Sam Reviews: "Purgatorio" (The Divine Comedy #2) by Dante Alighieri

"Insane is he who hopeth that our reason
"Can traverse the illimitable way,
"Which the one Substance in three Persons follows!
"Mortals, remain contented at the 'Quia;' *
"For if ye had been able to see all,
"No need there were for Mary to give birth;
"And ye have seen desiring without fruit,
"Those whose desire would have been quieted,
"Which evermore is given them for a grief."

* - from what I could find on Google, "Quia" is an adjective (not comparable) (Lutheranism) Relating to the belief that the Book of Concord is authoritative because it faithfully describes the Christian faith as revealed in the Bible.

"After I had my body lacerated
"By these two mortal stabs, I gave myself
"Weeping to Him, who willingly doth pardon.
"Horrible my iniquities had been;
"But Infinite Goodness hath such ample arms,
"That it receives whatever turns to it."

"This mount is such, that ever
"At the beginning down below 'tis tiresom,
"And aye the more one climbs, the less it hurts.
"Therefore, when it shall seem so pleasant to thee,
"That going up shall be to thee as easy
"As going down the current in a boat,
"Then at this pathway's ending thou wilt be;
"There to repose thy panting breath expect;
"No more I answer; and this I know for true."

"Why doth thy mind so occupy itself,
"That thou thy pace dost slacken?
"What matters it to thee what here is whispered?
"Come after me, and let the people talk;
"Stand like a steadfast tower, that never wags
"Its top for all the blowing of the winds;
"For evermore the man in whom is springing
"Thought upon thought, removes from him the mark,
"Because the force of one the other weakens."

"Long since we all were slain by violence,
"And sinners even to the latest hour;
"Then did a light from heaven admonish us,
"So that, being penitent and pardoning, forth
"From life we issued reconciled to God,
"Who with desire to see Him stirs our hearts."

"'Twas he of Este had it done, who held me
"In hatred far beyond what justice willed."

"and for no crime else
"Did I lose heaven, than for not having faith;"

"There dwell I with the little innocents
"Snatched by the teeth of Death, or ever they
'Were from our human sinfulness exempt.
"There dwell I among those who the three saintly
"Virtues did not put on, and without vice
"The others knew and followed all of them."

"'Twas now the hour that turneth back desire
"In those who sail the sea, and melts the heart,
"The day they've said to their sweet friends farewell,
"And the new pilgrim penetrates with love,
"If he doth hear from far away a bell
"That seemeth to deplore the dying day"

"How long in woman lasts the fire of love,
"If eye or touch do not relight it often."

"Do ya not comprehend that we are worms,
"Born to bring forth the angelic butterfly
"That flieth undo judgement without screen?"

"In sooth I had not been so courteous
"While I was living, for the great desire
"Of excellence, on which my heart was bent.
"Here of such pride is paid the forfeiture;
"And yet I should not be here, were it not
"That, having power to sin, I turned to God."

"Covered with sackcloth vile they seemed to me,
"And one sustained the other with his shoulder,
"And all of them were by the bank sustained."

"For all their lids an iron wire transpierces,
"And sews them up, as to a sparhawk wild
"Is done, because he will not quiet."

"through the horrible seam,
"Pressed out the tears so that they bathed their cheeks."

"Small is the offence
"Committed by their being turned with envy."

"As avarice had extinguished our affection
"For every good, whereby was action lost,
"So justice here doth hold us in restraint,
"Bound and imprisoned by the feet and hands;
"And so long as it pleases the just Lord
"Shall we remain immovable and prostrate."

"The while among the verdant leaves mine eyes
"I riveted, as he is wont to do
"Who wastes his life pursuing little birds,"

"Make me not speak while I am marveling,
"For ill speaks he who's full of other longings."

"The water which thou seest springs not from vein
"Restored by vapour that the cold condenses,
"Like to a stream that gains or loses breath;
"But issues from a fountain safe and certain,
"Which by the will of God as much regains
"As it discharges, open on two sides.
"Upon this side with virtue it descends,
"Which takes away all memory of sin;
"On that, of every good deed done restores it."

"The four and twenty Elders, two by two,
"Came on incoronate with flower-de-luce.
"They all of them were singing:  'Blessed thou
"Among the daughters of Adam art, and blessed
"For evermore shall be thy loveliness.'
"After the flowers and other tender grasses
"In front of me upon the other margin
"Were disencumbered of that race elect,
"Even as in heaven star followeth after star,
"There came close after them four animals,
"Incoronate each one with verdant leaf.
"Plumed with six wings was every one of them,
"The plumage full of eyes; the eyes of Argus
"If they were living would be such as these."

"Over her snow-white veil with olive cinct
"Appeared a lady under a green mantle,
"Vested in colour of the living flame.
"And my own spirit, that already now
"So long a time had been, that in her presence
"Trembling with awe it had not stood abashed,
"Without more knowledge having by mine eyes,
"Through occult virtue that from her proceeded
"Of ancient love the mighty influence felt.
"As soon as on my vision smote the power
"Sublime, that had already pierced me through
"Ere from my boyhood I had yet come forth,
"To the left hand I turned with that reliance
"With which the little child runs to his mother,
"When he as fear, or when he is afflicted."

"As to the son the mother seems superb,
"So she appeared to me; for somewhat bitter
"Tasteth the savour of severe compassion."

New Vocab:  Asperges - is a name given to the rite of sprinkling a congregation with holy water.

"My soul was tasting of the food, that while
"It satisfies us makes us hunger for it."

"Of fear and bashfullness
"Henceforward I will have thee strip thyself,
"So that thou speak no more as one who dreams."

"From the most holy water I returned
"Regenerate, in the manner of new trees
"That are renewed with a new foliage,
"Pure and disposed to mount unto the stars."

x

Sam Reviews: "Inferno" (The Divine Comedy #1) by Dante Alighieri

"Because this beast, at which thy criest out,
"Suffers not any one to pass her way,
"But also doth harass him, that she destroys him;
"And has a nature so malign and ruthless,
"That never doth she glut her greedy will,
"And after food is hungrier than before."

"Love moved me, which compelleth me to speak."

"Never were persons in the world so swift
"To work and to escape their woe,
"As I, after such words as these were uttered."

"All hope abandon, ye who enter in!"

"Here all suspicion needs must be absorbed,
"All cowardice must needs be here extinct."

"This miserable mode
"Maintain the melancholy souls of those
"Who lived withouten infamy or praise.
"Commingled are they with that caitiff choir
"Of angels, who have not rebellious been,
"Nor faithful were to God, but were for self.
"The heavens expelled them, not to be less fair;
"Nor them the nethermore abyss receives,
"For glory none the damned would have from them."

"These have no longer any hope of death;
"And this blind life of theirs is so debased,
"They envious are of every other fate.
"No fame of them the world permits to be;
Misericord and Justice both disdain them."

"That they sinned not; and if they merit had,
"'Tis not enough, because they had not baptisim
"Which is the portal of the Faith though holdest;
"And if they were before Christianity,
"In the right manner they adored not God."

"For such defects, and not for guilt,
"Lost are we and are only so far punished,
"That without hope we live on in desire."

"And to a place I come where nothing shines."

"The infernal hurricane that never rests
"Hurtles the spirits onward in its rapine;
"Whirling them round, and smiting, it molests them."

"The carnal malefactors were condemned,
"Who reason subjugate to appetite."

"The first of those, of whom intelligence
"Thou fain wouldst have
"The empress was of many languages,
"To sensual vices she was so abandoned,
"That lustful she made licit in her law,
"To remove the blame to which she had been led."

"There is no greater sorrow,
"Than to be mindful of the happy time
"In misery."

"In the third circle am I of the rain,
"Eternal, maledict, and cold, and heavy;
"Its law and quality are never new."

"For the pernicious sin of gluttony
"I, as thou seest, am battered by this rain."
(Envy, arrogance, and avarice)

"Vengeance upon the proud adultery."

"Thus we descended into the fourth chasm
..."As doth the billow there upon Charybdis
"That breaks itself on that which it encounters,
"So here the folk must dance their roundelay.
"Here I saw people, more than elsewhere, many,
"On one side and the other, with great howls,
"Rolling weights forward by main force of chest."

"Clerks those were who no hair covering
"Have on the head, and Popes and Cardinals,
"In whom doth Avarice practice its excess."

"The undiscerning life which made them sordid
"Now makes them unto all discernment dim."

"For all the gold that is beneath the moon,
"Or ever has been, of these weary souls
"Could never make a single one repose."

"And I, who stood intent upon beholding,
"Saw people mud-besprent in that lagoon,
"All of them naked and with angry look.
"They smote each other not alone with hands,
"But with the head and with the breast and feet,
"Tearing each other piecemeal with their teeth."

"Son, thou now beholdest,
"The souls of those whom anger overcame."


"That was an arrogant person in the world;
"Goodness is none, that decks his memory;
"So likewise here his shade is furious.
"How many are esteemed great kings up there,
"Who here shall be like unto swine in mire,
"Leaving behind them horrible dispraises!"

"Here are the Heresiarchs,
"With their disciples of all sects, and much
More than thou thinkest laden are the tombs.
"Here like together with its like is buried;
And more and less the monuments are heated."

"But because fraud is mans' peculiar vice,
"More it displeases God; and so stand lowest
"The fraudulent, and greater dole assails them.
"All the first circle of the Violent is;
"But since force may be used against three persons,
"In three rounds 'tis divided and constructed."

"A death by violence, and painful wounds,
"Are to our neighbour given; and in his substance
"Ruin, and arson, and injurious levies;
"Whence homicides, and he who smites unjustly,
"Marauders, and freebooters, the first round
"Tormetneth all in companies diverse.

"Man may lay violent hands upon himself
"And his own goods; and therefore in the second
"Round must perforce without avail repent
"Whoever of your world deprives himself,
"Who games, and dissipates his property,
"And weepeth there, where he should jocund be."

"Violence can be done the Deity,
"In heart denying and blaspheming Him,
"And by disdaining Nature and her bounty.
"And for this reason doth the smallest round
"Seal with its signet Sodom and Cahors,
"And who, disdaining God, speaks from the heart."

"Wherefore within the second circle nestle
"Hypocrisy, flattery, and who deals in magic
"Falsification, theft and simony,
"Panders, and barrators, and the like filth."

"The river of blood, within which boiling is
"Whoe'er by violence doth injure others."

"A grand old man stands in the mount erect,
"Who holds his shoulders turned tow'rds Damietta,
"And looks at Rome as if it were his mirror."

"There is a place in Hell called Malebolge,
"Wholly of stone and of an iron colour,
"As is the circle that around it turns.
"...And has distinct in valleys ten its bottom."

"Beheld I horned demons with great scourges,
"Who cruelly were beating them behind.
"Ah me!  how they did make them lift their legs
"At the first blows!  and sooth not any one
"The second waited for, nor for the third."

"I saw upon the sides and on the bottom
"The livid stone with perforations filled,
"All of one size, and every one was round.
"...Out of the mouth of each one there protruded
"The feet of a transgressor, and the legs
"Up to the calf, the rest within remained.
"In all of them the soles were both on fire;
"Wherefore the joints so violently quivered,
"They would have snapped asunder withes and bands."

"And people saw I through the circular valley,
"Silent and weeping, coming at the pace
"Which in this world the Litanies assume.
"As lower down my sight descended on them,
"Wondrously each one seemed to be distorted,
"From chin to the beginning of the chest;
"For tow'rds the reins the countenance was turned,
"And backward it behoved them to advance,
"As to look forward had been taken from them."

"A painted people there below we found,
"Who went about with footsteps very slow,
"Weeping and in their semblance tired and vanquished.'
"They had on mantles with the hoods low down
"Before their eyes, and fashioned of the cut
"That in Cologne they for the monks are made."

"These orange cloaks
"Are made of lead so heavy, that the weights
"Cause in this way their balances to creak."

"Now it behoves thee thus to put off sloth,
"...for sitting upon down,
"Or under quilt, one cometh not to fame,"

"Among this cruel and most dismal throng [of monstrous snakes]
"People were running naked and affrighted.
"Without the hope of hole or heliotrope.
"They had their hands with serpents bound behind them;
"These riveted upon their reins the tail
"And head, and were in front of them entwined."

"For once a man of blood and wrath I saw him.
"And the sinner, who had heard, dissembled not,
"But unto me directed mind and face,
"And with a melancholy shame was painted.
"...'What thou demandest I cannot deny;
"'So low am I put down because I robbed
"'The sacristy of the fair ornaments,
"'And falsely once 'twas laid upon another;"

"We were not made to live like unto brutes
"But for pursuit of virtue and of knowledge."

"For who repents not cannot be absolved,
"Nor can one both repent and will at once,
"Because of the contradiction which consents not."

[the ninth Bolgia] "Between his legs were hanging down his entrails;
"His heart was visible, and the dismal sack
"That maketh excrement of what is eaten."

"All the diseases in one moat were gathered,
"Such was it here, and such a stench came from it
"As from putrescent limbs is wont to issue." [Punishes forgers]

"And when to me their faces they had lifted,
"Their eyes, which first were only moist within,
"Gushed o'er the eyelids, and the frost congealed
"The tears between, and locked them up again."

"Then I beheld a thousand faces, made
"Purple with cold; whence o'er me comes a shudder,
"And evermore will come, at frozen ponds."

"And there he died; and as thou seest me,
"I saw the three fall, one by one, between
"The fifth day and the sixth; whence I betook me,
"Already blind, to groping over each,
"And three days called them after they were dead;
"Then hunger did what sorrow could not do."