The Avaricious, Hugh Capet
Against a firmer will the will fights poorly;
Against my pleasure, therefore, to please him,
I drew my unfilled sponge out of the water.
I moved on, and my guide moved on through
5 Unpeopled spaces all along the rock-face,
As one walks a wall close to the battlements;
For those who, drop by drop, melt through their eyes
The evil that possesses the whole world
Lie too close to the far-side outer edge.
10 Curses fall on you, you ancient she-wolf,
That have more prey than all the other beasts,
Because of your bottomless deep hunger!
O heavens, through whose revolutions men
Believe conditions here below are changed,
15 When will he come who’ll drive the wolf away?
We walked along with slow, infrequent steps;
I went, attentive to the shades I heard
Pitifully weeping and complaining,
And by chance I heard one in front of us
20 Crying out in his lament "Sweet Mary!"
Just as a woman does who is in labor;
And followed by: "How truly poor you were,
As may be ably witnessed by that hostel
Where you did lay your holy burden down!"
25 Following that I heard: "O good Fabricius,
You chose to possess virtue with privation
Rather than huge wealth with wickedness."
These sayings were so pleasing to me that
I pressed on forward to become acquainted
30 With the spirit from whom they seemed to come.
He went on telling, too, of the largesse
Which Nicholas endowed upon the maidens
To lead their youth to honorable marriage.
"O spirit who tells tales of so much good,
35 Tell me who you were," I said, "and why
You alone rehearse these worthy plaudits.
"Your words to me shall not go unrewarded
When I return to finish the short journey
Of that life which flies on toward its end."
40 And he: "I will tell you, but not for comfort
Which I expect from your world, but because
Such grace shines in you before you have died.
"I was the root of that wholesome plant
Which overshadows all the Christian lands
45 So that good fruit is rarely plucked from it.
"But if Douai, Lille, Ghent, and Bruges
Had power, vengeance would be soon exacted;
And I beg this of Him who judges all.
"I was called Hugh Capet in that life;
50 From me have sprung the Louises and Philips
Who lately have been ruling over France.
"I was the son of a butcherman from Paris.
When the ancient kings came to an end,
Except for one who’d put on monkish gray,
55 "I found the reins that rule the government
Tight in my hands, and I held so much power
From new possessions and had so many friends
"That to the widowed crown my own son’s head
Was raised to eminence, and then from him
60 Began the consecrated bones of kings.
"So long as the large dowry of Provence
Had not removed all sense of shame from it,
My line was of small worth but did no harm.
"There with force and fraud its rapine started;
65 And then, to make amends for that, it seized
Ponthieu and Normandy and Gascony.
"Charles came to Italy and, for amends,
Made Conradin his victim, and after that,
Thrust Thomas back to heaven, for amends.
70 "I see a time not far off from this day
That brings forth out of France another Charles
To make himself and his race better known.
"He comes unarmed, or only with the lance
That Judas tilted with, and this he couches so
75 That he makes the fat paunch of Florence burst.
"From this he’ll gain not land, but sin and shame:
So much the heavier it will be for him
As the more lightly he accounts such wrongs.
"The other Charles, who once was hauled a prisoner
80 From his own ship, I see selling his daughter,
Haggling like a pirate over female slaves.
"O avarice, what more harm can you do us,
Since you have so enthralled my bloodline to you
That it shows no concern for its own flesh?
85 "That past and future evil may seem less,
I see the fleur-de-lis enter Alagna
And in his vicar Christ become a captive.
"I see him mocked again a second time,
I see renewed the vinegar and gall,
90 And see him slain between two living thieves.
"I see the new Pilate so cruel that
This will not placate him, but lawlessly
He heads his greedy sails into the temple.
"O my Lord, when shall I be made happy
95 To see the vengeance which, though hidden now,
Sweetens your anger in your secret counsels?
"The words I spoke about the only bride
Of the Holy Spirit, and which made you turn
Toward me for some sort of interpretation,
100 "These are the answer to our every prayer
As long as daylight lasts, but when night comes,
We take up a tune contrary to that;
"Then we once more tell of Pygmalion
Whose gluttonous longing after gold made him
105 A traitor and a thief and parricide;
"And the misery of avaricious Midas,
Which followed hard on his greed-mad demand
And ever after causes us to laugh;
"Then each one calls to mind the foolish Achan,
110 How he ransacked the spoils, so that the wrath
Of Joshua seems here to sting him still;
"Then we accuse Sapphira and her husband;
We praise the kicks Heliodorus caught;
And round the mountain rings the infamy
115 "Of Polymnestor who killed Polydorus;
And last of all we cry out here: ‘Crassus,
Tell us, since you know, what taste is gold?’
"At times we speak, one loud, another low,
According to the urge that spurs us on,
120 Now with a stronger, now with a lesser force:
"So, I was not alone before in telling
The good we speak by day, but of those here
Nearby, no other soul raised up his voice."
We were already gone away from him
125 And struggling to go forward on the road,
So far as our own powers would permit us,
When I felt — like something that is falling —
The mountain tremble, and at that a chill
Gripped me, as grips one going to his death.
130 Surely Delos did not shake so sharply
Before Latona built her nest in it
To give birth to the two eyes of the sky.
Then such a cry on all sides started up
That my master drew close to me and said,
135 "Don’t be afraid while I am guiding you."
"Glory to God in the highest" they all cried,
By what I understood from those close by,
Where the crying could be comprehended.
Motionless and in suspense we stood,
140 Just like the shepherds who first heard that song,
Until the trembling stopped and the song ended.
Then we took up again our holy road,
Looking at shades that lay along the ground
Already turned to their accustomed weeping.
145 No ignorance of mine has ever battled
To make me so desirous to know why,
If here my memory is not mistaken,
As I seemed then to harbor in my thoughts;
Nor in our hurry did I dare to ask;
150 Nor by myself could I see any reason:
So, timid and thoughtful, I walked on my way.
