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CANTO XXII

 

The Sixth Circle: The Gluttonous

Statius' Denunciation of Avarice. The Mystic Tree.

115	Both poets now were silent, once again
116	intent on their surroundings they were free
117	of stairs and walls; with day's first four handmaidens
118	already left behind, and with the fifth
119	guiding the chariot-pole and lifting it,
120	so that its horn of flame -rose always higher,
121	my master said: I think it's time that we
122	turn our right shoulders toward the terrace edge,
123	circling the mountain in the way we're used to.
124	In this way habit served us as a banner;
125	and when we chose that path, our fear was less
126	because that worthy soul gave his assent.
127	Those two were in the lead; I walked alone,
128	behind them, listening to their colloquy,
129	which taught me much concerning poetry.
130	But their delightful conversation soon
131	was interrupted by a tree that blocked
132	our path; its fruits were fine, their scent was sweet,
133	and even as a fir-tree tapers upward
134	from branch to branch, that tree there tapered downward,
135	so as I think to ward off any climber.
136	Upon our left, where wall enclosed our path,
137	bright running water fell from the high rock
138	and spread itself upon the leaves above.
139	When the two poets had approached the tree,
140	a voice emerging from within the leaves
141	cried out: This food shall be denied to you.
142	Then it cried: Mary's care was for the marriage-
143	feast's being seemly and complete, not for
144	her mouth (which now would intercede for you).
145	And when they drank, of old, the Roman women
146	were satisfied with water; and young Daniel,
147	through his disdain of food, acquired wisdom.
148	The first age was as fair as gold: when hungry,
149	men found the taste of acorns good; when thirsty,
150	they found that every little stream was nectar.
151	When he was in the wilderness, the Baptist
152	had fed on nothing more than honey, locusts:
153	for this he was made great, as glorious
154	as, in the Gospel, is made plain to you.

 

 

CANTO XXIII

The Sixth Circle: The Gluttonous

Forese. Reproof of immodest Florentine Women.

1	While I was peering so intently through
2	the green boughs, like a hunter who, so used,
3	would waste his life in chasing after birds,
4	my more than father said to me: Now come,
5	son, for the time our journey can permit
6	is to be used more fruitfully than this.
7	I turned my eyes, and I was no less quick
8	to turn my steps; I followed those two sages,
9	whose talk was such, my going brought no loss.
10	And there! Labia mea, Domine
11	was wept and sung and heard in such a manner
12	that it gave birth to both delight and sorrow.
13	O gentle father, what is this I hear?
14	I asked. And he: Perhaps they're shades who go
15	loosening the knot of what they owe.
16	Even as pensive pilgrims do, who when
17	they've overtaken folk unknown to them
18	along the way, will turn but will not stop,
19	so, overtaking us they had come from
20	behind but were more swift a crowd of souls,
21	devout and silent, looked at us in wonder.
22	Each shade had dark and hollow eyes; their faces
23	were pale and so emaciated that
24	their taut skin took its shape from bones beneath.
25	I don't believe that even Erysichthon
26	had been so dried, down to his very hide,
27	by hunger, when his fast made him fear most.
28	Thinking, I told myself: I see the people
29	who lost Jerusalem, when Mary plunged
30	her beak into her son. The orbits of
31	their eyes seemed like a ring that's lost its gems;
32	and he who, in the face of man, would read
33	OMO would here have recognized the M.
34	Who if he knew not how would have believed
35	that longing born from odor of a tree,
36	odor of water, could reduce souls so?
37	I was already wondering what had
38	so famished them (for I had not yet learned
39	the reason for their leanness and sad scurf),
40	when there!-a shade, his eyes deep in his head,
41	turned toward me, staring steadily; and then
42	he cried aloud: What grace is granted me!
43	I never would have recognized him by
44	his face; and yet his voice made plain to me
45	what his appearance had obliterated.
46	This spark rekindled in me everything
47	I knew about those altered features; thus,
48	I realized it was Forese's face.
49	Ah, don't reproach me for the dried-out scabs
50	that stain my skin, he begged, nor for the lack
51	of flesh on me; but do tell me the truth
52	about yourself, do tell me who those two
53	souls there are, those who are escorting you;
54	may you not keep yourself from speaking to me!
55	Your face, which I once wept on when you died,
56	I answered him, now gives me no less cause
57	for sad lament, seeing you so deformed
58	But tell me, for God's sake, what has unleaved
59	you so; don't make me speak while I'm amazed
60	he who's distracted answers clumsily.
61	And he to me: From the eternal counsel,
62	the water and the tree you left behind
63	receive the power that makes me waste away.
64	All of these souls who, grieving, sing because
65	their appetite was gluttonous, in thirst
66	and hunger here resanctify themselves.
67	The fragrance of the fruit and of the water
68	that's sprayed through that green tree kindles in us
69	craving for food and drink; and not once only,
70	as we go round this space, our pain's renewed ;
71	I speak of pain but I should speak of solace,
72	for we are guided to those trees by that
73	same longing that had guided Christ when He
74	had come to free us through the blood He shed
75	and, in His joyousness, called out: 'Eli.'
76	And I to him: Forese, from that day
77	when you exchanged the world for better life
78	until now, less than five years have revolved;
79	and if you waited for the moment when
80	the power to sin was gone before you found
81	the hour of the good grief that succors us
82	and weds us once again to God, how have
83	you come so quickly here? I thought to find
84	you down below, where time must pay for time.
85	And he to me: It is my Nella who,
86	with her abundant tears, has guided me
87	to drink the sweet wormwood of torments: she,
88	with sighs and prayers devout has set me free
89	of that slope where one waits and has freed me
90	from circles underneath this circle. She
91	my gentle widow, whom I loved most dearly
92	was all the more beloved and prized by God
93	as she is more alone in her good works.
94	For even the Barbagia of Sardinia
95	is far more modest in its women than
96	is that Barbagia where I left her. O
97	sweet brother, what would you have had me say?
98	A future time's already visible
99	to me a time not too far-off from now
100	when, from the pulpit, it shall be forbidden
101	to those immodest ones Florentine women
102	to go displaying bosoms with bare paps.
103	What ordinances spiritual, civil
104	were ever needed by barbarian or
105	Saracen women to make them go covered?
106	But if those shameless ones had certain knowledge
107	of what swift Heaven's readying for them,
108	then they would have mouths open now to howl;
109	for if our foresight here does not deceive me,
110	they will be sad before the cheeks of those
111	whom lullabies can now appease grow beards.
112	Ah, brother, do not hide things any longer!
113	You see that I am not alone, for all
114	these people stare at where you veil the sun.
115	At this I said to him: If you should call
116	to mind what you have been with me and I
117	with you, remembering now will still be heavy.
118	He who precedes me turned me from that life
119	some days ago, when she who is the sister
120	of him-I pointed to the sun was showing
121	her roundness to you. It is he who's led
122	me through the deep night of the truly dead
123	with this true flesh that follows after him.
124	His help has drawn me up from there, climbing
125	and circling round this mountain, which makes straight
126	you whom the world made crooked. And he says
127	that he will bear me company until
128	I reach the place where Beatrice is; there
129	I must remain without him. It is Virgil
130	who speaks to me in this way, and I pointed
131	to him; this other is the shade for whom,
132	just now, your kingdom caused its every slope
133	to tremble as it freed him from itself.

 

 

CANTO XXIV

The Sixth Circle: The Gluttonous

Buonagiunta da Lucca. Pope Martin IV, and others. Inquiry into the State of Poetry.

1	Our talking did not slow our pace, our pace
2	not slow our talking; but conversing, we
3	moved quickly, like a boat a fair wind drives.
4	And recognizing that I was alive,
5	the shades they seemed to be things twice dead drew
6	amazement from the hollows of their eyes.
7	And I, continuing my telling, added:
8	Perhaps he is more slow in his ascent
9	than he would be had he not met the other.
10	But tell me, if you can: where is Piccarda?
11	And tell me if, among those staring at me,
12	I can see any person I should note.
13	My sister and I know not whether she
14	was greater in her goodness or her beauty
15	on high Olympus is in triumph; she
16	rejoices in her crown already, he
17	began, then added: It is not forbidden
18	to name each shade here abstinence has eaten
19	away our faces. And he pointed: This
20	is Bonagiunta, Bonagiunta da
21	Lucca; the one beyond him, even more
22	emaciated than the rest, had clasped
23	the Holy Church; he was from Tours; his fast
24	purges Bolsena's eels, Vernaccia's wine.
25	And he named many others, one by one,
26	and, at their naming, they all seemed content;
27	so that for this no face was overcast.
28	I saw their teeth were biting emptiness
29	both Ubaldin da la Pila and Boniface,
30	who shepherded so many with his staff.
31	I saw Messer Marchese, who once had
32	more ease, less dryness, drinking at Forli
33	and yet could never satisfy his thirst.
34	But just as he who looks and then esteems
35	one more than others, so did I prize him
36	of Lucca, for he seemed to know me better.
37	He murmured; something like Gentucca was37
38	what I heard from the place where he could feel
39	the wound of justice that denudes them so.
40	O soul, I said, who seems so eager to
41	converse with me, do speak so that I hear you,
42	for speech may satisfy both you and me.
43	He answered: Although men condemn my city,
44	there is a woman born she wears no veil
45	as yet because of whom you'll find it pleasing.
46	You are to journey with this prophecy;
47	and if there's something in my murmuring
48	you doubt, events themselves will bear me out.
49	But tell me if the man whom I see here
50	is he who brought the new rhymes forth, beginning:
51	'Ladies who have intelligence of love.'
52	I answered: I am one who, when Love breathes
53	in me, takes note; what he, within, dictates,
54	I, in that way, without, would speak and shape.
55	O brother, now I see, he said, the knot
56	that kept the Notary, Guittone, and me
57	short of the sweet new manner that I hear.
58	I clearly see how your pens follow closely
59	behind him who dictates, and certainly
60	that did not happen with our pens; and he
61	who sets himself to ferreting profoundly
62	can find no other difference between
63	the two styles. He fell still, contentedly.
64	Even as birds that winter on the Nile
65	at times will slow and form a flock in air,
66	then speed their flight and form a file, so all
67	the people who were mere moved much more swiftly,
68	turning away their faces, hurrying
69	their pace because of leanness and desire.
70	And just as he who's tired of running lets
71	his comrades go ahead and slows his steps
72	until he's eased the panting of his chest,
73	so did Forese let the holy flock
74	pass by and move, behind, with me, saying:
75	How long before I shall see you again?
76	I do not know, I said, how long I'll live;
77	and yet, however quick is my return,
78	my longing for these shores would have me here
79	sooner because the place where I was set
80	to live is day by day deprived of good
81	and seems along the way to wretched ruin.
82	Do not be vexed, he said, for I can see
83	the guiltiest of all dragged by a beast's
84	tail to the valley where no sin is purged.
85	At every step the beast moves faster, always
86	gaining momentum, till it smashes him
87	and leaves his body squalidly undone.
88	Those wheels, and here he looked up at the sky,
89	do not have long to turn before you see
90	plainly what I can't tell more openly.
91	Now you remain behind, for time is costly
92	here in this kingdom; I should lose too much
93	by moving with you thus, at equal pace.
94	Just as a horseman sometimes gallops out,
95	leaving behind his troop of riders, so
96	that he may gain the honor of the first
97	clash so, with longer strides, did he leave us;
98	and I remained along my path with those
99	two who were such great marshals of the world.
100	And when he'd gone so far ahead of us
101	that my eyes strained to follow him, just as
102	my mind was straining after what he'd said,
103	the branches of another tree, heavy
104	with fruit, alive with green, appeared to me
105	nearby, just past a curve where I had turned.
106	Beneath the tree I saw shades lifting hands,
107	crying I know not what up toward the branches,
108	like little eager, empty-headed children,
109	who beg but he of whom they beg does not
110	reply, but to provoke their longing, he
111	holds high, and does not hide, the thing they want.
112	Then they departed as if disabused;
113	and we immediately reached that great tree,
114	which turns aside so many prayers and tears.
115	Continue on, but don't draw close to it;
116	there is a tree above from which Eve ate,
117	and from that tree above, this plant was raised.
118	Among the boughs, a voice I know not whose
119	spoke so; thus, drawing closer, Virgil, Statius,
120	and I edged on, along the side that rises.
121	It said: Remember those with double chests,
122	the miserable ones, born of the clouds,
123	whom Theseus battled when they'd gorged themselves;
124	and those whom Gideon refused as comrades
125	those Hebrews who had drunk too avidly
126	when he came down the hills to Midian.
127	So, keeping close to one of that road's margins,
128	we moved ahead, hearing of gluttony
129	its sins repaid by sorry penalties.
130	Then, with more space along the lonely path,
131	a thousand steps and more had brought us forward,
132	each of us meditating wordlessly.
133	What are you thinking of, you three who walk
134	alone? a sudden voice called out; at which
135	I started like a scared young animal.
136	I raised my head to see who it might be;
137	no glass or metal ever seen within
138	a furnace was so glowing or so red
139	as one I saw, who said: If you'd ascend,
140	then you must turn at this point; for whoever
141	would journey unto peace must pass this way.
142	But his appearance had deprived me of
143	my sight, so that as one who uses hearing
144	as guide I turned and followed my two teachers.
145	And like the breeze of May that heralding
146	the dawning of the day when it is steeped
147	in flowers and in grass, stirs fragrantly,
148	so did I feel the wind that blew against
149	the center of my brow, and clearly sensed
150	the movement of his wings, the air's ambrosia.
151	And then I heard: Blessed are those whom grace
152	illumines so, that, in their breasts, the love
153	of taste does not awake too much desire
154	whose hungering is always in just measure.