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Dante - Purgatorio - Canto 19
Identifier
014649
Type of Spiritual Experience
Background
A description of the experience
Dante – The Divine Comedy – Purgatorio XIX
'Spirit.... tell me who you were and why you are lying
Face downwards......
'I was a wretched soul, and greedy of everything
And now, as you see, I am punished for it
What avarice does, is made here manifest
In the purgation of the penitent souls;
And no punishment on the mountain is more bitter.
Just as our eyes before were not raised
To things above, but fixed on earthly things,
So here justice sinks them to the ground.
As avarice quenched our love for every good,
So that the faculty of doing good was lost
So here, justice holds us constricted,
With our hands and our feet bound and held;
And as long as it shall please the God of Justice
So shall we stay here, stretched motionless'.