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Dante Alighieri (1265–1321). The Divine Comedy.
The Harvard Classics. 1909–14.

Purgatory

Canto XI ARGUMENT.—After a prayer uttered by the spirits, who were spoken of in the last Canto, Virgil inquires the way upward, and is answered by one, who declares himself to have been Omberto, son of the Count of Santafiore. Next our Poet distinguishes Oderigi, the illuminator, who discourses on the vanity of worldly fame, and points out to him the soul of Provenzano Salvani.

O THOU Almighty Father! who dost make

The heavens Thy dwelling, not in bounds confined,

But that, with love intenser, there Thou view’st

Thy primal effluence; hallow’d be thy name:

Join, each created being, to extol

Thy might; for worthy humblest thanks and praise

Is Thy blest Spirit. May Thy kingdom’s peace

Come unto us; for we, unless it come,

With all our striving, thither tend in vain.

As, of their will, the Angels unto Thee

Tender meet sacrifice, circling Thy throne

With loud hosannas; so of theirs be done

By saintly men on earth. Grant us, this day,

Our daily manna, without which he roams

Through this rough desert retrograde, who most

Toils to advance his steps. As we to each

Pardon the evil done us, pardon Thou

Benign, and of our merit take no count.

’Gainst the old adversary, prove Thou not

Our virtue, easily subdued; but free

From his incitements, and defeat his wiles.

This last petition, dearest Lord! is made

Not for ourselves; since that were needless now;

But for their sakes who after us remain.”

Thus for themselves and us good speed imploring,

Those spirits went beneath a weight like that

We sometimes feel in dreams; all, sore beset,

But with unequal anguish; wearied all;

Round the first circuit; purging as they go

The world’s gross darkness off. In our behoof

If their vows still be offer’d, what can here

For them be vow’d and done by such, whose wills

Have root of goodness in them? Well beseems

That we should help them wash away the stains

They carried hence; that so, made pure and light,

They may spring upward to the starry spheres.

“Ah! so may mercy-temper’d justice rid

Your burdens speedily; that ye have power

To stretch your wing, which e’en to your desire

Shall lift you; as ye show us on which hand

Toward the ladder leads the shortest way.

And if there be more passages than one,

Instruct us of that easiest to ascend:

For this man, who comes with me, and bears yet

The charge of fleshly raiment Adam left him,

Despite his better will, but slowly mounts.”

From whom the answer came unto these words,

Which my guide spake, appear’d not; but ’twas said:

“Along the bank to rightward come with us;

And ye shall find a pass that mocks not toil

Of living man to climb: and were it not

That I am hinder’d by the rock, wherewith

This arrogant neck is tamed, whence needs I stoop

My visage to the ground; him, who yet lives,

Whose name thou speak’st not, him I fain would view;

To mark if e’er I knew him, and to crave

His pity for the fardel that I bear.

I was of Latium; of a Tuscan born,

A mighty one: Aldobrandesco’s name

My sire’s, I know not if ye e’er have heard.

My old blood and forefathers’ gallant deeds

Made me so haughty, that I clean forgot

The common mother; and to such excess

Wax’d in my scorn of all men, that I fell,

Fell therefore; by what fate, Siena’s sons.

Each child in Campagnatico, can tell.

I am Omberto: not me, only, pride

Hath injured, but my kindred all involved

In mischief with her. Here my lot ordains

Under this weight to groan, till I appease

God’s angry justice, since I did it not

Amongst the living, here amongst the dead.”

Listening I bent my visage down: and one

(Not he who spake) twisted beneath the weight

That urged him, saw me, knew me straight, and call’d;

Holding his eyes with difficulty fix’d

Intent upon me, stooping as I went

Companion of their way. “O!” I exclaim’d,

“Art thou not Oderigi? art not thou

Agobbio’s glory, glory of that art

Which they of Paris call the limner’s skill?”

“Brother!” said he, “with tints, that gayer smile,

Bolognian Franco’s pencil lines the leaves.

His all the honour now; my light obscured.

In truth, I had not been thus courteous to him

The whilst I lived, through eagerness of zeal

For that pre-eminence my heart was bent on.

Here, of such pride, the forfeiture is paid.

Nor were I even here, if, able still

To sin, I had not turn’d me unto God.

O powers of man! how vain your glory, nipt

E’en in its height of verdure, if an age

Less bright succeed not. Cimabue thought

To lord it over painting’s field; and now

The cry is Giotto’s, and his name eclipsed.

Thus hath one Guido from the other snatch’d

The letter’d prize: and he, perhaps, is born,

Who shall drive either from their nest. The noise

Of worldly fame is but a blast of wind,

That blows from diverse points, and shifts its name,

Shifting the point it blows from. Shalt thou more

Live in the mouths of mankind, if thy flesh

Part shrivel’d from thee, than if thou hadst died

Before the coral and the pap were left;

Or e’er some thousand years have past? and that

Is, to eternity compared, a space

Briefer than is the twinkling of an eye

To the heaven’s slowest orb. He there, who treads

So leisurely before me, far and wide

Through Tuscany resounded once; and now

Is in Siena scarce with whispers named:

There was he sovereign, when destruction caught

The maddening rage of Florence, in that day

Proud as she now is loathsome. Your renown

Is as the herb, whose hue doth come and go;

And his might withers it, by whom it sprang

Crude from the lap of earth.” I thus to him:

“True are thy sayings: to my heart they breathe

The kindly spirit of meekness, and allay

What tumours rankle there. But who is he,

Of whom thou spakest but now?”—“This,” he replied,

“I Provenzano. He is here, because

He reach’d with grasp presumptuous, at the sway

Of all Siena. Thus he still hath gone,

Thus goeth never-resting, since he died.

Such is the acquittance render’d back of him,

Who, in the mortal life, too much hath dared.”

I then: “If soul, that to life’s verge delays

Repentance, linger in that lower space,

Nor hither mount, (unless good prayers befriend),

Or ever time, long as it lived, be past;

How chanced admittance was vouchsafed to him?”

“When at his glory’s topmost height,” said he,

“Respect of dignity all cast aside,

Freely he fix’d him on Siena’s plain,

A suitor to redeem his suffering friend,

Who languish’d in the prison-house of Charles;

Nor, for his sake, refused through every vein

To tremble. More I will not say; and dark,

I know, my words are; but thy neighbours soon

Shall help thee to a comment on the text.

This is the work, that from these limits freed him.”