Purgatory: Canto XII. First Ledgeexamples Of The Punishment Of Pride Graven On The Pavement.
First Ledge: the Proud.--Examples of the punishment of
Pride graven on the pavement.--Meeting with an Angel who removes
one of the P's.--Ascent to the Second Ledge.
Side by side, like oxen who go yoked, I went on with that
burdened spirit so long as the sweet Pedagogue allowed it; but
when he said, "Leave him, and come on, for here it is well that,
both with sail and oars, each as much as he can should urge his
bark," I straitened up my body again, as is required for walking,
although my thoughts remained both bowed down and abated.
I was moving on, and following willingly the steps of my Master,
and both now were showing how light we were, when he said to me,
"Turn thine eyes downward; it will be well for thee, in order to
solace the way, to look upon the bed of thy footprints." As above
the buried, so that there may be memory of them, their tombs in
earth bear inscribed that which they were before,--whence
oftentimes is weeping for them there, through the pricking of
remembrance, which only to the pious gives the spur,--so saw I
figured there, but of better semblance in respect of skill, all
that for pathway juts out from the mountain.
I saw him who was created more noble than any other creature,[1]
down from heaven with lightning flash descending, at one side.
[1] Lucifer.
I saw Briareus[1] transfixed by the celestial bolt, lying at the
other side, heavy upon the earth in mortal chill. I saw
Thymbraeus,[2] I saw Pallas and Mars, still armed, around their
father, gazing at the scattered limbs of the giants.
[1] Examples from classic and biblical mythology alternate.
[2] Apollo, so called from his temple at Thymbra, not far from
Troy, where Achilles is said to have slain Paris. Virgil
(Georgics, iv. 323) uses this epithet.
I saw Nimrod at the foot of his great toil, as if bewildered, and
gazing at the people who in Shinar had with him been proud.
O Niobe! with what grieving eyes did I see thee portrayed upon
the road between thy seven and seven children slain!
O Saul! how on thine own sword here didst thou appear dead on
Gilboa, that after felt not rain or dew![1]
[1] I Samuel, xxxi. 4, and 2 Samuel, i. 24.
O mad Arachne,[1] so I saw thee already half spider, wretched on
the shreds of the work that to thy harm by thee was made!
[1] Changed to a spider by Athena, whom she had challenged to a
trial of skill at the loom.
O Rehoboam! here thine image seems not now to threaten, but full
of fear, a chariot bears it away before any one pursues it.[1]
[1] 1 Kings, xii. 13-18.
The hard pavement showed also how Alcmaeon made the ill-fated
ornament seem costly to his mother.[1]
[1] Amphiaraus, the soothsayer, foreseeing his own death if he
went to the Theban war, hid himself to avoid being forced to go.
His wife, Eriphyle, bribed by a golden necklace, betrayed his
hiding-place, and was killed by her son Alcmaeon, for thus
bringing about his father's death.
It showed how his sons threw themselves upon Sennacherib within
the temple, and how they left him there dead.[1]
[1] 2 Kings, xix. 37.
It showed the ruin and the cruel slaughter that Tomyris wrought,
when she said to Cyrus, "For blood thou hast thirsted, and with
blood I fill thee."
[1] Herodotus (i. 214) tells how Tomyris, Queen of the
Massagetae, having defeated and slain Cyrus, filled a skin full
of human blood, and plunged his head in it with words such as
Dante reports, and which he derived from Orosius, Histor. ii. 7.
It showed how the Assyrians fled in rout after Holofernes was
killed, and also the remainder of the punishment.[1]
[1] Judith, xv. 1.
I saw Troy in ashes, and in caverns. O Ilion! how cast down and
abject the image which is there discerned showed thee!
What master has there been of pencil or of style that could draw
the shadows and the lines which there would make every subtile
genius wonder? Dead the dead, and the living seemed alive. He who
saw the truth saw not better than I all that I trod on while I
went bent down.--Now be ye proud, and go with haughty look, ye
sons of Eve, and bend not down your face so that ye may see your
evil path!
More of the mountain had now been circled by us, and of the sun's
course far more spent, than my mind, not disengaged, was aware,
when he, who always in advance attent was going on, began, "Lift
up thy head; there is no more time for going thus abstracted. See
there an Angel, who is hastening to come toward us: see how from
the service of the day the sixth hand-maiden returns.[1] With
reverence adorn thine acts and thy face so that he may delight to
direct us upward. Think that this day never dawns again."
[1] The sixth hour of the day is coming to its end, near noon.
I was well used to his admonition ever to lose no time, so that
on that theme he could not speak to me obscurely.
To us came the beautiful creature, clothed in white, and in his
face such as seems the tremulous morning star. Its arms it
opened, and then it opened its wings; it said, "Come: here at
hand are the steps, and easily henceforth one ascends. To this
invitation very few come. O human race, born to fly upward, why
before a little wind dost thou so fall?"
He led us to where the rock was cut; here he struck his wings
across my forehead,[1] then promised me secure progress.
[1] Removing the first P that the Angel of the Gate had incised
on Dante's brow.
As on the right hand, in going up the mountain,[1] where sits the
church that dominates her the well-guided[2] city above
Rubaconte,[3] the bold flight of the ascent is broken by the
stairs, which were made in an age when the record and the stave
were secure,[4] in like manner, the bank which falls here very
steeply from the next round is slackened; but on this side and
that the high rock grazes.[5] As we turned our persons thither,
voices sang "Beati pauperes spiritu"[6] in such wise that speech
could not tell it. Ah, how different are these passes from those
of Hell! for here through songs one enters, and there below
through fierce lamentings.
[1] The hill of San Miniato, above Florence.
[2] Ironical.
[3] The upper bridge at Florence across the Arno, named after
Messer Rubaconte di Mandella, podesta of Florence, who laid the
first stone of it in 1237; now called the Ponte alle Grazie,
after a little chapel built upon it in 1471, and dedicated to Our
Lady of Grace.
[4] In the good old time when men were honest. In 1299 one
Messer Niccola Acciaioli, in order to conceal a fraudulent
transaction, had a leaf torn out from the public notorial record;
and about the same time an officer in charge of the revenue from
salt, for the sake of private gain, measured the salt he received
with an honest measure, but that which he sold with a measure
diminished by the removal of a stave.
[5] The stairway is so narrow.
[6] "Blessed are the poor in spirit." As Dante passes from each
round of Purgatory, an angel removes the P which denotes the
special sin there purged away. And the removal is accompanied
with the words of one of the Beatitudes.
Now we were mounting up over the holy stairs, and it seemed to me
I was far more light than I had seemed on the plain before.
Whereon I, "Master, say, what heavy thing has been lifted from
me, so that almost no weariness is felt by me as I go on?" He
answered, "When the P's that almost extinct[1] still remain on
thy countenance shall be, as one is, quite erased, thy feet will
be so conquered by good will that not only they will not feel
fatigue, but it will be delight to them to be urged up." Then I
did like those who are going with something on their head,
unknown by them unless the signs of others make them suspect;
wherefore the hand assists to ascertain, and seeks and finds, and
performs that office which cannot be accomplished by the sight;
and with the fingers of my right hand outspread, I found only six
those letters which he of the keys had encised upon my temples:
looking at which my Leader smiled.
[1] Almost extinct, because, as St. Thomas Aquinas says, "Pride
by which we are chiefly turned from God is the first and the
origin of all sins." He adds, "Pride is said to be the beginning
of every sin, not because every single sin has its source in
pride, but because every kind of sin is born of pride." Summa
Theol., II. 2, quaest. 162, art. 7.
Pride graven on the pavement.--Meeting with an Angel who removes
one of the P's.--Ascent to the Second Ledge.
Side by side, like oxen who go yoked, I went on with that
burdened spirit so long as the sweet Pedagogue allowed it; but
when he said, "Leave him, and come on, for here it is well that,
both with sail and oars, each as much as he can should urge his
bark," I straitened up my body again, as is required for walking,
although my thoughts remained both bowed down and abated.
I was moving on, and following willingly the steps of my Master,
and both now were showing how light we were, when he said to me,
"Turn thine eyes downward; it will be well for thee, in order to
solace the way, to look upon the bed of thy footprints." As above
the buried, so that there may be memory of them, their tombs in
earth bear inscribed that which they were before,--whence
oftentimes is weeping for them there, through the pricking of
remembrance, which only to the pious gives the spur,--so saw I
figured there, but of better semblance in respect of skill, all
that for pathway juts out from the mountain.
I saw him who was created more noble than any other creature,[1]
down from heaven with lightning flash descending, at one side.
[1] Lucifer.
I saw Briareus[1] transfixed by the celestial bolt, lying at the
other side, heavy upon the earth in mortal chill. I saw
Thymbraeus,[2] I saw Pallas and Mars, still armed, around their
father, gazing at the scattered limbs of the giants.
[1] Examples from classic and biblical mythology alternate.
[2] Apollo, so called from his temple at Thymbra, not far from
Troy, where Achilles is said to have slain Paris. Virgil
(Georgics, iv. 323) uses this epithet.
I saw Nimrod at the foot of his great toil, as if bewildered, and
gazing at the people who in Shinar had with him been proud.
O Niobe! with what grieving eyes did I see thee portrayed upon
the road between thy seven and seven children slain!
O Saul! how on thine own sword here didst thou appear dead on
Gilboa, that after felt not rain or dew![1]
[1] I Samuel, xxxi. 4, and 2 Samuel, i. 24.
O mad Arachne,[1] so I saw thee already half spider, wretched on
the shreds of the work that to thy harm by thee was made!
[1] Changed to a spider by Athena, whom she had challenged to a
trial of skill at the loom.
O Rehoboam! here thine image seems not now to threaten, but full
of fear, a chariot bears it away before any one pursues it.[1]
[1] 1 Kings, xii. 13-18.
The hard pavement showed also how Alcmaeon made the ill-fated
ornament seem costly to his mother.[1]
[1] Amphiaraus, the soothsayer, foreseeing his own death if he
went to the Theban war, hid himself to avoid being forced to go.
His wife, Eriphyle, bribed by a golden necklace, betrayed his
hiding-place, and was killed by her son Alcmaeon, for thus
bringing about his father's death.
It showed how his sons threw themselves upon Sennacherib within
the temple, and how they left him there dead.[1]
[1] 2 Kings, xix. 37.
It showed the ruin and the cruel slaughter that Tomyris wrought,
when she said to Cyrus, "For blood thou hast thirsted, and with
blood I fill thee."
[1] Herodotus (i. 214) tells how Tomyris, Queen of the
Massagetae, having defeated and slain Cyrus, filled a skin full
of human blood, and plunged his head in it with words such as
Dante reports, and which he derived from Orosius, Histor. ii. 7.
It showed how the Assyrians fled in rout after Holofernes was
killed, and also the remainder of the punishment.[1]
[1] Judith, xv. 1.
I saw Troy in ashes, and in caverns. O Ilion! how cast down and
abject the image which is there discerned showed thee!
What master has there been of pencil or of style that could draw
the shadows and the lines which there would make every subtile
genius wonder? Dead the dead, and the living seemed alive. He who
saw the truth saw not better than I all that I trod on while I
went bent down.--Now be ye proud, and go with haughty look, ye
sons of Eve, and bend not down your face so that ye may see your
evil path!
More of the mountain had now been circled by us, and of the sun's
course far more spent, than my mind, not disengaged, was aware,
when he, who always in advance attent was going on, began, "Lift
up thy head; there is no more time for going thus abstracted. See
there an Angel, who is hastening to come toward us: see how from
the service of the day the sixth hand-maiden returns.[1] With
reverence adorn thine acts and thy face so that he may delight to
direct us upward. Think that this day never dawns again."
[1] The sixth hour of the day is coming to its end, near noon.
I was well used to his admonition ever to lose no time, so that
on that theme he could not speak to me obscurely.
To us came the beautiful creature, clothed in white, and in his
face such as seems the tremulous morning star. Its arms it
opened, and then it opened its wings; it said, "Come: here at
hand are the steps, and easily henceforth one ascends. To this
invitation very few come. O human race, born to fly upward, why
before a little wind dost thou so fall?"
He led us to where the rock was cut; here he struck his wings
across my forehead,[1] then promised me secure progress.
[1] Removing the first P that the Angel of the Gate had incised
on Dante's brow.
As on the right hand, in going up the mountain,[1] where sits the
church that dominates her the well-guided[2] city above
Rubaconte,[3] the bold flight of the ascent is broken by the
stairs, which were made in an age when the record and the stave
were secure,[4] in like manner, the bank which falls here very
steeply from the next round is slackened; but on this side and
that the high rock grazes.[5] As we turned our persons thither,
voices sang "Beati pauperes spiritu"[6] in such wise that speech
could not tell it. Ah, how different are these passes from those
of Hell! for here through songs one enters, and there below
through fierce lamentings.
[1] The hill of San Miniato, above Florence.
[2] Ironical.
[3] The upper bridge at Florence across the Arno, named after
Messer Rubaconte di Mandella, podesta of Florence, who laid the
first stone of it in 1237; now called the Ponte alle Grazie,
after a little chapel built upon it in 1471, and dedicated to Our
Lady of Grace.
[4] In the good old time when men were honest. In 1299 one
Messer Niccola Acciaioli, in order to conceal a fraudulent
transaction, had a leaf torn out from the public notorial record;
and about the same time an officer in charge of the revenue from
salt, for the sake of private gain, measured the salt he received
with an honest measure, but that which he sold with a measure
diminished by the removal of a stave.
[5] The stairway is so narrow.
[6] "Blessed are the poor in spirit." As Dante passes from each
round of Purgatory, an angel removes the P which denotes the
special sin there purged away. And the removal is accompanied
with the words of one of the Beatitudes.
Now we were mounting up over the holy stairs, and it seemed to me
I was far more light than I had seemed on the plain before.
Whereon I, "Master, say, what heavy thing has been lifted from
me, so that almost no weariness is felt by me as I go on?" He
answered, "When the P's that almost extinct[1] still remain on
thy countenance shall be, as one is, quite erased, thy feet will
be so conquered by good will that not only they will not feel
fatigue, but it will be delight to them to be urged up." Then I
did like those who are going with something on their head,
unknown by them unless the signs of others make them suspect;
wherefore the hand assists to ascertain, and seeks and finds, and
performs that office which cannot be accomplished by the sight;
and with the fingers of my right hand outspread, I found only six
those letters which he of the keys had encised upon my temples:
looking at which my Leader smiled.
[1] Almost extinct, because, as St. Thomas Aquinas says, "Pride
by which we are chiefly turned from God is the first and the
origin of all sins." He adds, "Pride is said to be the beginning
of every sin, not because every single sin has its source in
pride, but because every kind of sin is born of pride." Summa
Theol., II. 2, quaest. 162, art. 7.
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