Purgatorio, Canto XXX (a): Vergil’s Voice

Sophie Klein

Alive they fly to join the stars and mount aloft to heaven
While I sink down below again, a humble, damned Ghost.
I’ve guided mortals through literary eternity before, but it was
different then.
I didn’t want to leave this man now, not when he needed me most,
But her magnificent, terrifying eyes told me that it was time.
She would care for him now, be his guide across Lethe’s coast.
Up on into the cosmos they would climb,
While I, the great Bard of Mantua, Singer of arms and a man,
Am left to return to the shadows of the underworld, denied salvation
sublime.
I am cursed by my devotion to the false Gods of the mountain Olympian.
It was once valiant and honorable to display such piety,
When goodly Ilium had fallen to the treacherous Greek equestrians.
Great heroes triumphed for whom I created a lasting legacy.
Would that I could render my own fortune so favorable,
Instead, I will relate my sorrows to my readers with this soliloquy.
I was to him both sibyl and father stable,
A guide with lessons for both life and death.
We spoke as men did before the Tower of Babel,
Sharing the same tongue and breath.
I would beam with pride as I watched him learn.
Such joy it was, helping him flowereth.
He rewarded me with respect and admiration in turn,
Mirroring his epic masterpiece with my own classical artistry.
When we to the forest of suicides made a sojourn,
I had him break a limb from an enchanted tree,
Just as I had once instructed the son of Anchises.
This bough, also reluctant to be plucked, was stained with golden-red
irony.
Now Fortune turns her wheel again and does what she may please.
While I am trapped in my chthonic prison, avowing futile penitence.
It’s her I blame for my unjust sentence, my experience of such a tease.
I am a victim of time, innocent of my condemned religious ignorance.
Lady, you are unfair in your judgment.
I prophesied the coming of the boy. My Eclogue bears the evidence.
The living honor me as a sorcerer and prophet potent,
I, who could synthesize the stages of man into epic poetry.
I raised the son of Anchises, I shaped the father to the same extent.
I fabricated an afterlife to sate my people’s curiosity.
Now the Styx and Cerberus greet me again.
I join unhappy Dido, ever silent, down amidst the dirt and debris.
What are your feelings now, sweet royal tragedienne?
I am not to feel pity towards you,
You are no more than a sinning specimen.
But you were once my leading ingenue,
I gave you a heart to be broken and a voice to reserve.
I returned you to Sychaeus, restored your virtue.
You and I, we are both denied the freedom and luxury we deserve.
My friends and colleagues too, the renowned poets and satirists of antiquity,
Whose epics and articles time will preserve,
They are ultimately rewarded for their aesthetic mastery,
By damnation from their own heavenly inspiration.
Even the primal soul having desecrated the tree,
Tainting all of mankind with his thoughtless violation,
He is granted redemption and dwells in Paradise.
Is there no like justice for the imagination?
I serve the same God now, act according to higher advice.
I have fulfilled my commission, gratified divine will.
Fortune continues to provoke me, with sights that entice:
Beautiful gardens, angels, music, thrill.
The most seductive challenge of all, though, was my Florentine son.
He was a project, a friend, brave Aeneas’ sequel.
I held him when he was afraid, reproached and commended him anon.
I was his pillar of wisdom and strength, his trusted counselor.
I guided him as far as Fortune permitted, to the boundaries undrawn.
I could take him no further, could mentor no more.
The student had surpassed the teacher.
The father would sink and the son would soar.
Where has our time together gone? Would that it could recur!
I once advised him against envy, warned him about the danger of excessive love.
Now lingering in the memory, it seems I commit this very sin as it were.
In that moment we parted, as ordained up above,
My speech was broken; heartsick, I shunned the light of day.
I turned away, leaving him in fear and hesitation, one last parental
shove.
The bird flies away from the nest of cliché.
Its mother acquaints herself with Emptiness.
The laws of nature she attempts to obey.
No augur needs interpret her sadness.
It is a grief most personal.
I understand the rules, I am simply moved by the persuasion of
loneliness.
I was a man once, after all. A living, breathing, feeling mortal.
Mantua me genuit, Calabri rapuere, tenet nunc Parthenope; cecini pascua rura duces.
Now I can only sing of emotions trivial.
Tell me Lady Fortune, what is there for me in your prophetic gaze?
Another child to rear? Employment in heaven and residence in hell?
Will you and I ever become reconciled? Are we just going through a
phase?
It has been an eternity, is that too soon to tell?
Perhaps you would come visit with me among the shadows,
To see how I live in this outer shell.We have a lot in common, that is,
except for my woes.
We both have seen visions of divine beauty
And stories of men we love to compose.
You had a hand in choosing the Florentine to write this supernatural
summary.
I am grateful to have known him, a remarkable individual indeed.
I thank you for the compliment too, since his rudiments lie with me.
The epic style will endure, it is a lasting breed
Come whatever new gods may reign,
Or whatever mortals read.
The sun will always rise and set, the moon will wax and wane.
I know this though I cannot see the skies, trapped behind subterranean
bars.
My poetic posterity will dwell in heaven’s domain,
They will shine among the stars.

Ruins of the Forum in Rome.

Photograph by Adam Lester. Used by permission.

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