Purgatorio: Canto XI
Project Gutenberg EPUB3 edition
Dante Alighieri and Longfellow, Henry Wadsworth
“That,” he replied, “is Provenzan Salvani, And he is here because he had presumed To bring Siena all into his hands.
He has gone thus, and goeth without rest E’er since he died; such money renders back In payment he who is on earth too daring.”
And I: “If every spirit who awaits The verge of life before that he repent, Remains below there and ascends not hither,
(Unless good orison shall him bestead,) Until as much time as he lived be passed, How was the coming granted him in largess?”
“When he in greatest splendour lived,” said he, “Freely upon the Campo of Siena, All shame being laid aside, he placed himself;
And there to draw his friend from the duress Which in the prison-house of Charles he suffered, He brought himself to tremble in each vein.
I say no more, and know that I speak darkly; Yet little time shall pass before thy neighbours Will so demean themselves that thou canst gloss it.
This action has released him from those confines.”