[1] Apollo and Diana, the divinities of Sun and Moon.
[2] “Glory to God in the highest.”
CANTO XXI.
Fifth Ledge: the Avaricious.—Statius.—Cause of the trembling of the Mountain.—Statius does honor to Virgil.
The natural thirst,[1] which is never satisfied save with the water[2] whereof the poor woman of Samaria besought the grace, was tormenting me, and haste was goading me along the encumbered way behind my Leader, and I was grieving at the just vengeance; and lo,—as Luke writes for us that Christ, now risen forth from the sepulchral cave, appeared to the two who were on the way,—a shade appeared to us; and it was coming behind us looking at the crowd that lay at its feet: nor did we perceive it, so it spoke first saying, “My Brothers, may God give you peace!” We turned suddenly, and Virgil gave back to it the greeting which answers to that;[3] then he began: “In the assembly of the blest may the true court, which relegates me into eternal exile, place thee in peace.” “How,” said it,—and meanwhile we went on steadily,—“if ye are shades that God deigns not on high, who hath guided you so far along his stairs?” And my Teacher, “If thou regardest the marks which this one bears, and which the Angel traces, thou wilt clearly see it behoves that with the good he reign. But, because she who spinneth day and night[4] had not for him yet drawn the distaff off, which Clotho loads for each one and compacts, his soul, which is thy sister and mine, coming upwards could not come alone, because it sees not after our fashion. Wherefore I was drawn from out the ample throat of Hell to show him, and I shall show him so far on as my teaching can lead him. But tell us, if thou knowest, why just now the mountain gave such shocks, and why all seemed to cry together, even down to its moist feet.” Thus asking he shot for me through the needle’s eye of my desire, so that only with the hope my thirst became less craving.
[1] “According to that buoyant and immortal sentence with which Aristotle begins his Metaphysics, ‘All mankind naturally desire knowledge.’” Matthew Arnold, God and the Bible, cli. iv. This sentence of Aristotle is cited by Dante in the first chapter of the Convito.
[2] The living water of truth.
[3] To the salutation, “Peace be with you,” the due answer is, “And with thy spirit.”
[4] Lachesis.
The shade began: “There is nothing which without order the religion of the mountain can feel, or which can be outside its wont.[1] Free is this place from every alteration; of that which heaven receives from itself within itself there may be effect here, but of naught else;[2] because nor rain, nor hail, nor snow, nor dew, nor frost, falls higher up than the little stairway of the three short steps; clouds appear not, or thick or thin; nor lightning, nor the daughter of Thaumas[3] who yonder often changes her quarter; dry vapor[4] rises not farther up than the top of the three steps of which I spoke, where the vicar of Peter has his feet. It trembles perhaps lower down little or much; but up here it never trembles because of wind that is hidden, I know not how, in the earth. It trembles here when some soul feels itself pure, so that it rises or moves to ascend; and such a cry seconds it. Of the purity the will alone makes proof, which surprises the soul, wholly free to change its company, and helps it with the will. The soul wills at first indeed, but the inclination,—which, contrary to the will, Divine Justice sets to the torment, as erst to the sin,—allows it not.[5] And I who have lain in this pain five hundred years and more, only just now felt a free volition for a better seat. Wherefore thou didst feel the earthquake, and hear the pious spirits through the Mountain giving praise to that Lord, who—may He speed them upward soon!”