Purgatorio

Canto XVI

Marco Lombardo.

Darkness of hell, and of a night deprived¹Of every planet under a poor sky,²As much as may be tenebrous with cloud,Ne’er made unto my sight so thick a veil,As did that smoke which there enveloped us,Nor to the feeling of so rough a texture;For not an eye it suffered to stay open;Whereat mine escort, faithful and sagacious,Drew near to me and offered me his shoulder.E’en as a blind man goes behind his guide,Lest he should wander, or should strike againstAught that may harm or peradventure kill him,So went I through the bitter and foul air,Listening unto my Leader, who said only,“Look that from me thou be not separated.”Voices I heard, and everyone appearedTo supplicate for peace and misericordThe Lamb of God who takes away our sins.Still “Agnus Dei” their exordium was;³One word there was in all, and metre one,So that all harmony appeared among them.“Master,” I said, “are spirits those I hear?”And he to me: “Thou apprehendest truly,And they the knot of anger go unloosing.”“Now who art thou, that cleavest through our smoke,And art discoursing of us even as thoughThou didst by calends still divide the time?”⁴After this manner by a voice was spoken;Whereon my Master said: “Do thou reply,And ask if on this side the way go upward.”And I: “O creature that dost cleanse thyselfTo return beautiful to Him who made thee,Thou shalt hear marvels if thou follow me.”“Thee will I follow far as is allowed me,”He answered; “and if smoke prevent our seeing,Hearing shall keep us joined instead thereof.”Thereon began I: “With that swathing bandWhich death unwindeth am I going upward,And hither came I through the infernal anguish.And if God in his grace has me infolded,So that he wills that I behold his courtBy method wholly out of modern usage,Conceal not from me who ere death thou wast,But tell it me, and tell me if I goRight for the pass, and be thy words our escort.”“Lombard was I, and I was Marco called;⁵The world I knew, and loved that excellence,At which has each one now unbent his bow.For mounting upward, thou art going right.”Thus he made answer, and subjoined: “I pray theeTo pray for me when thou shalt be above.”And I to him: “My faith I pledge to theeTo do what thou dost ask me; but am burstingInly with doubt, unless I rid me of it.First it was simple, and is now made doubleBy thy opinion, which makes certain to me,Here and elsewhere, that which I couple with it.⁶The world forsooth is utterly desertedBy every virtue, as thou tellest me,And with iniquity is big and covered;But I beseech thee point me out the cause,That I may see it, and to others show it;For one in the heavens, and here below one puts it.”A sigh profound, that grief forced into Ai!⁷He first sent forth, and then began he: “Brother,The world is blind, and sooth thou comest from it!Ye who are living every cause refer⁸Still upward to the heavens, as if all thingsThey of necessity moved with themselves.⁹If this were so, in you would be destroyed¹⁰Free will, nor any justice would there beIn having joy for good, or grief for evil.The heavens your movements do initiate,I say not all; but granting that I say it,Light has been given you for good and evil,And free volition; which, if some fatigueIn the first battles with the heavens it suffers,Afterwards conquers all, if well ’tis nurtured.¹¹To greater force and to a better nature,¹²Though free, ye subject are, and that createsThe mind in you the heavens have not in charge.Hence, if the present world doth go astray,In you the cause is, be it sought in you;And I therein will now be thy true spy.¹³Forth from the hand of Him, who fondles itBefore it is, like to a little girlWeeping and laughing in her childish sport,Issues the simple soul, that nothing knows,Save that, proceeding from a joyous Maker,Gladly it turns to that which gives it pleasure.Of trivial good at first it tastes the savor;Is cheated by it, and runs after it,¹⁴If guide or rein turn not aside its love.Hence it behoved laws for a rein to place,Behoved a king to have, who at the leastOf the true city should discern the tower.¹⁵The laws exist, but who sets hand to them?No one; because the shepherd who precedesCan ruminate, but cleaveth not the hoof;¹⁶Wherefore the people that perceives its guideStrike only at the good for which it hankers,¹⁷Feeds upon that, and farther seeketh not.Clearly canst thou perceive that evil guidanceThe cause is that has made the world depraved,And not that nature is corrupt in you.Rome, that reformed the world, accustomed wasTwo suns to have, which one road and the other,¹⁸Of God and of the world, made manifest.One has the other quenched, and to the crosierThe sword is joined, and ill beseemeth itThat by main force one with the other go,Because, being joined, one feareth not the other;If thou believe not, think upon the grain,For by its seed each herb is recognized.In the land laved by Po and Adige,¹⁹Valor and courtesy used to be found,Before that Frederick had his controversy;²⁰Now in security can pass that wayWhoever will abstain, through sense of shame,From speaking with the good, or drawing near them.True, three old men are left, in whom upbraidsThe ancient age the new, and late they deem itThat God restore them to the better life:Currado da Palazzo, and good Gherardo,²¹And Guido da Castel, who better named is,In fashion of the French, the simple Lombard:Say thou henceforward that the Church of Rome,Confounding in itself two governments,Falls in the mire, and soils itself and burden.”“O Marco mine,” I said, “thou reasonest well;And now discern I why the sons of LeviHave been excluded from the heritage.²²But what Gherardo is it, who, as sampleOf a lost race, thou sayest has remainedIn reprobation of the barbarous age?”“Either thy speech deceives me, or it tempts me,”He answered me; “for speaking Tuscan to me,It seems of good Gherardo naught thou knowest.By other surname do I know him not,Unless I take it from his daughter Gaia.²³May God be with you, for I come no farther.Behold the dawn, that through the smoke rays out,Already whitening; and I must depart—Yonder the Angel is—e’er he appear.”Thus did he speak, and would no farther hear me.

The Third Circle of Purgatory, and the punishment of the Sin of Pride. ↩
Poor, or impoverished of its stars by clouds. The same expression is applied to the Arno, Canto XIV 45, to indicate its want of water. ↩
In the Litany of the Saints:— “Lamb of God, who takest away the sins of the world, spare us, O Lord. “Lamb of God, who takest away the sins of the world, graciously hear us, O Lord. “Lamb of God, who takest away the sins of the world, have mercy on us!” ↩
Still living the life temporal, where time is measured by the calendar. ↩
Marco Lombardo was a Venetian nobleman, a man of wit and learning and a friend of Dante. “Nearly all that he gained,” says the Ottimo, “he spent in charity. … He visited Paris, and, as long as his money lasted, he was esteemed for his valor and courtesy. Afterwards he depended upon those richer than himself, and lived and died honorably.” There are some anecdotes of him in the Cento Novelle Antiche, Nov. 41, 52, hardly worth quoting. It is doubtful whether the name of Lombardo is a family name, or only indicates that Marco was an Italian, after the fashion then prevalent among the French of calling all Italians Lombards. See note 848. Benvenuto says of him that he “was a man of noble mind, but disdainful, and easily moved to anger.” Buti’s portrait is as follows:— “This Marco was a Venetian, called Marco Daca; and was a very learned man, and had many political virtues, and was very courteous, giving to poor noblemen all that he gained, and he gained much; for he was a courtier, and was much beloved for his virtue, and much was given him by the nobility; and as he gave to those who were in need, so he lent to all who asked. So that, coming to die, and having much still due to him, he made a will, and among other bequests this, that whoever owed him should not be held to pay the debt, saying, ‘Whoever has, may keep.’ ” Portarelli thinks that this Marco may be Marco Polo the traveller; but this is inadmissible, as he was still living at the time of Dante’s death. ↩
What Guido del Duca has told him of the corruption of Italy, in Canto XIV. ↩
Ovid, Metamorphoses, X, Ozell’s Tr.:— “The god upon its leaves / The sad expression of his sorrow weaves, / And to this hour the mournful purple wears / Ai, ai, inscribed in funeral characters.” ↩
See the article “Cabala,” at the end of Vol. III. ↩
Boethius, Consolation of Philosophy, V Prosa 2, Ridpath’s Tr.:— “ ‘But in this indissoluble chain of causes, can we preserve the liberty of the will? Does this fatal Necessity restrain the motions of the human soul?’—‘There is no reasonable being,’ replied she, ‘who has not freedom of will: for every being distinguished with this faculty is endowed with judgment to perceive the differences of things; to discover what he is to avoid or pursue. Now what a person esteems desirable, he desires; but what he thinks ought to be avoided, he shuns. Thus every rational creature hath a liberty of choosing and rejecting. But I do riot assert that this liberty is equal in all beings. Heavenly substances, who are exalted above us, have an enlightened judgment, an incorruptible will, and a power ever at command effectually to accomplish their desires. With regard to man, his immaterial spirit is also free; but it is most at liberty when employed in the contemplation of the Divine mind; it becomes less so when it enters into a body; and is still more restrained when it is imprisoned in a terrestrial habitation, composed of members of clay; and is reduced, in fine, to the most extreme servitude when, by plunging into the pollutions of vice, it totally departs from reason: for the soul no sooner turns her eye from the radiance of supreme truth to dark and base objects, but she is involved in a mist of ignorance, assailed by impure desires; by yielding to which she increases her thraldom, and thus the freedom which she derives from nature becomes in some measure the cause of her slavery. But the eye of Providence, which sees everything from eternity, perceives all this; and that same Providence disposes everything she has predestinated, in the order it deserves. As Homer says of the sun. It sees everything and hears everything.’ ” Also Milton, Paradise Lost, II 557:— “Others apart sat on a hill retired, / In thoughts more elevate, and reasoned high / Of providence, foreknowledge, will and fate, / Fixed fate, free will, foreknowledge absolute, / And found no end, in wandering mazes lost.” See also note 1675. ↩
Boethius, Consolation of Philosophy, V Prosa 3, Ridpath’s Tr.:— “But I shall now endeavor to demonstrate, that, in whatever way the chain of causes is disposed, the event of things which are foreseen is necessary; although prescience may not appear to be the necessitating cause of their befalling. For example, if a person sits, the opinion formed of him that he is seated is of necessity true; but by inverting the phrase, if the opinion is true that he is seated, he must necessarily sit. In both cases, then, there is a necessity; in the latter, that the person sits; in the former, that the opinion concerning him is true: but the person doth not sit, because the opinion of his sitting is true, but the opinion is rather true because the action of his being seated was antecedent in time. Thus, though the truth of the opinion may be the effect of the person taking a seat, there is, nevertheless, a necessity common to both. The same method of reasoning, I think, should be employed with regard to the prescience of God, and future contingencies; for, allowing it to be true that events are foreseen because they are to happen, and that they do not befall because they are foreseen, it is still necessary that what is to happen must be foreseen by God, and that what is foreseen must take place. This then is of itself sufficient to destroy all idea of human liberty.” ↩
Ptolemy says, “The wise man shall control the stars”; and the Turkish proverb, “Wit and a strong will are superior to Fate.” ↩
Though free, you are subject to the divine power which has immediately breathed into you the soul, and the soul is not subject to the influence of the stars, as the body is. ↩
Shakespeare, Lear, V 3:— “And take upon’s the mystery of things, / As if we were God’s spies.” ↩
Convito, IV 12:— “The supreme desire of everything, and that first given by nature, is to return to its source; and since God is the source of our souls, and maker of them in his own likeness, as is written, ‘Let us make man in our image, after our likeness,’ to him this soul chiefly desireth to return. And like as a pilgrim, who goeth upon a road on which he never was before, thinketh every house he seeth afar off to be an inn, and, not finding it so, directeth his trust to the next, and thus from house to house until he reacheth the inn; in like manner our soul, presently as she entereth the new and untravelled road of this life, turneth her eyes to the goal of her supreme good; and therefore whatever thing she seeth that seemeth to have some good in it, she believeth to be that. And because her knowledge at first is imperfect, not being experienced nor trained, small goods seem great, and therefore with them beginneth her desire. Hence we see children desire exceedingly an apple; and then, going farther, desire a little bird; and farther still, a beautiful dress; and then a horse; and then a woman; and then wealth not very great, and then greater, and then greater still. And this cometh to pass, because she findeth not in any of these things that which she is seeking, and trusteth to find it farther on.” ↩
Henry Vaughan, Sacred Poems:— “They are indeed our pillar-fires, / Seen as we go; / They are that city’s shining spires / We travel to.” ↩
Leviticus 11:4:— “The camel because he cheweth the cud, but divideth not the hoof: he is unclean to you.” Dante applies these words to the Pope as temporal sovereign. ↩
Worldly goods. As in the old French satirical verses:— “Au temps passé du siècle d’or, / Crosse de bois, évêque d’or; / Maintenant changent les lois, / Crosse d’or, evêque de bois.” ↩
The Emperor and the Pope; the temporal and spiritual power. ↩
Lombardy and Romagna. ↩
The dissension and war between the Emperor Frederick the Second and Pope Gregory the Ninth. Milman, History of Latin Christianity, Book X Ch. 3, says:— “The Empire and the Papacy were now to meet in their last mortal and implacable strife; the two first acts of this tremendous drama, separated by an interval of many years, were to be developed during the pontificate of a prelate who ascended the throne of St. Peter at the age of eighty. Nor was this strife for any specific point in dispute, like the right of investiture, but avowedly for supremacy on one side, which hardly deigned to call itself independence; for independence, on the other, which remotely at least aspired after supremacy. Caesar would bear no superior, the successor of St. Peter no equal. The contest could not have begun under men more strongly contrasted, or more determinedly oppugnant in character, than Gregory the Ninth and Frederick the Second. Gregory retained the ambition, the vigor, almost the activity of youth, with the stubborn obstinacy, and something of the irritable petulance, of old age. He was still master of all his powerful faculties; his knowledge of affairs, of mankind, of the peculiar interests of almost all the nations in Christendom, acquired by long employment in the most important negotiations both by Innocent the Third and by Honorius the Third; eloquence which his own age compared to that of Tully; profound erudition in that learning which, in the medieval churchman, commanded the highest admiration. No one was his superior in the science of the canon law; the Decretals, to which he afterwards gave a more full and authoritative form, were at his command, and they were to him as much the law of God as the Gospels themselves, or the primary principles of morality. The jealous reverence and attachment of a great lawyer to his science strengthened the lofty pretensions of the churchman. “Frederick the Second, with many of the noblest qualities which could captivate the admiration of his own age, in some respects might appear misplaced, and by many centuries prematurely born. Frederick having crowded into his youth adventures, perils, successes, almost unparalleled in history, was now only expanding into the prime of manhood. A parentless orphan, he had struggled upward into the actual reigning monarch of his hereditary Sicily; he was even then rising above the yoke of the turbulent magnates of his realm, and the depressing tutelage of the Papal See; he had crossed the Alps a boyish adventurer, and won so much through his own valor and daring that he might well ascribe to himself his conquest, the kingdom of Germany, the imperial crown; he was in undisputed possession of the Empire, with all its rights in Northern Italy; King of Apulia, Sicily, and Jerusalem. He was beginning to be at once the Magnificent Sovereign, the knight, the poet, the lawgiver, the patron of arts, letters, and science; the Magnificent Sovereign, now holding his court in one of the old barbaric and feudal cities of Germany among the proud and turbulent princes of the Empire, more often on the sunny shores of Naples or Palermo, in southern and almost Oriental luxury; the gallant Knight and troubadour Poet, not forbidding himself those amorous indulgences which were the reward of chivalrous valor and of the ‘gay science’; the Lawgiver, whose farseeing wisdom seemed to anticipate some of those views of equal justice, of the advantages of commerce, of the cultivation of the arts of peace, beyond all the toleration of adverse religions, which even in a more dutiful son of the Church would doubtless have seemed godless indifference. Frederick must appear before us in the course of our history in the full development of all these shades of character; but besides all this, Frederick’s views of the temporal sovereignty were as imperious and autocratic as those of the haughtiest churchman of the spiritual supremacy. The ban of the Empire ought to be at least equally awful with that of the Church; disloyalty to the Emperor was as heinous a sin as infidelity to the head of Christendom; the independence of the Lombard republics was as a great and punishable political heresy. Even in Rome itself, as head of the Roman Empire, Frederick aspired to a supremacy which was not less unlimited because vague and undefined, and irreconcilable with that of the Supreme Pontiff. If ever Emperor might be tempted by the vision of a vast hereditary monarchy to be perpetuated in his house, the princely house of Hohenstaufen, it was Frederick. He had heirs of his greatness; his eldest son was King of the Romans; from his loins might yet spring an inexhaustible race of princes; the failure of his imperial line was his last fear. The character of the man seemed formed to achieve and to maintain this vast design; he was at once terrible and popular, courteous, generous, placable to his foes; yet there was a depth of cruelty in the heart of Frederick towards revolted subjects, which made him look on the atrocities of his allies, Eccelin di Romano, and the Salinguerras, but as legitimate means to quell insolent and stubborn rebellion. … “It is impossible to conceive a contrast more strong or more irreconcilable than the octogenarian Gregory, in his cloister palace, in his conclave of stern ascetics, with all but severe imprisonment within conventual walls, completely monastic in manners, habits, views, in corporate spirit, in celibacy, in rigid seclusion from the rest of mankind, in the conscientious determination to enslave, if possible, all Christendom to its inviolable unity of faith, and to the least possible latitude of discipline; and the gay and yet youthful Frederick, with his mingled assemblage of knights and ladies, of Christians, Jews, and Mohammedans, of poets and men of science, met, as it were, to enjoy and minister to enjoyment—to cultivate the pure intellect—where, if not the restraints of religion, at least the awful authority of churchmen was examined with freedom, sometimes ridiculed with sportive wit.” See also note 145. ↩
Currado (Conrad) da Palazzo of Brescia; Gherardo da Camino of Treviso; and Guido da Castello of Reggio. Of these three the Ottimo thus speaks:— “Messer Currado was laden with honor during his life, delighted in a fine retinue, and in political life in the government of cities, in which he acquired much praise and fame. “Messer Guido was assiduous in honoring men of worth, who passed on their way to France, and furnished many with horses and arms, who came hitherward from France. To all who had honorably consumed their property, and returned more poorly furnished than became them, he gave, without hope of return, horses, arms, and money. “Messer Gherardo da Camino delighted not in one, but in all noble things, keeping constantly at home.” He farther says, that his fame was so great in France that he was there spoken of as the “simple Lombard,” just as, “when one says the City, and no more, one means Rome.” Benvenuto da Imola says that all Italians were called Lombards by the French. In the Histoire et Cronique du petit Jehan de Saintré, fol. 219, ch. IV, the author remarks:— “The fifteenth day after Saintré’s return, there came to Paris two young, noble, and brave Italians, whom we call Lombards.” ↩
Deuteronomy 18:2:— “Therefore shall they have no inheritance among their brethren: the Lord is their inheritance, as he hath said unto them.” ↩
“This Gherardo,” says Buti, “had a daughter, called, on account of her beauty, Gaja; and so modest and virtuous was she, that through all Italy was spread the fame of her beauty and modesty.” The Ottimo, who preceded Buti in point of time, gives a somewhat different and more equivocal account. He says:— “Madonna Gaia was the daughter of Messer Gherardo da Camino: she was a lady of such conduct in amorous delectations, that her name was notorious throughout all Italy; and therefore she is thus spoken of here.” ↩