1. ON THE SHORES OF PURGATORY

Oh sante muse, oh calliope'

Rise on to the light
Leave sorrow and damnation behind
Bow down, repent

The Muses and in particular Calliope are invoked
To support the poet's song
My hand grasped the wet sand air
Is now so rare and clean,
Thus I breathe serene sky,
Blue as sapphire
The freedom stone

They wake up on the shore
of the Purgatory beach
heavens host Venus shining
and four stars of virtue
giving harmony; only pity
No human can ever stare at them

Four stars symbol of the cardinal virtues,
They shine in the sky of Purgatory
And Dante complains that
Never being human can admire them
Near me a venerable soul;
Such reverence deserving starlight of virtue on face
as if the sun was shining

Apparition of an old man,
CATONE The virtue stars illuminate the face
As if it were illuminated by the sun

"Who are you that ’gainst the blind path have from the eternal Prison escaped? "

Firm words and severe gestures imposed respect for him

He strictly asks the two poets who they are;
He believes them two damned,
For they have come
For an unusual way
Virgilio induces Dante
To assume an attitude
Of humble submission

Guardian was an ancient silver beard
an order he gave me
wash up your face
so your soul will be
freed from sins forever

expiation is not a fair path
an order he gave me
wrap yourself in a
flat rush, to embody
the humbleness you need

Catone orders Virgilio to subject Dante to a ritual
He will encircle him with a reed
And remove his traces from his face
Of the passage to hell
As those surrounding notice me as
not passed but still being,
crowd unfolded a friend of mine: Casella

"love that talketh with me in my mind"
he thereupon began
to sing so sweetly that still
i hear his voice

The souls realize that Dante is still alive
And crowd around among them
The Florentine musician Casella recognizes it.
Casella intones a song by Convivio,
"Amor che ne la mente mi ragiona"
With such sweetness that everyone remains entranced to listen.

"Che è Cio'! Spiriti Lenti"


Catone scolds the souls lingered to listen to the song of CASELLA
"What means this negligence and standing still ?
Run To the mount and strip ye off the slough
which lets not god be visible to you "


2. MISERERE

Our climbing path passed by those souls
Who gave up sin when dying
When their breathe’s been cut and body drown,
Weighted a life of sins
Was time to only follow my guide,
When a shout made me hold

Continuing to climb Dante and Virgilio meet the negligent dead violently. Dante was moving away from those souls and he followed in the footsteps of his guide when one of these he screamed.

Sun rays don't shine
Through you, and there
A shadow stains the floor behind
Light does never lie.
You act like still alive,
Here in no man's land!

A soul launches a cry of wonder because the rays of the sun can not pierce the body of the poet and they cast its shadow onto the ground

"Miserère mei, Deus, secùndum magnam misericòrdiam tuam.
Et secùndum multitùdinem miseratiònum tuàrum,
Dele iniquitàtem meam.
Àmplius lava me ab iniquitàte mea,
Et a peccàto meo munda me.
Quòniam iniquitàtem meam ego cognòsco,
Et peccàtum meum contra me est semper.
Tibi, tibi soli peccàvi
Et malum ............"

Misere. Psalm 51 Dante and Virgilio are located in the Ante-Purgatory and on the slopes of the mountain meet a new host of souls who intones the psalm "Miserere"

Confusion and
A growing daze
Gathered a crowd of shades around
Passed eyes on
Me, a sinful wonder
In this penance land

I trust you beyond any swear, and please
Mind every praise will shorten my time here!
Then a voice sobbing: “keep my memory
Alive, my body is lost but my soul lives on!”

Iacopo del Cassero asks Dante to pray for them for shorten their stay in Ante-Purgatory Bonconte da Montefeltro tells about his violent death and he asks Dante for help

"Noi fummo tutti gia' per forza morti"

Literal quote.
The cry of souls killed all violently
I’ve been killed by the hand with my wedding
Ring still on; when back in
Homeland pray lord
So to revive our echos


3. UNDERNEATH THE STONES

"Praised be your name and your value, father "

The prayer pronounced by the souls who have sinned of pride in life. Dante chooses our Father because more than others emphasizes the condition of submission of the superb souls.

Cast your eyes down there:
Slow shapes are coming
Of those expiating their sins
Praying under stones curving their backs

Virgilio tells Dante that damned souls are coming curves under the weight of the stones on their back
Divine I call for
Justice and mercy
Please show me an easier
Path to help this penitent's ascent

Virgilio after having wished the souls justice and divine mercy (captatio benevolentiae) ask them to indicate the easiest way to get to the next frame

A cry halts our pace
Asking for a name
"you'd hear echos of a great past
Along noble roots and... Arrogance"


Putting a shadow
Over all eve's sons
Denied dignity from my sight
I was guilty, not my family

Omberto aldobrandeschi the great businesses and noble roots of his family they made him so arrogant that he despised all men, like him descendants of eva, instead of understanding the equality of the men before god

Here is purge vain glory
On this decadent land
Here is purge the arrogance
Humans sins humans faults
Here is purge vain glory
Here is purge the arrogance

There will come a time
You'll raise hands to
Foreign heavens and
Others' eyes
Obscure my talking,
And I won't say more.
You'll feel it not far from now

Oderisi's Profecy

Glory
Should not come under this name
So vain down in earth, built over pride
So far to be enlighted by lord
All human void
Fame is as the green of leaves,
Lasts long as a season
Reputation is like the wind's blow,
Never flows the same

Vain glory on earth concept.

The fame is short-lived exactly like the color green leaves.
Angelo dell'umiltà
Ci accoglie e ci indica
Il cammino

The Angel of humility invites the two pilgrims to approach to the steps that mark the path towards the second frame

The white angel spreads his wings
Leading us to the walkway
By carvings in rocks
Towards the next ring

And I feel so light
After sin has gone
From my brow


4. BLINDNESS

Left the last stair, top is reached
We stepped on a narrower ledge
No artworks
Only a plain dreary wall
Nobody around, to ask to
My, master with a solemn voice called
Upon helping sun

At the top of the stairs, the two poets are in the second frame, similar to the first but of minor radius. There are no images or sculptures, but a uniform stone with a "bruise" color. Because it does not appear no soul to ask the way, virgilio invokes the sun as a guide to the journey.

"vinum non habent"

Literal quote

A mile is now behind, i heared
Sounds from an invisible above charity
Was in those words, over envious
As they spent a life poisoned
With envy, now are them poked by
Icons of virtue

After about a mile of walking, invisible spirits are heard flying expressing warnings to charity by addressing to the envious invitations to the table of love.

But who are you ?
Ma tu chi sei ?
And why you speak breathing ?

The soul asks dante who he is and why he is alive

One
Nestling on others near,
Rough dresses conceal them to stone walls
Odes to saints
And mother sobbing with me

Tears
Through iron’s blinding hole
A pitiful sight i can not stand
Lowered my eyes
But master told me to speak

At the invitation of virgil, dante looks a little further on some souls, sitting at the rock, dressed in mantles whose color it is confused with the stone. After a while, he hears the invocations of those souls to mary and to the saints. Arrived near them, the poet is troubled and grieved by what he sees. They are covered with rough cloth, they rest one at the other's shoulder, and all are leaning against the rock. They look like the blind who ask for alms in front of the churches. And the souls are blind, since they have the eyelids sewn by a thread of iron; tears are leaking from the horrible stitching. Dante does not want to offend them in looking at them without being seen, but virgilio encourages it to speak.

The blind crowd yet did not
Notice me, and when i
Asked who among them
Was born in beloved homeland

“here we all are sons of
Paradise, but i first saw
The light in italy”
Said a female sightless voice

Dante asks the crowd of penitents who was italian a soul replies that they, in reality, are all cities of paradise, while perhaps he wants to know if one of them has been a foreigner in italy. It is the penitent sapia
Seeing her i conceived
I will share a shorter pain
Though same, but my heart
Feels yet mashed by the stone

Arno? That name should be buried!
It gushes in shit and pigs,
Just to flow to curs, surely noisier
Than violent

Left the plain which turned dogs in
To wolves, it reaches
Fraud foxes

Dante realizes that he too was envious after death and hence the made to share a penalty equal to that of the penitent

Two souls talk about tuscany and the corruption of the inhabitants of valdarno

"quel fu ‘l duro camo
Che dovria l’uom tener dentro a sua meta.
Ma voi prendete l’esca, sì che l’amo
De l’antico avversaro a sé vi tira;
E però poco val freno o richiamo.
Chiamavi ‘l cielo e ‘ntorno vi si gira,
Mostrandovi le sue bellezze etterne,
E l’occhio vostro pur a terra mira;
Onde vi batte chi tutto discerne"


5. IN THE SMOKE

“Shouldn’t darkness had been left down
In hell?” Seems worse to me
Starless night, even darker clouds!

More dense at every step on,
Eyes wide open i can't stand,
Blind, it’s like being in a rough shroud…

The smoke that is having to face dante at the entrance of the third frame is compared and made it even worse in the dark of hell and of a night without stars obscured by clouds. It is so pungent that dante can not keep your eyes open and compare it to one rough cloth
The only hold left to life
Are the master’s hand i grasp,
His voice and the prayers’ echo

"agnus dei, qui tollis peccata mundi,
Miserere nobis dona (nobis) pacem"

Soul
Forth from the hands of him,
The world unsure,
Flies delicate with heart clean,
A maid so pure,
To which is more pleasing

Love
To useless and things void
Sometimes it shoves
If not under a wise guide.
That’s why needs laws
To a firm king be tied


He explains to dante that the soul, once created, she is like an unwitting girl, which is moved by the goodness of god and is directed towards what gives you pleasure

It turns its love also to goods materials and wrong, if it is not braked and guided appropriately: for this they exist laws and it is necessary that a sovereign le apply with rigor.

A third figure joins our walk along
I can only feel
It shielding me from the deadly air
He’s gasping in pain

“fellow, body still cages your soul”
And it’s common in life,
While human reason is confused,
Blaming heavens


Lombardo sighs and then moans for breathing such a pungent smoke. The speech begins calling him brother and saying that from his affirmation it had become clear that it came from the earth; but human reason, being blurred, attributes the cause of everything only to the sky.

Stars cannot affect
Human spirit,
Because it’s born
By the lord
So can’t be
Hold by other powers

God
Gave us reason
To avoid
Darkness, and to chase
The light.
If safely kept
It’s invincible


6. RUNNING AND SCREAMING

Out of the dense blanket smoke
Was dusk behind the mountain,
Along with the wonderful song
Of a nightingale to sky
Then
Comes Aman,
Set to a cross for having killed the right

Dante describes the souls of the penitents who run shouting back and forth, they can not stop because that is their penance One of the characters is Aman, minister of the Persian king Ahasuerus crucified for having wanted to kill the just Mordecai uncle of Queen Esther, episode taken from the Book of Esther of the Old Testament (in which Aman is hanged).

And what about the anger
Of a mother, taken to
Death not to see her daughter hold
As wife by the wrong embrace?
Light!
Nothing more,
The descending angel of bliss

After concluding his explanation, Virgil looks Dante in the eye to see if he is satisfied; he does not speak in order not to be inappropriate, but Virgil understands his desire to ask other questions and encourages him. Dante then, thanking Virgilio for all his teachings, begs him to clarify what is love, which in the previous song has been identified as the origin of every good or bad act.

Lord gave us a loving
Soul; our mind is taken by
World around and turn our soul toward:
That’s what we call Love. But not all seals
Are good, even if wax is

Virgilio explains that the soul is created with the predisposition to love; the mind is struck by external reality, it turns the soul towards it, and if that reality is beautiful and pleasant, the soul feels love. Then, as the fire by its nature tends upward, so the soul is naturally driven to desire the beloved object and find no peace until he does not own it. Men often fall into error as they believe that any love is praiseworthy in itself: the faculty to love is good; but it is not always its concrete realizations (as well as not all of them the seals are good, even if the wax is good).

No Man, Nor God
Was Without Love.
When Felt Is Always Right, Chosen May Not.
Only Until God
Is The Spark, Love Will Not Fail

No creature (that is, no man), like his Creator (God), was never without love, love that can be of two kinds: "natural" or "of soul". In the first case it is instinctive and therefore always right; in the second case it is of choice, of will, that is, chosen by the subject: this love can therefore be wrong, for three different reasons: it can sin by "malo obietto", that is, because As long as love is directed to the First Good, that is to God, and is kept in the right limits towards other goods, it can not err, but when it turns to evil or exceeds the measure (too much or too little), then the creature works against the Creator.

Master wiped out all my doubts,
I was almost loosing me
Thinking back to answers he gave
But peace has yet to come here
Screams!
And stomping
Crazy horde running for faster find its peace

We were parted, after
The chaos I saw him
Taking his way on: should I reach him?
He turned, stern, pointing
Two souls, guilty as me
Of sloth: this remembered
Me of not being free by sins yet

Virgil has now responded to his doubts, and he is in a state of torpor, but is suddenly interrupted by a large crowd of souls that comes up behind him running furiously, like the multitudes of the Theban who invoked Bacchus. The first two souls crying cry out examples of solicitude: Mary who goes to visit Elizabeth, and Julius Caesar who during the civil war moves quickly from Marseilles to Spain to hit the Pompeii. The others add, always shouting, exhortations to the speed of expiation, so as to solicit divine grace. Meanwhile, the soul that claims to be an abbot goes away, and Dante does not know if he has finished speaking or not; Virgilio invites him to pay attention to two souls who cry out examples of punished sloth: the Jews were too weak to follow Moses, who did not come to see the Jordan, and the Trojans who instead of following Enea stopped in Sicily.

"Poi quando fuor da noi tanto divise
Quell’ombre, che veder più non potiersi,
Novo pensiero dentro a me si mise,
Del qual più altri nacquero e diversi;
E tanto d’uno in altro vaneggiai,
Che li occhi per vaghezza ricopersi,
E ‘l pensamento in sogno trasmutai. "


7. LAYING BOUND

"Ma questo è un sogno? O realtà ?"
Walking in my dream
Met a beautiful mermeid
Whose charming crooning
Stealed as with ulisses

Virtue? Perdition? Hard to choose…
Master answered killing her,
Waking me up is the
Only escape

Dante dreams. Dreams a strange woman, who turns into a kind
Of mermaid as fascinating as the sirens that meet Ulysses in his
Long trip

In the dream he asks for help from Virgil, who is staring at his clothes
Of the first woman of the dream and shows her belly, rotten and
Smelly to the point that Dante wakes up.

Immersed in thoughts
He said she was like those sins
Which bind soul to goods,
But temperance will save you

That’s why you should offer your heart
To the heavens, like hawks do:
First blind, but ready to
Fly at the sign

Here that pain
It comes: I hear
“my soul stuck the ground”
By weeping souls
Please guide us;
Don’t loose the faith,
It will come an end

Virgilio explains that the woman is "that ancient witch" she represents the sins punished in the upper part of Purgatory, that is those caused by an excess of desire for earthly goods he adds that Dante in his dream saw how we can free ourselves from it to temperance Let him therefore be determined to address his heart to heaven (and not to earthly goods). Dante is like the hawk who first looks long on the ground, then, at the call of the falconer, it rushes upwards looking for prey; so he quickly runs the ladder in the rock up to the entrance in the fifth group.

Before leaving,
Tell me if I can be
Of any help; who are you?
I was a Pope for a moon
Used to long for it,
Despite the
Little time, I felt
The weight of role

My kneels down give
You the respect you due
Stand, my brother!
We both are under the Only;
In God’s reign no
Husbands or wives, but we all will
Be as angels

As soon as he entered the fifth circle, Dante sees a crowd of souls, mouthfuls on the ground, that between tears and sighs hardly say, in the words of the Psalm CXIX, "my soul has adhered to the ground". Virgil with accents of compassion and hope asks for advice on the way to go.

When I Was Alive,
Thought No Greater Award
Than Being A Pope,
Greedyness Kept Me Far…
Never Raised My Heart,
So Now I Face The Mud.
Greed Hold Me, So Now I Live Hands And Legs Tied


As we were leaving, a noise
Blared into my thoughts: heartquake!

Nearly fainted in terror,
I heard words into that shout:

“Gloria in excelsis Deo”


8. THE SUFFERING

(1)
Past the angel’s smile,
our path goes plain and peaceful,
friendly talking
arguing nicely,
with our mate from the terrace of avarice

asked him how
His wisdom has let him fall
upon greed;
but he was
guilty of
the opposite, there together

(2)
Having to
answer about great poets
from ancient times, Rome and Greece
my master assured they’re still with him

Down, at first circle
the Hell gathers all those born
before Jesus,
here great poets stay
from everywhere, talking about poetry

(3)
Suddenly right
in the middle of our trail
a huge tree raised
upside down, and full of fruits

A voice shouted
not to eat from that tree,
Eden’s memory

(4)
Shook myself from dreams,
our destination can’t wait,
moving away
right when angels
sang the arrival of those here for their sins

In life they ate
without measure but all them
are stunted,
but running
however;
fair how far shortcomings took them

(5)
Five Years Ago
A Great Friend
Of Mine Gone Died
Here You Are!
Sufferings Left Signs…
Your Voice Can’t Lie, Even Here

Deprivation
Is Our Path
To Salvation
God Said Hath
Despite The Pain, We Go To The Tree
Like Once He Did To The Cross

(6)
Your repentance was late, just at the end,
how it comes you're here, about to leave?
“it has been thanks to my wife, prayers
and an exemplary life”
much more than the rest

(7)
When the time has come
I sit, inspired
feel by Love itself,
I write that same
way he’s talking
inside of me.
That’s the key
which builds the style

(8)
Blessed are those enlightened by Lord
they don’t get excited on gluttony
but are eager of what is right indeed.
That took the very last sign


9. WALKING INTO FIRE

(1)
From the depth of the mountain
A wide flame is born,
No way but a slit on the shoulder
Of the abyss.
“beware my friend,
Do every step on a firm foothold”

(2)
Sun shines my side,
I am paler than the fire

(3)
Sighs of amazement from inside
The painful fire
Once again my being alive is
Strange, but as I
Arrange answer
A wildly kissing swarm shouts away

(4)
Those words are mere terror, gather
Visions i call
And she's there beyond,
So i walked in, with the voice
From the end of
The fire wall

Sodoma e gomorra

(5)
I took you till here
With the help of my Reason;
You’re far from
The expiation path.
Wait for the love
Eyes, who sent me to help you.

Don’t
Ask me a
Word or a sign,
You are now free
From any sin,
You act yourself

(6)
Io sovra
Te corono e mitrio


10. EDEN

(1)
Penance has here a stop; it's where rites
Get deserving souls free and ready
To ascend to the stars
We are in the Eden

Where spring reigns far over the seasons,
Water is pure and skies always neat
Innocence, while source of
The Original Sin.

(2)
Shame on
Those sinners,
If not for
Them, we all could had enjoied
All these beauties;
Sweet choirs do not take this rancor away.

Golden
Griffin here comes,
Wings open spread
So high the eyes can't see an end,
Its majesty
Passes any legendary one.

(3)
Dawn, suddenly flowing
Tears, joy and sorrow, I
Burn again by old flame.

Dante, Don't Weep, For This Is Less;
The Real Pain Is Yet To Come…
Look! It's Me! But How Did You Dare?
Here All Are Joyful, Don't You Know?

Material Goods Chained
Me, Diverting My Own Way...
I Had To Save You!
... When Death's Stolen You

(4)
You carry the weight of a blame
Well known by the lord, like it or not
But if you confess it, justice will
Be less hard towards you, easier pain
Stop weeping and listen how my loss
Could have had guided you wisely

No more beauty than
Mine has ever
Been shown you; death made it of no worth
Up to the heavens your soul should have been close
Nothing should have ever had your care,
‘cause, as an adult, you’d have spotted danger

(5)
Left dumb and speachless, raised my head and saw
Other angels vanished; I then turned my eyes and whatching her
Vestal beauty realized my
Error, fainting off.

(6)
Up rising from Lethe’s stream,
Adoring her view
Reflecting the Griffin,
You’re still my forever


11. STARS

(1)
Virtues are approaching,
In number of three,
Dancing and singing her
A prayer to be forgiving

“he suffered and went through so much pain for you,
Show him your benevolence, unveil your true smile”
Heavenly vision of her pure grace
Passes any poetry by far

Drown into you,
After ten years,
Makes all around sink in the mist of a memory:
They would like me back,
But all me stays on you
Who survive this oblivion

Awaken from my dreams, I see
You left procession after a tall tree
Everyone there calls for Adam.
Griffin gets near the leafless,
Not eating from it calls for a spring and flowers

"s’io potessi ritrar come assonnaro
Li occhi spietati udendo di Siringa,
Li occhi a cui pur vegghiar costò sì caro;
Come pintor che con essempro pinga,
Disegnerei com’io m’addormentai;
Ma qual vuol sia che l’assonnar ben finga "

(4)
Lightning speed, raging
Descent from heavens,
The eagle arrives
Shaking all ‘till fallen down
(5)
Not even the time
To raise and be safe
That a dragon comes
Tearing everything apart

(6)
All at once
Eagle’s feathers
Covered the ruins, and by that strange snowing found its way
Three heads, than others
And sharp horns all around
A kind of monster i’ve never seen

(7)
Riding that abomination
A whore, teasing and kissing a giant
As her sight fell upon myself
Her lover full of anger
Envious grabbed the bridle and carried all to the forest

(8)
Now
You don’t have to fear any more
What you saw will have its own sense
And all will be clear soon, the same way
The tree and its destruction. At least
Remember the main traits of all this,
Report them to the world of living
Like a pilgrim back from Holy Land

(9)
My love has
Never left
You, your memory nor our faith.
Been drown in Lethe,
However,
Admits my guilt, and I feel shame.
Forgive me

High the stress
Trying to realize
All left behind
Made my mind so sore
Time for me to be guided to the river head
So to be made pure drinking the sacred water

(10)
Almost over
I can’t gather words
The immense joy
I found in drinking
Back from the holy river I’m deeply renewed

"Puro E Disposto A Salir Le Stelle"

BONUSTRACK

12. ARY

I lived a dream with you, a fairy tale
but then we found ourselves trapped in a nightmare
I wanted to believe, we wanted to hope
but HE has destroyed all our dreams
HE made us believe that
we would lived our dream
But then he killed our destiny

With you I breathed clean air
I saw the infinity in the sky
I felt great warmth embracing your love
I drank crystal clear water
but.... I also learned terror
and fear, the real ones.
With you everything has been worth living

If I Know What Love Is, It's Beacause Of You

It's time for you to rest your soul, and for me to cry for you.
You'll always be inside of me, wherever you are now...Ary

Goodbye

R.I.P. ARY (Joe's Wife)