Canto XVIII
CANTO XVIII
Satisfied with the Master’s discourse thus far, Dante timidly asks Virgil to speak of that love which lies at the root of every good and bad action (1–15). Virgil explains that when the soul apprehends a being as good and inclines towards it, this complacency in its object is itself love; the movement to possess the thing in question is desire; and quiescence in the object once obtained is joy. Any love will prove good insofar as the goal towards which it tends is good, just as an impression on wax is good if the seal making it is good (16–39). If, then, love is a natural reaction to a pleasing object, the Pilgrim wonders how men can be responsible for their loves and their actions praiseworthy or blameworthy. Limiting himself to the standpoint of natural reason, Virgil answers that, through its faculties of intellect and will, the soul has a natural knowledge of being and a natural desire for the good that is prior to free choice and thus free of praise and blame. But between the initial amorous inclination and the final free choice, the process of deliberation issuing in a judgment of reason should intervene, and this obligation constitutes the basis of moral responsibility and thus of merit and demerit (40–75). When Virgil finishes, it is almost midnight, and as the Poet starts to doze, a group of the slothful suddenly comes running in Bacchic frenzy, driven by right will and righteous love. Two in front call out as examples of zeal Mary’s haste in visiting Elizabeth and Caesar’s hurry to conquer Lérida (76–105). After a rapid exchange with the abbot of San Zeno, who reveals the direction of the next stairs, two souls in the rear shout out as examples of sloth the Israelites who grumbled against Moses in the desert and the Trojans who deserted Aeneas in Sicily. When they have passed, Dante slips from a reverie of thought into a dreamy slumber (106–145).
1 Now that his line of reasoning was spent,
The lofty Doctor scrutinized my view
To see if I indeed appeared content.
4 And I, whom thirst was pricking now anew,
Kept still without to say within me, though:
“Perhaps I ask too much, annoying you.”
7 And my true Father, who had come to know
The timid wish that would not open there,
By speaking made me bold to speak, and so
10 I said: “O Master, in the light you bear
My sight is keen, and I discern quite clear
All that your words distinguish or declare.
13 I pray you therefore, Father, sweet and dear,
Expound to me that love to which you find
All actions, good and bad, referring here.”
16 “Direct to me the keen eyes of your mind,”
He said, “and I shall manifest the fact
Of error in the blind who lead the blind.
19 The mind made apt for loving will react
To everything that pleases it without
As soon as pleasure rouses it to act.
22 Your apprehension from true things draws out
Intentions, whose display in you is found[285]
So that to them the soul will turn about.
25 If it inclines to them, when turned around,
That bent is love, and one of nature’s drives,
Which is in you—by pleasure—newly bound.
28 Then, as a flame by upward movement strives
Because its form is born to rise as fire[286]
Where longest in its matter it survives,
31 So captive minds will enter in desire;
This motion of the spirit never stays
Till what it loves has made its joy entire.
34 It now may be apparent how the ways
Of truth are closed to people who protest
That every love per se is fit for praise,[287]
37 Perhaps because the matter it possessed
Seemed always good—but yet not every seal
Is right, although the wax may be the best.”
40 “Your words and my attending wit reveal
What love must be, but that,” so I replied,
“Has made me fuller of the doubt I feel.
43 If love to us is offered from outside
And spirit’s feet should have no other gait,
It merits not by straight or crooked stride.”
46 “Whatever Reason sees here I can state;
Past that, for works of faith,” so he enjoined,
“It’s Beatrice alone you must await.
49 Now each substantial form that is conjoined
To matter, though distinct from it no less,
Has to itself specific powers joined,
52 Which we, unless they acted, would not guess,
Nor would they, save by their effects, be shown,
Like life in plants, which verdant leaves express.
55 Where understanding of the things first known
May come from, humans do not know—the same
For those first things to which desire is prone.
58 These lie within you as, in bees, the aim
Of making honey, and this primal bent
Is free from all deserts of praise and blame.
61 That this may win all other wills’ consent
The strength of counsel is innate in you,
Which ought to hold the threshold of assent.
64 This is the principle to which is due
Your merit’s cause, according as you reap
Good loves and bad by it and sift them through.
67 And those whose reasonings have probed most deep
Took note of inborn liberty; hence, they
Have left their ethics for the world to keep.
70 Should by necessity, so let us say,
All love flare up in you, do not dismiss
That you have power still to check its sway.
73 This noble virtue is what Beatrice
Would call ‘Free Will’; and if she should discuss
These things with you, take care, remember this.”
76 The moon, delayed almost to midnight, thus[288]
Seemed like a shining basin that had let
The stars above appear more scarce to us.
79 Against the heavens it was running yet
On lanes the sun inflames, which Romans see
Mid Sards and Corsicans when it must set.[289]
82 And he through whom Piétola would be[290]
More famed than Mantua, that gentle shade,
Had dropped the burden laid on him by me.
85 I’d reaped his answers, clearly, plainly made,
To all the questions asked, and there I lay
Like one who dozes off—my thoughts had strayed.
88 But such a drowsiness was snatched away
Quite suddenly by many people when,
Behind our backs, they came around our way.
91 Ismenus and Asopus once saw men
Who thronged at night in fury by their tide
If but the Thebans needed Bacchus then;[291]
94 So just the same, by what of them I spied,
There curved around that ring and came along
Those whom right will and righteous love bestride.
97 And soon they were upon us for that throng,
Great as it was, kept running on that lane;
And two in front, in tears, were shouting strong:
100 “How Mary ran with haste to high terrain![292]
To conquer Lérida, how Caesar flew
And struck Marseilles, and then ran on to Spain!”[293]
103 “Run quickly, quickly! Lose no moment to
Your little love,” cried those behind that pair;
“May zeal for good let grace bloom green anew!”
106 “O race who by keen fervor now repair
The negligent delay begotten by
Your tepidness in doing good down there,
109 Since one who lives—indeed I do not lie—
Would climb as soon as daybreak, I beseech,
Please tell us where the opening is nigh.”
112 Such words as these composed my Leader’s speech;
And one among those spirits spoke and pled:
“Come on behind, and you will find the breach.
115 We are so full of zeal to move ahead
That we can not repose; forgive us, then,
Should penance seem discourtesy instead.
118 I was the abbot of San Zeno when[294]
Good Barbarossa ruled Verona’s brave;
To speak of him still pains Milano’s men.
121 There is a man with one foot in the grave,[295]
Who for that abbey will have tears to shed,
Made sorry that he held the might it gave,
124 Because he set his son, one basely bred,
Deformed in all his body, worse in wit,
To govern in its rightful shepherd’s stead.”
127 I do not know if he spoke on or quit
For he had raced too far beyond us both,
But hearing this, I’m pleased, retaining it.
130 And he who in my need was never loth
To help me said: “Turn round; see two here sped,
Who come to place a curb upon their sloth.”
133 Behind the rest they cried: “All those were dead
For whom the sea had opened wide at night,
Before their heirs were seen at Jordan’s bed.[296]
136 And those who could not bear the toilsome flight
Till it was finished by Anchises’ son
Gave in to lives deprived of glory’s height.”[297]
139 Now when those shades so far from us had run
That they were seen no longer, there arose
Another thought in me, a novel one,
142 From which yet more were born, diverse all those;
I drifted as now this, now that, was brought,
Then shut my eyelids in a rambling doze,
145 And into dreamings I transformed my thought.