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When of myself I could dispose at will, Above that creature did I draw myself, Whose words before had caused me to take note, Saying: “O Spirit, in whom weeping ripens That without which to God we cannot turn, Suspend awhile for me thy greater care. Who wast thou, and why are your backs turned upwards Tell me, and if thou wouldst that I procure thee Anything there whence living I departed.” And he to me: “Wherefore our backs the heaven Turns to itself, know shalt thou; but beforehand Scias quod ego fui successor Petri. 269 Between Siestri and Chiaveri descends A river beautiful, and of its name The title of my blood its summit makes. A month and little more essayed I how Weighs the great cloak on him from mire who keeps it, For all the other burdens seem a feather. Tardy, ah woe is me! was my conversion; But when the Roman Shepherd I was made, Then I discovered life to be a lie. I saw that there the heart was not at rest, Nor farther in that life could one ascend; Whereby the love of this was kindled in me. Until that time a wretched soul and parted From God was I, and wholly avaricious; Now, as thou seest, I here am punished for it What avarice does is here made manifest In the purgation of these souls converted, And no more bitter pain the Mountain has. Even as our eye did not uplift itself Aloft, being fastened upon earthly things, 269
“Know that I am the successor of Peter.” It is Pope Adrian the Fifth who speaks. He was of the family of the Counts of Lavagna, the family taking its title from the river Lavagna, flowing between Siestri and Chiaveri, towns on the Riviera di Genova. He was Pope only thirty-nine days, and died in 1276. When his kindred came to congratulate him on his election, he said, “Would that ye came to a Cardinal in good health, and not to a dying Pope.”