Purgatorio
Virgil further discourses of Love and Free Will. The Abbot of San Zeno. An end had put unto his reasoning The lofty Teacher, and attent was looking Into my face,
The great Teacher had finished his reasoning
and looked intently into my face,
I remained silent, though I appeared content,
for a new thirst still drove me forward.
Without, I was mute, but within I said:
"Perhaps my endless questions annoy him."
But that true Father, who understood
my timid wish that would not reveal itself,
gave me courage to speak by speaking first.
So I began: "Master, my sight is so enlivened
by your light that I clearly discern
whatever your words convey or describe.
Therefore I beg you, sweet Father,
teach me about love, to which you refer
every good action and its opposite."
"Direct toward me," he said, "the sharp eyes
of your intellect, and the error will be clear—
the error of the blind who would be guides.
The soul, created with the capacity to love,
moves toward everything that pleases,
as soon as pleasure awakens it to action.
Your perception draws an image
from some real thing and displays it within you
so that it makes the soul turn toward it.
And if, when turned, the soul inclines toward it,
that inclination is love—it is nature
bound anew in you by pleasure.
Then, just as fire moves upward
by its own form, born to ascend
where it endures longest in its matter,
so the captive soul enters desire,
which is a spiritual motion that never rests
until it enjoys the beloved thing.
Now it should be clear to you how hidden
the truth is from those people who claim
that all love is in itself praiseworthy.
For though love's matter may perhaps appear
always to be good, not every impression
is good, however good the wax may be."
"Your words and my attentive mind,"
I answered him, "have revealed love to me,
but this has filled me with greater doubt.
For if love comes to us from outside,
and the soul walks with no other foot,
whether she goes right or wrong is not her merit."
And he replied: "What reason sees here,
I can tell you. Beyond that, wait
for Beatrice, since it is a matter of faith.
Every substantial form that is separate
from matter yet united with it
has specific power gathered in itself,
which cannot be perceived without action
and shows itself only through its effects,
as life does in a plant through green leaves.
But man remains ignorant of where comes
the understanding of first principles
and the attraction to first allurements,
which exist in you as instinct exists in the bee
to make honey. This first desire
contains no merit of praise or blame.
Now, so that all other desires may be gathered to this one,
the power that counsels is innate within you,
and it should guard the threshold of consent.
This is the principle from which is drawn
the basis of your merit, according to how
it accepts and winnows good and guilty loves.
Those who reasoned to the foundation
were aware of this innate freedom,
and therefore they left Ethics to the world.
Suppose, then, that every love kindled within you
springs from necessity—you still possess
within yourselves the power to restrain it.
Beatrice understands this noble faculty
as free will, so make sure you remember this
if she should speak of it to you."
The moon, delayed almost until midnight,
now made the stars appear more sparse to us,
shaped like a blazing bucket,
and it moved counter to the heavens through those paths
the sun ignites when someone in Rome
sees it set between Sardinia and Corsica.
And that noble shade for whom
Pietola is honored above any other Mantuan town
had lifted the burden of my questioning.
So I, having received clear and plain reasoning
in answer to my questions,
stood like a man in drowsy reverie.
But this drowsiness was suddenly taken from me
by people who had already come around
behind our backs.
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THE SLOTHFUL
“But this drowsiness was suddenly taken from me / by people who had already come around / behind our backs.”
And as Ismenus and Asopus of old
saw beside them at night the rush and throng
whenever the Thebans had need of Bacchus,
so these souls curved their steps along that circle—
from what I saw of those approaching us,
driven by good will and righteous love.
Soon they were upon us, for that mighty crowd
moved onward running, and two in front
cried out, weeping: "Mary ran in haste
to the mountain, and Caesar, to subdue Ilerda,
struck at Marseilles and then ran into Spain."
"Quick! Quick! Let no time be lost
through little love!" the others cried at once.
"Fervor in doing good refreshes grace!"
"O people in whom eager zeal now perhaps
makes up for the delay and negligence
you showed in doing good through lukewarmness—
this living man (and truly I do not lie)
wants to ascend when the sun shines on us again,
so tell us where the passage is nearest."
These were my Guide's words, and one
of those spirits answered: "Follow behind us
and you will find the opening.
We are so full of longing to move forward
that we cannot stay, so forgive us
if you take our justice for rudeness.
I was Abbot of San Zeno in Verona
under the rule of good Barbarossa,
of whom Milan still speaks with sorrow.
And one man already has one foot in the grave
who will soon lament that monastery
and regret having held power there,
because he put his son in place
of its true pastor—his son, sick in body
and worse in mind, and born in sin."
Whether he said more or fell silent, I don't know—
he had already passed so far beyond us.
But I heard this much and was pleased to remember it.
And he who was my help in every need said:
"Turn this way and see two of them
fastening their teeth upon sloth."
At the rear of all, they shouted: "The people
for whom the sea opened were already dead
before their heirs saw the Jordan.
And those who did not endure the hardship
to the end with Anchises' son
surrendered themselves to a life without glory."
Then, when those shades were so separated from us
that they could no longer be seen,
a new thought entered my mind,
from which many others, diverse, were born.
And so I slipped from one to another
until I closed my eyes in reverie
and transformed meditation into dream.