They were going on in front, and I solitary behind, and I was
listening to their speech which gave me understanding in poesy.
But soon the pleasant discourse was interrupted by a tree which
we found in the mid road, with apples sweet and pleasant to the
smell. And as a fir-tree tapers upward from branch to branch, so
downwardly did that, I think in order that no one may go up. On
the side on which our way was closed, a clear water fell from
the high rock and spread itself over the heaves above. The two
poets approached the tree, and a voice from within the heaves
cried: "Of this food ye shall have want." Then it said, "Mary
thought more, how the wedding[1] should be honorable and
complete, than of her mouth,[2] which answers now for you; and
the ancient Roman women were content with water for their drink;
and Daniel despised food and gained wisdom. The primal age, which
was beautiful as gold, with hunger made acorns savory, and with
thirst every streamlet nectar. Honey and locusts were the viands
that nourished the Baptist in the desert, wherefore he is in
glory, and so great as by the Gospel is revealed to you.

[1] At Cana.

[2] Than of gratifying her appetite.



CANTO XXIII. Sixth Ledge: the Gluttonous.--Forese
Donati.--Nella.--Rebuke of the women of Florence.

While I was fixing my eyes upon the green leafage, just as he who
wastes his life following the little bird is wont to do, my more
than Father said to me, "Son, come on now, for the time that is
assigned to us must be parcelled out more usefully." I turned my
face, and no less quickly my step after the Sages, who were
speaking so that they made the going of no cost to me; and ho! a
lament and song were heard, "Labia mea, Domine,"[1] in such
fashion that it gave birth to delight and pain. "O sweet Father,
what is that which I hear?" I began, and he, "Shades which go,
perhaps loosing the knot of their debt."

[1] "Lord, open thou my lips." -- Psalm li. 15.


Even as do pilgrims rapt in thought, who, overtaking on the road
unknown folk, turn themselves to them, and stay not; so behind
us, moving more quickly, coming up and passing by, a crowd of
souls, silent and devout, gazed at us. Each was dark and hollow
in the eyes, pallid in the face, and so wasted that the skin took
its shape from the bones. I do not think that Erisichthon[1] was
so dried up to utter rind by hunger, when he had most fear of it.
I said to myself in thought, "Behold the people who lost
Jerusalem, when Mary struck her beak into her son."[2] The
sockets of their eyes seemed rings without gems. Whoso in the
face of men reads OMO,[3] would surely there have recognized the
M. Who would believe that the scent of an apple, begetting
longing, and that of a water, could have such mastery, if he
knew not how?

[1] Punished for sacrilege by Ceres with insatiable hunger, so
that at last he turned his teeth upon himself. See Ovid,
Metam.,viii. 738 sqq.

[2] The story of this wretched woman is told by Josephus in
his narrative of the siege of Jerusalem by Titus: De Bello Jud.,
vi. 3.

[3] Finding in each eye an O, and an M in the lines of the brows
and nose, making the word for "man."


I was now wondering what so famished them, the cause of their
meagreness and of their wretched husk not yet being manifest,
and lo! from the depths of its head, a shade turned his eyes on
me, and looked fixedly, then cried out loudly, "What grace to me
is this!" Never should I have recognized him by his face; but in
his voice that was disclosed to me which his aspect in itself had
suppressed.[1] This spark rekindled in me all my knowledge of the
altered visage, and I recognized the face of Forese.[2]

[1] His voice revealed who he was, which his actual aspect
concealed.

[2] Brother of the famous Corso Donati, and related to Dante,
whose wife was Gemma de' Donati.


"Ah, strive not [1] with the dry scab that discolors my skin," he
prayed, "nor with my lack of flesh, but tell me the truth about
thyself; and who are these two souls, who yonder make an escort
for thee: stay not thou from speaking to me." "Thy face, which
once I wept for dead, now gives me for weeping no less a grief,"
replied I, "seeing it so disfigured; therefore, tell me, for
God's sake, what so despoils you; make me not speak while I am
marvelling; for ill can he speak who is full of another wish."
And he to me, "From the eternal council falls a power into the
water and into the plant, now left behind, whereby I become so
thin. All this folk who sing weeping, because of following their
appetite beyond measure, here in hunger and in thirst make
themselves holy again. The odour which issues from the apple and
from the spray that spreads over the verdure kindles in us desire
to eat and drink. And not once only as we circle this floor is


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