And my safe journey up did certify.
As on the right hand scaling that high place

'Bove Rubacontè, where the church so seated1 O'erlooks the home of that well-govern'd race;2 The arduous toil is broke by steps there fitted

100

For mounting, made in that old age more fair, When book and list were safe from frauds committed. Even so the bank, precipitous here, a stair

Made easy, falling from a higher round.

110

But on each side the high rock razed us there. And as we thither turn'd we heard a sound; "Bless'd are the poor in spirit," voices sung: But to describe them, words cannot be found. Ah, with what different cries these portals rung And those infernal! Here melodious airs, There fierce lament from each blaspheming tongue.5 Now up we mounted by the holy stairs:

And much more lightly, as it seem'd to me, Than through the plain it went, my body fares. "Master," I said, "what burden can it be

and in each successive round of Purgatory one more was to disappear.

1 The Church of San Miniato in Florence, which commands a view of the city, and stands above where the bridge of Rubaconte crosses the Arno. The bridge was founded in 1237 by Messer Rubaconte da Mandella, of Milan, who was chief magistrate of Florence in 1235. It is the most eastern bridge in the city, and is now called "Il Ponte delle Grazie."

A cutting irony.

3 In that good old time when the public accounts and the legal weights and measures had not been falsified, as they had been in Dante's own age.

4 Matt. v. 3. One of the Beatitudes in the Sermon on the Mount is repeated in each circle of Purgatory.

ร

• Inferno, iii. 21-30.

From me removed, so that, I know not how,
From all fatigue in walking I am free ?”
He answer'd, "When the P's,1 which on thy brow
Remain, though fainter they have grown, indeed,
Shall all have been erased, as one is now,

120

Through that good-will which shall within thee breed, Thy feet not only no fatigue will know,

But by delight urged upward shall proceed."2
Then did I what is done by those who go

With something on their head, of which they gain
No knowledge save what hints of others show.
The hand then lends its help to ascertain,

Searches and finds it, by that service graced
For which the eyesight had been used in vain.
Then when my right-hand finger I had placed,

I found but six the letters which the mild
Lord of the keys had on my temples traced :3
At which my guide, when he beheld it, smiled.

1 See note on line 98.

130

2 "I will run the way of thy commandments, when thou shalt enlarge my heart."—Psalm cxix. 32 "They shall run, and not be weary; they shall persevere, and not faint."-Isaiah xl. 31. 3 Canto ix. 112.

CANTO XIII.

THE ARGUMENT.

Arrived in the second round of Purgatory, they hear, without seeing any speaker, voices indicating examples of disinterested love. Here the envious are punished. The poet perceives a crowd seated at the foot of the precipice, covered with haircloth, and their eyelids pierced and sewn up with a thread of iron. He converses with Sapia, a lady of Siena, who relates the particulars of her offence, ascribes her salvation to the prayers of Pier Pettinago, inquires the purpose of Dante's journey, and implores him to vindicate her fame among her kindred.

WE now had reach'd the summit of the stair,
Where the huge mount a second parting finds,
For disinfecting those ascending there.
And as a cornice which completely binds,

This like the first around the hill was thrown,
Save that its arch with sweep less ample winds..
No shades were here, no sculptured figure shown;
The bank uprose, and path before us lay,
With livid colour of the rock alone.1
"If here we wait for some to ask our way,"

The poet said, "I fear perhaps that we

So doing shall our choice too much delay.

Then on the sun his eyes look'd fixedly:

His right side of his motion made the centre,

10

He turn'd his left side round. "Sweet light!" said he,

1 A livid or leaden colour is the hue of Envy. Livor edax.LUCRETIUS.

"In firm reliance upon whom I venture
Into a path so new, conduct us thou,

In the right way by which we here must enter :
With light and heat the world thou rulèst now;
And if no urgent cause oppose, mankind
Thy rays to guide them ever should allow."1
As far as is on earth a mile defined,

We now had journey'd there, impell❜d to move
So swiftly onward by a willing mind.

And towards us flying were perceived above

Spirits, though yet unseen, with courteous greeting, And invitations to the feast of love.2

The first voice pass'd us, as it flew retreating,

20

30

And in loud tone exclaim'd, "No wine have they :"3 Which still behind us it went on repeating. The sounds had not yet wholly died away Through distance when another pass'd along, And cried, "I am Orestes ;"4 nor would stay.

1 See John viii. 12; and xi. 9, 10.

2 Love or Charity, being the virtue most opposed to the vice of envy, is inculcated here by precept and example. The poet had in view the marriage of Cana in Galilee; John ii. 1-11, and the agape or love-feasts of the Primitive Christians; Jude 12.

3 "And when they wanted wine, the mother of Jesus saith unto him, They have no wine."-John ii. 3.

* Orestes and his friend Pylades, attempting to carry off the statue of Diana from Taurica Chersonessus (the Crimea), fell into the hands of the king, and were about to be offered in sacrifice to Diana. On Iphigenia, as her priestess, devolved the office of immolating the strangers. Finding that they were from Greece, she wished to learn from them something of her country; and even offered to spare the life of one of them, on condition of his carrying thither a letter. The friendship displayed by Orestes and Pylades on this trying occasion has rendered their names for ever illustrious.

"To whom, O father, may that voice belong?"

I said; and as I ask'd, lo, thus there spoke [wrong." A third; "Love those from whom you've suffer'd "The chastisement which envious faults provoke,"

My master said, "are suffer'd in this round.

And therefore it is Love that deals each stroke.2

The curb requires to be of different sound,3

As I believe thou for thyself wilt hear,

40

Before the pass of pardon thou hast found.

"Pylades about to die commands his dear Orestes to depart, While he refuses; and in turn each strives to be the victim." OVID. Ex. Pont. lib. iii. ep. ii. I. 85.

See also Euripides, Iphigenia in Tauris. At length Pylades yields to the entreaties of his friend; but the letter with which he is intrusted, being addressed to Orestes, proves Iphigenia to be the sister of him whom she is about to slay. On this discovery all three escape to Greece, carrying with them the statue of Diana. Dante's immediate allusion is to a passage in Cicero, De Amicitia, vii., where he quotes from the drama of Orestes by Pacuviùs. "The king being ignorant which of the two friends is Orestes, Pylades, that he may die instead of his friend, exclaims, 'I am Orestes;' while Orestes insists that to himself that name belongs.” In placing Orestes among the "elect spirits," as one whose example of disinterested amity condemns the sin of envy, Dante does poetical justice; and, as in other instances, displays his good sense and humanity, in opposition to the theory of his Church, which doomed all the unbaptized to eternal misery.-See Inferno, iv. 35, note.

1 See Matt. v. 44.

2 "I drew them with cords of a man, with bands of love."Hosea xi. 4.

3 The chastisement of Envy here consists in hearing examples of the opposite virtue; but as a further curb to this vice, Dante is presently to see and hear those who suffer its penalty.

The stair leading to the third circle, where the angel is stationed who absolves from the sin of envy.-Canto xv. 35.