulders to the outer edge,
-
Circling the mountain in the usual way."
-
- In
this way, custom was our standard there,
- 125
And we took to the road with less mistrust
-
Because that worthy soul showed his assent.
-
- They
strode in front and I walked on behind,
- By
myself, listening to their dialogue
- Which
much enlightened me on poetry.
-
- 130
But soon that pleasant talk was broken off
- When
we came on a tree right in our path,
- With
fruit unspoiled and fragrant to the smell.
-
- And
as a fir-tree tapers toward the top
- From
branch to branch, this tree tapered downward,
- 135
To let no one climb it, I imagine.
-
- On
the side where our way was walled off,
- Clear
sparkling water fell from the high rock
- And
spread itself among the leaves above.
-
- As
the two poets drew near to the tree,
- 140
From deep within the foliage a voice
- Cried
out, "This food shall be beyond your reach!"
-
- Then
it said, "Mary thought more how to make
- The
wedding-feast complete and honorable
- Than
on her own mouth, which now pleads for you!
-
- 145
"And in Rome of old the women were content
- With
water for their drink! And Daniel too,
- By
his disdaining food, gained understanding.
-
-
"The first age was as beautiful as gold:
- Then
hunger made the taste of acorns sweet,
- 150
And thirst turned every streamlet into nectar.
-
-
"Honey and locusts were the sustenance
- That
fed the Baptist in the wilderness:
- For
this he is in glory and made great,
-
-
"As in the Gospel you shall find revealed."
|
return
to Purgatorio XXI