Purgatorio

Canto XXX

Beatrice.

When the Septentrion of the highest heaven¹(Which never either setting knew or rising,Nor veil of other cloud than that of sin,And which made everyone therein awareOf his own duty, as the lower makesWhoever turns the helm to come to port)Motionless halted, the veracious people,That came at first between it and the Griffin,Turned themselves to the car, as to their peace.And one of them, as if by Heaven commissioned,Singing, “Veni, sponsa, de Libano”²Shouted three times, and all the others after.Even as the Blessed at the final summonsShall rise up quickened each one from his cavern,Uplifting light the reinvested flesh,So upon that celestial chariotA hundred rose ad vocem tanti senis,³Ministers and messengers of life eternal.They all were saying, “Benedictus qui venis,”⁴And, scattering flowers above and round about,“Manibus o date lilia plenis.”⁵Ere now have I beheld, as day began,The eastern hemisphere all tinged with rose,And the other heaven with fair serene adorned;And the sun’s face, uprising, overshadowed⁶So that by tempering influence of vaporsFor a long interval the eye sustained it;Thus in the bosom of a cloud of flowersWhich from those hands angelical ascended,And downward fell again inside and out,Over her snow-white veil with olive cinctAppeared a lady under a green mantle,⁷Vested in color of the living flame.And my own spirit, that already nowSo long a time had been, that in her presence⁸Trembling with awe it had not stood abashed,⁹Without more knowledge having by mine eyes,Through occult virtue that from her proceededOf ancient love the mighty influence felt.As soon as on my vision smote the powerSublime, that had already pierced me throughEre from my boyhood I had yet come forth,To the left hand I turned with that relianceWith which the little child runs to his mother,When he has fear, or when he is afflicted,To say unto Virgilius: “Not a drachmOf blood remains in me, that does not tremble;I know the traces of the ancient flame.”¹⁰But us Virgilius of himself deprivedHad left, Virgilius, sweetest of all fathers,Virgilius, to whom I for safety gave me:Nor whatsoever lost the ancient mother¹¹Availed my cheeks now purified from dew,That weeping they should not again be darkened.“Dante, because Virgilius has departedDo not weep yet, do not weep yet awhile;For by another sword thou need’st must weep.”E’en as an admiral, who on poop and prowComes to behold the people that are workingIn other ships, and cheers them to well-doing,Upon the left hand border of the car,When at the sound I turned of my own name,Which of necessity is here recorded,I saw the Lady, who erewhile appearedVeiled underneath the angelic festival,Direct her eyes to me across the river.Although the veil, that from her head descended,Encircled with the foliage of Minerva,Did not permit her to appear distinctly,In attitude still royally majesticContinued she, like unto one who speaks,And keeps his warmest utterance in reserve:“Look at me well; in sooth I’m Beatrice!How didst thou deign to come unto the Mountain?Didst thou not know that man is happy here?”Mine eyes fell downward into the clear fountain,But, seeing myself therein, I sought the grass,So great a shame did weigh my forehead down.As to the son the mother seems superb,So she appeared to me; for somewhat bitterTasteth the savor of severe compassion.Silent became she, and the Angels sangSuddenly, “In te, Domine, speravi”:¹²But beyond pedes meos did not pass.Even as the snow among the living rafters¹³Upon the back of Italy congeals,Blown on and drifted by Sclavonian winds,¹⁴And then, dissolving, trickles through itselfWhene’er the land that loses shadow breathes,So that it seems a fire that melts a taper;E’en thus was I without a tear or sigh,Before the song of those who sing foreverAfter the music of the eternal spheres.But when I heard in their sweet melodiesCompassion for me, more than had they said,“O wherefore, lady, dost thou thus upbraid him?”The ice, that was about my heart congealed,To air and water changed, and in my anguishThrough mouth and eyes came gushing from my breast.She, on the right-hand border of the carStill firmly standing, to those holy beingsThus her discourse directed afterwards:“Ye keep your watch in the eternal day,So that nor night nor sleep can steal from youOne step the ages make upon their path;Therefore my answer is with greater care,That he may hear me who is weeping yonder,So that the sin and dole be of one measure.Not only by the work of those great wheels,That destine every seed unto some end,According as the stars are in conjunction,But by the largess of celestial graces,Which have such lofty vapors for their rain¹⁵That near to them our sight approaches not,Such had this man become in his new lifePotentially, that every righteous habitWould have made admirable proof in him;But so much more malignant and more savageBecomes the land untilled and with bad seed,The more good earthly vigor it possesses.Some time did I sustain him with my look;Revealing unto him my youthful eyes,I led him with me turned in the right way.As soon as ever of my second ageI was upon the threshold and changed life,¹⁶Himself from me he took and gave to others.When from the flesh to spirit I ascended,And beauty and virtue were in me increased,I was to him less dear and less delightful;And into ways untrue he turned his steps,Pursuing the false images of good,That never any promises fulfil;Nor prayer for inspiration me availed,By means of which in dreams and otherwiseI called him back, so little did he heed them.So low he fell, that all appliances¹⁷For his salvation were already short,Save showing him the people of perdition.For this I visited the gates of death,And unto him, who so far up has led him,My intercessions were with weeping borne.God’s lofty fiat would be violated,If Lethe should be passed, and if such viandsShould tasted be, withouten any scotOf penitence, that gushes forth in tears.”

In this canto Beatrice appears. The Seven Stars, or Septentrion of the highest heaven, are the seven lights that lead the procession, the seven gifts of the Holy Ghost, by which all men are guided safely in things spiritual, as the mariner is by the Septentrion, or Seven Stars of the Ursa Minor, two of which are called the “Wardens of the Pole,” and one of which is the Cynosure, or Pole Star. These lights precede the triumphal chariot, as in our heaven the Ursa Minor precedes, or is nearer the centre of rest, than the Ursa Major or Charles’s Wain. In the Northern Mythology the God Thor is represented as holding these constellations in his hand. The old Swedish Rhyme Chronicle, describing the statues in the church of Upsala, says:— “The God Thor was the highest of them; / He sat naked as a child, / Seven stars in his hand and Charles’s Wain. Spenser, Faerie Queene, I ii 1:— “By this the northern wagoner had set / His sevenfold teme behind the steadfast starre / That was in ocean waves yet never wet, / But firme is fixt, and sendeth light from farre / To all that in the wide deep wandering arre.” ↩
Song of Solomon 4:8:— “Come with me from Lebanon, my spouse, with me from Lebanon.” ↩
At the voice of so venerable an old man. ↩
The cry of the multitude at Christ’s entry into Jerusalem. Matthew 21:9:— “Blessed is he that cometh in the name of the Lord.” ↩
Aeneid, VI 833:— “Give me lilies in handfuls; let me scatter purple flowers.” ↩
Milton, Paradise Lost, I 194:— “As when the sun new-risen / Shines through the horizontal misty air / Shorn of his beams.” ↩
It will be observed that Dante makes Beatrice appear clothed in the colors of the three Theological Virtues described in Canto XXIX 121. The white veil is the symbol of Faith; the green mantle, of Hope; the red tunic, of Charity. The crown of olive denotes wisdom. This attire somewhat resembles that given by artists to the Virgin. “The proper dress of the Virgin,” says Mrs. Jameson, Legends of the Madonna, Introd., LIII, “is a close, red tunic, with long sleeves, and over this a blue robe or mantle. … Her head ought to be veiled.” ↩
Beatrice had been dead ten years at the date of the poem, 1300. ↩
Fully to understand and feel what is expressed in this line, the reader must call to mind all that Dante says in the Vita Nuova of his meetings with Beatrice, and particularly the first, which is thus rendered by Mr. Norton in his New Life of Dante, p. 20:— “Nine times now, since my birth, the heaven of light had turned almost to the same point in its gyration, when first appeared before my eyes the glorious lady of my mind, who was called Beatrice by many who did not know why they thus called her. She had now been in this life so long, that in its course the starry heaven had moved toward the east one of the twelve parts of a degree; so that about the beginning of her ninth year she appeared to me, and I near the end of my ninth year saw her. She appeared to me clothed in a most noble color, a becoming and modest crimson, and she was girt and adorned in the style that became her extreme youth. At that instant, I say truly, the spirit of life, which dwells in the most secret chamber of the heart, began to tremble with such violence, that it appeared fearfully in the least pulses, and, trembling, said these words: Ecce deus fortior me, qui veniens dominabitur mihi! ‘Behold a god, stronger than I, who, coming, shall rule me!’ “At that instant, the spirit of the soul, which dwells in the high chamber to which all the spirits of the senses bring their perceptions, began to marvel greatly, and, addressing the spirits of the sight, said these words: Apparuit jam beatitudo vestra—‘Now hath appeared your bliss.’ “At that instant the natural spirit, which dwells in that part where the nourishment is supplied, began to weep, and, weeping, said these words: Heu miser! quia frequenter impeditus ero deinceps—‘Woe is me wretched! because frequently henceforth shall I be hindered.’ “From this time forward I say that Love lorded it over my soul, which had been thus quickly put at his disposal; and he began to exercise over me such control and such lordship, through the power which my imagination gave to him, that it behoved me to perform completely all his pleasure. He commanded me many times that I should seek to see this youthful angel, so that I in my boyhood often went seeking her, and saw her of such noble and praiseworthy deportment, that truly of her might be said that saying of the poet Homer: ‘She does not seem the daughter of mortal man, but of God.’ And though her image, which stayed constantly with me, inspired confidence in Love to hold lordship over me, yet it was of such noble virtue, that it never suffered that Love should rule without the faithful counsel of Reason in those matters in which such counsel could be useful.” ↩
Dante here translates Virgil’s own words, as he has done so many times before. Aeneid, IV 23:— “Agnosco veteris vestigia flammae.” ↩
The Terrestrial Paradise lost by Eve. ↩
Psalm 31:1, 8:— “In thee, O Lord, have I put my trust … Thou hast set my feet in a large room.” ↩
Aeneid, VI 180:— “Down drop the firs; crashes, by axes felled, the ilex; and the ashen rafters and the yielding oaks are cleft by wedges.” And IX 87:— “A wood … dark with gloomy firs, and rafters of the maple.” Denistoun, Mem. of the Duke of Urbino I 4, says:— “On the summit grew those magnificent pines, which gave to the district of Massa the epithet of ‘Trabaria,’ from the beams which were carried thence for the palaces of Rome, and which are noticed by Dante as ‘The living rafters / Upon the back of Italy.’ ” ↩
Shakespeare, Winter’s Tale, IV 3:— “The fanned snow / That’s bolted by the northern blast twice o’er.” And Midsummer Night’s Dream:— “High Taurus’ snow / Fanned with the eastern wind.” ↩
Which are formed in such lofty regions, that they are beyond human conception. ↩
Beatrice died in 1290, at the age of twenty-five. ↩
How far these self-accusations of Dante were justified by facts, and how far they may be regarded as expressions of a sensitive and excited conscience, we have no means of determining. It is doubtless but simple justice to apply to him the words which he applies to Virgil, Canto III 8:— “O noble conscience, and without a stain, / How sharp a sting is trivial fault to thee!” This should be borne in mind when we read what Dante says of his own shortcomings; as, for instance, in his conversation with his brother-in-law Forese, Canto XXIII 115:— “If thou bring back to mind / What thou with me hast been and I with thee, / The present memory will be grievous still.” But what shall we say of this sonnet addressed to Dante by his intimate friend, Guido Cavalcanti? Rossetti, Early Italian Poets, p. 358:— “I come to thee by daytime constantly, / But in thy thoughts too much of baseness find: / Greatly it grieves me for thy gentle mind, / And for thy many virtues gone from thee. / It was thy wont to shun much company, / Unto all sorry concourse ill inclined: / And still thy speech of me, heartfelt and kind, / Had made me treasure up thy poetry. / But now I dare not, for thine abject life, / Make manifest that I approve thy rhymes; / Nor come I in such sort that thou may’st know. / Ah! prithee read this sonnet many times: / So shall that evil one who bred this strife / Be thrust from thy dishonored soul, and go.” ↩