Third Ledge the Wrathful. — Issue from the Smoke. — Vision of examples of Anger. — Ascent to the Fourth Ledge, where Sloth is purged. — Second Nightfall. — Virgil explains how Love is the root of Virtue and of Sin.
Recall to mind, reader, if ever on the alps a cloud closed round thee, through which thou couldst not see otherwise than the mole through its skin, how, when the humid and dense vapors begin to dissipate, the ball of the sun enters feebly through them: and thy imagination will easily come to see, how at first I saw again the sun, which was already at its setting. So, matching mine to the trusty steps of my Master, I issued forth from such a cloud to rays already dead on the low shores.
O power imaginative, that dost sometimes so steal us from outward things that a man heeds it not, although around him a thousand trumpets sound, who moveth thee if the sense afford thee naught? A light, that in the heavens is formed, moveth thee by itself, or by a will that downward guides it?
1 If the imagination is not stirred by some object of sense, it is moved by the influence of the stars, or directly by the Divine will.
In my imagination appeared the impress of the impiety of her1 who changed her form into the bird that most delights in singing. And here was my mind so shut up within itself that from without came nothing which then might he received by it. Then rained down within my high fantasy, one crucified,2 scornful and fierce in his look, and thus was dying. Around him were the great Ahasuerus, Esther his wife, and the just Mordecai, who was in speech and action so blameless. And when this imagination burst of itself, like a bubble for which the water fails, beneath which it was made, there rose in my vision a maiden,3 weeping bitterly, and she was saying, “O queen, wherefore through anger hast thou willed to be naught? Thou hast killed thyself in order not to lose Lavinia: now thou hast lost me: I am she who mourns, mother, at thine, before another’s ruin.
1 Progne or Philomela, according to one or the other version of the tragic myth, was changed into the nightingale, after her anger had led her to take cruel vengeance on Tereus.
2 Haman, who, according to the English version, was hanged, but according to the Vulgate, was crucified — Esther, vii.
3 Lavinia, whose mother, Amata, killed herself in a rage at hearing premature report of the death of Turnus, to whom she desired that Lavinia should be married. — Aeneid, xii. 595-607.
As sleep is broken, when of a sudden the new light strikes the closed eyes, and, broken, quivers ere it wholly dies, so my imagining fell down, soon as a light, greater by far than that to which we are accustomed, struck my face. I turned me to see where I was, when a voice said, “Here is the ascent;” which from every other object of attention removed me, and made my will so eager to behold who it was that was, speaking that it never rests till it is face to face. But, as before the sun which weighs down our sight, and by excess veils its own shape, so here my power failed. “This is a divine spirit who directs us, without our asking, on the way to go up, and with his own light conceals himself. He does for us as a man doth for himself; for he who sees the need and waits for asking, malignly sets himself already to denial. Now let us grant our feet to such an invitation; let us hasten to ascend ere it grows dark, for after, it would not be possible until the day returns.” Thus said my Guide; and I and he turned our steps to a stairway. And soon as I was on the first step, near use I felt a motion as of wings, and a fanning on my face,1 and I heard said, “Beati pacifici,’2 who are without ill anger.”
1 By which the angel removes the third P from Dante’s brow.
2 “Blessed are the peacemakers.”
Now were the last sunbeams on which the night follows so lifted above us, that the stars were appearing on many sides. “O my virtue, why dost thou so melt away?” to myself I said, for I felt the power of my legs put in truce. We had come where the stair no farther ascends, and we were stayed fast even as a ship that arrives at the shore. And I listened a little, if I might hear anything in the new circle. Then I turned to my Master, and said, “My sweet Father, say what offence is purged here in the circle where we are: if the feet are stopped, let not thy discourse stop.” And he to me, “The love of good, less than it should have been, is here restored;1 here is plied again the ill-slackened oar. But that thou mayst still more clearly understand, turn thy mind to me, and thou shalt gather some good fruit from our delay.
1 It is the round on which the sin of acedie, sloth, is purged away.
“Neither Creator nor creature,” began he, “son, ever was without love, either natural, or of the mind,1 and this thou knowest. The natural is always without error; but the other may err either through an evil object, or through too much or through too little vigor. While love is directed on the primal goods, and on the second moderates itself, it cannot be the cause of ill delight. But when it is bent to evil,2 or runs to good with more zeal, or with less, than it ought, against the Creator works his own creature. Hence thou canst comprehend that love needs must be the seed in you of every virtue, and of every action that deserves punishment.
1 Either native in the soul, as the love of God, or determined by the choice, through free will, of some object of desire in the mind.
2 A wrong object of desire.
“Now since love can never bend its sight from the welfare of its subject,1 all things are safe from hatred of themselves; and since no being can be conceived of divided from the First,2 and standing by itself, from hating Him3 every affection is cut off. It follows, if, distinguishing, I rightly judge, that the evil which is loved is that of one s neighbor; and in three modes is this love born within your clay. There is he who hopes to excel through the abasement of his neighbor, and only longs that from his greatness he may be brought low.4 There is he who fears loss of power, favor, honor, fame, because another rises; whereat he is so saddened that he loves the opposite.5 And there is he who seems so outraged by injury that it makes him gluttonous of vengeance, and such a one must needs coin evil for others.6 This triform love is lamented down below.7
1 To however wrong an object love may be directed, the person always believes it to be for his own good.
2The source of being.
3 God, the First Cause.
4 This is the nature of Pride.
5 Envy.
6 Anger.
7 In the three lower rounds of Purgatory.
“Now I would that thou hear of the other, — that which runs to the good in faulty measure. Every one confusedly apprehends a good1 in which the mind may be at rest, and which it desires; wherefore every one strives to attain it. If the love be slack that draws you to see this, or to acquire it, this cornice, after just repentance, torments you therefor. Another good there is,2 which doth not make man happy, is not happiness, is not the good essence, the root of every good fruit. The love which abandons itself too much to this3 is lamented above us in three circles, but how it is reckoned tripartite, I am silent, in order that thou seek it for thyself.”
1 The supreme Good.
2 Sensual enjoyment.
2 Resulting in the sins of avarice, gluttony, and lust.