Classic

The Divine Comedy44 / 104

Purgatorio

Canto VII

The Valley of the Princes.

After the gracious and glad salutationsHad three and four times been reiterated,Sordello backward drew and said, “Who are you?”“Or ever to this mountain were directedThe souls deserving to ascend to God,My bones were buried by Octavian.1I am Virgilius; and for no crime elseDid I lose heaven, than for not having faith”;In this wise then my Leader made reply.As one who suddenly before him seesSomething whereat he marvels, who believesAnd yet does not, saying, “It is! it is not!”So he appeared; and then bowed down his brow,And with humility returned towards him,And, where inferiors embrace, embraced him.“O glory of the Latians, thou,” he said,“Through whom our language showed what it could do,O pride eternal of the place I came from,What merit or what grace to me reveals thee?If I to hear thy words be worthy, tell meIf thou dost come from Hell, and from what cloister.”“Through all the circles of the doleful realm,”Responded he, “have I come hitherward;Heaven’s power impelled me, and with that I come.I by not doing, not by doing, lostThe sight of that high sun which thou desirest,And which too late by me was recognized.A place there is below not sad with torments,2But darkness only, where the lamentationsHave not the sound of wailing, but are sighs.There dwell I with the little innocentsSnatched by the teeth of Death, or ever theyWere from our human sinfulness exempt.There dwell I among those who the three saintly3Virtues did not put on, and without viceThe others knew and followed all of them.4But if thou know and can, some indicationGive us by which we may the sooner comeWhere Purgatory has its right beginning.”He answered: “No fixed place has been assigned us;’Tis lawful for me to go up and round;So far as I can go, as guide I join thee.But see already how the day declines,And to go up by night we are not able;5Therefore ’tis well to think of some fair sojourn.Souls are there on the right hand here withdrawn;If thou permit me I will lead thee to them,And thou shalt know them not without delight.”“How is this?” was the answer; “should one wishTo mount by night would he prevented beBy others? or mayhap would not have power?”And on the ground the good Sordello drewHis finger, saying, “See, this line aloneThou couldst not pass after the sun is gone;Not that aught else would hindrance give, however,To going up, save the nocturnal darkness;This with the want of power the will perplexes.We might indeed therewith return below,And, wandering, walk the hill-side round about,While the horizon holds the day imprisoned.”Thereon my Lord, as if in wonder, said:“Do thou conduct us thither, where thou sayestThat we can take delight in tarrying.”Little had we withdrawn us from that place,When I perceived the mount was hollowed outIn fashion as the valleys here are hollowed.“Thitherward,” said that shade, “will we repair,Where of itself the hill-side makes a lap,And there for the new day will we await.”’Twixt hill and plain there was a winding path6Which led us to the margin of that dell,Where dies the border more than half away.Gold and fine silver, and scarlet and pearl-white,7The Indian wood resplendent and serene,Fresh emerald the moment it is broken,By herbage and by flowers within that hollowPlanted, each one in color would be vanquished,As by its greater vanquished is the less.Nor in that place had nature painted only,But of the sweetness of a thousand odorsMade there a mingled fragrance and unknown.“Salve Regina,” on the green and flowers8There seated, singing, spirits I beheld,Which were not visible outside the valley.“Before the scanty sun now seeks his nest,”Began the Mantuan who had led us thither,“Among them do not wish me to conduct you.Better from off this ledge the acts and facesOf all of them will you discriminate,Than in the plain below received among them.He who sits highest, and the semblance bearsOf having what he should have done neglected,And to the others’ song moves not his lips,Rudolph the Emperor was, who had the power9To heal the wounds that Italy have slain,So that through others slowly she revives.The other, who in look doth comfort him,Governed the region where the water springs,The Moldau bears the Elbe, and Elbe the sea.His name was Ottocar; and in swaddling-clothes10Far better he than bearded Winceslaus11His son, who feeds in luxury and ease.And the small-nosed, who close in council seems12With him that has an aspect so benign,13Died fleeing and disflowering the lily;Look there, how he is beating at his breast!Behold the other one, who for his cheekSighing has made of his own palm a bed;Father and father-in-law of France’s Pest14Are they, and know his vicious life and lewd,And hence proceeds the grief that so doth pierce them.He who appears so stalwart, and chimes in,15Singing, with that one of the manly nose,16The cord of every valor wore begirt;And if as King had after him remainedThe stripling who in rear of him is sitting,17Well had the valor passed from vase to vase,Which cannot of the other heirs be said.Frederick and Jacomo possess the realms,But none the better heritage possesses.Not oftentimes upriseth through the branches18The probity of man; and this He willsWho gives it, so that we may ask of Him.Eke to the large-nosed reach my words, no less19Than to the other, Pier, who with him sings;Whence Provence and Apulia grieve already20The plant is as inferior to its seed,As more than Beatrice and Margaret21Costanza boasteth of her husband still.22Behold the monarch of the simple life,Harry of England, sitting there alone;23He in his branches has a better issue.He who the lowest on the ground among themSits looking upward, is the Marquis William,24For whose sake Alessandria and her war25Make Monferrat and Canavese weep.”

  1. See note 561. ↩
  2. Limbo, Inferno IV 25, the “foremost circle that surrounds the abyss.” “There, in so far as I had power to hear, / Were lamentations none, but only sighs, / Which tremulous made the everlasting air. / And this was caused by sorrow without torment / Which the crowds had, that many were and great, / Of infants and of women and of men.” ↩
  3. The three Theological Virtues of Faith, Hope, and Charity. ↩
  4. The four Cardinal Virtues, Prudence, Justice, Fortitude, and Temperance. ↩
  5. John 12:35:— “Then Jesus said unto them. Yet a little while is the light with you. Walk while ye have the light, lest darkness come upon you: for he that walketh in darkness knoweth not whither he goeth.” ↩
  6. In the Middle Ages the longing for rest and escape from danger, which found its expression in cloisters, is expressed in poetry by descriptions of flowery, secluded meadows, suggesting the classic meadows of asphodel. Dante has given one already in the Inferno, and gives another here. Compare with these the following from The Miracles of Our Lady, by Gonzalo de Bercéo, a monk of Calahorra, who lived in the thirteenth century, and is the oldest of the Castilian poets whose name has come down to us:— “I, Gonzalo de Bercéo, in the gentle summer-tide, / Wending upon a pilgrimage, came to a meadow’s side; / All green was it and beautiful, with flowers far and wide, / A pleasant spot, I ween, wherein the traveller might abide. / Flowers with the sweetest odors filled all the sunny air, / And not alone refreshed the sense, but stole the mind from care; / On every side a fountain gushed, whose waters pure and fair / Ice-cold beneath the summer sun, but warm in winter were. / There on the thick and shadowy trees, amid the foliage green, / Were the fig and the pomegranate, the pear and apple seen, / And other fruits of various kinds, the tufted leaves between; / None were unpleasant to the taste and none decayed, I ween. / The verdure of the meadow green, the odor of the flowers, / The grateful shadows of the trees, tempered with fragrant showers, / Refreshed me in the burning heat of the sultry noontide hours; / O, one might live upon the balm and fragrance of those bowers. / Ne’er had I found on earth a spot that had such power to please, / Such shadows from the summer sun, such odors on the breeze; / I threw my mantle on the ground, that I might rest at ease, / And stretched upon the greensward lay in the shadow of the trees. / There, soft reclining in the shade, all cares beside me flung, / I heard the soft and mellow notes that through the woodland rung. / Ear never listened to a strain, from instrument or tongue, / So mellow and harmonious as the songs above me sung.” See also Brunetto Latini, Tesoretto, XIX; the Vision of Piers Ploughman; Gower’s Confessio Amantis, VIII, etc. ↩
  7. Of this description Ruskin, Modern Painters, III 228, remarks:— “Now, almost in the opening of the Purgatory, as there at the entrance of the Inferno, we find a company of great ones resting in a grassy place. But the idea of the grass now is very different. The word now used is not ‘enamel,’ but ‘herb,’ and instead of being merely green, it is covered with flowers of many colors. With the usual mediseval accuracy, Dante insists on telling us precisely what these colors were, and how bright; which he does by naming the actual pigments used in illumination—‘Gold, and fine silver, and cochineal, and white lead, and Indian wood, serene and lucid, and fresh emerald, just broken, would have been excelled, as less is by greater, by the flowers and grass of the place.’ It is evident that the ‘emerald’ here means the emerald green of the illuminators; for a fresh emerald is no brighter than one which is not fresh, and Dante was not one to throw away his words thus. Observe, then, we have here the idea of the growth, life, and variegation of the ‘green herb,’ as opposed to the smalto of the Inferno; but the colors of the variegation are illustrated and defined by the reference to actual pigments; and, observe, because the other colors are rather bright, the blue ground (Indian wood, indigo?) is sober; lucid, but serene; and presently two angels enter, who are dressed in the green drapery, but of a paler green than the grass, which Dante marks, by telling us that it was ‘the green of leaves just budded.’ “In all this, I wish the reader to observe two things: first, the general carefulness of the poet in defining color, distinguishing it precisely as a painter would (opposed to the Greek carelessness about it); and, secondly, his regarding the grass for its greenness and variegation, rather than, as a Greek would have done, for its depth and freshness. This greenness or brightness, and variegation, are taken up by later and modern poets, as the things intended to be chiefly expressed by the word ‘enamelled’; and, gradually, the term is taken to indicate any kind of bright and interchangeable coloring; there being always this much of propriety about it, when used of greensward, that such sward is indeed, like enamel, a coat of bright color on a comparatively dark ground; and is thus a sort of natural jewelry and painter’s work, different from loose and large vegetation. The word is often awkwardly and falsely used, by the later poets, of all kinds of growth and color; as by Milton of the flowers of Paradise showing themselves over its wall; but it retains, nevertheless, through all its jaded inanity, some halfunconscious vestige of the old sense, even to the present day.” ↩
  8. The old church hymn attributed to Arminius or Hermann, Count of Vehringen, in the eleventh century, beginning:— “Salve Regina, mater misericordiae, / Vita, dulcedo et spes nostra, salve.” ↩
  9. Rudolph of Hapsburg, first Emperor of the house of Austria, was crowned at Aix-la-Chapelle in 1273. “It is related,” says Voltaire, Annales de l’Empire, I 303, “that, as the imperial sword, which they pretended was that of Charlemagne, could not be found, several lords made this defect in the formalities a pretext for not taking the oath pf allegiance. He seized a crucifix; This is my sceptre, he said, and all paid homage to him. This single act of firmness made him respectable, and the rest of his conduct showed him to be worthy of the Empire.” He would not go to Rome to be crowned, and took so little interest in Italian affairs, that Italy became almost independent of the Empire, which seems greatly to disturb the mind of Dante. He died in 1291. ↩
  10. Ottocar the Second, king of Bohemia, who is said to have refused the imperial crown. He likewise refused to pay homage to Rudolph, whom he used to call his maître d’hôtel, declaring he had paid his wages and owed him nothing. Whereupon Rudolph attacked and subdued him. According to Voltaire, Annales de l’Empire, I 306, “he consented to pay homage to the Emperor as his liege-lord, in the island of Kamberg in the middle of the Danube, under a tent whose curtains should be closed to spare him public mortification. Ottocar presented himself covered with gold and jewels; Rudolph, by way of superior pomp, received him in his simplest dress; and in the middle of the ceremony the curtains of the tent fell, and revealed to the eyes of the people and of the armies, that lined the Danube, the proud Ottocar on his knees, with his hands clasped in the hands of his conqueror, whom he had often called his maître d’hôtel, and whose Grand-Seneschal he now became. This story is accredited, and it is of little importance whether it be true or not.” But the wife was not quiet under this humiliation, and excited him to revolt against Rudolph. He was again overcome, and killed in battle in 1278. ↩
  11. This Winceslaus, says the Ottimo, was “most beautiful among all men; but was not a man of arms; he was a meek and humble ecclesiastic, and did not live long.” Why Dante accuses him of living in luxury and ease does not appear. ↩
  12. Philip the Third of France, surnamed the Bold (1270–1285). Having invaded Catalonia, in a war with Peter the Third of Aragon, both by land and sea, he was driven back, and died at Perpignan during the retreat. ↩
  13. He with the benign aspect, who rests his cheek upon his hand, is Henry of Navarre, surnamed the Fat, and brother of “Good King Thibault,” Inferno XXII 52. An old French chronicle quoted by Philalcthes says, that, “though it is a general opinion that fat men are of a gentle and benign nature, nevertheless this one was very harsh.” ↩
  14. Philip the Fourth of France, surnamed the Fair, son of Philip the Third, and son-in-law of Henry of Navarre (1285–1314). ↩
  15. Peter the Third of Aragon (1276–1285), the enemy of Charles of Anjou and competitor with him for the kingdom of Sicily. He is counted among the Troubadours, and when Philip the Bold invaded his kingdom, Peter launched a song against him, complaining that the “flower-de-luce kept him sorrowing in his house,” and calling on the Gascons for aid. ↩
  16. Charles of Anjou, king of Sicily and Naples (1265). Villani, VII 1, thus describes him:— “This Charles was wise and prudent, and valiant in arms, and rough, and much feared and redoubted by all the kings of the world; magnanimous and of a high spirit; steadfast in carrying on every great enterprise, firm in every adversity, and true to every promise, speaking little and doing much. He laughed but little; was chaste as a monk, catholic, harsh in judgment, and of a fierce countenance; large and muscular in person, with an olive complexion and a large nose, and looked the king more than any other lord. He sat up late at night, and slept little, and was in the habit of saying that a great deal of time was lost in sleeping. He was generous to his knights, but eager to acquire land, lordship, and money wherever he could, to furnish means for his enterprises and wars. In courtiers, minstrels, and players he never took delight.” Yet this is the monarch whose tyranny in Sicily brought about the bloody revenge of the Sicilian Vespers; which in turn so roused the wrath of Charles, that he swore that, “if he could live a thousand years, he would go on razing the cities, burning the lands, torturing the rebellious slaves. He would leave Sicily a blasted, barren, uninhabited rock, as a warning to the present age, an example to the future.” ↩
  17. Philip the Third of Aragon left four sons, Alfonso, James, Frederick, and Peter. Whether the stripling here spoken of is Alonzo or Peter does not appear. ↩
  18. Chaucer, “Wif of Bathes Tale”:— “Wel can the wise poet of Florence, / That highte Dant, speken of this sentence: / Lo, in swiche maner rime is Dantes tale. / Ful selde up riseth by his branches smale / Prowesse of man, for God of his goodnesse / Wol that we claime of him our gentillesse: / For of our elders may we nothing claime / But temporel thing, that man may hurt and maime.” ↩
  19. It must be remembered that these two who are singing together in this Valley of Princes were deadly foes on earth; and one had challenged the ather to determine their quarrel by single combat. “The wager of battle between the kings,” says Milman, History of Latin Christianity, VI 168, “which maintained its solemn dignity up almost to the appointed time, ended in a pitiful comedy, in which Charles of Anjou had the ignominy of practising base and disloyal designs against his adversary; Peter, that of eluding the contest by craft, justifiable only as his mistrust of his adversary was well or ill grounded, but much too cunning for a frank and generous knight. He had embarked with his knights for the South of France; he was cast back by tempests on the shores of Spain. He set off with some of his armed companions, crossed the Pyrenees undiscovered, appeared before the gates of Bordeaux, and summoned the English Seneschal. To him he proclaimed himself to be the king of Aragon, demanded to see the lists, rode down them in slow state, obtained an attestation that he had made his appearance within the covenanted time, and affixed his solemn protest against the palpable premeditated treachery of his rival, which made it unsafe for him to remain longer at Bordeaux. Charles, on his part, was furious that Peter had thus broken through the spider’s web of his policy. He was in Bordeaux when Peter appeared under the walls, and had challenged him in vain. Charles presented himself in full armor on the appointed day, summoned Peter to appear, proclaimed him a recreant and a dastardly craven, unworthy of the name of knight.” Charles of Anjou, Peter the Third of Aragon, and Philip the Third of France, all died in the same year, 1285. ↩
  20. These kingdoms being badly governed by his son and successor, Charles the Second, called the Lame. ↩
  21. Daughters of Raymond Berenger the Fifth, Count of Provence; the first married to St. Louis of France, and the second to his brother, Charles of Anjou. ↩
  22. Constance, daughter of Manfredi of Apulia, and wife of Peter the Third of Aragon. ↩
  23. Henry the Third (1216–1272), of whom Hume says:— “This prince was noted for his piety and devotion, and his regular attendance on public worship; and a saying of his on that head is much celebrated by ancient writers. He was engaged in a dispute with Louis the Ninth of France, concerning the preference between sermons and masses; he maintained the superiority of the latter, and affirmed that he would rather have one hour’s conversation with a friend, than hear twenty of the most elaborate discourses pronounced in his praise.” Dickens, Child’s History of England, Ch. XV, says of him:— “He was as much of a king in death as he had ever been in life. He was the mere pale shadow of a king at all times.” His “better issue” was Edward the First, called, on account of his amendment and establishment of the laws, the English Justinian, and less respectfully Longshanks, on account of the length of his legs. “His legs had need to be strong,” says the authority just quoted, “however long, and this they were; for they had to support him through many difficulties on the fiery sands of Syria, where his small force of soldiers fainted, died, deserted, and seemed to melt away. But his prowess made light of it, and he said, ‘I will go on, if I go on with no other follower than my groom.’ ” ↩
  24. The Marquis of Monferrato, a Ghibelline, was taken prisoner by the people of Alessandria in Piedmont, in 1290, and, being shut up in a wooden cage, was exhibited to the public like a wild beast. This he endured for eighteen months, till death released him. A bloody war was the consequence between Alessandria and the Marquis’s provinces of Monferrato and Canavese. ↩
  25. The city of Alessandria is in Piedmont, between the Tanaro and the Bormida, and not far from their junction. It was built by the Lombard League, to protect the country against the Emperor Frederick, and named in honor of Pope Alexander the Third, a protector of the Guelphs. It is said to have been built in a single year, and was called in derision, by the Ghibellines, Allessandria della Paglia (of the Straw); either from the straw used in the bricks, or more probably from the supposed insecurity of a city built in so short a space of time. ↩

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