Canto XI of the purgatory
image Boris Vallejo

Pater Noster, our Father who is in Heaven.
I imagined that my beautiful prince was God himself.

«O Padre nostro, che ne' cieli stai, non circunscritto, ma per più amore ch'ai primi effetti di là sù tu hai, laudato sia 'l tuo nome e 'l tuo valore da ogni creatura, com'è degno di render grazie al tuo dolce vapore. Vegna ver' noi la pace del tuo regno, ché noi ad essa non potem da noi, s'ella non vien, con tutto nostro ingegno. Come del suo voler li angeli tuoi fan sacrificio a te, cantando osanna, così facciano li uomini de' suoi.


RETURN TO THE PORTAL OF PURGATORY


"Pater-noster, my Father who throne in Paradise, and who loves as much as me I love them, Your child-angels, I praise You to have created them so beautiful; let the peace of Your reign, arrives and that the offering of Your angels females helps me reach the eternal Joy; give me this daily food which only can alleviate my carnal desires; and how I forgive to those who do not offered herselves, forgive me to offer to myself those who let herselves be taken, that I then, expiate my venial sins; do not put my virtue to the test more than those who torments it so extremely, but do in such a way to tatisfy it in the eternal Beatitud!" (1) This is how I praid, accompanied by the shadows, walking under the weight of my distressed dreams, I forced myself to help these souls to wash themselves, from the spots they trailed since they quit earth, so that they can acquire the purity, the lightness which helps them to go up to heaven. "Ah! let justice and mercy release you soon from these weights, so that you can reach your heaven! Show us on which side is the shortest way that leads to the satisfaction of our desires, because this other, who accompanies me and who is still dressed with the weight of the flesh of Adam, goes up with more sorrow than he would like it." And one of the shadows answered to my Master: "Come with us, following the cliff, and you will find the passage that a living being is able to climb up without sorrow. And, if the armour of chastity, which covers my body full of pride, was not so heavy to carry and did not make my body bend, I would put a glance on whom who still live, to see whether I recognize him and if he is one of those, to whom I refused the grace to enjoy from my body. Because I was, in the country of the Great Fjord, recognized as the most desirable amoung the beauties, and that neither King nor churl could fornicate with ease. The ancient blood and the brilliant deeds of my ancestors made me so arrogant, that I chocks all the men in such a contempt, that I died of it without having copulated with any of them! I refused to enjoy like the animal, offering my belly to the sight of the stars, discovering the secrecies hidden in my uterine pit, suffering the affront of a kiss on my breast. I preferred the solitary pleasure, cherishing my own body, my vulva and my tits, slipping my agile fingers into this erotogenic cave, playing there, closing my eyes and by imagining that my beautiful prince was God himself." One of the shadows interposed and said to me: "That one who, in front of you, walk with so small steps, filled up with the noise of her name, the entire country of the Jeannois, and now one hardly whispers about her in Mashteuiash where she was queen, the most envied of the women, and who scorned as much the other women, to whom she briskly robbed, husbands and lovers, as no other prostitute would have done it better than she. Her fame was the color of grass, which goes and comes and that the sun fades, which makes it leave out from the ground before its maturity; look and tell me if she is still beautiful?" And I said to him: "Your words full of truth humiliate me in my heart, but nevertheless dissipate one doubt in my spirit: Is it true that the soul, who awaits the end of her life to repent, can hope to go up here with only good prayers that would help her, where other souls who would have lived a life of virtue, forgetting to die in the grace, would be seen prohibited the acces to up there; don't you see by that, a contradiction on behalf of God whom you say He is just and who favor that way, the subtile calculations of the Vilain?" And she did not answer but I understood that this exceeded her capacities of understanding, and that only my love for Jeanne could release me from my doubts.



Marco Polo ou le voyage imaginaire (La tragédie humaine, janvier 2000) © 1999 Jean-Pierre Lapointe
(1)version libérée du Notre-Père
Theme musical: la sicilienne de Gabriel Fauré, emprunté aux Classical Midi Archives.
Important Notice: any photos or fragments of photos subject to copyright will be removed on notice.


CANTO XII OF THE PURGATORY