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4: The First Ascent

1 Pleasure or pain can fill us up so full

they dominate all ways we think and act,

a fact disproving Plato’s rule that souls

4 are triple – vegetable, animal

and logical. Words can so occupy

our soul, we do not notice passing time.

7 Manfred so pleased me that I did not see

the sun rise to its fiftieth degree.

Mid-morning passed before our company

10 aroused me, crying, “Here’s the place you need!”

I saw in the cliff face a gap as wide

as in a vineyard hedge that peasants block

13 with a forkful of thorn, yet wide enough

to admit a man into a deep crack

sloping steeply up. My guide, stepping in,

16 started climbing on all fours, rock beneath,

beside and above his back. I followed,

bidding the slowly moving flock goodbye.

19 You may rush down Noli, up San Leo,

mount Bismantova’s summit on your feet.

Urgent desire drove fast my hands and knees.

I scrambled after Virgil, did not stop 22

until we reached the precipice’s top

and stood upon the edge of a broad ledge

of that bare mountainside. “Master,” said I, 25

“where now?” “Upward,” said he, “and do not halt

before you meet a wiser guide than me.”

He turned to lead me up a steeper slope 28

than we had tackled in the creviced rock.

Exhausted I cried, “Pause kind father, please!

You’re leaving me behind – I need to rest!” 31

“My son,” said he, pointing not far ahead,

“drag yourself first up there.” I forced my feet

to follow him up to a level ground, 34

a terrace curving round the mighty hill,

and sat facing the way we came (often

the finest view) due east. First I gazed down, 37

feasting eyes on the sea below, then raised

them to the skies, amazed to see the sun

shining upon my left. “How can this be?” 40

I said. “This island mountain,” he replied,

“is central to the southern hemisphere,

just as the land where Christ was crucified 43

is central to the north. Halfway between

lies the equator. When the setting sun

crossed that, it left the north in night and brought 46

light here, to the western point, which is not

upon your right, but on the other hand.

49 Do you understand?” I did, then asked him,

“Have we much more to climb? The height ahead

is out of sight.” He said, “The hardest part

52 of leaving sin is always at the start.

The climb is easier as you go up.

Near the top you will feel climbing is like

55 floating downstream in a boat.” A voice said,

“You’ll sit down pretty often before that.”

We turned and saw a rock within whose shade

58 folk squatted, looking totally fatigued.

The speaker hugged his knees, head sunk between.

I told my guide, “That is Belacqua, sir –

61 a Florentine well-known for being slow.”

Belacqua raised an eye above his thigh

and grunted, “Busybody, up you go

64 now you know why the sun shines on your left.”

Smiling a bit at that I said to him,

“You need not grumble friend. You’re safe from Hell

67 but why sit here? What are you waiting for?

Have you not shaken off your laziness?”

“Brother,” he groaned, “I cannot go up yet,

70 I died too soon to properly confess

my life of sinful sloth before my death.

The angel-warden of the higher gate

73 cannot admit me up to cleansing pain

until I’ve squatted here for sixty years –

the years before I gave my soul to God.

No living souls will pray to lessen these 76

and my despair. O how I envy you!”

Virgil, climbing ahead, called back to me,

“Time to go on!” I left Belacqua there. 79