Dante's Purgatorio: Canto XXIII

Forese. Reproof of immodest Florentine Women.

The while among the verdant leaves mine eyes
   I riveted, as he is wont to do
   Who wastes his life pursuing little birds,

My more than Father said unto me: "Son,
   Come now; because the time that is ordained us 5
   More usefully should be apportioned out."

I turned my face and no less soon my steps
   Unto the Sages, who were speaking so
   They made the going of no cost to me;

And lo! were heard a song and a lament, 10
   "Labia mea, Domine," in fashion
   Such that delight and dolence it brought forth.

"O my sweet Father, what is this I hear?"
   Began I; and he answered: "Shades that go
   Perhaps the knot unloosing of their debt." 15

In the same way that thoughtful pilgrims do,
   Who, unknown people on the road o'ertaking,
   Turn themselves round to them, and do not stop,

Even thus, behind us with a swifter motion
   Coming and passing onward, gazed upon us 20
   A crowd of spirits silent and devout.

Each in his eyes was dark and cavernous,
   Pallid in face, and so emaciate
   That from the bones the skin did shape itself.

I do not think that so to merest rind 25
   Could Erisichthon have been withered up
   By famine, when most fear he had of it.

Thinking within myself I said: "Behold,
   This is the folk who lost Jerusalem,
   When Mary made a prey of her own son." 30

Their sockets were like rings without the gems;
   Whoever in the face of men reads 'omo'
   Might well in these have recognised the 'm.'

Who would believe the odour of an apple,
   Begetting longing, could consume them so, 35
   And that of water, without knowing how?

I still was wondering what so famished them,
   For the occasion not yet manifest
   Of their emaciation and sad squalor;

And lo! from out the hollow of his head 40
   His eyes a shade turned on me, and looked keenly;
   Then cried aloud: "What grace to me is this?"

Never should I have known him by his look;
   But in his voice was evident to me
   That which his aspect had suppressed within it. 45

This spark within me wholly re-enkindled
   My recognition of his altered face,
   And I recalled the features of Forese.

"Ah, do not look at this dry leprosy,"
   Entreated he, "which doth my skin discolour, 50
   Nor at default of flesh that I may have;

But tell me truth of thee, and who are those
   Two souls, that yonder make for thee an escort;
   Do not delay in speaking unto me."

"That face of thine, which dead I once bewept, 55
   Gives me for weeping now no lesser grief,"
   I answered him, "beholding it so changed!

But tell me, for God's sake, what thus denudes you?
   Make me not speak while I am marvelling,
   For ill speaks he who's full of other longings." 60

And he to me: "From the eternal council
   Falls power into the water and the tree
   Behind us left, whereby I grow so thin.

All of this people who lamenting sing,
   For following beyond measure appetite 65
   In hunger and thirst are here re-sanctified.

Desire to eat and drink enkindles in us
   The scent that issues from the apple-tree,
   And from the spray that sprinkles o'er the verdure;

And not a single time alone, this ground 70
   Encompassing, is refreshed our pain,--
   I say our pain, and ought to say our solace,--

For the same wish doth lead us to the tree
   Which led the Christ rejoicing to say 'Eli,'
   When with his veins he liberated us." 75

And I to him: "Forese, from that day
   When for a better life thou changedst worlds,
   Up to this time five years have not rolled round.

If sooner were the power exhausted in thee
   Of sinning more, than thee the hour surprised 80
   Of that good sorrow which to God reweds us,

How hast thou come up hitherward already?
   I thought to find thee down there underneath,
   Where time for time doth restitution make."

And he to me: "Thus speedily has led me 85
   To drink of the sweet wormwood of these torments,
   My Nella with her overflowing tears;

She with her prayers devout and with her sighs
   Has drawn me from the coast where one where one awaits,
   And from the other circles set me free. 90

So much more dear and pleasing is to God
   My little widow, whom so much I loved,
   As in good works she is the more alone;

For the Barbagia of Sardinia
   By far more modest in its women is 95
   Than the Barbagia I have left her in.

O brother sweet, what wilt thou have me say?
   A future time is in my sight already,
   To which this hour will not be very old,

When from the pulpit shall be interdicted 100
   To the unblushing womankind of Florence
   To go about displaying breast and paps.

What savages were e'er, what Saracens,
   Who stood in need, to make them covered go,
   Of spiritual or other discipline? 105

But if the shameless women were assured
   Of what swift Heaven prepares for them, already
   Wide open would they have their mouths to howl;

For if my foresight here deceive me not,
   They shall be sad ere he has bearded cheeks 110
   Who now is hushed to sleep with lullaby.

O brother, now no longer hide thee from me;
   See that not only I, but all these people
   Are gazing there, where thou dost veil the sun."

Whence I to him: "If thou bring back to mind 115
   What thou with me hast been and I with thee,
   The present memory will be grievous still.

Out of that life he turned me back who goes
   In front of me, two days agone when round
   The sister of him yonder showed herself," 120

And to the sun I pointed. "Through the deep
   Night of the truly dead has this one led me,
   With this true flesh, that follows after him.

Thence his encouragements have led me up,
   Ascending and still circling round the mount 125
   That you doth straighten, whom the world made crooked.

He says that he will bear me company,
   Till I shall be where Beatrice will be;
   There it behoves me to remain without him.

This is Virgilius, who thus says to me," 130
   And him I pointed at; "the other is
   That shade for whom just now shook every slope

Your realm, that from itself discharges him."

NOTES

1 - 1

The punishment of the sin of Gluttony.

3 - 3

Shakespeare, As You Like It, II. 7: –

“Under the shade of melancholy boughs
Lose and neglect the creeping hours of time.”

11 - 11

Psalms li. 15: “O Lord, open thou my lips; and my mouth shall show forth thy praise.”

26 - 26

Erisichthon the Thessalian, who in derision cut down an ancient oak in the sacred groves of Ceres. He was punished by perpetual hunger, till, other food failing him, at last he gnawed his own flesh. Ovid Met. VIII., Vernon's Tr.: –

“Straight he requires, impatient in demand,
Provisions from the air, the seas, the land;
But though the land, air, seas, provisions grant,
Starves at full tables, and complains of want.
What to a people might in dole be paid,
Or victual cities for a long blockade,
Could not one wolfish appetite assuage;
For glutting nourishment increased its rage.
As rivers poured from every distant shore
The sea insatiate drinks, and thirsts for more;
Or as the fire, which all materials burns,
And wasted forests into ashes turns,
Grows more voracious as the more it preys,
Recruits dilate the flame, and spread the blaze:
So impious Erisichton's hunger raves,
Receives refreshments, and refreshments craves.
Food raises a desire for food, and meat
Is but a new provocative to eat.
He grows more empty as the more supplied,
And endless cramming but extends the void.”

30 - 30

This tragic tale of the siege of Jerusalem by Titus is thus told in Josephus, Jewish War, Book VI. Ch. 3, Whiston's Tr.: –

“There was a certain woman that dwelt beyond Jordan; her
name was Mary; her father was Eleazar, of the village
Bethezub, which signifies the house of Hyssop. She was
eminent for her family and her wealth, and had fled away to
Jerusalem with the rest of the multitude, and was with them
besieged therein at this time. The other effects of this
woman had been already seized upon, such I mean as she had
brought with her out of Perea, and removed to the city.
What she had treasured up besides, as also what food she had
contrived to save, had been also carried off by the
rapacious guards, who came every day running into her house
for that purpose. This put the poor woman into a very great
passion, and by the frequent reproaches and imprecations she
cast at these rapacious villains, she had provoked them to
anger against her; but none of them, either out of the
indignation she had raised against herself, or out of
commiseration of her case, would take away her life. And if
she found any food, she perceived her labors were for others
and not for herself; and it was now become impossible for
her any way to find any more food, while the famine pierced
through her very bowels and marrow, when also her passion
was fired to a degree beyond the famine itself. Nor did she
consult with anything but with her passion and the necessity
she was in. She then attempted a most unnatural thing, and,
snatching up her son who was a child sucking at her breast,
she said, ”O thou miserable infant! For whom shall I
preserve thee in this war, this famine, and this sedition?
As to the war with the Romans, if they preserve our lives,
we must be slaves. This famine also will destroy us, even
before that slavery comes upon us. Yet are these seditious
rogues more terrible than both the other. Come on, be thou
my food, and be thou a fury to these seditious varlets, and
a byword to the world; which is all that is now wanting to
complete the calamities of the Jews.' As soon as she had
said this, she slew her son, and then roasted him, and ate
the one half of him, and kept the other half by her
concealed. Upon this the seditious came in presently, and,
smelling the horrid scent of this food, they threatened her
that they would cut her throat immediately, if she did not
show them what food she had gotten ready. She replied, that
she had saved a very fine portion of it for them; and withal
uncovered what was left of her son. Hereupon they were
seized with a horror and amazement of mind, and stood
astonished at the sight, when she said to them: 'This is
mine own son, and what hath been done was mine own doing.
Come, eat of this food; for I have eaten of it myself. Do
not you pretend to be either more tender than a woman, or
more compassionate than a mother. But if you be so
scrupulous, and do abominate this my sacrifice, as I have
eaten the one half, let the rest be reserved for me also.'
After which those men went out trembling, being never so
much affrighted at anything as they were at this, and with
some difficulty they left the rest of that meat to the
mother. Upon which the whole city was full of this horrid
action immediately; and while everybody laid this miserable
case before their own eyes, they trembled as if this unheard
of action had been done by themselves. so those that were
thus distressed by the famine were very desirous to die, and
those already dead were esteemed happy, because they had not
lived long enough either to hear or to see such miseries.“

31 - 31

Shakespeare, King Lear, V. 3: –

”And in this habit Met I my father with his bleeding rings, Their precious stones new lost.“

32 - 32

In this fanciful recognition of the word omo (homo, man) in the human face, so written as to place the two o's between the outer strokes of the m, the former represent the eyes, and the latter the nose and cheekbones:

{Illustration untranscribeable.}

Brother Berthold, a Franciscan monk of Regensburg, in the thirteenth century, makes the following allusion to it in one of his sermons. See Wakernagle, Deutsches Lesebuch, I. 678. The monk carries out the resemblance into still further detail: –

”Now behold, ye blessed children of God, the Almighty has
created you soul and body. And he has written it under your
eyes and on your faces, that you are created in his
likeness. He has written it upon your very faces with
ornamented letters. With great dilligence are they
embellished and ornamented. This your learned men well
understand, but the unlearned may not understand it. The
two eyes are two o's. The h is properly no letter; it
only helps the others; so that homo with an h means Man.
Likewise the brows arched above, and the nose down between
them are an m, beautiful with three strokes. So is the
ear a d, beautifully rounded and ornamented. So are the
nostrils beautifully formed like a Greek ε,
beautifully rounded and ornamented. So is the mouth an i,
beautifully adorned and ornamented. Now behold, ye good
Christian people, how skilfully he has adorned you with
these six letters, to show that ye are his own, and that he
has created you! Now read me an o and an m and another
o together; that spells homo. Then read me a d and an
e and an i together; that spells dei. Homo dei, man of
God, man of God!“

48 - 48

Forese Donati, the brother-in-law and intimate friend of Dante. ”This Forese,“ says Buti, ”was a citizen of Florence, and was brother of Messer Corso Donati, and was very gluttonous; and therefore the author feigns that he found him here, where the Gluttons are punished.“

Certain vituperative sonnets, addressed to Dante, have been attributed to Forese. If authentic, they prove that the friendship between the two poets was not uninterrupted. See Rossetti, Early Italian Poets, Appendix to Part II.

74 - 74

The same desire that sacrifice and atonement may be complete.

75 - 75

Matthew xxvii. 46: ”Eli, Eli, lama sabacthani? that is to say, My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?“

83 - 83

Outside the gate of Purgatory, where those who had postponed repentance till the last hour were forced to wait as many years and days as they had lived impenitent on earth, unless aided by the devout prayers of those on earth. See Canto IV.

87 - 87

Nella, contraction of Giovannella, widow of Forese. Nothing is known of this good woman but the name, and what Forese here says in her praise.

94 - 94

Covino, Descriz. Geograf. dell' Italia, p. 52, says: ”In the district of Arborea, on the slopes of the Gennargentu, the most vast and lofty mountain range of Sardinia, spreads an alpine country which in Dante's time, being almost barbarous, was called the Barbagia.“

102 - 102

Sacchetti, the Italian novelist of the fourteenth century, severly criticises the fashions of the Florentines, and their sudden changes, which he says it would take a whole volume of his stories to enumerate. In Nov. 178, he speaks of their wearing their dresses ”far below their armpits,“ and then ”up to their ears“; and continues, in Napier's version, Flor. Hist., II. 539: –

”The young Florentine girls, who used to dress so modestly,
have now changed the fashion of their hoods to resemble
courtesans, and thus attired they move about laced up to the
throat, with all sorts of animals hanging as ornaments about
their necks. Their sleeves, or rather their sack's, as they
should be called, – was there ever so useless and
pernicious a fashion! Can any of them reach a glass or take
a morsel from the table without dirtying herself or the
cloth by the things she knocks down? And thus do the young
men, and worse; and such sleeves are made even for sucking
babes. The women go about in hoods and cloaks; most of the
young men without cloaks, in long, flowing hair, and if they
throw off their breeches, which from their smallness may
easily be done, all is off, for they literally stick their
posteriors into a pair of socks and expend a yard of cloth
on their wristbands, while more stuff is put into a glove
than a cloak-hood. However, I am comforted by one thing,
and that is, that all now have begun to put their feet in
chains, perhaps as a penance for the many vain things they
are guilty of; for we are but a day in this world, and in
that day the fashion is changed a thousand times: all seek
liberty, yet all deprive themselves of it: God has made our
feet free, and many with long pointed toes to their shoes
can scarcely walk: he has supplied the legs with hinges, and
many have so bound them up with close lacing that they can
scarcely sit: the bust is tightly bandaged up; the arms
trail their drapery along; the throat is rolled in a
capuchin; the head so loaded and bound round with caps over
the hair that it appears as though it were sawed off. And
thus I might go on forever discoursing of female
absurdities, commencing with the immeasurable trains at
their feet, and proceeding regularly upwards to the head,
with which they may always be seen occupied in their
chambers; some curling, some smoothing, and some whitening
it, so that they often kill themselves with colds caught in
these vain occupations.“

132 - 132

Statius.