Canto XXV of the purgatory
How can one gives birth, where one does not need anymore to engender?
Soul is an other thing that a human genome.
Ora era onde 'l salir non volea storpio; ché 'l sole avea il cerchio di merigge lasciato al Tauro e la notte a lo Scorpio: per che, come fa l'uom che non s'affigge ma vassi a la via sua, che che li appaia, se di bisogno stimolo il trafigge, così intrammo noi per la callaia, uno innanzi altro prendendo la scala che per artezza i salitor dispaia. E quale il cicognin che leva l'ala per voglia di volare, e non s'attenta d'abbandonar lo nido, e giù la cala;
RETURN TO THE PORTAL OF PURGATORY
It was already late and it was time to go up, because the sun started to go down; also, we did as whom goes its way and does not stop, no matter what occurs; thus, we entered by the narrow passage, and we climbed the stair whose narrowness was such, that we walk one behind the other. In my desire of ingerrogate the scintillating light, I was such as the small bird which cannot usi its wings to fly, without falling from the nest; I opened and closed my lips without letting escape any sound. My guide who realized it, although our walk was fast, says to me: "Do not fear and express without fear your opinions." I opened my lips then, reassured, and I started as follows: "How can one give birth, where one does not need anymore to engender?" And he answered: "All these things which could seem easy to you to understand, as your movements which are reflected while moving in front of the mirror, do not have any more the same transparency, and of that I could not inform you; but, so that your desires are satisfied, I call Dante and I request him to cure you from your apprehensions." Dante then answered: "If I reveal to him, in your presence, how were violated the eternal drawings, I will be excused only to have opposed you a refusal." Then he continued thus, while addressing himself to me: "If your spirit, my son, is receptive to my words, they will clear up the question that you ask. Sperm is the food which is not drunk like a beverage on the table, it takes in the heart the virtue which gives their form, their essence and their nature, to the members of the man, in the same manner as that which goes in the veins will change into them. Still digested, it goes down in the testicles, and then from there it runs out in the matrix, this natural vessel, where it mixes with the blood of the woman. One and the other meets at this place, one is disposed to undergo, the other to act, thanks to the perfection of the place of their origin; and there, arrived, it starts to operate, initially by coagulation, then it gives the life so that, by its matter, it made consistent. Its active virtue becomed vegetative heart, like that of a plant, with this difference which it is not yet perfect and it starts to feed the bodies. It is spread then and dilates and transmitted the virtue of the heart of that who generates, to form the sensitive heart similar to that of the ewe. But you do not know yet how, from the Dolly ewe, one becomes a child, and it is on this point that so many eugenists were mistaken, who, in their doctrines, forgot that the soul is an other thing that a human genome and that intellect cannot be dissociated from it. Open your soul now, to the truth that I transmit to you, and know that at once that, in the foetus, the structure of the brain is perfect, God complete this "chef d'oeuvre" of nature; he draws from there, what is active, the vegetative soul and the sensitive soul, and he makes of it only one soul, the intellective soul, the rational soul, which was not there before, and makes only one soul which live and smells and reflects in itself . Why God, in his greatness, would have created you unic my dear Marco, whereas whom who believes he is God and who does not have the tools for it, would like to create a clone of yourself who is identical to you? It is that this genitor is unable to go beyond the sensitive soul of Dolly, and the Child whom he believes to generate, is only a Golem without any reason and soul. And so that you would not be astonished by my words, considers how the heat of the sun is transformed into wine, while linking itself with the aqueous humour which runs from the vine. Thus the intellective soul, while being linked with the vegetative soul and the sensitive soul, becomes only one soul, which live, which feels and which is endowed with reason. At the death, the soul leaves the body and carries with it, the corporal and spiritual faculties as well as the sensitive faculties by the death of the bodies; the intellectual faculties, on the contrary, delivered from the obstacles of the body, becomes much more active than before. The soul, thus delivered, falls from itself at the edges of Acheron or the mouth of the Seine, because it knows if it will be saved or damned. At once that it reaches this place, information that it carries, radiates around as it did it over the alive members. The virtue which inform, acts on the air, after death, to fashion to some extent, the factitious body, like it acted on bloods of the man and the woman to make the real body. And like it draws from there its visibility, it is called umbra, which in particular means appearance. Here is the reason for what we speak, we laugh and we form the tears and the sighs such as you listen to them by the mountain. The shadow takes such or such aspect according to whether touche us, the desires and the other feelings, and here is the reason of what astonishes you." We arrived at the torment of the last circle, we turned at the right and were monopolized by another concern. Here, the wall of the cliff launches sparks of fire pushed by a wind which goes upwards. Also, it was necessary for us to walk uncovered, one by one, by the side which was not protected; I feared the fire from one side, and to fall on the other. My guide said to me: "It is necessary here to be vigilant and to look well, because one could easily be mistaken." I heard, at this moment, someone singing: "Lumbos, jecurque morbidum Flammis adure congruis, Accincti ut artus recubent Luxu remoto pessimo." coming from the interior of the vast blazing inferno, which made me turn around, and I saw spirits who went in the flame; also, I looked at their steps as well as mine, looking here and there. At the end of the anthem, they shouted of a strong voice: "I do not know the pleasures of giving birth not knowing how to generate"; then they sing again the anthem on a lower tone: "Méphistos remained in the woods and he drove Helene out of it, who had tasted to the poison of Love." Then they proceed again with their song; they celebrated then women and the husbands who loved each others, who orgasms and who gave birth, as the virtue of the Love requires it. And I believe that they continue on this alternated mode, during all the time that the flame burns them; it is necessary that, by such remedies and such a nurrishment, their wounds finally are healed.
Marco Polo ou le voyage imaginaire (La tragédie humaine, janvier 2000) © 1999 Jean-Pierre Lapointe
Theme musical: truthseeker de Sear, emprunté aux Classical Midi Archives.
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