His curiosity is satisfied in an unexpected way. "The natural thirst which never is sated, save with the water whereof the poor Samaritan woman asked the grace, was burning within me—and lo, even as Luke writes to us that Christ appeared to the two who were on the way, already risen from the mouth of the tomb, a shade appeared to us saying: 'My brothers God give you peace.' Quickly we turned us and Virgil gave back to him the sign that is fitting thereto. Then began, 'May the true court that binds me in eternal exile, bring thee peace to the council of the blest.' 'How,' said he, and meantime we met sturdily, 'If ye are shades that God deigns not above, who hath escorted you so far by his stairs'? And my Teacher: 'If thou lookest at the marks which this man bears and which the angel outlines clearly wilt thou see 'tis meet he reign with the good.... Wherefore I was brought from Hell's wide jaws to guide him and I will guide him onward, so far as my school can lead him. But tell us, if thou knowest, why the mount gave before such quakings and wherefore all seemed to shout with one voice down to its soft base.'"
It was the very question Dante had been yearning to utter.
"Thus, by asking did he thread the very needle of my desire and with the pope alone my thirst was made less fasting."
The spirit, Statius by name, who has just obtained his release from Purgatorial confinement to ascend to Heaven, states that the earthquake was not due to natural causes, such as strong dry vapors producing wind, but was caused by spiritual elements operative upon a soul's completing the penance and term assigned.
"It quakes here when some soul feeleth herself cleansed, so that she may rise up or set forth, to mount on high, and such a shout follows her. Of the cleansing the will alone gives proof, which fills the soul, all free to change her cloister, and avails her to will.... And I who have lain under this torment five hundred years and more, only now felt free will for a better threshold. Therefore didst thou feel the earthquake and hear the pious spirits about the mount give praises to the Lord."
This Statius was a Roman poet who died in the year 96. His term in Purgatory therefore has lasted a little more than eleven centuries. The next longest period mentioned by Dante is that of Duke Hugh Capet who has been in Purgatory over 350 years with his purification still incomplete. Statius by Dante's poetic invention is represented first as saved through the influence of Virgil's poems and then is shown to be a Christian, having been led to embrace Christianity both from the heroic example of the martyrs and from his meditation on Virgil's prophecy of the Cumæan Sibyl interpreted in the Middle Ages to refer to Christ. In the Divina Commedia Statius pays a glowing tribute to the Æneid and its author, wholly ignorant that he is addressing Virgil himself. "Of the Æneid I speak which was a mother to me and was to me a nurse in poesy ... and to have lived yonder when Virgil was alive, I would consent to one sun more than I need perform." Dante is all aquiver to surprise Statius with the information that Virgil is at hand, "but Virgil turned to me with a look that silently said, 'be silent.'"
"But the power which wills
Bears not supreme control: laughter and tears
Follow so closely on the passion prompts them,
They wait not for the motions of the will
In nature most sincere. I did but smile,
As one who winks; and thereupon the shade
Broke off, and peer'd into mine eyes, where best
Our looks interpret. 'So to good event
Mayst thou conduct such great emprize,' he cried,
'Say, why across thy visage beam'd, but now,
The lightning of a smile.' On either part
Now am I straiten'd; one conjures me speak,
The other to silence binds me; whence a sigh
I utter, and the sigh is heard. 'Speak on,'
The teacher cried 'and do not fear to speak:
But tell him what so earnestly he asks.'
Whereon I thus: 'Perchance, O ancient spirit
Thou marvel'st at my smiling. There is room
For yet more wonder. He, who guides my ken
On high, he is that Mantuan, led by whom
Thou didst presume of men and gods to sing.
If other cause thou deem'dst for which I smiled,
Leave it as not the true one: and believe
Those words, thou spakest of him, indeed the cause.'
Now down he bent to embrace my teacher's feet;
But he forbade him: 'Brother! do it not:
Thou art a shadow, and behold'st a shade.'
He, rising, answer'd thus: 'Now hast thou proved
The force and ardor of the love I bear thee,
When I forget we are but things of air,
And, as a substance, treat an empty shade.'"
(XXI, 106.)
On the sixth terrace Dante with five P's removed, accompanied by Virgil sees the souls of those who sinned by gluttony. They are an emaciated crowd obliged to pass and repass before a fruit-laden tree bedewed with clear water from a fountain, without being able to satisfy their hunger or quench their thirst. Voices from this tree proclaim examples of temperance; voices from another tree equally tantalizing, declare examples of gluttony.