Dante questions Cacciaguida as to his fortunes. — Cacciaguida replies, foretelling the exile of Dante, and the renown of his Poem.
As he who still makes fathers chary toward their sons1 came to Clymene, to ascertain concerning that which he had heard against himself; such was I, and such was I perceived to be both by Beatrice, and by the holy lamp which first for my sake had changed its station. Whereon my Lady said to me, “Send forth the flame of thy desire so that it may issue sealed well by the internal stamp; not in order that our knowledge may increase through thy speech, but that thou accustom thyself to tell thy thirst, so that one may give thee drink.”
1 Phaethon, son of Clymene by Apollo, having been told that Apollo was not his father, went to his mother to ascertain the truth.
“O dear plant of me, who so upliftest thyself that, even as earthly minds see that two obtuse angles are not contained in a triangle, so thou, gazing upon the point to which all times are present, seest contingent things, ere in themselves they are; while I was conjoined with Virgil up over the mountain which cures the souls, and while descending in the world of the dead, grave words were said to me of my future life; although I feel myself truly four-square against the blows of chance. Wherefore my wish would be content by hearing what sort of fortune is drawing near me; for arrow foreseen comes more slack.” Thus said I unto that same light which before had spoken to me, and as Beatrice willed was my wish confessed.
Not with ambiguous terms in which the foolish folk erst were entangled,1 ere yet the Lamb of God which taketh away sins had been slain, but with clear words and with distinct speech that paternal love, hid and apparent by his own proper smile, made answer: “Contingency, which extends not outside the volume of your matter, is all depicted in the eternal aspect. Therefrom, however, it takes not necessity, more than from the eye in which it is mirrored does a ship which descends with the downward current. Thence, even as sweet harmony comes to the ear from an organ, comes to my sight the time that is preparing for thee. As Hippolytus departed from Athens, by reason of his pitiless and perfidious stepmother, so out from Florence thou must needs depart. This is willed, this is already sought for, and soon it shall be brought to pass, by him I who designs it there where every day Christ is bought and sold. The blame will follow the injured party, in outcry, as it is wont; but the vengeance will be testimony to the truth which dispenses it. Thou shalt leave everything beloved most dearly; and this is the arrow which the bow of exile first shoots. Thou shalt prove how the bread of others savors of salt, and how the descending and the mounting of another’s stairs is a hard path. And that which will heaviest weigh upon thy shoulders will be the evil and foolish company2 with which into this valley thou shalt fall; which all ungrateful, all senseless, and impious will turn against thee; but short while after, it, not thou, shall have the forehead red therefor. Of its bestiality, its own procedure will give the proof; so that it will be seemly for thee to have made thyself a party by thyself.
1 Not with riddles such as the oracles gave out before they fell silent at the coming of Christ.
2 Boniface VIII.
3 The other Florentine exiles of the party of the Whites.
“Thy first refuge and first inn shall be the courtesy of the great Lombard,1 who upon the ladder bears the holy bird, who will turn such benign regard on thee that, in doing and in asking, between you two, that will be first, which between others is the slowest. With him shalt thou see one,2 who was so impressed, at his birth, by this strong star, that his deeds will be notable. Not yet are the people aware of him, because of his young age; for only nine years have these wheels revolved around him. But ere the Gascon cheat the lofty Henry3 some sparkles of his virtue shall appear, in caring not for silver nor for toils. His magnificences shall hereafter be so known, that his enemies shall not be able to keep their tongues mute about them. Await thou for him, and for his benefits; by him shall many people be transformed, rich and mendicant changing condition. And thou shalt bear hence written of him in thy mind, but thou shalt not tell it;” and he said things incredible to those who shall be present. Then he added, “Son, these are the glosses on what was said to thee; behold the ambushes which are bidden behind few revolutions. Yet would I not that thou bate thy neighbors, because thy life hath a future far beyond the punishment of their perfidies.”
[1 Bartolommeo della Scala, lord of Verona, whose armorial bearings were the imperial eagle upon a ladder (scala).
2 Can Grande della Scala, the youngest brother of Bartolommeo, and finally his successor as lord of Verona.
3 Before Pope Clement V., under whom the Papal seat was established at Avignon, shall deceive the Emperor, Henry VIL, by professions of support, while secretly promoting opposition to his expedition to Italy in 1310.
When by its silence that holy soul showed it had finished putting the woof into that web which I had given it warped, I began, as he who, in doubt, longs for counsel from a person who sees, and uprightly wills, and loves: “I see well, my Father, how the time spurs on toward me to give me such a blow as is heaviest to him who most deserts himself; wherefore it is good that I arm me with foresight, so that if the place most dear be taken from me, I should not lose the others by my songs. Down through the world of endless bitterness, and over the mountain from whose fair summit the eyes of my Lady have lifted me, and afterward through the heavens from light to light, I have learned that which, if I repeat it, shall be to many a savor keenly sour; and if I am a timid friend to the truth I fear to lose life among those who will call this time the olden.” The light, in which my treasure which I had found there was smiling, first became flashing as a mirror of gold in the sunbeam; then it replied, “A conscience dark, either with its own or with another’s shame, will indeed feel thy speech as harsh; but nevertheless, all falsehood laid aside, make thy whole vision manifest, and let the scratching be even where the itch is; for if at the first taste thy voice shall be molestful, afterwards, when it shall be digested, it will leave vital nourishment. This cry of thine shall do as the wind, which heaviest strikes the loftiest summits; and that will be no little argument of honor. Therefore to thee have been shown within these wheels, upon the mountain, and in the woeful valley, only the souls which are known of fame. For the mind of him who bears rests not, nor confirms its faith, through an example which has its root unknown and hidden, nor by other argument which is not apparent.”