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Home>>Poetry>>Poetry Collections>>Divine Comedy>>Purgatory

Purgatory - Cantos 1-3

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CANTO 1

​
More favourable waters now invite 
A raising of the sails on the small craft 
Of my poetic gift, so she runs light, 
Leaving the heavy sea retreating aft 
That crushed her prow, but now lies in her wake. 
For I will sing now of that second realm 
Where souls are purged and so made fit to take 
The path to Heaven. As I hold the helm, 
O holy Muses, here let poetry
Arise again from death, for I am yours. 
Bring forth Calliope to be with me 
And join, with her sweet voice that Heaven adores, 
My song, as once her lilting measures turned 
Those mournful girls to magpies when they dared 
To taunt her, as from Ovid we have learned. 
Poor daughters of Pierus, they despaired 
Of pardon, with their earthbound effort spurned— 
They sang for Titans, but she made them cry. 
The sweet clear tint of sapphire in the east
Gathered to make serene the sweep of sky 
From zenith to horizon. It released 
The gladness in my glance again, for I 
Had weathered the dead air that never ceased 
To weigh down on my heart, and hurt my eyes.
The comely planet that prompts us to love, 
Veiling the school of pretty fish that lies 
Each springtime in her train, was there above, 
And she made all the east laugh. To the right 
I turned, and on the other pole I set
My mind, and saw four stars that were a sight, 
Seen by the first men, that has never yet 
Been seen again. The sky seemed to rejoice 
In these four flames. North, you’re a widow, since 
You are denied that sight! I made the choice
To take my gaze back from those merry glints 
And turned a little to the other pole. 
The Wain was gone already, and I saw 
Beside me an old man alone, his whole 
Aspect deserving of a reverence more
Profound than any owed by any son 
To any father. His long hair and beard 
Were streaked with white; the hair, two streams from one, 
Fell on his breast; and on his face appeared 
The light of those four holy stars to make 
It seem as if he faced the sun. “And who 
Are you,” he said, giving his locks a shake, 
Those signs of honour, “You that have come through 
And fled the eternal prison, even though 
The blind stream was against you? Who’s your guide?
Who was the lamp that lit your path to go 
Free from the deep night that from side to side 
Blots out Hell’s valley with perpetual dark? 
How are the laws of the abyss defied?
Has Heaven decreed that those who bear the mark 
Of doom, the damned, should come to my cliffs now?” 
My Leader then with speech and hand and sign 
Directed me to reverence, knees and brow, 
And then he said: “The idea wasn’t mine 
To come here, but a lady came to me
From Heaven, and according to her prayers
I gave this living man my company 
To help him through the darkness to the stairs. 
But since you wish to have it made more plain 
How things in actual fact stand with us two, 
I can’t deny you. This man, in such pain, 
Had still not seen his last hour. It was due: 
Folly had brought him near, and almost all 
His time was gone. I was, as I said, sent 
To save him in the last part of his fall,
And had no way except the way we went 
To get him out. I showed him first the race 
Of guilty shades, and now propose to show 
The spirits to him of a different place— 
Spirits that in your tutelage, Cato,
May purge themselves. But it would take a book 
To tell you how I brought him through to here. 
Enough to say that what it really took 
Was virtue from above, which still keeps near 
To help me give him you, so he may look
And listen. May it please you now to bless 
His coming. He seeks liberty from vice, 
A freedom dear to him, to you no less: 
He knows who gives his life as sacrifice 
For such a prize. You know it too, for you 
In Utica, faced with the cruel defeat
Of your great cause, did what you had to do 
And were not bitter, and your flesh will meet 
Its true fate on that Day of Judgement when 
It will come back in splendour, as you shed
It long ago out there with honour. Men 
Don’t break eternal laws. This man’s not dead, 
And Minos doesn’t bind me. I am of 
That circle where your Marcia’s chaste eyes 
Now lie, she who still prays with looks of love 
That you should hold her, Holy Breast, and prize 
Her for your own, as you did up above
When she came back to you. Incline, therefore, 
To us, for her sake. Grant us right of way 
Through all your seven kingdoms. I’ll be sure
To tell her of your kindness on the day 
That I return to Limbo, if you deem 
It fitting to be spoken of down there.” 
“My Marcia so put the very gleam
In my eyes when I once breathed the world’s air 
That I did any kindness that she sought. 
But now she dwells beyond the Acheron: 
She can no longer move me in my thought. 
That law was made the moment I was gone 
From there. But if this heavenly woman guides
And moves you, as you say she does, there’s no 
Need of fair words. On high the power resides: 
Enough to ask me for her sake. So go, 
And bind him with a straight smooth rush to mark 
His humble advent, and his face wipe free
Of any dirt. The eyes may not be dark 
With fog for anyone called in to see 
The first of all the ministers who keep 
Watch on the road to Paradise. Around 
This little island’s edge, when from the deep
The waves come in and fall, there can be found 
The rushes that you need. In the soft mud 
They grow like nothing else that puts out leaves 
Or hardens, though the waves fall with a thud. 
But don’t come back this way. This way deceives 
By looking easy, but leads back to Hell.
The sun’s up. Take the better road it shows 
For going up the mountain. Now farewell.” 
He vanished, and without a word I rose 
And drew close to my Guide, and fixed my eyes
On him. “Follow my step,” he said. “Let’s turn 
Around. This plain slopes down to where it lies 
Bounded by water.” Dawn began to burn
The morning breeze away, and far away 
It lit the trembling sea. We moved across 
The lonely plain, as one who goes astray 
And, looking for his path, still feels the loss 
Until it’s found again. Then, when we came 
Into a shaded place where drops of dew, 
Safe from the sun, stayed more or less the same,
My Master laid both hands spread in full view 
On the wet grass. Knowing his purpose, I
Offered my tear-stained cheeks, and he revived 
All of the colour underneath the dry 
Tears that I cried in Hell. Then we arrived 
On a deserted shore that never sees
A man who sails its waters and yet knows 
How to return. My Guide, as it might please 
Another, girded me. The plant he chose— 
Ah, miracle!—so lowly, though thus torn
From where it grew, was instantly reborn.

CANTO 2

The horizon whose meridian at its height 
Covers Jerusalem had by now been 
Reached by the sun, and, step for step, the night 
That circles opposite in the unseen
Was climbing from the Ganges with the scales 
That it lets fall when dark outlasts the day, 
As if the power of its fingers fails 
In winter, and it can’t take what they weigh. 
So, where I was, the white and rosy pink 
Cheeks of the fair Aurora, as her age 
Increased, were turning orange. Made to think, 
We tarried by the sea’s edge at that stage,
As those who seek the road at heart may go 
Onward but in their bodies pause. Look there! 
Just as, when morning nears, we see the glow 
Of Mars, rose-red in the thick misty air
Above the ocean floor and lying low 
To decorate the west, so there appeared 
To me a light that came across the sea 
So fast no flight could match it as it neared. 
I took my eyes off it to ask my Guide 
“What is it?” I looked back to see it loom: 
Its size and brightness had both multiplied. 
On either side it put forth a white plume.
Two plumes, but were they plumes? And bit by bit 
Below them came a third white plume. And still 
My Master said no word concerning it, 
And what its three white plumes might be, until 
The first two unmistakably were wings,
And then, the pilot clear to him at last, 
He said: “Bend, bend your knees, for this boat brings 
The Angel of the Lord! Clasp your hands fast. 
From here on you will see such ministers. 
See how all human tools are scorned by him. 
For him no oars or sails. No, nothing stirs 
Or swells except his wings to make him skim 
From shore to distant shore. See how he holds 
Them raised toward the sky. The air is swept 
With everlasting pinions: pleats and folds
Of feathers that will be forever kept 
Pristine, and never change as even fine 
Plumage will always do on Earth.” And as 
He came close it was clear he was divine, 
For he grew brighter than men’s vision has 
The strength to bear, and down I cast my eyes, 
And with his fleeting boat he touched the shore, 
A boat so quick and light it almost flies
Above the water, which gives way no more
Beneath it than as if it had no weight.
The steersman on the poop-deck stood still now:
Stood so his blessedness that was so great 
Seemed written on him, and that boat, from bow 
To stern, had, sitting in it as it slid 
Ashore, more than a thousand spirits. “When 
Israel,” they sang in Latin—this they did 
With one voice—“out of Egypt came . . .” Right then 
They sang it all as written. Then he made 
The sign above them of the Holy Cross. 
They flung themselves, as if they had obeyed
His order, on the beach. With little loss
Of time—as fast as he’d arrived, in fact— 
He left. The crowd remaining there seemed new 
To this place. They were caught up in the act 
Of testing something. As new people do, 
They gazed about. And on all sides the sun 
Volleyed the day, and Capricorn was chased 
With keen-tipped arrows from the zenith. One 
And all the new arrivals rose and faced 
Towards me, saying: “If you know the way
To reach the mountain, tell us.” Virgil, thus: 
“You think we know this place? We came today, 
Just before you. It’s all as strange to us 
As it must be to you. The way we came
Was different, and so bitter, hard and rough 
That now the climb before us will seem tame.” 
The souls, who had already seen enough 
Of how I breathed to know I was alive, 
Turned pale with wonder, and as if to see 
The bearer of an olive branch arrive
And hear his news they all had rushed headlong 
Uncaring who got crushed, so one and all 
Of these most favoured souls gazed at my face 
Transfixed, as if forgetting their first call--
To go and become beautiful. With grace 
One came to me, and with such warmth that I 
Met his embrace with mine, I was so moved. 
Ah, shades! Your looks seem solid, but they lie! 
Three times I held him and three times it proved 
That I in vain had clasped my hands behind
His back and brought them back to meet my breast. 
My face displayed the wonder in my mind, 
I think, because the shade made manifest 
His pleasure in a smile, and then withdrew
As I, to follow him, stepped forward. He 
Gently suggested that I stand. I knew 
Then who he was, and bade him talk to me
A little while. He said: “As I loved you 
When I was mortal, so I love you still 
Now I am free, and therefore I remain.
But you, why do you want to climb the hill?” 
I said: “Casella, only to regain 
The place I came from do I take this road. 
But now you’re here, how much time have you lost?” 
And he to me: “He stays true to his code.
He takes up who he wants—there was no cost 
To me—and when he wants. If many times 
He has denied me passage, these are just 
Decisions on his part, and never crimes.
A righteous will frames his will. What he must,
He does. Nevertheless, for three months now
Without fuss he has taken all who would 
Embark, and I, well, I had come at last 
Down to the Tiber’s mouth, and there I stood 
Where water that was fresh turned salt, and he 
Gathered me in. For he has set his wing, 
Through all this year of Papal Jubilee,
On visiting that river mouth, to bring 
Those crowded souls away who do not sink 
Down to the Acheron.” And I: “If no
New law forbids you now to even think 
About the thing you once could not forgo, 
If you can still remember and still do 
What you once did, make music for a song— 
And the very first to set my words was you, 
Your songs of love lulled me when I would long 
For anything—so may it please you here: 
Refresh my soul with music for a while, 
For with my body it grew tired from fear 
And effort on the road from mile to mile
With nothing lovely to placate the ear.” 
“Oh love, that speaks,” he then began to sing, 
“Speaks in my mind . . .” he went on, and so sweet
Were words and notes together, like one thing, 
That still today the song stirs to repeat 
Its clear lilt in my memory, lingering, 
Always the same and never changing. I,
My Master and those people there with us, 
Seemed as content as if, while time went by, 
Nothing remained to think of or discuss, 
When suddenly the old one cried “What’s this, 
You laggard spirits? What’s this negligence? 
Why the delay? All this is artifice!
Run to the mountain, for your slough prevents 
God’s being clear to you. It must be stripped 
From you. Yes, you are here to be made clean.” 
As doves, collecting when their food is tipped 
Where they can get their beaks to it, are seen 
To pick up wheat or tares, with little sound 
And nothing of their usual show of pride,
But they will leave their food there on the ground 
If something comes to scare them, for beside 
Their new concern, their first concern turns pale, 
Just so I saw that troop of fledglings go
Towards the slope, and heard their last notes fail. 
They left their song, but did not seem to know 
Where to go next, yet had no time to waste— 
And we went too, and went with no less haste.

CANTO 3

While they were scattering in their sudden flight 
Throughout the plain, I turned my gaze to meet 
The mountain, where by reason at its height 
We are examined. Think of the defeat
I would have met without my true friend near. 
So near I drew, for how would I have fared? 
Who else would take me up that hill from here? 
And yet he seemed somehow not to be spared 
From self-reproach. Ah, pure and dignified
Of conscience, how a tiny fault can sting! 
When his feet slowed down from the hasty stride 
That drains the dignity from anything, 
My mind, till then restrained, was newly keen, 
And with that wider range I set my face 
Towards the hill that from the sea is seen 
To rise high in the search for Heaven’s grace. 
Behind me and above, the sun flamed red. 
Before me, the ground shone around the shape 
I made when sunlight stopped at me instead.
I turned to one side with my mouth agape 
In fear that I been abandoned when 
I saw that only I thus turned the ground 
To darkness, but my Comfort asked me then: 
“Why so distrustful? Have you not yet found
That I am always with you, I, your guide? 
Now it is evening where my body lies 
With which I cast a shadow. I abide 
In Naples, sent there as a treasured prize 
From Brindisi to mark the fond esteem
Of great Augustus. If no shadow now 
Is thrown before me, may its absence seem 
No more a marvel to your mind than how 
The heavens do not block each other’s rays. 
The Force that makes our bodies fit to bear 
Torments of heat and cold has secret ways 
Of which we cannot hope to be aware, 
And he’s a fool who thinks our reason can 
Trace all the paths one substance takes in three 
Persons, for they are infinite. Mere Man!
The quia, the mere fact, is bound to be 
What you must be content with, for if you 
Had ever been enabled to see All, 
Then Mary would have had no need to do 
The thing she did, and give birth. You’ll recall 
How you have often seen men’s vain desire 
That their desire to see things whole—a grief 
Eternal—should have leeway to retire.
Not only Plato yearned for that relief
But Aristotle too, and many more.”
And here he bent his brow down, and he fell
To silence, looking troubled and unsure. 
Meanwhile, the mountain. We saw all too well 
The way its foot was a sheer cliff so steep 
The nimblest legs could not have been of use. 
From Lerici to Turbia, you’d keep 
Your feet more easily where, broken loose, 
The rock lies wildly strewn, but still presents 
A staircase easier than this. “Who knows 
Which side to scale the slope on makes more sense,”
My Master said, his steps stayed, “so that those
Who have no wings may climb?” And while his face 
Was held down, and he pondered the best way, 
I gazed up round the rock, and in one place, 
There on the left, appeared a whole array
Of souls, who moved towards us, and yet so 
Slowly they seemed not to approach. “See there, 
Master,” I said, “these ones might let us know 
The answer for which you seek everywhere 
Within yourself, if you just lift your gaze.”
70 He did, and with an air of one set free 
From some weight on his mind, said “Our best way’s 
That way, for they come slowly. You must be, 
Dear son, firm in your hope.” Those people still 
Were at the distance—after we had gone 
A thousand paces—that a slinger will 
Attain with a good hand, when, hard upon 
The high bank’s solid wall they pressed against, 
They stood close-packed and still, as men will pause 
To look when not yet from their doubt dispensed.
“You that have ended well, souls that with cause 
May call themselves elect,” declared my Guide, 
“By that peace which I do believe awaits 
You all, tell me the slope that meets the stride 
With favour, for a waste of time frustrates
The wise the most.” As sheep depart the fold 
By one and two and three and all the rest 
Stand timid, and down to the ground they hold 
Their eyes and muzzles, and the first is pressed 
From back there by the others if it slows,
Since they all do what it does, and do that 
Simply and quietly, and not one knows 
Quite why, if one stops, all stop, these were at 
That same point. Those who led the lucky flock 
Came forward, modest, dignified. But when 
They saw that on my right I made a block
For light, so that my dark shape walked again
Between me and the cliff, they stopped in shock, 
And back a pace they drew, so all who came 
Behind, not knowing why they should have done
What everyone in front did, did the same. 
“Before you ask, let me tell everyone 
This is a human body that you see, 
By which the sunlight on the ground is split. 
Don’t marvel, but believe, that he can’t be 
Without the aid of Heaven’s power to pit 
Himself against the wall he comes to climb.” 
Thus Virgil, and a spokesman for that group 
Of worthies said: “For just a little time
Turn back, and then go on before our troop.” 
(The hand, reversed, at this point made a sign.)
“Whoever you might be, turn, as you go, 
Your face, and think if ever you saw mine 
Out there.” I turned to him. I tried to know. 
I looked. He was fine-featured and fair-haired, 
A noble presence, but a blow had cut
One of his eyebrows through. When I had spared 
No humble words to tactfully rebut 
Any suggestion I had known him, “Look!” 
He said, and bared, high on his breast,
A gaping wound. “Behold my open book! 
Yes, I am Manfred, torn up from my rest 
And thrown out of the Church’s lands. Grandson 
To Empress Constance. Thus I beg of you, 
Visit my lovely daughter when you’ve done 
Your time here and go back. Mother of two 
Kingdoms, of Sicily and Aragon, 
If she has heard another tale, she ought 
To hear the truth. When life could not go on, 
My body cleft by two strokes, I then thought
To yield myself to Him who freely gives 
His pardon. Yes, my sins were horrible. 
But the healing goodness that forever lives
Has arms so wide they take in all who will 
Turn to it. If Cosenza’s bishop, sent 
By Clement to hunt me, had rightly read 
That page of God that says he whose intent 
Is to approach Me shall be housed and fed 
And not cast out, then still my body’s bones 
Would now, at Benevento’s bridgehead, lie
Under the shelter of those heavy stones 
Stacked in a cairn. They would be warm and dry. 
But now the wind is at them, and the rain 
Soaks them, beyond the Kingdom, by the stream 
That marks the border: bones brought in disdain, 
With tapers quenched. But though the pastors deem 
A man heretical, he can’t be lost 
To that point where eternal love can’t save 
His soul, if hope keeps love free from the frost, 
And evergreen. It’s true that if the grave
Opens for one denied the sacraments 
By Holy Church, he must stand on the sill— 
No matter how intensely he repents— 
For thirty times the time he set his will 
Presumptuously high, if holy prayers 
Don’t shrink his sentence. So now, if you can, 
Bring gladness to me in my present cares, 
By telling the good Constance of the man 
Whose soul you saw here, sadly made to wait— 
For prayer from elsewhere can unlatch the gate.”

Extracts

Hell - Cantos 1-3
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Purgatory - Cantos 1-3
Picture
Heaven - Cantos 1-3
Picture

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      • Save Us From Celebrity
    • The Revolt of the Pendulum >
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      • Canetti Man of Mystery
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      • Saying Famous Things
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      • The Perfectly Bad Sentence
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      • All Stalkers Kill
      • Best Eaten Cold
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      • Made in Britain, More or Less
      • Movie Criticism in America
      • Show Me the Horror
      • The Measure of A.D. Hope
      • Robert Hughes Remembers
      • Modern Australian Painting
      • On Diamond Jim McClelland
      • The Voice of John Anderson
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      • Starting with Sludge
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        • Holding Court
        • Too Much Light
        • Nature Programme
        • My Latest Fever
        • Nina Kogan's Geometrical Heaven
        • The Emperor's Last Words
        • Winter Plums
      • Nefertiti in the Flak Tower >
        • Whitman and the Moth
        • The Falcon Growing Old
      • Angels over Elsinore
      • The Book of My Enemy >
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      • Opal Sunset
      • Other Passports >
        • Recent Verse >
          • The Book of My Enemy has been Remaindered
        • Parodies etc.
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      • Fan Mail >
        • To Russell Davies: a letter from Cardiff
        • To Martin Amis: a letter from Indianapolis
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        • To Tom Stoppard: a letter from London
        • To Peter Porter: a letter to Sydney
    • Epic Poems >
      • The River in the Sky
      • Gate of Lilacs
      • The Divine Comedy >
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      • Poem of the Year
    • Books About Poetry >
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    • Guest Poets >
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  • Lyrics
    • My life in lyrics
    • Selected Song Lyrics >
      • Dancing Master
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      • Nothing Left to Say
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      • Song for Rita
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      • Sunlight Gate
      • The Egoist
      • The Eye of the Universe
      • The Ice Cream Man
      • Femme Fatale
      • The Master of the Revels
      • Thirty-year Man
      • Winter Spring
  • Video
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