Purgatory, Mary Anne Madden Sadlier [books to get back into reading .txt] 📗

In thickness like that fog, nor to the sense
So palpable and gross. Entering its shade,
Mine eye endured not with unclosed lids;
Which marking, near me drew the faithful guide,
Offering me his shoulder for a stay.

As the blind man behind his leader walks,
Lest he should err, or stumble unawares
On what might harm him, or perhaps destroy;
I journeyed through that bitter air and foul,
Still listening to my escort's warning voice,

"Look that from me thou part not." Straight I heard
Voices, and each one seemed to pray for peace,
And for compassion to the Lamb of God
That taketh sins away. The prelude still
Was "Agnus Dei;" and, through all the choir,
One voice, one measure ran, that perfect seemed
The concord of their song. "Are these I hear
Spirits, O Master?" I exclaimed; and he,
"Thou aim'st aright: these loose the bonds of wrath." - Canto XVI.

* * * * *

Forthwith from every side a shout arose
So vehement, that suddenly my guide
Drew near, and cried: "Doubt not, while I conduct thee."
"Glory!" all shouted (such the sounds mine ear
Gathered from those who near me swelled the sounds),
"Glory in the highest be to God!" We stood
Immovably suspended, like to those,
The shepherds, who first heard in Bethlehem's field
That song: till ceased the trembling, and the song
Was ended: then our hallowed path resumed,
Eyeing the prostrate shadows, who renewed
Their customed mourning. Never in my breast
Did ignorance so struggle with desire
Of knowledge, if my memory do not err,
As in that moment; nor, through haste, dared I
To question, nor myself could aught discern.
So on I fared, in thoughtfulness and dread. - Canto XX.

* * * * *

Now the last flexure of our way we reached;
And, to the right hand turning, other care
Awaits us. Here the rocky precipice
Hurls forth redundant flames; and from the rim
A blast up-blown, with forcible rebuff
Driveth them back, sequestered from its bound.

Behooved us, one by one, along the side,
That bordered on the void, to pass; and I
Feared on one hand the fire, on the other feared
Headlong to fall: when thus the instructor warned:
"Strict rein must in this place direct the eyes.
A little swerving and the way is lost."

Then from the bosom of the burning mass,
"O God of mercy!" heard I sung, and felt
No less desire to turn. And when I saw
Spirits along the flame proceeding, I
Between their footsteps and mine own was fain
To share by turns my view. At the hymn's close
They shouted loud, "I do not know a man;" [1]
Then in low voice again took up the strain.- Canto XXV .

[Footnote 1: I do not know a man. St. Luke, i. 34.]

* * * * *

Now was the sun [1] so stationed, as when first
His early radiance quivers on the heights
Where streamed his Maker's blood; while Libra hangs
Above Hesperian Ebro; and new fires,
Meridian, flash on Ganges' yellow tide.
So day was sinking, when the Angel of God
Appeared before us. Joy was in his mien.
Forth of the flame he stood - upon the brink;
And with a voice, whose lively clearness far
Surpassed our human, "Blessed are the pure
In heart," he sang; then, near him as we came,
"Go ye not further, holy spirits," he cried,
"Ere the fire pierce you; enter in, and list
Attentive to the song ye hear from thence."
I, when I heard his saying, was as one
Laid in the grave. My hands together clasped,
And upward stretching, on the fire I looked,
And busy fancy conjured up the forms,
Erewhile beheld alive, consumed in flames. - Canto XXVII.

[Footnote 1: At Jerusalem it was dawn, in Spain midnight, and in India noonday, while it was sunset in Purgatory]


HAMLET AND THE GHOST.

SHAKESPEARE.

HAMLET. Where wilt thou lead me? Speak, I'll go no further.
GHOST. Mark me.
HAM. I will.
GHOST. My hour is almost come,
When I to sulphurous and tormenting flames
Must render up myself.
HAM. Alas! poor ghost!
GHOST. Pity me not, but lend thy serious hearing
To what I shall unfold.
HAM. Speak, I am bound to hear.
GHOST. So art thou to revenge, when thou shalt hear.
HAM. What?
GHOST. I am thy father's spirit;
Doomed for a certain time to walk the night;
And, for the day, confined to fast in fires,
Till the foul crimes, done in my days of nature,
Are burnt and purged away. But that I am forbid
To tell the secrets of my prison-house,
I could a tale unfold, whose lightest word
Would harrow up thy soul; freeze thy young blood;
Make thy two eyes, like stars, start from their spheres;
Thy knotted and combined locks to part,
And each particular hair to stand on end,
Like quills upon the fretful porcupine;
But this eternal blason must not be
To ears of flesh and blood.


CALDERON'S "PURGATORY OF ST. PATRICK."

In a work of this nature, it is essential to its purpose that the compiler should take cognizance of the many legends, wild and extravagant as some of them are, which have been current at various times and amongst various peoples, on the subject of Purgatory. For they have, indeed, a deep significance, proving how strong a hold this belief in a middle state of souls has taken on the popular mind. They are, in a certain sense, a part of Catholic tradition, and have to do with what is called Catholic instinct. They prove that this dogma of the Church has found a home in the hearts of the people, and become familiar to them, as the tales of childhood whispered around the winter hearth. If it appear now and then, in some such uncouth disguise, as that which we, are about to present to our readers, we see, nevertheless, through it all the truth, or rather the fragments of truth, such as is often found floating about through Europe on the breath of tradition. The curious legend has been turned by Calderon from dross into precious gold. He presents it to us in his "Purgatory of St. Patrick" with a beauty that divests it of much of its native wildness. He presumably drew his materials for the drama from a work, "The Life and Purgatory of St. Patrick," published in Spain in 1627 by Montalvan, a Spanish dramatist. It was translated into French by a Franciscan priest and doctor of theology, François Bouillon; as also into Portuguese by Father Manuel Caldeira. When this work was issued Calderon was wish the army in Flanders. He must have seen it, his brilliant imagination at once taking hold of it as the groundwork for a splendid effort of his genius.

We cite here an extract from an introduction by Denis Florence MacCarthy to his translation of Calderon's "Purgatory of St. Patrick." It will be of interest as following the thread of this weird legend:

The curious history of Ludovico Enio, on which the principal interest of this play depends, has been alluded to, and given more or less fully by many ancient authors. The name, though slightly altered by the different persons who have mentioned him, can easily be recognized as the same in all, whether as Owen, Oien, Owain, Eogan, Euenius, or Ennius. Perhaps the earliest allusion to him in any printed English work is that contained in 'Ranulph Hidgen's Polychronicon,' published at Westminster by Wynkin de Worde, in 1495: 'In this Steven's tyme, a knyght that hyght Owen wente into the Purgatory of the second Patrick, abbot, and not byshoppe. He came agayne and dwelled in the abbaye of Ludene of Whyte Monks in Irlonde, and tolde of joycs and of paynes that he had seen.'

The history of Enio had, however, existed in manuscript for nearly three centuries and a half before the Polychronicon was printed; it had been written by Henry, the Monk of Salterey, in Huntingdonshire, from the account which he had received from Gilbert, a Cistercian monk of the Abbey of the Blessed Virgin Mary of Luden, or Louth, above mentioned. [1] Colgan, after collating this manuscript with two others on the same subject, which he had seen, printed it nearly in full in his "Trias." ... Matthew Paris had, however, before this, in his "History of England," under date 1153, given a full account of the adventures of OEnus in the Purgatory. ... Sir Walter Scott mentions, in his "Border Minstrelsy," that there is a curious Metrical Romance in the Advocates' Library of Edinburgh, called "The Legend of Sir Owain," relating his adventures in St. Patrick's Purgatory; he gives some stanzas from it, descriptive of the knight's passage of "The Brig o' Dread;" which, in the legend, is placed between Purgatory and Paradise. This poem is supposed to have been written early in the fourteenth century.

[Footnote 1: Colgan's "Trias Thanmaturgæ," p. 281, Ware's "Annals of Ireland," A.D. 1497.]

A second extract on the subject, taken from the Essay by Mr. Wright on the "Purgatory of St. Patrick," published in London in 1844, gives still further information with regard to it.

"The mode," he says, "in which this legend was made public is thus told in the Latin narrative. Gervase (the founder and first Abbot of Louth, in Lincolnshire) sent his monk, Gilbert, to the king, then in Ireland, to obtain a grant to build a monastery there. Gilbert, on his arrival, complained to the king, Henry II., that he did not understand the language of the country. The king said to him,' I will give you an excellent interpreter,' and sent him the knight Owain, who remained with him during the time he was occupied in building the monastery, and