First Ledge: the Proud. — Prayer. — Omberto Aldobrandeschi. — Oderisi d’ Agubbio. — Provinzan Salvani.
“O our Father who art in Heaven, not circumscribed, but through the greater love which to the first effects on high Thou hast,1 praised be Thy name and Thy power by every creature, even as it is befitting to render thanks to Thy sweet effluence. May the peace of Thy Kingdom come towards us, for we to it cannot of ourselves, if it come not, with all our striving. As of their will Thine angels, singing Hosanna, make sacrifice to Thee, so may men make of theirs. Give us this day the daily manna, without which through this rough desert he backward goes, who toils most to go on. And as we pardon every one for the wrong that we have suffered, even do Thou, benignant, pardon and regard not our desert. Our virtue which is easily overcome put not to proof with the old adversary, but deliver from him who so spurs it. This last prayer, dear Lord, truly is not made for ourselves, for it is not needful, but for those who behind us have remained.”
1 Not circumscribed by Heaven, but having Thy seat there because of the love Thou bearest to the first effects — the angels, and the heavens — of Thyself the First Cause.
Thus praying for themselves and us good speed, those souls were going under the weight, like that of which one sometimes dreams, unequally in anguish, all of them round and round, and weary, along the first cornice, purging away the mists of the world. If good they ask for us always there, what can here be said and done for them by those who have a good root for their will? Truly we ought to aid them to wash away the marks which they bore hence, so that pure and light they may go forth unto the starry wheels.
“Ah! so may justice and pity unburden you speedily that ye may be able to move the wing, which according to your desire may lift you, show on which hand is the shortest way towards the stair; and if there is more than one pass, point out to us that which least steeply slopes; for this man who comes with me, because of the load of the flesh of Adam wherewith he is clothed, is chary against his will of mounting up.” It was not manifest from whom came the words which they returned to these that he whom I was following had spoken, but it was said, “To the right hand along the bank come ye with us, and ye will find the pass possible for a living person to ascend. And if I were not hindered by the stone which tames my proud neck, wherefore I needs must carry my face low, I would look at that one who is still alive and is not named, to see if I know him, and to make him pitiful of this burden. I was Italian, and born of a great Tuscan; Guglielmo Aldobrandesco was my father: I know not if his name was ever with you.1 The ancient blood and the gallant deeds of my ancestors made me so arrogant that, not thinking on the common mother, I held every man in scorn to such extreme that I died therefor, as the Sienese know, and every child in Campagnatico knows it. I am Omberto: and not only unto me Pride doth harm, for all my kinsfolk bath she dragged with her into calamity; and here must I heap this weight on her account till God be satisfied, — here among the dead, since I did it not among the living.”
1 The Aldobrandeschi were the counts of Santa Fiore (see Canto VI.) in the Sienese Maremma. Little is known of them, but that they were in constant feud with Siena. The one who speaks was murdered in his own stronghold of Campagnatico, in 1259.
Listening, I bent down my face; and one of them, not he who was speaking, twisted himself under the weight that hampers him; and he saw me, and recognized me and called out, keeping his eyes with effort fixed on me, who was going along all stooping with him.1 “Oh,” said I to him, “art thou not Oderisi, the honor of Gubbio, and the honor of that art which in Paris is called illumination?” “Brother,” said he, “more smiling are the leaves that Franco of Bologna pencils; the honor is now all his, and mine in part.2 Truly I should not have been so courteous while I lived, because of the great desire of excelling whereon my heart was intent. Of such pride here is paid the fee; and yet I should not be here, were it not that, still having power to sin, I turned me unto God. Oh vainglory of human powers! how little lasts the green upon the top, if it be not followed by dull ages.3 Cimabue thought to hold the field in painting, and now Giotto has the cry, so that the fame of him is obscured. In like manner one Guido hath taken from the other the glory of the language; and he perhaps is born who shall drive both one and the other from the nest.4 Worldly renown is naught but a breath of wind, which now comes hence and now comes thence, and changes name because it changes quarter. What more fame shalt thou have, if thou strippest old flesh from thee, than if thou hadst died ere thou hadst left the pap and the chink,5 before a thousand years have passed? — which is a shorter space compared to the eternal than a movement of the eyelids to the circle that is slowest turned in Heaven. With him who takes so little of the road in front of me, all Tuscany resounded, and now he scarce is lisped of in Siena, where he was lord when the Florentine rage was destroyed,6 which at that time was proud, as now it is prostitute. Your reputation is color of grass that comes and goes, and he7 discolors it through whom it came up fresh from the earth.” And I to him, “Thy true speech brings good humility to my heart, and thou allayest a great swelling in me; but who is he of whom thou now wast speaking?” “He is,” he answered, “Provinzan Salvani;8 and he is here, because he was presumptuous in bringing all Siena to his hands. He has gone thus — and he goes without repose — ever since he died: such money doth he pay in satisfaction, who is on earth too daring.” And I, “If that spirit who awaits the verge of life ere he repents abides there below, and unless good prayer further him ascends not hither, ere as much time pass us he lived, how has this coining been granted unto him?” “When he was living most renowned,” said he, “laying aside all shame, of his own accord he planted himself in the Campo of Siena,9 and there, to draw his friend from the punishment he was enduring in the prison of Charles, brought himself to tremble in every vein. More I will not say, and I know that I speak darkly; but little time will pass, before thy neighbors will so act that thou wilt he able to gloss it.10 This deed released him from those limits.”11
1 This stooping is the symbol of Dante’s consciousness of pride as his own besetting sin.
2 Oderisi of Gubbio and Franco of Bologna were both eminent in the art called miniare in Italian, enluminer in French.
3 Ages in which no progress is made.
4 The first Guido is doubtless Guido Guinicelli, whom Dante calls (see Canto XXVI.) his master; the other probably Dante’s friend, Guido Cavalcanti.
5 Dante’s words are pappo and dindi, childish terms for “bread” and “money.”
6 The mad Florentine people were utterly cast down in 1260, at the battle of Montaperti.
7 The sun.
8 Provinzano Salvani was one of the chief supporters of the Ghibelline cause in Tuscany. He was a man of great qualities and capacity, but proud and presumptuous. Defeated and taken prisoner at the battle of Colle, in 1269, he was beheaded.
9 The Campo of Siena is her chief public square and marketplace, set round with palaces. The friend of Provinzano is said by the old commentators to have fought for Conradin against Charles of Anjou, and, being taken captive, to have been condemned to death. His ransom was fixed at ten thousand florins. Provinzano, not being able to pay this sum from his own means, took his seat in the Campo and humiliated himself to beg of the passers-by.
10 The meaning of the dark words seems to be: Exile and poverty will compel thee to beg, and begging to tremble in every vein.
11 This deed of humility and charity released him from the necessity of tarrying outside the gate of Purgatory.