Purgatory: Cantos 11–15

“O thou Almighty Father, who dost make
The heavens thy dwelling, not in bounds confin’d,
But that with love intenser there thou view’st
Thy primal effluence, hallow’d be thy name:
Join each created being to extol
Thy might, for worthy humblest thanks and praise
Is thy blest Spirit.

“O thou Almighty Father, who dost make
The heavens thy dwelling, not in bounds confin’d,
But that with love intenser there thou view’st
Thy primal effluence, hallow’d be thy name:
Join each created being to extol
Thy might, for worthy humblest thanks and praise
Is thy blest Spirit.

Grant us this day
Our daily manna, without which he roams
Through this rough desert retrograde, who most
Toils to advance his steps.

“Ah! so may mercy-temper’d justice rid
Your burdens speedily, that ye have power
To stretch your wing, which e’en to your desire
Shall lift you, as ye show us on which hand
Toward the ladder leads the shortest way.
And if there be more passages than one,
Instruct us of that easiest to ascend;
For this man who comes with me, and bears yet
The charge of fleshly raiment Adam left him,
Despite his better will but slowly mounts.”

On one part
Him I beheld, above all creatures erst
Created noblest, light’ning fall from heaven:
On th’ other side with bolt celestial pierc’d
Briareus: cumb’ring earth he lay through dint
Of mortal ice-stroke.

Oh! how fall’n,
How abject, Ilion, was thy semblance there!

Thus is th’ acclivity reliev’d, which here
Precipitous from the other circuit falls:
But on each hand the tall cliff presses close.

Thus is th’ acclivity reliev’d, which here
Precipitous from the other circuit falls:
But on each hand the tall cliff presses close.

On the’ other side me were the spirits, their cheeks
Bathing devout with penitential tears,
That through the dread impalement forc’d a way.

Though Sapia nam’d
In sapience I excell’d not, gladder far
Of others’ hurt, than of the good befell me.

Upon my verge of life I wish’d for peace
With God; nor repentance had supplied
What I did lack of duty, were it not
The hermit Piero, touch’d with charity,
In his devout orisons thought on me.

Or else distortion of misguided wills,
That custom goads to evil: whence in those,
The dwellers in that miserable vale,
Nature is so transform’d, it seems as they
Had shar’d of Circe’s feeding.

For there, by how much more they call it ours,
So much propriety of each in good
Increases more, and heighten’d charity
Wraps that fair cloister in a brighter flame.

The sempiternal effluence streams abroad
Spreading, wherever charity extends.

“Beloved father! so thou deign,” said I,
“To listen, I will tell thee what appear’d
Before me, when so fail’d my sinking steps.”