Dante's Purgatorio: Canto XVII

Dante’s Dream of Anger. The Fourth Circle: The Slothful. Virgil’s Discourse of Love.

Remember, Reader, if e'er in the Alps
   A mist o'ertook thee, through which thou couldst see
   Not otherwise than through its membrane mole,

How, when the vapours humid and condensed
   Begin to dissipate themselves, the sphere 5
   Of the sun feebly enters in among them,

And thy imagination will be swift
   In coming to perceive how I re-saw
   The sun at first, that was already setting.

Thus, to the faithful footsteps of my Master 10
   Mating mine own, I issued from that cloud
   To rays already dead on the low shores.

O thou, Imagination, that dost steal us
   So from without sometimes, that man perceives not,
   Although around may sound a thousand trumpets, 15

Who moveth thee, if sense impel thee not?
   Moves thee a light, which in the heaven takes form,
   By self, or by a will that downward guides it.

Of her impiety, who changed her form
   Into the bird that most delights in singing, 20
   In my imagining appeared the trace;

And hereupon my mind was so withdrawn
   Within itself, that from without there came
   Nothing that then might be received by it.

Then reigned within my lofty fantasy 25
   One crucified, disdainful and ferocious
   In countenance, and even thus was dying.

Around him were the great Ahasuerus,
   Esther his wife, and the just Mordecai,
   Who was in word and action so entire. 30

And even as this image burst asunder
   Of its own self, in fashion of a bubble
   In which the water it was made of fails,

There rose up in my vision a young maiden
   Bitterly weeping, and she said: "O queen, 35
   Why hast thou wished in anger to be naught?

Thou'st slain thyself, Lavinia not to lose;
   Now hast thou lost me; I am she who mourns,
   Mother, at thine ere at another's ruin."

As sleep is broken, when upon a sudden 40
   New light strikes in upon the eyelids closed,
   And broken quivers ere it dieth wholly,

So this imagining of mine fell down
   As soon as the effulgence smote my face,
   Greater by far than what is in our wont. 45

I turned me round to see where I might be,
   When said a voice, "Here is the passage up;"
   Which from all other purposes removed me,

And made my wish so full of eagerness
   To look and see who was it that was speaking, 50
   It never rests till meeting face to face;

But as before the sun, which quells the sight,
   And in its own excess its figure veils,
   Even so my power was insufficient here.

"This is a spirit divine, who in the way 55
   Of going up directs us without asking,
   And who with his own light himself conceals.

He does with us as man doth with himself;
   For he who sees the need, and waits the asking,
   Malignly leans already tow'rds denial. 60

Accord we now our feet to such inviting,
   Let us make haste to mount ere it grow dark;
   For then we could not till the day return."

Thus my Conductor said; and I and he
   Together turned our footsteps to a stairway; 65
   And I, as soon as the first step I reached,

Near me perceived a motion as of wings,
   And fanning in the face, and saying, "'Beati
   Pacifici,' who are without ill anger."

Already over us were so uplifted 70
   The latest sunbeams, which the night pursues,
   That upon many sides the stars appeared.

"O manhood mine, why dost thou vanish so?"
   I said within myself; for I perceived
   The vigour of my legs was put in truce. 75

We at the point were where no more ascends
   The stairway upward, and were motionless,
   Even as a ship, which at the shore arrives;

And I gave heed a little, if I might hear
   Aught whatsoever in the circle new; 80
   Then to my Master turned me round and said:

"Say, my sweet Father, what delinquency
   Is purged here in the circle where we are?
   Although our feet may pause, pause not thy speech."

And he to me: "The love of good, remiss 85
   In what it should have done, is here restored;
   Here plied again the ill-belated oar;

But still more openly to understand,
   Turn unto me thy mind, and thou shalt gather
   Some profitable fruit from our delay. 90

Neither Creator nor a creature ever,
   Son," he began, "was destitute of love
   Natural or spiritual; and thou knowest it.

The natural was ever without error;
   But err the other may by evil object, 95
   Or by too much, or by too little vigour.

While in the first it well directed is,
   And in the second moderates itself,
   It cannot be the cause of sinful pleasure;

But when to ill it turns, and, with more care 100
   Or lesser than it ought, runs after good,
   'Gainst the Creator works his own creation.

Hence thou mayst comprehend that love must be
   The seed within yourselves of every virtue,
   And every act that merits punishment. 105

Now inasmuch as never from the welfare
   Of its own subject can love turn its sight,
   From their own hatred all things are secure;

And since we cannot think of any being
   Standing alone, nor from the First divided, 110
   Of hating Him is all desire cut off.

Hence if, discriminating, I judge well,
   The evil that one loves is of one's neighbour,
   And this is born in three modes in your clay.

There are, who, by abasement of their neighbour, 115
   Hope to excel, and therefore only long
   That from his greatness he may be cast down;

There are, who power, grace, honour, and renown
   Fear they may lose because another rises,
   Thence are so sad that the reverse they love; 120

And there are those whom injury seems to chafe,
   So that it makes them greedy for revenge,
   And such must needs shape out another's harm.

This threefold love is wept for down below;
   Now of the other will I have thee hear, 125
   That runneth after good with measure faulty.

Each one confusedly a good conceives
   Wherein the mind may rest, and longeth for it;
   Therefore to overtake it each one strives.

If languid love to look on this attract you, 130
   Or in attaining unto it, this cornice,
   After just penitence, torments you for it.

There's other good that does not make man happy;
   'Tis not felicity, 'tis not the good
   Essence, of every good the fruit and root. 135

The love that yields itself too much to this
   Above us is lamented in three circles;
   But how tripartite it may be described,

I say not, that thou seek it for thyself."

NOTES

1 - 1

The trance and vision of Dante, and the ascent to the Fourth Circle, where the sin of Sloth is punished.

2 - 2

Iliad, III. 10: “As the south wind spreads a mist upon the brow of a mountain, by no means agreeable to the shepherd, but to the robber better than night, in which a man sees only as far as he can cast a stone.”

19 - 19

In this vision are represented some of the direful effects of anger, beginning with the murder of Itys by his mother, Procne, and her sister, Philomela. Ovid, VI.: –

“Now, at her lap arrived, the flattering boy
Salutes his parent with a smiling joy;
About her neck his little arms are thrown,
And he accosts her in a prattling tone.
.....
When Procne, on revengeful mischief bent,
Home to his heart a piercing poniard sent.
Itys, with rueful cries, but all too late,
Holds out his hands, and deprecates his fate;
Still at his mother's neck he fondly aims,
And strives to melt her with endearing names;
Yet still the cruel mother perserveres,
Nor with concern his bitter anguish hears.
This might suffice; but Philomela too
Across his throat a shining cutlass drew.”

Or perhaps the reference, is to the Homeric legend of Philomela, Odyssey, XIX. 518: “As when the daughter of Pardarus, the swarthy nightingale, sings beautifully when the spring newly begins, sitting in the thick branches of trees, and she, frequently changing, pours forth her much-sounding voice, lamenting her dear Itylus, whom once she slew with the brass through ignorance.”

25 - 25

Esther vii. 9, 10: “And Harbonah, one of the chamberlains, said before the king, Behold also, the gallows, fifty cubits high, which Haman had made for Mordecai, who had spoken good for the king, standeth in the house of Haman. Then the king said, Hang him thereon. So they hanged Haman on the gallows that he had prepared for Mordecai. Then was the king's wrath pacified.”

34 - 34

Lavinia, daughter of King Latinus and Queen Amata, betrothed to Turnus. Amata, thinking Turnus dead, hanged herself in anger and despair. AEneid, XII. 875, Dryden's Tr.: –

“Mad with her anguish, impotent to bear The mighty grief, she loathes the vital air. She calls herself the cause of all this ill, And owns the dire effects of her ungoverned will; She raves against the gods, she beats her breast, She tears with both her hands her purple vest; Then round a beam a running noose she tied, And, fastened by the neck, obscenely died. ”Soon as the fatal news by fame was blown, And to her dames and to her daughters known, The sad Lavinia rends her yellow hair And rosy cheeks; the rest her sorrow share; With shrieks the palace rings, and madness of despair.“

53 - 53

See Par. V. 134: –

”Even as the sun, that doth conceal himself By too much light.“

And Milton, Parad. Lost, III. 380: –

”Dark with excessive bright thy skirts appear.“

68 - 68

Matthew v. 9: ”Blessed are the peacemakers: for they shall be called the children of God.“

85 - 85

Sloth. See Inf. VII. Note 115. And Brunetto Latini, Tesoretto, XXI. 145: –

”In ira nasce e posa
Accidia niquitosa.“

97 - 97

The first, the object; the second, too much or too little vigor.

124 - 124

The sins of Pride, Envy, and Anger. The other is Sloth, or luke-warmness in well-doing, punished in this cicle.

136 - 136

The sins of Avarice, Gluttony, and Lust.