Dante's eyes are fixed on the green leaf, like a man who throws away his days in idle chase of the diminutive, when the more than father warns him: son, our time asks thriftier using; linger not; away. Face and steps turn together toward the sages. Their converse cheers him, and he feels no toil. Then weeping and a song mingle: My lips, O Lord. The mix gives birth to pleasure and to pain. Virgil says these are spirits paying a debt as they go. They overtake like thoughtful pilgrims who look and do not stay. Eyes dark and hollow; visages pale; bones staring through the skin. Dante thinks of Erysichthon pinched to the quick, then of Jerusalem when Mary preyed on her child. Sockets seem rings from which the gems have dropped. The M of man is traced most plainly on the forehead. Who would deem that scent of water and an apple could generate such pining, not knowing how it wrought?
While he wonders at the gaunt hollowness and scaly rind, a spirit turns deep-sunken eyes on him and cries, what grace is this vouchsafed me? By looks Dante would never have known him. The voice brings to knowledge what the cheer concealed. He agnizes Forese. Respect this wan and leprous withered skin, Forese begs, and do not scorn to talk. The face Dante once bewailed dead now disposes him no less for weeping. Unapt is he to speak whom other will employs. Forese names the water and the plant they passed: virtue infused by eternal will so pines him. Every spirit who bewails gluttony indulged too grossly is here purified in hunger and in thirst. The odour of fruit and showering spray inflames desire. They come more than once to add fresh fuel. Pain, said I? Solace rather: that will leads them to the tree by which Christ was led to call Elias, joyful when he paid the ransom from his vein.
Not five years have circled since Forese changed the world for better life. Dante thought to find him lower, where time is recompense for time. Forese has been brought early to drink the sweet wormwood by the tears streamed down Nella's cheeks. Her prayers drew him from the coast where expectance lingers, and set him free of the other circles. In God's sight the widow is the dearer as she ranks more singly for virtuous deeds. Sardinia's most barbarous tract has dames more chaste than the city where he left her. A time stands full in view when the pulpit will warn Florence's unblushing dames. They shall taste of sorrow before the cheek of a child now rocked asleep is clothed with down. Hide thyself no more, Forese says: not I alone but all gaze where thou veilest the intercepted sun. Dante recalls what they once were together, then points to the sun and names the guide who brought this true flesh through the true dead, who will bear him as far as Beatrice and must leave him there. The other shade is he for whom the realm so late exulted through every pendent cliff as he arose.
Coming Up in Chapter 58
Talk will not slacken their steps. Dante will ask after Piccarda and hear that she already wears her crown, then Buonaggiunta of Lucca will ask if this is the man who wrote Ladies, ye that con the lore of love.
