Dante's Purgatorio: Canto XVI

Marco Lombardo. Lament over the State of the World.

Sep 17, 2024

Darkness of hell, and of a night deprived
   Of every planet under a poor sky,
   As much as may be tenebrous with cloud,

Ne'er made unto my sight so thick a veil,
   As did that smoke which there enveloped us, 5
   Nor to the feeling of so rough a texture;

For not an eye it suffered to stay open;
   Whereat mine escort, faithful and sagacious,
   Drew near to me and offered me his shoulder.

E'en as a blind man goes behind his guide, 10
   Lest he should wander, or should strike against
   Aught that may harm or peradventure kill him,

So went I through the bitter and foul air,
   Listening unto my Leader, who said only,
   "Look that from me thou be not separated." 15

Voices I heard, and every one appeared
   To supplicate for peace and misericord
   The Lamb of God who takes away our sins.

Still "Agnus Dei" their exordium was;
   One word there was in all, and metre one, 20
   So that all harmony appeared among them.

"Master," I said, "are spirits those I hear?"
   And he to me: "Thou apprehendest truly,
   And they the knot of anger go unloosing."

"Now who art thou, that cleavest through our smoke 25
   And art discoursing of us even as though
   Thou didst by calends still divide the time?"

After this manner by a voice was spoken;
   Whereon my Master said: "Do thou reply,
   And ask if on this side the way go upward." 30

And I: "O creature that dost cleanse thyself
   To return beautiful to Him who made thee,
   Thou shalt hear marvels if thou follow me."

"Thee will I follow far as is allowed me,"
   He answered; "and if smoke prevent our seeing, 35
   Hearing shall keep us joined instead thereof."

Thereon began I: "With that swathing band
   Which death unwindeth am I going upward,
   And hither came I through the infernal anguish.

And if God in his grace has me infolded, 40
   So that he wills that I behold his court
   By method wholly out of modern usage,

Conceal not from me who ere death thou wast,
   But tell it me, and tell me if I go
   Right for the pass, and be thy words our escort." 45

"Lombard was I, and I was Marco called;
   The world I knew, and loved that excellence,
   At which has each one now unbent his bow.

For mounting upward, thou art going right."
   Thus he made answer, and subjoined: "I pray thee 50
   To pray for me when thou shalt be above."

And I to him: "My faith I pledge to thee
   To do what thou dost ask me; but am bursting
   Inly with doubt, unless I rid me of it.

First it was simple, and is now made double 55
   By thy opinion, which makes certain to me,
   Here and elsewhere, that which I couple with it.

The world forsooth is utterly deserted
   By every virtue, as thou tellest me,
   And with iniquity is big and covered; 60

But I beseech thee point me out the cause,
   That I may see it, and to others show it;
   For one in the heavens, and here below one puts it."

A sigh profound, that grief forced into Ai!
   He first sent forth, and then began he: "Brother, 65
   The world is blind, and sooth thou comest from it!

Ye who are living every cause refer
   Still upward to the heavens, as if all things
   They of necessity moved with themselves.

If this were so, in you would be destroyed 70
   Free will, nor any justice would there be
   In having joy for good, or grief for evil.

The heavens your movements do initiate,
   I say not all; but granting that I say it,
   Light has been given you for good and evil, 75

And free volition; which, if some fatigue
   In the first battles with the heavens it suffers,
   Afterwards conquers all, if well 'tis nurtured.

To greater force and to a better nature,
   Though free, ye subject are, and that creates 80
   The mind in you the heavens have not in charge.

Hence, if the present world doth go astray,
   In you the cause is, be it sought in you;
   And I therein will now be thy true spy.

Forth from the hand of Him, who fondles it 85
   Before it is, like to a little girl
   Weeping and laughing in her childish sport,

Issues the simple soul, that nothing knows,
   Save that, proceeding from a joyous Maker,
   Gladly it turns to that which gives it pleasure. 90

Of trivial good at first it tastes the savour;
   Is cheated by it, and runs after it,
   If guide or rein turn not aside its love.

Hence it behoved laws for a rein to place,
   Behoved a king to have, who at the least 95
   Of the true city should discern the tower.

The laws exist, but who sets hand to them?
   No one; because the shepherd who precedes
   Can ruminate, but cleaveth not the hoof;

Wherefore the people that perceives its guide 100
   Strike only at the good for which it hankers,
   Feeds upon that, and farther seeketh not.

Clearly canst thou perceive that evil guidance
   The cause is that has made the world depraved,
   And not that nature is corrupt in you. 105

Rome, that reformed the world, accustomed was
   Two suns to have, which one road and the other,
   Of God and of the world, made manifest.

One has the other quenched, and to the crosier
   The sword is joined, and ill beseemeth it 110
   That by main force one with the other go,

Because, being joined, one feareth not the other;
   If thou believe not, think upon the grain,
   For by its seed each herb is recognized.

In the land laved by Po and Adige, 115
   Valour and courtesy used to be found,
   Before that Frederick had his controversy;

Now in security can pass that way
   Whoever will abstain, through sense of shame,
   From speaking with the good, or drawing near them. 120

True, three old men are left, in whom upbraids
   The ancient age the new, and late they deem it
   That God restore them to the better life:

Currado da Palazzo, and good Gherardo,
   And Guido da Castel, who better named is, 125
   In fashion of the French, the simple Lombard:

Say thou henceforward that the Church of Rome,
   Confounding in itself two governments,
   Falls in the mire, and soils itself and burden."

"O Marco mine," I said, "thou reasonest well; 130
   And now discern I why the sons of Levi
   Have been excluded from the heritage.

But what Gherardo is it, who, as sample
   Of a lost race, thou sayest has remained
   In reprobation of the barbarous age?" 135

"Either thy speech deceives me, or it tempts me,"
   He answered me; "for speaking Tuscan to me,
   It seems of good Gherardo naught thou knowest.

By other surname do I know him not,
   Unless I take it from his daughter Gaia. 140
   May God be with you, for I come no farther.

Behold the dawn, that through the smoke rays out,
   Already whitening; and I must depart--
   Yonder the Angel is--ere he appear."

Thus did he speak, and would no farther hear me. 145

Sender’s Note: Whether you’ve stayed up to date or you’re catching up, congrats on reaching the halfway point of the Commedia!

NOTES

1 - 1

The Third Circle of Purgatory, and the punishment of the Sin of Pride.

2 - 2

Poor, or impoverished of its stars by clouds. The same expression is applied to the Arno, Canto XIV. 45, to indicate its want of water.

19 - 19

In the Litany of the Saints: –

“Lamb of God, who takest away the sins of the world, spare us, O Lord.

”Lamb of God, who takest away the sins of the world, graciously hear us. O Lord.

“Lamb of God, who takest away the sins of the world, have mercy on us!”

27 - 27

Still living the life temporal, where time is measured by the calendar.

46 - 46

Marco Lombardo was a Venetian nobleman, a man of wit and learning and a friend of Dante. “Nearly all that he gained,” says the Ottimo, “he spent in charity.....He visited Paris, and, as long as his money lasted, he was esteemed for his valor and courtesy. Afterwards he depended upon those richer than himself, and lived and died honorably.” There are some anecdotes of him in the Cento Novelle Antiche, Nov. 41, 52, hardly worth quoting.

It is doubtful whether the name of Lombardo is a family name, or only indicates that Marco was an Italian, after the fashion then prevalent among the French of calling all Italians Lombards. See Note 124.

Benvenuto says of him that he “was a man of noble mind, but disdainful, and easily moved to anger.”

Buti's portrait is as follows: “This Marco was a Venetian, called Marco Daca; and was a very learned man, and had many political virtues, and was very courteous, giving to poor noblemen all that he gained, and he gained much; for he was a courtier, and was much beloved for his virtue, and much was given him by the nobility; and as he gave to those who were in need, so he lent to all who asked. So that, coming to die, and having much still due to him, he made a will, and among other bequests this, that whoever owed him should not be held to pay the debt saying, 'Whoever has, may keep.'”

Port{i}relli thinks that this Marco may be Marco Polo the traveller; but this is inadmissible, as he was still living at the time of Dante's death.

57 - 57

What Guido del Duca has told him of the corruption of Italy, in Canto XIV.

64 - 64

Ovid, Metamorph., X., Ozell's Tr.: –

“The god upon its leaves The sad expression of his sorrow weaves, And to this hour the mournful purple wears Ai, ai, inscribed in funeral characters.”

67 - 67

See the article Cabala, at the end of Vol. III.

69 - 69

Boëthius, Cons. Phil., V. Prosa 2, Ridpath's Tr.: –


“'But in this indissoluble chain of causes, can we preserve
the liberty of the will? Does this fatal Necessity restrain
the motions of the human soul?' – 'There is no reasonable
being,' replied she, 'who has not freedom of will: for every
being distinguished with this faculty is endowed with
judgment to perceive the differences of things; to discover
what he is to avoid or pursue. Now what a person esteems
desirable, he desires; but what he thinks ought to be
avoided, he shuns. Thus every rational creature hath a
liberty of choosing and rejecting. But I do not assert that
this liberty is equal in all beings. Heavenly substances,
who are exalted above us, have an enlightened judgment, an
incorruptible will, and a power ever at command effectually
to accomplish their desires. With regard to man, his
immaterial spirit is also free; but it is most at liberty
when employed in the contemplation of the Divine mind; it
becomes less so whn it enters into a body; and is still more
restrained when it is imprisoned in a terrestrial
habitation, composed of members of clay; and is reduced, in
fine, to the most extreme servitude when, by plunging into
the pollutions of vice, it totally departs from reason: for
the soul no sooner turns her eye from the radiance of
supreme truth to dark and base objects, but she is involved
in a mist of ignorance, assailed by impure desires; by
yielding to which she increases her thraldom, and thus the
freedom which she derives from nature becomes in some
measure of cause of her slavery. But the eye of Providence,
which sees everything from eternity, perceives all this; and
that same Providence disposes everything she has
predestinated, in the order it deserves. As Homer says of
the sun, It sees everything and hears everything.'”

Also Milton, Parad. Lost, II. 557:–


“Others apart sat on a hill retired,
In thoughts more elevate, and reasoned high
Of providence, foreknowledge, will and fate
Fixed fate, free will, foreknowledge absolute,
And found no end, in wandering mazes lost.”

See also Par. XVII. Note 40.

70 - 70

Boëthius, Cons. Phil., V. Prosa 3, Ridpath's Tr.:–


“But I shall now endeavor to demonstrate, that, in whatever
way the chain of causes is disposed, the event of things
which are foreseen is necessary; although prescience may not
appear to be the necessitating cause of their befalling.
For example, if a person sits, the opinion formed of him
that he is seated is of necessity true; but by inverting the
phrase, if the opinion is true that he is seated, he must
necessarily sit. In both cases, then, there is a necessity;
in the latter, that the person sits; in the former, that the
opinion concerning him is true: but the person doth not sit,
because the opinion of his sitting is true, but the opinion
is rather true because the action of his being seated was
antecedent in time. Thus, though the truth of the opinion
may be the effect of the person taking a seat, there is,
nevertheless, a necessity common to both. The same method
of reasoning, I think, should be employed with regard to the
prescience of God, and future contingencies; for, allowing
it to be true that events are foreseen because they are to
happen, and that they do not befall because they are
foreseen, it is still necessary that what is to happen must
be foreseen by God, and that what is foreseen must take
place. This then is of itself sufficient to destroy all
idea of human liberty.”

78 - 78

Ptolemy says, “The wise man shall control the stars”; and the Turkish proverb, “Wit and a strong will are superior to Fate.”

79 - 79

Though free, you are subject to the divine power which has immediately breathed into you the soul, and the soul is not subject to the influence of the stars, as the body is.

84 - 84

Shakespeare, Lear, V. 3:–


“And take upon 's the mystery of things,
As if we were God's spies.”

92 - 92

Convito, IV. 12: “The supreme desire of everything, and that first given by nature, is to return to its source; and since God is the source of our souls, and maker of them in his own likeness, as is written, 'Let us make man in our image, after our likeness,' to him this soul desireth to return. And like as a pilgrim, who goeth upon a road on which he never was before, thinketh every house he seeth afar off to be an inn, and, not finding it so, directeth his trust to the next, and thus from house to house until he reacheth the inn, in like manner our soul, presently as she entereth the new and untravelled road of this life, turneth her eyes to the goal of her supreme good; and therefore whatever thing she seeth that seemeth to have some good in it, she believeth to be that. And because her knowledge at first is imperfect, not being experienced nor trained, small goods seem great, and therefore with them beginneth her desire. Hence we see children desire exceedingly an apple; and then, going farther, desire a little bird; and farther still, a beautiful dress; and then a horse; and then a woman; and then wealth not very great, and then greater, and then greater still. And this cometh to pass, because she findeth not in any of these things that which she is seeking, and trusteth to find it farther on.”

96 - 96

Henry Vaughan, Sacred Poems:–


“They are indeed our pillar-fires,
Seen as we go;
They are that city's shining spires
We travel to.”

99 - 99

Leviticus xi. 4: “The camel because he cheweth the cud, but divideth not the hoof: he is unclean to you.” Dante applies these words to the Pope as temporal sovereign.

101 - 101

Worldly goods. As in the old French satirical verses:–

“Au temps passé du siécle d'or, Crosse de bois, évêque d'or; Maintenant changent les lois, Crosse d'or, evêque de bois.”

107 - 107

The Emperor and the Pope; the temporal and spiritual power.

115 - 115

Lombardy and Romagna.

117 - 117

The dissension and war between the Emperor Frederick the Second and Pope Gregory the Ninth. Milman, Hist. Lat. Christ., Book X. Ch. 3, says:–


“The Empire and the Papacy were now to meet in their last
mortal and implacable strife; and two first acts of this
tremendous drama, separated by an interval of many years,
were to be developed during the pontificate of a prelate who
ascended the throne of St. Peter at the age of eighty. Nor
was this strife for any specific point in dispute, like the
right of investiture, but avowedly for supremacy on one
side, which hardly deigned to call itself independence; for
independence, on the other, which remotely at least aspired
after supremacy. Caesar would bear no superior, the
successor of St. Peter no equal. The contest could not have
begun under men more strongly contrasted, or more
determinedly oppugnant in character, than Gregory the Ninth
and Frederick the Second. Gregory retained the ambition,
the vigor, almost the activity of youth, with the stubborn
obstinacy, and something of the irritable petulance, of old
age. He was still master of all his powerful faculties; his
knowledge of affairs, of mankind, of the peculiar interests
of almost all the nations in Christendom, acquired by long
employment in the most important negotiations both by
Innocent the Third and by Honorius the Third; eloquence
which his own age compared to that of Tully; profound
erudition in the learning which, in the medieval churchman,
commanded the highest admiration. No one was his superior
in the science of the canon law; the Decretals, to which he
afterwards gave a more full and authoritative form, were at
his command, and they were to him as much the law of God as
the Gospels themselves, or the primary principles of
morality. The jealous reverence and attachment of a great
lawyer to his science strengthened the lofty pretentions of
the churchman.


”Frederick and Second, with many of the noblest qualities
which could captivate the admiration of his own age, in some
respects might appear misplaced, and by many centuries
prematurely born. Frederick having crowded into his youth
adventures, perils, successes, almost unparalleled in
history, and now only expanding into the prime of manhood.
A parentless orphan, he had struggled upward into the actual
reigning monarch of his hereditary Sicily; he was even then
rising above the yoke of the turbulent magnates of his
realm, and the depressing tutelage of the Papal See; he had
crossed the Alps a boyish adventurer, and won so much
through his own valor and daring that he might well ascribe
to himself his conquest, the kingdom of Germany, the
imperial crown; he was in undisputed possession of the
Empire, with all its rights in Northern Italy; King of
Apulia, Sicily, and Jerusalem. He was beginning to be at
once the Magnificent Sovereign, the knight, the poet, the
lawgiver, the patron of arts, letters, and science; the
Magnificent Sovereign, now holding his court in one of the
old barbaric and feudal cities of Germany among the proud
and turbulent princes of the Empire, more often on the sunny
shores of Naples or Palermo, in southern and almost Oriental
luxury; the gallant Knight and troubadour Poet, not
forbidding himself those amorous indulgences which were the
reward of chivalrous valor and of the 'gay science'; the
Lawgiver, whose far-seeing wisdom seemed to anticipate some
of those views of equal justice, of the advantages of
commerce, of the cultivation of the arts of peace, beyond
all the toleration of adverse religions, which even in a
more dutiful son of the Church would doubtless have seemed
godless indifference. Frederick must appear before us in
the course of our history in the full development of all
these shades of character; but besides all this, Frederick's
views of the temporal sovereignty were as imperious and
autocratic as those of the haughiest churchman of the
spiritual supremacy. The ban of the Empire ought to be at
least equally awful with that of the Church; disloyalty to
the Emperor was as heinous a sin as infidelity to the head
of Christendom; the independence of the Lombard republics
was as a great and punishable political heresy. Even in
Rome itself, as head of the Roman Empire, Frederick aspired
to a supermacy which was not less unlimited because vague
and undefined, and irreconcilable with that of the Supreme
Pontiff. If ever Emperor might be tempted by the vision of
a vast hereditary monarchy to be perpetuated in his house,
the princely house of Hohenstaufen, it was Frederick. He
had heirs of his greatness; his eldest son was King of the
Romans; from his loins might yet spring as inexhaustible
race of princes; the failure of his imperial line was his
last fear. The character of the man seemed formed to
achieve and to maintain this vast design; he was at once
terrible and popular, courteous, generous, placable to his
foes; yet there was a depth of cruelty in the heart of
Frederick towards revolted subjects, which made him look on
the atrocities of his allies, Eccelin di Romano, and the
Salinguerras, but as legitimate means to quell insolent and
stubborn rebellion.....


“It is impossible to conceive a contrast more strong or more
irreconcilable than the octogenarian Gregory, in his
cloister palace, in his conclave of stern ascetics, with all
but severe imprisonment within conventual walls, completely
monastic in manners, habits, views, in corporate spirit, in
celibacy, in rigid seclusion from the rest of mankind, in
the conscientious determination to enslave, if possible, all
christendom to its inviolable unity of faith, and to the
least possible latitude of discipline; and the gay and yet
youthful Frederick, with his mingled assemblage of knights
and ladies, of Christians, Jews, and Mohammedans, of poets
and men of science, met, as it were, to enjoy and minister
to enjoyment, – to cultivate the pure intellect, – where,
if not the restraints of religion, at least the awful
authority of churchmen was examined with freedom, sometimes
ridiculed with sportive wit.”

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