the purifying stair to Heaven’s gate, 82
we under papal ban wait thirty more.
That time can be reduced by living souls.
I beg you please when back on Earth again, 85
tell my daughter Constance, Aragon’s queen,
mother of kings, to pray well for my soul.
Despite Pope Clement I am not in Hell.” 88
4: The First Ascent
1 Pleasure or pain can fill us up so full
they dominate all ways we think and act,
a fact disproving Plato’s rule that souls
4 are triple – vegetable, animal
and logical. Words can so occupy
our soul, we do not notice passing time.
7 Manfred so pleased me that I did not see
the sun rise to its fiftieth degree.
Mid-morning passed before our company
10 aroused me, crying, “Here’s the place you need!”
I saw in the cliff face a gap as wide
as in a vineyard hedge that peasants block
13 with a forkful of thorn, yet wide enough
to admit a man into a deep crack
sloping steeply up. My guide, stepping in,
16 started climbing on all fours, rock beneath,
beside and above his back. I followed,
bidding the slowly moving flock goodbye.
19 You may rush down Noli, up San Leo,
mount Bismantova’s summit on your feet.
Urgent desire drove fast my hands and knees.
I scrambled after Virgil, did not stop 22
until we reached the precipice’s top
and stood upon the edge of a broad ledge
of that bare mountainside. “Master,” said I, 25
“where now?” “Upward,” said he, “and do not halt
before you meet a wiser guide than me.”
He turned to lead me up a steeper slope 28
than we had tackled in the creviced rock.
Exhausted I cried, “Pause kind father, please!
You’re leaving me behind – I need to rest!” 31
“My son,” said he, pointing not far ahead,
“drag yourself first up there.” I forced my feet
to follow him up to a level ground, 34
a terrace curving round the mighty hill,
and sat facing the way we came (often
the finest view) due east. First I gazed down, 37
feasting eyes on the sea below, then raised
them to the skies, amazed to see the sun
shining upon my left. “How can this be?” 40
I said. “This island mountain,” he replied,
“is central to the southern hemisphere,
just as the land where Christ was crucified 43
is central to the north. Halfway between
lies the equator. When the setting sun
crossed that, it left the north in night and brought 46
light here, to the western point, which is not
upon your right, but on the other hand.
49 Do you understand?” I did, then asked him,
“Have we much more to climb? The height ahead
is out of sight.” He said, “The hardest part
52 of leaving sin is always at the start.
The climb is easier as you go up.
Near the top you will feel climbing is like
55 floating downstream in a boat.” A voice said,
“You’ll sit down pretty often before that.”
We turned and saw a rock within whose shade
58 folk squatted, looking totally fatigued.
The speaker hugged his knees, head sunk between.
I told my guide, “That is Belacqua, sir –
61 a Florentine well-known for being slow.”
Belacqua raised an eye above his thigh
and grunted, “Busybody, up you go
64 now you know why the sun shines on your left.”
Smiling a bit at that I said to him,
“You need not grumble friend. You’re safe from Hell
67 but why sit here? What are you waiting for?
Have you not shaken off your laziness?”
“Brother,” he groaned, “I cannot go up yet,
70 I died too soon to properly confess
my life of sinful sloth before my death.
The angel-warden of the higher gate
73 cannot admit me up to cleansing pain
until I’ve squatted here for sixty years –
the years before I gave my soul to God.
No living souls will pray to lessen these 76
and my despair. O how I envy you!”
Virgil, climbing ahead, called back to
