# Purgatory Canto 33

*Exported from [Holy-Writings.com](https://www.holy-writings.com/) on 2026-06-21 — 1 clipping.*

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> Christianity Index  Divine Comedy Index  Previous: Purgatory Canto 32  Next: Paradise Canto 1  
> 
> Canto XXXIII
> 
> Argument
> 
>      After a hymn sung, Beatrice leaves the tree, and takes with her the seven
> virgins, Matilda, Statius, and Dante. She then darkly predicts to our Poet
> some future events. Lastly, the whole band arrive at the fountain, from whence
> the two streams, Lethe and Eunoe, separating, flow different ways; and
> Matilda, at the desire of Beatrice, causes our Poet to drink of the latter
> stream.
> 
> "The heathen,[1] Lord! are come:" responsive thus,
> The trinal now, and now the virgin band
> Quaternion, their sweet psalmody began,
> Weeping; and Beatrice listen'd, sad
> And sighing, to the song, in such a mood,
> That Mary, as she stood beside the Cross,
> Was scarce more changed. But when they gave her place
> To speak, then, risen upright on her feet,
> She, with a colour glowing bright as fire,
> Did answer: "Yet a little while,[2] and ye
> Shall see me not; and, my beloved sisters!
> Again a little while, and ye shall see me."
> 
> [1: "The heathen." "O God, the heathen are come into thine
> inheritance." - Psalm lxxix. 1.]
> 
> [2: "Yet a little while." "A little while, and ye shall not see me;
> and again a little while, and ye shall see me." - John xvi. 16.]
> 
> Before her then she marshal'd all the seven;
> And, beckoning only, motion'd me, the dame,
> And that remaining sage,[3] to follow her.
> 
> [3: "That remaining sage." Statius.]
> 
> So on she pass'd; and had not set, I ween,
> Her tenth step to the ground, when, with mine eyes
> Her eyes encountered; and, with visage mild,
> "So mend thy pace," she cried, "that if my words
> Address thee, thou mayst still be aptly placed
> To hear them." Soon as duly to her side
> I now had hasten'd: "Brother!" she began,
> "Why makest thou no attempt at questioning,
> As thus we walk together?" Like to those
> Who, speaking with too reverent an awe
> Before their betters, draw not forth the voice
> Alive unto their lips, befell me then
> That I in sounds imperfect thus began:
> "Lady! what I have need of, that thou know'st;
> And what will suit my need." She answering thus:
> 
> "Of fearfulness and shame, I will that thou
> Henceforth do rid thee; that thou speak no more,
> As one who dreams. Thus far be taught of me:
> The vessel which thou saw'st the serpent break,
> Was, and is not:[4] let him, who hath the blame,
> Hope not to scare God's vengeance with a sop.[5]
> Without an heir forever shall not be
> That eagle,[6] he, who left the chariot plumed,
> Which monster made it first and next a prey.
> Plainly I view, and therefore speak, the stars
> E'en now approaching, whose conjunction, free
> From all impediment and bar, brings on
> A season, in the which, one sent from God,
> (Five hundred, five, and ten, do mark him out,)
> That foul one, and the accomplice of her guilt,
> The giant, both, shall slay. And if perchance
> My saying, dark as Themis or as Sphinx,
> Fail to persuade thee, (since like them it foils
> The intellect with blindness), yet ere long
> Events shall be the Naiads, that will solve
> This knotty riddle; and no damage light
> On flock or field. Take heed; and as these words
> By me are utter'd, teach them even so
> To those who live that life, which is a race
> To death: and when thou writest them, keep in mind
> Not to conceal how thou hast seen the plant,
> That twice[7] hath now been spoil'd. This whoso robs,
> This whoso plucks, with blasphemy of deed
> Sins against God, who for His use alone
> Creating hallow'd it. For taste of this,
> 
> [4: "Was, and is not." "The beast that was, and is not." - Rev. xvii.
> 11.]
> 
> [5: "Hope not to scare God's vengeance with a sop." "Let not him who
> hath occasioned the destruction of the Church, that vessel which the serpent
> brake, hope to appease the anger of the Deity by any outward acts of
> religious, or rather superstitious, ceremony; such as was that, in our Poet's
> time, performed by a murderer at Florence, who imagined himself secure from
> vengeance, if he ate a sop of bread in wine upon the grave of the person
> murdered, within the space of nine days."]
> 
> [6: "That eagle." He prognosticates that the Emperor of Germany will
> not always continue to submit to the usurpations of the Pope, and foretells
> the coming of Henry VII, Duke of Luxemburg, signified by the numerical figures
> DVX; or, as Lombardi supposes, of Can Grande della Scala, appointed the leader
> of the Ghibelline forces.]
> 
> [7: "Twice." First by the eagle and next by the giant.]
> 
> In pain and in desire, five thousand years
> And upward, the first soul did yearn for him
> Who punish'd in himself the fatal gust.
> 
> "Thy reason slumbers, if it deem this height,
> And summit thus inverted, of the plant,
> Without due cause: and were not vainer thoughts,
> As Elsa's numbing waters,[8] to thy soul,
> And their fond pleasures had not dyed it dark
> As Pyramus the mulberry; thou hadst seen,
> In such momentous circumstance alone,
> God's equal justice morally implied
> In the forbidden tree. But since I mark thee,
> In understanding, harden'd into stone,
> And, to that hardness, spotted too and stain'd,
> So that thine eye is dazzled at my word;
> I will, that, if not written, yet at least
> Painted thou take it in thee, for the cause,
> That one brings home his staff inwreathed with palm."
> 
> [8: "Elsa's numbing waters." The Elsa, a little stream, which flows
> into the Arno about twenty miles below Florence, is said to possess a
> petrifying quality.]
> 
> I thus: "As wax by seal, that changeth not
> Its impress, now is stamp'd my brain by thee.
> But wherefore soars thy wish'd - for speech so high
> Beyond my sight, that loses it the more,
> The more it strains to reach it?" - "To the end
> That thou mayst know," she answer'd straight, "the school,
> That thou hast follow'd; and how far behind,
> When following my discourse, its learning halts:
> And mayst behold your art, from the divine
> As distant, as the disagreement is
> 'Twixt earth and Heaven's most high and rapturous orb."
> 
> "I not remember," I replied, "that e'er
> I was estranged from thee; nor for such fault
> Doth conscience chide me." Smiling she return'd:
> "If thou canst not remember, call to mind
> How lately thou hast drunk of Lethe's wave;
> And, sure as smoke doth indicate a flame,
> In that forgetfulness itself conclude
> Blame from thy alienated will incurr'd.
> 
> From henceforth, verily, my words shall be
> As naked, as will suit them to appear
> In thy unpractised view." More sparkling now,
> And with retarded course, the sun possess'd
> The circle of mid - day, that varies still
> As the aspect varies of each several clime;
> When, as one, sent in vaward of a troop
> For escort, pauses, if perchance he spy
> Vestige of somewhat strange and rare; so paused
> The sevenfold band, arriving at the verge
> Of a dun umbrage hoar, such as is seen,
> Beneath green leaves and gloomy branches, oft
> To overbrow a bleak and alpine cliff.
> And, where they stood, before them, as it seem'd,
> I, Tigris and Euphrates both, beheld
> Forth from one fountain issue; and, like friends,
> Linger at parting. "O enlightening beam!
> O glory of our kind! beseech thee say
> What water this, which, from one source derived,
> Itself removes to distance from itself?"
> 
> To such entreaty answer thus was made:
> "Entreat Matilda, that she teach thee this."
> 
> And here, as one who clears himself of blame
> Imputed, the fair dame return'd: "Of me
> He this and more hath learnt; and I am safe
> That Lethe's water hath not hid it from him."
> 
> And Beatrice: "Some more pressing care,
> That oft the memory 'reaves, perchance hath made
> His mind's eye dark. But lo, where Eunoe flows!
> Lead thither; and, as thou art wont, revive
> His fainting virtue." As a courteous spirit,
> That proffers no excuses, but as soon
> As he hath token of another's will,
> Makes it his own; when she had ta'en me, thus
> The lovely maiden moved her on, and call'd
> To Statius, with an air most lady - like:
> "Come thou with him." Were further space allow'd,
> Then, Reader! might I sing, though but in part,
> That beverage, with whose sweetness I had ne'er
> Been sated. But, since all the leaves are full,
> Appointed for this second strain, mine art
> With warning bridle checks me. I return'd
> From the most holy wave, regenerate,
> E'en as new plants renew'd with foliage new,
> Pure and made apt for mounting to the stars.
>
> — *Purgatory Canto 33*