weeping, appeared to say, "I can no more."



CANTO XI. First Ledge: the Proud.--Prayer.--Omberto
Aldobrandeschi.--Oderisi d' Agubbio.--Provinzan Salvani.


"O our Father who art in Heaven, not circumscribed, but through
the greater love which to the first effects on high Thou hast,[1]
praised be Thy name and Thy power by every creature, even as it
is befitting to render thanks to Thy sweet effluence. May the
peace of Thy Kingdom come towards us, for we to it cannot of
ourselves, if it come not, with all our striving. As of their
will Thine angels, singing Hosanna, make sacrifice to Thee, so
may men make of theirs. Give us this day the daily manna, without
which through this rough desert he backward goes, who toils most
to go on. And as we pardon every one for the wrong that we have
suffered, even do Thou, benignant, pardon and regard not our
desert. Our virtue which is easily overcome put not to proof with
the old adversary, but deliver from him who so spurs it. This
last prayer, dear Lord, truly is not made for ourselves, for it
is not needful, but for those who behind us have remained."

[1] Not circumscribed by Heaven, but having Thy seat there
because of the love Thou bearest to the first effects --the
angels, and the heavens--of Thyself the First Cause.


Thus praying for themselves and us good speed, those souls were
going under the weight, like that of which one sometimes dreams,
unequally in anguish, all of them round and round, and weary,
along the first cornice, purging away the mists of the world. If
good they ask for us always there, what can here be said and done
for them by those who have a good root for their will? Truly we
ought to aid them to wash away the marks which they bore hence,
so that pure and light they may go forth unto the starry wheels.

"Ah! so may justice and pity unburden you speedily that ye may be
able to move the wing, which according to your desire may lift
you, show on which hand is the shortest way towards the stair;
and if there is more than one pass, point out to us that which
least steeply slopes; for this man who comes with me, because of
the load of the flesh of Adam wherewith he is clothed, is chary
against his will of mounting up." It was not manifest from whom
came the words which they returned to these that he whom I was
following had spoken, but it was said, "To the right hand along
the bank come ye with us, and ye will find the pass possible for
a living person to ascend. And if I were not hindered by the
stone which tames my proud neck, wherefore I needs must carry my
face low, I would look at that one who is still alive and is not
named, to see if I know him, and to make him pitiful of this
burden. I was Italian, and born of a great Tuscan; Guglielmo
Aldobrandesco was my father: I know not if his name was ever with
you.[1] The ancient blood and the gallant deeds of my ancestors
made me so arrogant that, not thinking on the common mother, I
held every man in scorn to such extreme that I died therefor, as
the Sienese know, and every child in Campagnatico knows it. I am
Omberto: and not only unto me Pride doth harm, for all my
kinsfolk bath she dragged with her into calamity; and here must I
heap this weight on her account till God be satisfied,--here
among the dead, since I did it not among the living."

[1] The Aldobrandeschi were the counts of Santa Fiore (see Canto
VI.) in the Sienese Maremma. Little is known of them, but that
they were in constant feud with Siena. The one who speaks was
murdered in his own stronghold of Campagnatico, in 1259.


Listening, I bent down my face; and one of them, not he who was
speaking, twisted himself under the weight that hampers him; and
he saw me, and recognized me and called out, keeping his eyes
with effort fixed on me, who was going along all stooping with
him.[1] "Oh," said I to him, "art thou not Oderisi, the honor of
Gubbio, and the honor of that art which in Paris is called
illumination?" "Brother," said he, "more smiling are the leaves
that Franco of Bologna pencils; the honor is now all his, and
mine in part.[2] Truly I should not have been so courteous while
I lived, because of the great desire of excelling whereon my
heart was intent. Of such pride here is paid the fee; and yet I
should not be here, were it not that, still having power to sin,
I turned me unto God. Oh vainglory of human powers! how little
lasts the green upon the top, if it be not followed by dull
ages.[3] Cimabue thought to hold the field in painting, and now
Giotto has the cry, so that the fame of him is obscured. In like
manner one Guido hath taken from the other the glory of the
language; and he perhaps is born who shall drive both one and the
other from the nest.[4] Worldly renown is naught but a breath of
wind, which now comes hence and now comes thence, and changes
name because it changes quarter. What more fame shalt thou have,
if thou strippest old flesh from thee, than if thou hadst died
ere thou hadst left the pap and the chink,[5] before a thousand
years have passed?--which is a shorter space compared to the
eternal than a movement of the eyelids to the circle that is
slowest turned in Heaven. With him who takes so little of the
road in front of me, all Tuscany resounded, and now he scarce is
lisped of in Siena, where he was lord when the Florentine rage
was destroyed,[6] which at that time was proud, as now it is
prostitute. Your reputation is color of grass that comes and
goes, and he[7] discolors it through whom it came up fresh from


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