Dante's Purgatorio: Canto XXV
Discourse of Statius on Generation. The Seventh Circle: The Wanton.
Now was it the ascent no hindrance brooked,
Because the sun had his meridian circle
To Taurus left, and night to Scorpio;
Wherefore as doth a man who tarries not,
But goes his way, whate'er to him appear, 5
If of necessity the sting transfix him,
In this wise did we enter through the gap,
Taking the stairway, one before the other,
Which by its narrowness divides the climbers.
And as the little stork that lifts its wing 10
With a desire to fly, and does not venture
To leave the nest, and lets it downward droop,
Even such was I, with the desire of asking
Kindled and quenched, unto the motion coming
He makes who doth address himself to speak. 15
Not for our pace, though rapid it might be,
My father sweet forbore, but said: "Let fly
The bow of speech thou to the barb hast drawn."
With confidence I opened then my mouth,
And I began: "How can one meagre grow 20
There where the need of nutriment applies not?"
"If thou wouldst call to mind how Meleager
Was wasted by the wasting of a brand,
This would not," said he, "be to thee so sour;
And wouldst thou think how at each tremulous motion 25
Trembles within a mirror your own image;
That which seems hard would mellow seem to thee.
But that thou mayst content thee in thy wish
Lo Statius here; and him I call and pray
He now will be the healer of thy wounds." 30
"If I unfold to him the eternal vengeance,"
Responded Statius, "where thou present art,
Be my excuse that I can naught deny thee."
Then he began: "Son, if these words of mine
Thy mind doth contemplate and doth receive, 35
They'll be thy light unto the How thou sayest.
The perfect blood, which never is drunk up
Into the thirsty veins, and which remaineth
Like food that from the table thou removest,
Takes in the heart for all the human members 40
Virtue informative, as being that
Which to be changed to them goes through the veins
Again digest, descends it where 'tis better
Silent to be than say; and then drops thence
Upon another's blood in natural vase. 45
There one together with the other mingles,
One to be passive meant, the other active
By reason of the perfect place it springs from;
And being conjoined, begins to operate,
Coagulating first, then vivifying 50
What for its matter it had made consistent.
The active virtue, being made a soul
As of a plant, (in so far different,
This on the way is, that arrived already,)
Then works so much, that now it moves and feels 55
Like a sea-fungus, and then undertakes
To organize the powers whose seed it is.
Now, Son, dilates and now distends itself
The virtue from the generator's heart,
Where nature is intent on all the members. 60
But how from animal it man becomes
Thou dost not see as yet; this is a point
Which made a wiser man than thou once err
So far, that in his doctrine separate
He made the soul from possible intellect, 65
For he no organ saw by this assumed.
Open thy breast unto the truth that's coming,
And know that, just as soon as in the foetus
The articulation of the brain is perfect,
The primal Motor turns to it well pleased 70
At so great art of nature, and inspires
A spirit new with virtue all replete,
Which what it finds there active doth attract
Into its substance, and becomes one soul,
Which lives, and feels, and on itself revolves. 75
And that thou less may wonder at my word,
Behold the sun's heat, which becometh wine,
Joined to the juice that from the vine distils.
Whenever Lachesis has no more thread,
It separates from the flesh, and virtually 80
Bears with itself the human and divine;
The other faculties are voiceless all;
The memory, the intelligence, and the will
In action far more vigorous than before.
Without a pause it falleth of itself 85
In marvellous way on one shore or the other;
There of its roads it first is cognizant.
Soon as the place there circumscribeth it,
The virtue informative rays round about,
As, and as much as, in the living members. 90
And even as the air, when full of rain,
By alien rays that are therein reflected,
With divers colours shows itself adorned,
So there the neighbouring air doth shape itself
Into that form which doth impress upon it 95
Virtually the soul that has stood still.
And then in manner of the little flame,
Which followeth the fire where'er it shifts,
After the spirit followeth its new form.
Since afterwards it takes from this its semblance, 100
It is called shade; and thence it organizes
Thereafter every sense, even to the sight.
Thence is it that we speak, and thence we laugh;
Thence is it that we form the tears and sighs,
That on the mountain thou mayhap hast heard. 105
According as impress us our desires
And other affections, so the shade is shaped,
And this is cause of what thou wonderest at."
And now unto the last of all the circles
Had we arrived, and to the right hand turned, 110
And were attentive to another care.
There the embankment shoots forth flames of fire,
And upward doth the cornice breathe a blast
That drives them back, and from itself sequesters.
Hence we must needs go on the open side, 115
And one by one; and I did fear the fire
On this side, and on that the falling down.
My Leader said: "Along this place one ought
To keep upon the eyes a tightened rein,
Seeing that one so easily might err." 120
"Summae Deus clementiae," in the bosom
Of the great burning chanted then I heard,
Which made me no less eager to turn round;
And spirits saw I walking through the flame;
Wherefore I looked, to my own steps and theirs 125
Apportioning my sight from time to time.
After the close which to that hymn is made,
Aloud they shouted, "Virum non cognosco;"
Then recommenced the hymn with voices low.
This also ended, cried they: "To the wood 130
Diana ran, and drove forth Helice
Therefrom, who had of Venus felt the poison."
Then to their song returned they; then the wives
They shouted, and the husbands who were chaste.
As virtue and the marriage vow imposes. 135
And I believe that them this mode suffices,
For all the time the fire is burning them;
With such care is it needful, and such food,
That the last wound of all should be closed up.
NOTES
1 - 1
The ascent to the Seventh Circle of Purgatory, where the sin of Lust is punished.
3 - 3
When the sign of Taurus reached the meridian, the sun, being in Aries, would be two hours beyond it. It is now two o'clock of the afternoon. The Scorpion is the sign opposite Taurus.
15 - 15
Shakespeare, Hamlet, I. 2: –
“And did address Itself to motion, like as it would speak.”
22 - 22
Meleager was the son of OEneus and Althaea, of Calydon. At his birth the Fates were present and predicted his future greatness. Clotho said that he would be brave; Lachesis, that he would be strong; and Atropos, that he would live as long as the brand upon the fire remained unconsumed.
Ovid, Met. VIII.: –
“There lay a log unlighted on the hearth,
When she was laboring in the throes of birth
For th' unborn chief; the fatal sisters came,
And raised it up, and tossed it on the flame
Then on the rock a scanty measure place
Of vital flax, and turned the wheel apace;
And turning sung, 'To this red brand and thee,
O new-born babe, we give an equal destiny”;
So vanished out of view. The frighted dame
Sprung hasty from her bed, and quenched the flame.
The log, in secret locked, she kept with care,
And that, while thus preserved, preserved her heir.“Meleager distinguished himself in the Argonautic expedition, and afterwards in the hunt of Calydon, where he killed the famous boar, and gave the boar's head to Atlanta; and when his uncles tried to take possession of it, he killed them also. On hearing this, and seeing the dead bodies, his mother in her rage threw the brand upon the fire again, and, as it was consumed, Meleager perished.
Mr. Swinburne, Atalanta in Calydon: –
CHORUS.
”When thou dravest the men Of the chosen of Thrace, None turned him again Nor endured he thy face Clothed round with the blush of the battle, with light from a terrible place.
AENEUS
“Thou shouldst die as he dies For whom none sheddeth tears; Filling thine eyes And fulfilling thine ears With the brilliance of battle, the bloom and the beauty, the splendor of spears.
CHORUS.
”In the ears of the world It is sung, it is told, And the light thereof hurled And the noise thereof rolled From the Acroceraunian snow to the ford of the fleece of gold.
MELEAGER.
“Would God ye could carry me Forth of all these; Heap sand and bury me By the Chersonese Where the thundering Bosphorus answers the thunder of Pontic seas.
OENEUS
”Dost thou mock at our praise And the singing begun And the men of strange days Praising my son In the folds of the hills of home, high places of Calydon?
MELEAGER.
“For th dead man no home is; Ah, better to be What the flower of the foam is In fields of the sea, That the sea-waves might be as my raiment, the gulf-stream a garment for me ..... ”Mother, I dying with unforgetful tongue Hail thee as holy and worship thee as just Who art unjust and unholy; and with my knees Would worship, but thy fire and subtlety, Dissundering them, devour me; for these limbs Are as light dust and crumblings from mine urn Before the fire has touched them; and my face As a dead leaf or dead foot's mark on snow, And all this body a broken barren tree That was so strong, and all this flower of life Disbranched and descreated miserably, And minished all that god-like muscle and might And lesser than a man's: for all my veins Fail me, and all mine ashen down.“
37 - 37
The dissertation which Dante here puts into the mouth of Statius may be found also in a briefer prose form in the Convito, IV. 21. It so much excites the enthusiasm of Varchi, that he declares it alone sufficient to prove Dante to have been a physician, philosopher, and theologian of the highest order; and goes on to say: ”I not only confess, but I swear, that as many times as I have read it, which day and night are more than a thousand, my wonder and astonishment have always increased, seeming every time to find therein new beauties and new instruction, and consequently new difficulties.“
This subject is also discussed in part by Thomas Aquinas, Sum. Theol., I. Quaest. cxix., De propagatione hominis quantum ad corpus.
Milton, in his Latin poem, De Idea Platonica, has touched upon a theme somewhat akin to this, but in a manner to make it seem very remote. Perhaps no two passages could better show the difference between Dante and Milton, than this canto and Plato's Archetypal Man, which in Leigh Hunt's translation runs as follows: –
”Say, guardian goddesses of woods,
Aspects, felt in solitudes;
And Memory, at whose blessed knee
The Nine, which thy dear daughters be,
Learnt of the majestic past;
And thou, that in some antre vast
Leaning afar off dost lie,
Otiose Eternity,
Keeping the tablets and decrees
Of Jove, and the ephemerides
Of the gods, and calendars,
Of the ever festal stars;
Say, who was he, the sunless shade,
After whose pattern man was made;
He first, the full of ages, born
With the old pale polar morn,
Sole, yet all; first visible thought,
After which the Deity wrought?
Twin-birth with Pallas, not remain
Doth he in Jove's o'ershadowed brain;
But though of wide communion,
Dwells apart, like one alone;
And fills the wondering embrace,
(Doubt it not) of size and place.
Whether, companion of the stars,
With their tenfold round he errs;
Or inhabits with his lone
Nature in neighboring moon;
Or sits with body-waiting souls,
Dozing by the Lethaean pools: –
Or whether, haply, placed afar
In some blank region of our star,
He stalks, an unsubstantial heap,
Humanity's giant archetype;
Where a loftier bulk he rears
Than Atlas, grappler of the stars,
And through their shadow-touched abodes
Brings a terror to the gods.
Not the seer of him had sight,
Who found in darkness depths of light; {1}
His travelled eyeballs saw him not
In all his mighty gulfs of thought: –
Him the farthest-footed good,
Pleiad Mercury, never showed
To any poet's wisest sight
In the silence of the night: –
News of him the Assyrian priest {2}
Found not in his sacred list,
Though he traced back old king Nine,
And Belus, elder name divine,
And Osiris, endless famed.
Not the glory, triple-named,
Thrice great Hermes, through his eyes
Read the shapes of all the skies,
Left him in his sacred verse
Revealed to Nature's worshippers.
“O Plato! and was this a dream
Of thine in bowery Academe?
Wert thou the golden tongue to tell
First of this high miracle,
And charm him to thy schools below?
O call thy poets back, if so, {3}
Back to the state thine exiles call,
Thou greatest fabler of them all;
Or follow through the self-same gate,
Thou, the founder of the state.”
[{1} Tiresias, who was blind.]
[{2} Sanchoniathon.]
[{3} Whom Plato banished from his imaginary republic.]48 - 48
The heart, where the blood takes “virtue informative,” as stated in line 40.
52 - 52
The vegetative soul, which in man differs from that in plants, as being in a state of development, while that of plants is complete already.
55 - 55
The vegetative becomes a sensitive soul.
65 - 65
“This was the opinion of Averroes,” says the Ottimo, “which is false, and contrary to the Catholic faith.”
In the language of the Schools, the Possible Intellect, intellectus possibilis, is the faculty which receives impressions through the senses, and forms from them pictures of phantasmata in the mind. The Active Intellect, intellectus agens, draws from these pictures various ideas, notions, and conclusions. They represent the Understanding and the Reason.
70 - 70
God.
75 - 75
Redi, Bacchus in Tuscany: –
“Such bright blood is a ray enkindled
Of that sun, in heaven that shines,
And has been left behind entangled
And caught in the net of many vines.”79 - 79
When Lachesis has spun out the thread of life.
81 - 81
Thomas Aquinas, Sum. Theol., I. Quaest. cxviii. Art. 3: “Anima intellectiva remanet destructo corpore.”
86 - 86
Either upon the shores of Acheron or of the Tiber.
103 - 103
AEneid, VI. 723, Davidson's Tr.: –
“In the first place, the spirit within nourishes the
heavens, the earth, and watery plains, the moon's
enlightened orb, and the Titanian stars; and the mind,
diffused through all the members, actuates the whole frame,
and mingles with the vast body of the universe. Thence the
race of men and beasts, the vital principles of the flying
kind, and the monsters which the ocean breeds under its
smooth plain. These principles have the active force of
fire, and are of a heavenly original, so far as they are not
clogged by noxious bodies, blunted by earth-born limbs and
dying members. Hence they fear and desire, grieve and
rejoice; and, shut up in darkness and a gloomy prison, lose
sight of their native skies. Even when with the last beams
of light their life is gone, yet not every ill, nor all
corporeal stains, are quite removed from the unhappy beings;
and it is absolutely necessary that many imperfections which
have long been joined to the soul should be in marvellous
ways increased and riveted therein. Therefore are they
afflicted with punishments, and pay the penalties of their
former ills. Some, hung on high, are spread out to the
empty winds; in others, the guilt not done away is washed
out in a vast watery abyss, or burned away in fire. We each
endure his own manes, thence are we conveyed along the
spacious Elysium, and we, the happy few, possess the fields
of bliss; till length of time, after the fixed period is
elapsed, hath done away the inherent stain, and hath left
the pure celestial reason, and the fiery energy of the
simple spirit.”121 - 121
“God of clemency supreme”; the church hymn, sung at matins on Saturday morning, and containing a prayer for purity.
128 - 128
Luke i. 34: “Then said Mary unto the angel, How shall this be, seeing I know not a man?”
131 - 131
Helice, or Callisto, was a daughter of Lycaon, king of Arcadia. She was one of the attendant nymphs of Diana, who discarded her on account of an amour with Jupiter, for which Juno turned her into a bear. Arcas was the offspring of this amour. Jupiter changed them to the constellations of the Great and Little Bear.
Ovid, Met. II., Addison's Tr.: –
“But now her son had fifteen summers told,
Fierce at the chase, and in the forest bold;
When, as he beat the woods in quest of prey,
He chanced to rouse his mother where she lay.
She knew her son, and kept him in her sight,
And fondly gazed: the boy was in a fright,
And aimed a pointed arrow at her breast,
And would have slain his mother in the beast;
But Jove forbad, and snatched them through the air
In whirlwinds up to Heaven, and fixed them there;
Where the new constellations nightly rise,
And add a lustre to the Northern skies.
”When Juno saw the rival in her height,
Spangled with stars, and circled round with light,
She sought old Ocean in his deep abodes,
And Tethys, both revered among the gods.
They ask what brings her there: 'Ne'er ask; says she,
'What brings me here; Heaven is no place for me.
You'll see, when Night has covered all things o'er,
Jove's starry bastard and triumphant whore
Usurp the heavens; you'll see them proudly roll
In their new orbs, and brighten all the pole.“