Canto VII
CANTO VII
The fellow Mantuans conclude their greetings. When Sordello discovers that he has just embraced Virgil, the glory of the Latin race, he shows him homage as a vassal would his lord. Virgil first explains that he has lost Heaven through his lack of Christian faith, for which he suffers unfulfilled longing in Limbo with unbaptized children and noble pagans, who practiced the intellectual and moral virtues but not the theological virtues. Then he repeats his request to be shown the entrance to Purgatory proper (1–39). Sordello offers to guide them but suggests a resting place, since night is falling, when, owing to an impotence of the will brought on by the dark, no one can ascend though anyone can descend. Marveling at the laws of Purgatory, Virgil consents to his proposal (40–63). They soon approach a hollow in the mountain, whose brighthued grass and flowers surpass all earthly colors in vividness and whose thousand sweet scents coalesce into a single mysterious fragrance. From the rim of this valley of princes they descry a group of spirits chanting the Salve Regina upon a blossoming meadow (64–90). Sordello now details a number of thirteenth-century rulers who were negligent in some way: Rudolph I of Hapsburg, Ottokar II of Bohemia, Philip III of France, Henry I of Navarre, Pedro III of Aragon, Charles I of Anjou, Henry III of England, and William VII of Montferrat (91–136).
1 With dignified and joyful greetings through,
Which they’d repeated some three times or four,
Sordello, stepping back, said: “Who are you?”
4 “Before those spirits who were fit to soar
To God had faced this mountain’s discipline,[99]
Octavian interred the flesh I bore.[100]
7 My name is Virgil; for no other sin
Than lack of faith is Heaven lost to me,”
So did the answer of my Guide begin.
10 As one who sees a thing quite suddenly
And marvels first believes, then doubts instead
And says, “It is … ,” and then, “It cannot be … ,”
13 So did Sordello, who inclined his head
As he approached most humbly to embrace
My Master as a vassal would and said:
16 “O you, the glory of the Latin race,
Through whom this tongue of ours has shown its might,
O praise eternal from my native place,
19 What merit or what grace shows me this sight?
If I deserve to hear your words, please say
If you’re from Hell and from what cloister’s plight.”
22 And he, replying: “I have made my way
Through all the circles of that reign of woe;
By Heaven’s power moved, I come today.
25 For deeds undone, not those I did below,
I lost the vision of the Sun most high,
Which you desire, but I too late would know.[101]
28 There is a place with no tormented cry
For saddened only by the dark are they;[102]
Lament is not a wailing, but a sigh.
31 And there with little innocents I stay,
Those infants whom the teeth of death possessed
Before their human guilt was washed away.[103]
34 Yes, there I stay with all who were not dressed
In those three holy virtues, though, ungowned,
They knew and followed sinlessly the rest.[104]
37 But if you know, and if you can, expound
How we may come more quickly to that side
Where Purgatory’s proper start is found.”[105]
40 “We have no certain place,” so he replied;
“I’m free to climb and roam about unpressed;
As far as I can go, I’ll be your guide.
43 But see the day decline; it would be best,
Since it’s impossible to climb by night,
To think about a pleasant place of rest.
46 Here are some souls apart upon the right;
I’ll lead you unto them, if you consent,
That you may know them—not without delight.”
49 “How’s that?” he answered him, “would he who meant
To make the climb at nighttime be delayed
By others or lack strength to make ascent?”
52 Then good Sordello said, whose finger strayed
Across the ground: “See, when the sun has set,
You couldn’t even cross the line I’ve made.
55 But nothing other than the night’s dark net
Would offer hindrance to the upward way,
Which snares the will with impotence; and yet,
58 One could indeed return by night and stray,
Thus wandering around the mountain-side
While the horizon closes out the day.”
61 My Lord, as though in wonderment, replied:
“In that case, lead us on to where you said
That we may find delight as we abide.”
64 When we had gone a little way ahead,
A mountain hollowed out was there descried
As here is hollowed out a valley’s bed.
67 That spirit told us: “Yonder we shall stride,
To where a lap the slope has made lies deep,
And there we shall await the morningtide.”
70 Nearby a winding path, now flat, now steep,
Led to a point beside the hollow’s site,
Whose edge dies off by more than half its sweep.[106]
73 Fine gold and silver, scarlet dye and white,
Fresh emerald the instant it is split,
The wood of India, both clear and bright,[107]
76 Would be surpassed in color in that pit,
Set by the flowers and the grass there grown,
Like lesser when the greater conquers it.
79 But Nature had not painted there alone;
She’d made a thousand scents, all sweet, convene
To form one undefined, a scent unknown.
82 I saw the spirits on the blooms and green;
They sang Salve Regina, sitting where,[108]
Outside the valley, they could not be seen.
85 “Before the little sun has nested there,”
The Mantuan who’d brought us here began,
“Don’t call on me to guide you to their lair
88 For from this terrace you will better scan
The faces and the acts of all that ring
Than if received below among their clan.
91 The highest perched, who looks as if some thing
Were left undone he should have done before
And does not move his lips as others sing,
94 Is Rudolph, Emperor, by whom the sore[109]
Could have been healed that’s slain our Italy,
Which others all too late must still restore.
97 The one who seems to comfort him is he
Who ruled the land from where the waters swell
The Moldau, then the Elbe, then the sea.[110]
100 He, Ottokar by name, would far excel[111]
In swaddling clothes King Wincelaus, his son,[112]
Who, bearded, fed on lust and sloth as well.
103 That small-nosed shade, who closely counsels one,[113]
It seems, of aspect so benignly blest,
Deflowered lilies, dying on the run.
106 Behold him there, see how he beats his breast!
And see the other one who sighs below,
Whose cheek lies in his bed-like palm at rest.
109 As sire and spouse’s sire of France’s woe,[114]
They know his life with vice and filth bestrewn,
From which there comes the grief that wounds them so.
112 That one who seems so stout and sings in tune[115]
With him, whose nose has such a manly cast,[116]
Once wore the cord of every virtue’s boon.
115 And if the youth behind him sitting fast[117]
Had after him remained a king, the shares
Of worth would have, from vase to vase, been passed,
118 Yet this can not be said of other heirs:
Although both James and Frederick now possess[118]
His realms, the better heirdom is not theirs.
121 The sap of human worth will seldom press
Through every branch; He wills this who bestows
His grace that we should ask of His largesse.
124 My words touch him who has so large a nose
No less than Peter singing with him such
That Puglia and Provence both have their woes.[119]
127 The plant is lesser than the seed as much
As Constance can sing more her husband’s praise
Than Beatrice and Margaret theirs. I touch[120]
130 Now on a king of simple life and ways:
See England’s Henry sit alone, who bore[121]
A better fruit upon his branches’ sprays.
133 The lowest on the ground among that corps
Is William the Marquis, with lifted eye,[122]
For whom once Alexandria waged war,
136 And Montferrat’ and Canavese cry.