Dante V Canto XIV Scene III

 Canto XIV

Second Terrace; Envious understood.

Scene III

Dante took his steps and then he heard the voice behind him.

“I am Aglauros, who was turned to stone.” Dante for the moment was frightened by the call. He inched towards Virgil for protection.

“Who was that had spoken?” Virgil called out. He saw then the image of the lady in the stone wall surface.

“I am Aglauros. I am of stone cursed by Mercury for my envy of his for my sister. I turn my envy with a demand for a sum of gold, but he had none and had him chased away. She was worth the weight of gold.” The face there voiced out.

“Unknown then to me, my action was seen by Athene who went foul with my action, and Envy was requested to punish me. I was punished when I blocked Mercury when he arrived again, and the curse was on me to be made into a stone figure.” The face there roared out.

“Do you know what it means? I am devoid of the feel in my heart; now hardened with stone in me.” The face sighed.

“I don’t understand,” Virgil said to Dante. “Who would condemn a soul to the stone that will remain here forever?”

“It’s metamorphosis. It was depicted in the Metamorphoses by Ovid.” Dante explained. “Ovid in his writings turn to the sins of mankind. He wrote two tales there; one was Mercury’s theft of Apollo’s herd of cattle when the shepherd having witnessed the theft was taken in by greed and offered not to tell the truth. He was later to speak the event when he was offered double the reward but in turn, he got was the punishment to be turned into stone.”

“The second was what you had heard just now. Aglauros for her envious ways to stop the other from courting her sister and asked to be rewarded with gold, and stone was her punishment.”

“Stone? That’s a heavy burden for any sin.” Virgil sighed.

“These words will explain it then.” Dante then recited passages of the poems from Ovid’s book on how Aglauros was punished.

“Let us adhere to that which was agreed.”
Rejoined the graceful-formed Cyllenian God,
who as he spoke thrust open with a touch
of his compelling wand the carved door.
But when she made an effort to arise,
her thighs felt heavy, rigid, and benumbed;
and as she struggled to arise her knees
were stiffened? and her nails turned pale and cold;
her veins grew pallid as the blood congealed.
And even as the dreaded cancer spreads
through all the body, adding to its taint
the flesh uninjured; so, a deadly chill
entered by slow degrees her breast, and stopped
her breathing, and the passages of life.
She did not try to speak but had she made
an effort to complain there was not left
a passage for her voice. Her neck was changed
to rigid stone, her countenance felt hard;
she sat a bloodless statue, but of stone
not marble-white — her mind had stained it black.”

“I am ever curious. If she was silenced as per the passage you recited, how could she voice out here now where we stand?” Virgil looked at Dante.

“A metaphor it may be when Ovid wrote it. It was to silence the character. In this realm, the soul is given a voice.” Dante replied. “There must be a reason. It’s a deviation from the original.”

Dante stood back to think. He had to think about the program. There was a reason for all of it. He turned to Virgil.

“There were tests. All of them. I just need to out-think the program here. I have to ---”

“That just it, Poet. We are here on a task to get out of this prison and be with the Empress.”  Virgil looked hard at Dante. “Focus on that. All that we will see here are the works of that program and let us out-think the damn program.”

“No --- Yes, the program I meant. The program presented to us the sin of envy here but I need to know why the roque program gave the voice to the --- stony souls here. I have to understand it. And why here that soul? And not the others? Aglarous was silenced---” Dante was thinking.

Virgil looked at Dante disbelieving.

“Envious? Why envious?” Dante had his head down.

“Stop it, Poet.” Virgil was impatient to move on. “Those are sins. Sinners have sinned. So, one speaks. So, what has that to do with it?”

“Exactly!” Dante looked at Virgil. “My --- Aglarous here spoke to me. It’s telling me that I need to be firm with my decisions. Ovid said it all; ‘Let us adhere to that which was agreed’. I have to see the trees from the forest. The task is important but I cannot ignore the sins seen here. I need to know the sins to move forward. That was the ‘P’ on my forehead. It won’t clear unless I know the reason I am here.”

“And what is that reason?”

“To understand sins,” Dante replied. He then looked at the stone. “I hear you, Aglarous. God heard you too. You will be released from the sin of envy. I will ensure of it.”

It was then the stony face closed its eyes and mouth. It remained silent. It was in peace with itself.