saying with such deep sighs that the words were hardly
understood. "O elect of God, whose sufferings both justice and
hope make less hard, direct us toward the high ascents." "If ye
come secure from the lying down, and wish to find the speediest
way, let your right hands always be outside." So prayed the Poet,
and so a little in front was replied to us by them; wherefore I,
in his speaking, marked the hidden one;[3] and then turned my
eyes to my Lord, whereon he granted me, with cheerful sign, that
which the look of my desire was asking for. Then when I could do
with myself according to my will, I drew me above that creature
whose words had first made me note him, saying, "Spirit in whom
weeping matures that without which no one can turn to God,
suspend a little for me thy greater care. Tell me who thou wast;
and why ye have your backs turned upward; and if thou wishest
that I obtain aught for thee there whence I alive set forth." And
he to me, "Thy heaven turns to itself our hinder parts thou shalt
know; but first, scias quod ego fui successor Petri.[4] Between
Sestri and Chiaveri[5] descends a beautiful stream,[6] and of its
name the title of my race makes its top.[7] One month and little
more I proved how the great mantle weighs on him who guards it
from the mire, so that all other burdens seem a feather. My
conversion, ah me! was tardy; but when I had become the Roman
Shepherd, then I found out the lying life. I saw that there the
heart was not at rest; nor was it possible to, mount higher in
that life; wherefore the love of this was kindled in me. Up to
that time a wretched soul and parted from God had I been,
avaricious of everything; now, as thou seest, I am punished for
it here. That which avarice doth is displayed here in the
purgation of these converted souls, and the Mountain has no more
bitter penalty.[8] Even as our eye, fixed upon earthly things,
was not lifted on high, so justice here to earth has depressed
it. As avarice, in which labor is lost, quenched our love for
every good, so justice here holds us close, bound and captive in
feet and hands; and, so long as it shall be the pleasure of the
just Lord, so long shall we stay immovable and outstretched."

[1] The level of the fifth round.

[2] "My soul cleaveth to the dust."-- Psalm cxix. 25.

[3] The face of the speaker, turned to the ground, was concealed.

[4] "Know that I was a successor of Peter." This was the Pope
Adrian V., Ottobono de' Fieschi, who died in 1276, having been
Pope for thirty-eight days.

[5] Little towns on the Genoese sea-coast.

[6] The Lavagna, from which stream the Fieschi derived their
title of Counts of Lavagna.

[7] Its chief boast.

[8] Others may be greater, but none more humiliating.


I had knelt down and wished to speak; but when I began, and he
became aware, only by listening, of my reverence, "What cause,"
said he, "hath bent thee thus downward?" And I to him, "Because
of your dignity my conscience stung me for standing." "Straighten
thy legs, and lift thee up, brother," he replied; "err not,
fellow servant of one power am I with thee and with the rest.[1]
If ever thou hast understood that holy gospel sound which says
neque nubent,[2] thou mayst well see why I speak thus. Now go thy
way. I will not that thou longer stop; for thy stay hinders my
weeping, with which I ripen that which thou hast said. A
grandchild I have on earth who is named Alagia,[3] good in
herself, if only our house make her not wicked by example; and
she alone remains to me yonder."[4]

[1] And I fell at His feet to worship him. And He said unto me,
See thou do it not: I am thy fellow servant."--Revelation xix.
10.

[2] They neither marry."--Matthew, xxii. 80. The distinctions of
earths do not exist in the spiritual world.

[3] Alagia was the wife of the Marquis Moroello Malaspina. See
the close of Canto VIII. Dante had probably seen her in 1306,
when he was a guest of the house, in the Lunigiana.

[4] Not that she was his only living relative, but the only one
whose prayers, coming from a good heart, would avail him.



CANTO XX. Fifth Ledge: the Avaricious.--The Spirits celebrate
examples of Poverty and Bounty.--Hugh Capet.--His discourse on
his descendants.--Trembling of the Mountain.

Against a better will the will fights ill: wherefore against my
own pleasure, in order to please him, I drew from the water the
sponge not full.

I moved on, and my Leader moved on through the space vacant only
alongside of the rock, as upon a wall one goes close to the
battlements. For on the other side the people, that through their
eyes are pouring drop by drop the evil that possesses all the
world, approach too near the edge.[1]



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