The Divine Comedy

by Dante Alighieri

I answered, “when my legs were stricken so.”

  “Were you to wear a hundred masks,” he said,

  “to hide your face, it would lie open to me

  so that your slightest thought might yet be read.

  These visions warn your soul on no account

  still to refuse the water of that peace

  which flows to man from the Eternal Fount.

  I did not ask ‘what’s wrong’ as a man might

  who sees with eyes alone, and when the body

  is lying senseless has no other sight;

  but rather to put strength into your stride:

  for so must laggards be spurred on to use

  their reawakening senses as a guide.”

  Through the last vesper-hour we traveled on,

  looking ahead as far as eye could see

  against the level rays of the late sun.

  And there ahead of us against the light

  we saw come billowing in our direction

  by slow degrees, a smoke as black as night.

  Nor was there refuge from it anywhere.

  It took our sight from us, and the pure air.

  NOTES

  1-6. that bright Sphere that . . . skips endlessly: Despite the fact that Dante says “Sphere” rather than “great circle” or “zone,” the reference here is best taken to be to the zodiac, which dips above and below the horizon and may, therefore, be said to “skip endlessly.” Dante uses the word scherza, which may signify any kind of play. as much as lies between: Three full hours (from the end of the third hour of the day, i.e., 9:00 A.M., back to the dawn, i.e., 6:00 A.M.). Since one hour equals 15°, “as much as” must equal 45°. If the Sun has 45° remaining of its daily course, it is three hours short of sunset, hence 3:00 P.M. it was Vespers there . . . and midnight here: Purgatory is antipodal to Jerusalem. If it is 3:00 P.M. in Purgatory, it is 3:00 A.M. in Jerusalem. But by Dante’s reckoning, Italy is taken as lying exactly 45° west of Jerusalem. As above, 45° converts to three hours, and since Italy is to the west (hence in an earlier time zone), it must be midnight there.

  16-21. a ray . . . its reflection: In the old didactic tradition, Dante is describing the reflection of a beam of light.

  Angle a equals angle b. YX is a “plumb-line to mid-point.” If from any two points on line PQ equally distant from X (c and d, for example) perpendiculars are raised to intersect that ray of light and its reflection, they will intersect an amount of reflection equal to the amount of ray.

  Allegorically, this process of reflection may best be taken for the perfection of outgoing love, which the Angel—as the true opposite of the Envious—represents.

  34. the Blessed Angel: Since the Angel of each Cornice represents the virtue opposite the sin there punished, this would be the Angel of Caritas, i.e., of Love of Others.

  38-39. Blessed are the merciful: The fifth beatitude. See Matthew, v, 7. It is probably the Angel who sings this beatitude and the spirits of the Envious who reply: Rejoice you who have won. The words are chosen from no particular text, but their sentiment is that which concludes the beatitudes, a rejoicing in the triumph over sin. See Matthew , v. 12.

  48. you: You living men. Mankind in general.

  51. that Envy pumps the bellows for your sighs: A Dantean figure. Envy seems to change the breast into a bellows which does nothing but pump out sighs of envious desire.

  52-57. the Highest Sphere: The Empyrean. such a fear: that someone else will get the material good one cherishes. that cloister: Heaven.

  DANTE’S DOCTRINE OF WEALTH. Virgil is propounding a favorite Dantean doctrine. Since there is a limit to material wealth, everything that one man possesses lessens what others may possess. Those, therefore, who are avid for the goods of the world must live in fear that it will be taken by others, and therefore Envy drives them to lament everyone else’s material gains. The treasure of Heaven, however, grows greater in being shared.

  67. The infinite and inexpressible Grace: God’s love. It shines forth to the souls of those who love Him as a sunbeam shines upon a bright surface, dazzling it full of light without in any way diminishing the source but rather, by giving, increasing the total of light.

  76-77. appease your hunger: The phrasing here responds to the phrasing of line 58: “I am left hungrier being thus fed.”

  84. my eyes’ avidity left me tongue-tied: The avidity of my eyes [to observe new sights] left me [so busy staring at all about me that I was] tongue-tied. Cf., the opening lines of Canto IV, and Dante’s discussion of how one sense may so absorb the soul that all others fail.

  85-114. THE WHIP OF WRATH. Consists of three visions that seize upon the souls on their way to enter the cloud of smoke.

  The first (lines 85-93) is, as always, from the life of Mary. It is based on Luke, ii, 41-52. When the Nazarenes started back from Jerusalem after Passover, Jesus did not leave with them, but stayed behind without informing either Joseph or Mary. They, thinking he must be in some other part of the caravan, had traveled a whole day before they learned the truth. They turned back to search for him and spent three days combing Jerusalem before they found him in the Temple disputing with the learned men. Mary, despite the anxieties and exertions to which Jesus had put her, remonstrates without wrath.

  The second (lines 94-105) is of an incident from the life of Pisistratus, Tyrant of Athens from 560-527 B.C., the usurper who ruled so wisely and gently that the Athenians forgave his usurpation. A young man who loved the daughter of Pisistratus and wished to marry her, but who had not won the parents’ consent, embraced her in public in a moment of high spirits. The wife of Pisistratus, seething with wrath, demands a bloody vengeance for what she takes to be an act of dishonor, but Pisistratus turns away wrath with a soft answer. (Valerius Maximus, Facta et Dicta, VI, i.)

  The third (lines 106-114) is of the martyrdom of St. Stephen. (Acts, vii, 58.) Dante is in error in making Stephen a boy at the time of his death.

  Thus the Whip once more presents three degrees of the virtue opposed to the sin being punished, and thus the Wrathful are whipped on by high examples of Meekness toward kin, toward friends, and toward enemies.

  98. for whose name the Gods debated: The legend is that Neptune and Athena both wished the new city to bear their names. Ovid (Metamorphoses, VI, 70-82) describes the resultant contest, which Athena won.

  131. still to refuse: Dante has already recognized that his own besetting sin is Pride, and Pride is clearly related to Wrath. He seems to have had so strong a sense of his own rightness that any indignity or error could arouse his anger. Boccaccio says that everyone in Romagna was sure Dante would throw stones even at women and children if he heard them insult his principles. His mistreatment by the Florentines, moreover, must have left him with some substantial hunger for revenge. Thus these examples of high meekness have special point for him, and Virgil (his own reason) tells him so.

  132. the Eternal Fount: Jeremiah, ii, 13, and xvii, 13, refers to God as “the fountain of living waters.”

  133-138. lying senseless: Virgil means “so caught up in a trance that the soul is beyond the reach of the senses.” In extension, he is saying: “I do not ask in a material way, seeing things only with the physical senses, but rather in terms of your newly awakened spiritual understanding of your faults, and to urge you to act upon that new understanding.”

  In a second sense, of course, Dante is analyzing himself. If he is to move higher up the mountain he must put by all his Wrath, all his sense of outraged righteousness, all his desire for vindication and vengeance. But he knows it will not be easy for him truly to forgive his enemies, for he knows how deeply Wrath is rooted in his nature. It requires, therefore, a special urging to act truly upon the three visions he has seen. (Contrast, for example, how lightly Dante was able to dismiss Envy as a personal concern of his soul.)

  139-141. It is nearing 6:00 P.M., the last hour of Vespers. Note that about three hours ago (lines 1-6 above), the Poets were on the ledge below and were walking straig
ht into the Sun. Now, having climbed the stairway and having walked half a league (about a mile and a half) and a bit more, at a very slow pace (lines 121-123), they are still walking straight into the Sun. The fact that they could walk so far without a turning that would leave the Sun on their right, certainly indicates that these first Cornices circle very slowly, being conceived on an enormous scale.

  Canto XVI

  THE THIRD CORNICE

  The Wrathful

  Marco Lombardo

  The Poets enter the acrid and blinding smoke in which THE WRATHFUL suffer their purification. As Wrath is a corrosive state of the spirit, so the smoke stings and smarts. As Wrath obscures the true light of God, so the smoke plunges all into darkness. Within it, Dante hears souls singing THE LITANY OF THE LAMB OF GOD. The Lamb, of course, is the symbol of the MEEKNESS of Divine Love. As such, it is the opposite of Wrath. A further purification is implicit in the fact that the souls all sing as if with one voice, for Wrath is the sin that soonest breeds division among men, and only Spiritual Concord can reunite them.

  MARCO LOMBARDO hears Dante speak and calls to him. Invited by Dante, Marco accompanies the Poets to the edge of the smoke, discoursing on the causes of the modern world’s corruption, which he locates in the usurpation of temporal power and wealth by the Church. As Marco concludes, a light begins to appear through the smoke. Marco explains that it is the radiance of the Angel who waits ahead. He then turns back, for he is not yet fit to show himself to the Angel of the Lord.

  No gloom of Hell, nor of a night allowed

  no planet under its impoverished sky,

  the deepest dark that may be drawn by cloud;

  ever drew such a veil across my face,

  nor one whose texture rasped my senses so,

  as did the smoke that wrapped us in that place.

  The sting was more than open eyes could stand.

  My wise and faithful Guide drew near me, therefore,

  and let me grasp his shoulder with my hand.

  Just as a blindman—lest he lose his road

  or tumble headlong and be hurt or killed—

  walks at his guide’s back when he goes abroad;

  so moved I through that foul and acrid air,

  led by my sweet Friend’s voice, which kept repeating:

  “Take care. Do not let go of me. Take care.”

  And I heard other voices. They seemed to pray

  for peace and pardon to the Lamb of God

  which, of Its mercy, takes our sins away.

  They offered up three prayers, and every one

  began with Agnus Dei, and each word

  and measure rose in perfect unison.

  “Master, do I hear spirits on this path?”

  I said. And he to me: “You do indeed,

  and they are loosening the knot of Wrath.”

  “And who are you, then, that you cleave our smoke,

  yet speak of us as if you still kept time

  by kalends?”—without warning, someone spoke

  these words to me; at which my Lord and Guide

  said: “Answer. And inquire respectfully

  if one may find a way-up on this side.”

  And I: “O spirit growing pure and free

  to go once more in beauty to your Maker—

  you will hear wonders if you follow me.”

  “As far as is permitted me,” he said,

  “I will. And if the smoke divide our eyes,

  our ears shall serve to join us in their stead.”

  So I began: “I make my way above

  still in these swathings death dissolves. I came here

  through the Infernal grief. Now, since God’s love

  incloses me in Grace so bounteous

  that he permits me to behold His court

  by means wholly unknown to modern use—

  pray tell me who you were before you died,

  and if I go the right way to the pass

  that leads above. Your words shall be our guide.”

  “I was a Lombard. Marco was my name.

  I knew the ways of the world, and loved that good

  at which the bows of men no longer aim.

  You are headed the right way to reach the stair

  that leads above,” he added. And: “I pray you

  to pray for me when you have mounted there.”

  And I: “On my faith I vow it. But a doubt

  has formed within me and has swelled so large

  I shall explode unless I speak it out.

  It was a simple doubt at first, but now

  it doubles and grows sure as I compare

  your words with what was said to me below.

  The world, as you have said, is truly bare

  of every trace of good; swollen with evil;

  by evil overshadowed everywhere.

  But wherein lies the fault? I beg to know

  that I may see the truth and so teach others.

  Some see it in the stars; some, here below.”

  A deep sigh wrung by grief, almost a moan

  escaped as a long “Ah!” Then he said: “Brother,

  the world is blind and you are its true son.

  Mankind sees in the heavens alone the source

  of all things, good and evil; as if by Law

  they shaped all mortal actions in their course.

  If that were truly so, then all Free Will

  would be destroyed, and there would be no justice

  in giving bliss for virtue, pain for evil.

  The spheres do start your impulses along.

  I do not say all, but suppose I did—

  the light of reason still tells right from wrong;

  and Free Will also, which, though it be strained

  in the first battles with the heavens, still

  can conquer all if it is well sustained.

  You are free subjects of a more immense

  nature and power which grants you intellect

  to free you from the heavens’ influence.

  If, therefore, men today turn from God’s laws,

  the fault is in yourselves to seek and find;

  and I shall truly explicate the cause:

  From the hand of God, whose love shines like a ray

  upon it, even before birth, comes forth

  the simple soul which, like a child at play,

  cries, laughs, and ignorant of every measure

  but the glad impulse of its joyous Maker,

  turns eagerly to all that gives it pleasure.

  It tastes small pleasures first. To these it clings,

  deceived, and seeks no others, unless someone

  curb it, or guide its love to higher things.

  Men, therefore, need restraint by law, and need

  a monarch over them who sees at least

  the towers of The True City. Laws, indeed,

  there are, but who puts nations to their proof?

  No one. The shepherd who now leads mankind

  can chew the cud, but lacks the cloven hoof.

  The people, then, seeing their guide devour

  those worldly things to which their hunger turns

  graze where he grazes, and ask nothing more.

  The bad state of the modern world is due—

  as you may see, then—to bad leadership;

  and not to natural corruption in you.

  Rome used to shine in two suns when her rod

  made the world good, and each showed her its way:

  one to the ordered world, and one to God.

  Now one declining sun puts out the other.

  The sword and crook are one, and only evil

  can follow from them when they are together;

  for neither fears the other, being one.

  Look closely at the ear, if still you doubt me,

  for by the seed it bears is the plant known.

  Honor and Courtesy once made their home

  in the land the Po and the Adige wat
er—

  till Frederick came to loggerheads with Rome.

  Now any man who has good cause to fear

  the sound of truth or honest company

  may cross it safely—he will find none there.

  True, three old men are left in whom the past

  reproves the present. How time drags for them

  till God remove them to their joy at last—

  Conrad da Palazzo, the good Gherard’,

  and Guido da Castel, who is better named,

  in the fashion of the French, ‘The Honest Lombard.’

  Say, then, that since the Church has sought to be

  two governments at once, she sinks in muck,

  befouling both her power and ministry.”

  “O Marco mine,” I said, “you reason well!

  And now I know why Levi’s sons alone

  could not inherit wealth in Israel.