"In the heavens, not confined by space, but moved by the greater love
you bear for the first and highest works of creation,
let your name and omnipotence be praised
by every creature, as it is fitting
to give thanks for your sweet grace.
6
Let the peace of your kingdom come to us,
for we cannot reach it by ourselves,
no matter how hard we strive with all our understanding.
Just as your Angels make sacrifice of their will to you,
singing Hosanna,
so may all humanity sacrifice theirs.
12
Give us this day our daily bread,
without which, in this harsh wilderness,
whoever struggles hardest to move forward slides backward.
And just as we forgive each other
for the wrongs we have suffered,
forgive us graciously, and do not consider what we deserve.
18
Do not test our virtue, which is easily overcome,
against the ancient Enemy,
but deliver us from him who drives it to temptation.
This last request, dear Lord,
we make not for ourselves, who have no need,
but for those we have left behind us."
24
Praying these words for themselves and for us,
those souls moved under their burdens—
weight like what we sometimes feel in dreams,
unequal in their anguish, circling round and round,
weary, along that first terrace,
purging away the smoke-stains of the world.
30
If good words are always spoken there for us,
what might be said and done here for them
by those whose will is rooted in goodness?
We may well help them wash away the marks
they carried from earth, so that clean and light
they may rise to the wheeling stars above.
36
"May mercy and justice soon unburden you,
so you have power to spread the wings
that will lift you toward your heart's desire.
Show us which way toward the stairs
is shortest, and if there are several passes,
point out the one that rises least steeply.
42
For he who comes with me, weighed down
by Adam's flesh that clothes him,
is reluctant to climb, against his will."
45
From where their words came in reply
to what my guide had spoken
was not clear to us,
but this was said: "Come with us
to the right along the bank, and you will find
a passage possible for the living to ascend.
51
If I were not held down by this stone
that subdues my proud neck
and forces me to keep my face turned down,
I would look upon him who still lives
and will not give his name,
to see if I know him
and move him to pity for this burden.
58
I was Italian, born of a great Tuscan—
Guglielmo Aldobrandeschi was my father.
I do not know if his name ever reached you.
The ancient blood and gallant deeds
of my ancestors made me so arrogant
that, forgetting our common mother earth,
I held all people in such contempt
that I died for it—as the Sienese know,
and every child in Campagnatico.
67
I am Umberto, and pride has harmed
not me alone, but dragged all my family
into disaster with it.
Here I must bear this weight for pride
until God is satisfied,
since I failed to do so among the living—
here among the dead."
74
I bent my face downward, listening.
One of them—not the one who had been speaking—
twisted beneath the weight that cramped him,
saw me and recognized me, and called out,
keeping his eyes fixed on me with effort
as I walked bent over with them.
80
"Oh," I asked him, "are you not Oderisi,
Gubbio's honor, master of that art
they call illumination in Paris?"
83
"Brother," he said, "the pages smile more brightly
when touched by Franco of Bologna's brush.
All the honor is his now, mine only in part.
I would not have been so generous
while I lived, because of my great desire
for excellence, which consumed my heart.
89
Here the penalty for such pride is paid.
I would not even be here, except that
having the power to sin, I turned to God.
Oh, vain glory of human powers—
how briefly green remains upon your crown
unless an age of darkness follows after!
95
In painting, Cimabue thought he ruled the field;
now Giotto has the acclaim,
and the other's fame grows dim.
One Guido has taken from the other
the glory of our language, and perhaps
another is born who will drive them both from the nest.
101
This worldly fame is nothing but a breath
of wind, blowing now this way, now that,
changing its name as it changes direction.
What greater fame will you have
if you shed your flesh in old age
than if you had died before you stopped saying 'papa' and 'mama'—
before a thousand years pass?
That span is shorter compared to eternity
than the blink of an eye
compared to the slowest-turning sphere in heaven.
111
The man who takes such small steps
ahead of me once made all Tuscany ring with his name,
and now he is barely whispered of in Siena,
where he was lord when Florence's mad rage
was overthrown—that pride which was as fierce then
as it is corrupt today.
117
Your reputation is like the color of grass:
it comes and goes, and the same sun
that brings it green from earth
bleaches it away."
121
And I replied: "Your true words fill my heart
with good humility and deflate great swelling in me.
But who is he of whom you just spoke?"
124
"That is Provenzan Salvani," he answered,
"and he is here because he presumed
to bring all Siena under his control.
He has walked this way without rest
ever since he died—such payment
is demanded from those too bold on earth."
130
"If every spirit who waits until the edge of life
to repent remains below
and cannot ascend here
unless good prayers help him,
until as much time passes as he lived—
how was his coming here granted as a gift?"
136
"When he lived in his greatest splendor," came the reply,
"he freely placed himself in Siena's Campo,
setting aside all shame.
There, to free his friend
from the suffering he endured
in King Charles's prison,
he brought himself to tremble in every vein.
I say no more—I know I speak in riddles,
but soon your neighbors will act in such a way
that you will understand.
That deed released him from those longer confines."
147