Dante's Purgatorio: Canto XXI

The Poet Statius. Praise of Virgil.

The natural thirst, that ne'er is satisfied
   Excepting with the water for whose grace
   The woman of Samaria besought,

Put me in travail, and haste goaded me
   Along the encumbered path behind my Leader 5
   And I was pitying that righteous vengeance;

And lo! in the same manner as Luke writeth
   That Christ appeared to two upon the way
   From the sepulchral cave already risen,

A shade appeared to us, and came behind us, 10
   Down gazing on the prostrate multitude,
   Nor were we ware of it, until it spake,

Saying, "My brothers, may God give you peace!"
   We turned us suddenly, and Virgilius rendered
   To him the countersign thereto conforming. 15

Thereon began he: "In the blessed council,
   Thee may the court veracious place in peace,
   That me doth banish in eternal exile!"

"How," said he, and the while we went with speed,
   "If ye are shades whom God deigns not on high, 20
   Who up his stairs so far has guided you?"

And said my Teacher: "If thou note the marks
   Which this one bears, and which the Angel traces
   Well shalt thou see he with the good must reign.

But because she who spinneth day and night 25
   For him had not yet drawn the distaff off,
   Which Clotho lays for each one and compacts,

His soul, which is thy sister and my own,
   In coming upwards could not come alone,
   By reason that it sees not in our fashion. 30

Whence I was drawn from out the ample throat
   Of Hell to be his guide, and I shall guide him
   As far on as my school has power to lead.

But tell us, if thou knowest, why such a shudder
   Erewhile the mountain gave, and why together 35
   All seemed to cry, as far as its moist feet?"

In asking he so hit the very eye
   Of my desire, that merely with the hope
   My thirst became the less unsatisfied.

"Naught is there," he began, "that without order 40
   May the religion of the mountain feel,
   Nor aught that may be foreign to its custom.

Free is it here from every permutation;
   What from itself heaven in itself receiveth
   Can be of this the cause, and naught beside; 45

Because that neither rain, nor hail, nor snow,
   Nor dew, nor hoar-frost any higher falls
   Than the short, little stairway of three steps.

Dense clouds do not appear, nor rarefied,
   Nor coruscation, nor the daughter of Thaumas, 50
   That often upon earth her region shifts;

No arid vapour any farther rises
   Than to the top of the three steps I spake of,
   Whereon the Vicar of Peter has his feet.

Lower down perchance it trembles less or more, 55
   But, for the wind that in the earth is hidden
   I know not how, up here it never trembled.

It trembles here, whenever any soul
   Feels itself pure, so that it soars, or moves
   To mount aloft, and such a cry attends it. 60

Of purity the will alone gives proof,
   Which, being wholly free to change its convent,
   Takes by surprise the soul, and helps it fly.

First it wills well; but the desire permits not,
   Which divine justice with the self-same will 65
   There was to sin, upon the torment sets.

And I, who have been lying in this pain
   Five hundred years and more, but just now felt
   A free volition for a better seat.

Therefore thou heardst the earthquake, and the pious 70
   Spirits along the mountain rendering praise
   Unto the Lord, that soon he speed them upwards."

So said he to him; and since we enjoy
   As much in drinking as the thirst is great,
   I could not say how much it did me good. 75

And the wise Leader: "Now I see the net
   That snares you here, and how ye are set free,
   Why the earth quakes, and wherefore ye rejoice.

Now who thou wast be pleased that I may know;
   And why so many centuries thou hast here 80
   Been lying, let me gather from thy words."

"In days when the good Titus, with the aid
   Of the supremest King, avenged the wounds
   Whence issued forth the blood by Judas sold,

Under the name that most endures and honours, 85
   Was I on earth," that spirit made reply,
   "Greatly renowned, but not with faith as yet.

My vocal spirit was so sweet, that Rome
   Me, a Thoulousian, drew unto herself,
   Where I deserved to deck my brows with myrtle. 90

Statius the people name me still on earth;
   I sang of Thebes, and then of great Achilles;
   But on the way fell with my second burden.

The seeds unto my ardour were the sparks
   Of that celestial flame which heated me, 95
   Whereby more than a thousand have been fired;

Of the Aeneid speak I, which to me
   A mother was, and was my nurse in song;
   Without this weighed I not a drachma's weight.

And to have lived upon the earth what time 100
   Virgilius lived, I would accept one sun
   More than I must ere issuing from my ban."

These words towards me made Virgilius turn
   With looks that in their silence said, "Be silent!"
   But yet the power that wills cannot do all things; 105

For tears and laughter are such pursuivants
   Unto the passion from which each springs forth,
   In the most truthful least the will they follow.

I only smiled, as one who gives the wink;
   Whereat the shade was silent, and it gazed 110
   Into mine eyes, where most expression dwells;

And, "As thou well mayst consummate a labour
   So great," it said, "why did thy face just now
   Display to me the lightning of a smile?"

Now am I caught on this side and on that; 115
   One keeps me silent, one to speak conjures me,
   Wherefore I sigh, and I am understood.

"Speak," said my Master, "and be not afraid
   Of speaking, but speak out, and say to him
   What he demands with such solicitude." 120

Whence I: "Thou peradventure marvellest,
   O antique spirit, at the smile I gave;
   But I will have more wonder seize upon thee.

This one, who guides on high these eyes of mine,
   Is that Virgilius, from whom thou didst learn 125
   To sing aloud of men and of the Gods.

If other cause thou to my smile imputedst,
   Abandon it as false, and trust it was
   Those words which thou hast spoken concerning him."

Already he was stooping to embrace 130
   My Teacher's feet; but he said to him: "Brother,
   Do not; for shade thou art, and shade beholdest."

And he uprising: "Now canst thou the sum
   Of love which warms me to thee comprehend,
   When this our vanity I disremember, 135

Treating a shadow as substantial thing."

NOTES

1 - 1

This canto is devoted to the interview with the poet Statius, whose release from punishment was announced by the earthquake and the outcry at the end of the last canto.

3 - 3

John iv. 14, 15: “Whosoever drinketh of the water that I shall give him, shall never thirst.....The woman saith unto him, Sir, give me this water, that I thirst not, neither come hither to draw.”

7 - 7

Luke xxiv. 13-15: “And, behold, two of them went that same day to a village called Emmaus, which was from Jerusalem about threescore furlongs. And they talked together of all these things which had happended. And it came to pass, that, while they communed together and reasoned, Jesus himself drew near, and went with them.”

15 - 15

Among the monks of the Middle Ages there were certain salutations, which had their customary replies or countersigns. Thus one would say, “Peace be with thee!” and the answer would be, “And with thy spirit!” Or, “Praised be the Lord!” and the answer, “World without end!”

22 - 22

The letters upon Dante's forehead.

25 - 25

Lachesis. Of the three Fates, Clotho prepared and held the distaff, Lachesis spun the thread, and Atropos cut it.

“These,” says Plato, Republic, X., “are the daughters of Necessity, the Fates, Lachesis, Clotho, and Atropos; who, clothed in white robes, with garlands on their heads, chant to the music of the Sirens; Lachesis the events of the Past, Clotho those of the Present, Atropos those of the Future.”

33 - 33

See Canto XVIII. 46: –

“What reason seeth here, Myself can tell; beyond that await For Beatrice, since 't is a work of faith.”

So also Cowley, in this poem on the Use of Reason in Divine Matters: –

“Though Reason cannot Faith's mysteries see,
It sees that there are such they be;
Leads to heaven's door, and there does humbly keep,
And there through chinks and keyholes peep;
Though it, like Moses, by a sad command
Must not come into the Holy Land,
Yet thither it infallibly does guide,
And from afar 't is all descried.”

40 - 40

Nothing unusual ever disturbs the religio loci, the sacredness of the mountain.

44 - 44

This happens only when the soul, that came from heaven, is received back into heaven; not from any natural causes affecting earth or air.

48 - 48

The gate of Purgatoy, which is also the gate of Heaven.

50 - 50

Iris, one of the Oceanides, the daughter of Thaumas and Electra; the rainbow.

65 - 65

The soul in Purgatory feels as great a desire to be punished for a sin, as it had to commit it.

82 - 82

The siege of Jerusalem under Titus, surnamed the “Delight of Mankind,” took place in the year 70. Statius, who is here speaking, was born at Naples in the reign of Claudius, and had already become famous “under the name that most endures and honors,” that is, a poet. His works are the Silvae, or miscellaneous poems; the Thebaid, an epic in twelve books; and the Achilleid, left unfinished. He wrote also a tragedy, Agave, which is lost.

Juvenal says of him, Satire VII., Dryden's Tr.: –

“All Rome is pleased when Statius will rehearse,
And longing crowds expect the promised verse;
His lofty numbers with so great a gust
They hear, and swallow with such eager lust:
But while the common suffrage crowned his cause,
And broke the benches with their loud applause,
His Muse had starved, had not a piece unread,
And by a player bought, supplied her bread.”

Dante shows his admiration of him by placing him here.

89 - 89

Statius was not born in Toulouse, as Dante supposes, but in Naples, as he himself states in his Silvae, which work was not discovered till after Dante's death. The passage occurs in Book III. Eclogue V., To Claudia his Wife, where he describes the beauties of Parthenope, and calls her the mother and nurse of both, amborum genetrix altrixque.

Landino thinks that Dante's error may be traced to Placidus Lactantius, a commentator of the Thebaid, who confounded Statius the poet of Naples with Statius the rhetorician of Toulouse.

101 - 101

Would be willing to remain another year in Purgatory.

114 - 114

Petrarca uses the same expression, – the lightning of the angelic smile, il lampeggiar dell'angelico riso.

131 - 131

See Canto XIX. 133.