"And thus the good instructor: 'Now, my son
 Draws near the city, that of Dis[11] is named,
 With its grave denizens, a mighty throng.'
 "I thus: 'The minarets already, sir!
 There, certes, in the valley I descry,
 Gleaming vermilion, as if they from fire
 Had issued.' He replied: 'Eternal fire,
 That inward burns shows them with ruddy flame
 Illumed; as in this nether hell thou seest.'
 "We came within the fosses deep, that moat
 This region comfortless. The walls appeared
 As they were framed of iron. We had made
 Wide circuit, ere a place we reached, where loud
 The mariner cried vehement: 'Go forth:
 The entrance is here.' Upon the gates I spied
 More than a thousand, who of old from heaven
 Were shower'd. With ireful gestures, 'Who is this,'
 They cried, 'that, without death first felt, goes through
 The regions of the dead?' My sapient guide
 Made sign that he for secret parley wished;
 Whereat their angry scorn abating, thus
 They spake: 'Come thou alone; and let him go,
 Who hath so hardily entered this realm.
 Alone return he by his witless way;
 If well he know it, let him prove. For thee,
 Here shalt thou tarry, who through clime so dark
 Hast been his escort.' Now bethink thee, reader!
 What cheer was mine at sound of those curst words.
 I did believe I never should return."

While not only Dante but Vergil himself stand in dismay before the closed gates of the city, and the threatening devils on the walls, they hear a roar like that of a mighty wind, and behold! over the waters of the Styx a celestial messenger comes dry-shod, puts to flight the recalcitrant devils, and opening the gates with a touch of his wand, departs without having uttered a word.

Entering the city, Dante sees a vast cemetery covered with tombs, whence issue flames, and in which are shut up the souls of those who denied the immortality of the soul. Here occurs the celebrated scene between Dante and Farinata degli Uberti, who alone, after the battle of Montaperti, in 1260 (when the victorious Ghibellines seriously contemplated razing Florence to the ground), opposed the motion, and thus saved his native city from destruction. Here also Dante sees the father of his friend, Guido Cavalcanti.

In the center of the cemetery yawns a tremendous abyss, which leads to the lower regions of hell. Before they descend this, however, Vergil explains to Dante the various kinds of sins which are punished in hell. Those he has seen hitherto (gluttony, licentiousness, avarice, wrath, and melancholy) all belong to the category of incontinence; those which are to come are due to malice, and harm not only oneself but others. The sixth circle, that of the heretics, in which they now are, forms a transition between the above two general divisions. In circle seven, the next one below them, are punished the violent, subdivided into three classes: 1, those who were violent against their fellow-men,—tyrants, murderers, and robbers; 2, those who were violent against themselves,—suicides and gamblers; 3, those who were violent against God, nature, and art,—blasphemers, sodomites, and usurers. In circles eight and nine are the fraudulent and traitors, the various classes of which are given later.

After this explanation, the two poets descend the rocky cliff, and find at the bottom a blood-red river, where, guarded by centaurs, are plunged the souls of murderers and robbers, in various depths according to the heinousness of their cruelty and crimes. Crossing this stream they come to a dark and gloomy wood, composed of trees gnarled and twisted into all sorts of fantastic shapes, grimly recalling the contortions of a human body in pain, and covered with poisonous thorns. On the branches sit hideous harpies, half woman, half bird. Each of these trees contains the soul of a suicide. Dante, breaking off a small branch, is horrified to see human blood slowly ooze from the break, and a hissing noise like escaping steam, which resolves itself finally into words. From these he learns that the soul contained in this tree is that of Pier delle Vigne, prime minister of Frederick II., who tells his sad and pathetic story, how he became the victim of slander and court intrigue, and how, being unjustly imprisoned by his master, he committed suicide.

Beyond this gruesome forest the wanderers come out upon a vast sandy desert, utterly treeless, where they see many wretched souls, some lying supine, some crouching down in a sitting posture, some walking incessantly about, all, however, forever trying, but in vain, to ward off from their naked bodies countless flakes of flame which fall slowly and steadily like snow

"On Alpine summits, when the wind is hushed."

Here are punished the blasphemers, violent against God; usurers, violent against art; and sodomites, violent against nature. Among the latter Dante recognizes and converses with his old friend, Brunetto Latini, who prophesies to him his future fame and his exile from Florence:

"'If thou,' he answer'd, 'follow but thy star,
 Thou canst not miss at last a glorious haven;
 Unless in fairer days my judgment erred.
 And if my fate so early had not chanced,
 Seeing the heavens thus bounteous to thee, I
 Had gladly given thee comfort in thy work.
 But that ungrateful and malignant race,
 Who in old times came down from Fiesole,[12]
 Ay and still smack of their rough mountain-flint,
 Will for thy good deeds show thee enmity.'"

To which the poet answers with noble courage:

"This only would I have thee clearly note:
 That, so my conscience have no plea against me,
 Do Fortune as she list, I stand prepared,
 Not new or strange such earnest to my ear.
 Speed Fortune then her wheel, as likes her best;
 The clown his mattock; all things have their course."

The poets then descend the tremendous cliff leading to circle eight, on the back of Geryon, a fantastic monster, with face of a good man, but body of a beast, many-colored and covered over with complicated figures, being a symbol of the fraud punished in the next circle. This is subdivided into ten concentric rings, or ditches, with the floor gradually descending to a well in the center, thus resembling the circular rows of seats in an amphitheater, converging to the arena. In these ten malebolge, as Dante calls them—i. e., evil pits—are ten different kinds of fraudulent, panderers, flatterers, those guilty of simony, false prophets, magicians, thieves, barterers (those who sell public offices), evil counselors, schismatics, and hypocrites, all punished with diabolic ingenuity, hewn asunder by the sword, boiled in lakes of burning pitch, bitten by poisonous snakes, wasted by dire and hideous disease. As an example of the horrors seen in these evil pits we give one vivid picture, that of the famous Troubadour Bertrand de Born, who, having incited the young son of Henry II., of England, to rebel against his father, is punished in hell by having his head cut off and carrying it in his hand:

"But I there
 Still lingered to behold the troop, and saw
 Thing, such as I may fear without more proof
 To tell of, but that conscience makes me firm,
 The boon companion, who her strong breastplate
 Buckles on him, that feels no guilt within,
 And bids him on and fear not. Without doubt
 I saw, and yet it seems to pass before me,
 A headless trunk, that even as the rest
 Of the sad flock paced onward. By the hair
 It bore the severed member, lantern-wise
 Pendent in hand, which look'd at us and said,
 'Woe's me!' The spirit lighted thus himself;
 And two there were in one, and one in two.
 How that may be, he knows who ordereth so.
 "When at the bridge's foot direct he stood,
 His arm aloft he reared, thrusting the head
 Full in our view, that nearer we might hear
 The words, which thus it utter'd: 'Now behold
 This grievous torment, thou, who breathing go'st
 To spy the dead: behold, if any else
 Be terrible as this. And, that on earth
 Thou mayst bear tidings of me, know that I
 Am Bertrand, he of Born, who gave King John
 The counsel mischievous. Father and son
 I set at mutual war. For Absalom
 And David more did not Ahitophel,
 Spurring them on maliciously to strife.
 For parting those so closely knit, my brain
 Parted, alas! I carry from its source,
 That in this trunk inhabits. Thus the law
 Of retribution fiercely works in me.'"

In the eighth pit are the souls of evil counselors, so completely swathed in flames that their forms cannot be seen. Dante's attention is especially attracted to one of these moving flames, with a double-tipped point, which proves to contain the souls of Diomede and Ulysses, who, as they were together in fraud, are now inseparable in punishment. The story of his last voyage and final shipwreck, told by Ulysses, how in his old age, weary of the monotony of home life and longing to know the secret of the great Western ocean, he set sail with his old companions, is full of imaginative grandeur:

"Of the old flame forthwith the greater horn
 Began to roll, murmuring, as a fire
 That labors with the wind, then to and fro
 Wagging the top, as a tongue uttering sounds,
 Threw out its voice, and spake: when I escaped
 From Circe, who beyond a circling year
 Had held me near Caieta by her charms,
 Ere thus Æneas yet had named the shore;
 Nor fondness for my son, nor reverence
 Of my old father, nor return of love,
 That should have crowned Penelope with joy,
 Could overcome in me the zeal I had
 To explore the world, and search the ways of life,
 Man's evil and his virtue. Forth I sailed
 Into the deep, illimitable main,
 With but one bark, and the small faithful band
 That yet cleaved to me. As Iberia far,
 Far as Marocco, either shore I saw,
 And the Sardinian and each isle beside
 Which round that ocean bathes. Tardy with age
 Were I and my companions, when we came
 To the strait pass, where Hercules ordain'd
 The boundaries not to be o'erstepp'd by man
 The walls of Seville to my right I left,
 On the other hand already Ceuta past.
 'O brothers!' I began, 'who to the West
 Through perils without number now have reached;
 To this the short remaining watch, that yet
 Our senses have to wake, refuse not proof
 Of the unpeopled world, following the track
 Of Phœbus. Call to mind from whence ye sprang:
 Ye were not formed to live the life of brutes,
 But virtue to pursue and knowledge high.'
 With these few words I sharpened for the voyage
 The mind of my associates, that I then
 Could scarcely have withheld them. To the dawn
 Our poop we turned, and for the witless flight
 Made our oars wings, still gaining on the left.
 Each star of the other pole night now beheld,
 And ours so low, that from the ocean floor
 It rose not. Five times re-illumed, as oft
 Vanish'd the light from underneath the moon,
 Since the deep way we entered, when from far
 Appear'd a mountain dim, loftiest methought
 Of all I e'er beheld. Joy seized us straight;
 But soon to mourning changed. From the new land
 A whirlwind sprung, and at her foremost side
 Did strike the vessel. Thrice it whirl'd her round
 With all the waves; the fourth time lifted up
 The poop, and sank the prow: so fate decreed:
 And over us the booming billow closed."

In the center of the amphitheater of Malebolge is a deep and vast well, guarded by giants, one of whom takes the poets in his arms and deposits them at the bottom. Here they find the ninth and last circle, where in four divisions the traitors against relatives, friends, country, and benefactors, are fixed like flies in amber in a solid lake of ice, swept by bitter, cold winds. Among the traitors to their country Dante sees one man who is gnawing in relentless rage at the head of another fixed in the ice in front of him. Inquiring the cause of this terrible cruelty, Dante hears the following story, couched in language which Goethe has declared to be without an equal in all poetry:

"His jaws uplifting from their fell repast,
 That sinner wiped them on the hairs o' the head,
 Which he behind had mangled, then began:
 'Thy will obeying, I call up afresh
 Sorrow past cure; which, but to think of, wrings
 My heart, or ere I tell on 't. But if words,
 That I may utter, shall prove seed to bear
 Fruit of eternal infamy to him,
 The traitor whom I gnaw at, thou at once
 Shalt see me speak and weep. Who thou mayst be
 I know not, nor how here below art come:
 But Florentine thou seemest of a truth,
 When I do hear thee. Know, I was on earth
 Count Ugolino, and the Archbishop he
 Ruggieri. Why I neighbor him so close,
 Now list. That through effect of his ill thoughts
 In him my trust reposing, I was ta'en
 And after murdered, need is not I tell.
 What therefore thou canst not have heard, that is,
 How cruel was the murder, shalt thou hear,
 And know if he have wrong'd me. A small grate
 Within that mew, which for my sake the name
 Of famine bears, where others yet must pine,
 Already through its opening several moons
 Had shown me, when I slept the evil sleep
 That from the future tore the curtain off.
 This one, methought, as master of the sport,
 Rode forth to chase the gaunt wolf, and his whelps,
 Unto the mountain which forbids the sight
 Of Lucca to the Pisan. With lean brachs
 Inquisitive and keen, before him ranged
 Lanfranchi with Sismondi and Gualandi.
 After short course the father and the sons
 Seemed tired and lagging, and methought I saw
 The sharp tusks gore their sides. When I awoke,
 Before the dawn, amid their sleep I heard
 My sons (for they were with me) weep and ask
 For bread. Right cruel art thou, if no pang
 Thou feel at thinking what my heart foretold;
 And if not now, why use thy tears to flow?
 Now had they wakened; and the hour drew near
 When they were wont to bring us food; the mind
 Of each misgave him through his dream, and I
 Heard, at its outlet underneath locked up
 The horrible tower: whence, uttering not a word,
 I look'd upon the visage of my sons.
 I wept not: so all stone I felt within.
 They wept: and one, my little Anselm, cried,
 "Thou lookest so! Father what ails thee?" Yet
 I shed no tear, nor answered all that day
 Nor the next night, until another sun
 Came out upon the world. When a faint beam
 Had to our doleful prison made its way,
 And in four countenances I descried
 The image of my own, on either hand
 Through agony I bit; and they, who thought
 I did it through desire of feeding, rose
 O' the sudden, and cried, "Father, we should grieve
 Far less, if thou wouldst eat of us: thou gavest
 These weeds of miserable flesh we wear;
 And do thou strip them off from us again."
 Then, not to make them sadder, I kept down
 My spirit in stillness. That day and the next
 We all were silent. Ah, obdurate earth!
 Why open'dst not upon us? When we came
 To the fourth day, then Gaddo at my feet
 Outstretched did fling him, crying, "Hast no help
 For me, my father!" There he died; and e'en
 Plainly as thou seest me, saw I the three
 Fall one by one 'twixt the fifth day and sixth:
 Whence I betook me, now grown blind, to grope
 Over them all, and for three days aloud
 Called on them who were dead. Then, fasting got
 The mastery of grief.' Thus having spoke,
 Once more upon the wretched skull his teeth
 He fasten'd like a mastiff's 'gainst the bone,
 Firm and unyielding. Oh, thou Pisa! shame
 Of all the people, who their dwelling make
 In that fair region, where the Italian voice
 Is heard; since that thy neighbors are so slack
 To punish, from their deep foundations rise
 Capraia and Gorgona,[13] and dam up
 The mouth of Arno; that each soul in thee
 May perish in the waters. What if fame
 Reported that thy castles were betrayed
 By Ugolino, yet no right hadst thou
 To stretch his children on the rack. For them,
 Brigata, Uguccione, and the pair
 Of gentle ones, of whom my song hath told,
 Their tender years, thou modern Thebes, did make
 Uncapable of guilt. Onward we passed,
 Where others, skarfed in rugged folds of ice.
 Not on their feet were turned, but each reversed."

Arriving at the very bottom of hell, the poets see the body of Lucifer fixed in the center thereof (which is at the same time the center of earth and of the universe), with its upper part projecting into the freezing air. This monstrous figure, as hideous now as it had been beautiful before his revolt against God, has three pairs of wings and three heads, in the mouths of which he tears to pieces the three arch-traitors, Judas, Brutus, and Cassius.

The wanderers climb along the hairy sides of Lucifer and finally reach a cavity which corresponds to the lowest part of hell, and up into which are thrust the legs of the monster. They have thus passed the center of earth and are now in the other or southern hemisphere. Making their way upward along the course of a stream they finally come out into the open air, where the mount of purgatory rises sheer up from the surface of the great southern sea.

The first cantos of Purgatory are of wonderful beauty, and their loveliness is heightened by contrast, coming as it does after the darkness, filth, and horrors of hell. Issuing from the subterranean passage just before sunrise, the poets see before them a vast expanse of sea, lighted up by the soft rays of Venus, the morning star, and gradually becoming brighter as the dawn advances:

"Sweet hue of eastern sapphire, that was spread
 O'er the serene aspect of the pure air,
 High up as the first circle, to mine eyes
 Unwonted joy renew'd, soon as I 'scaped
 Forth from the atmosphere of deadly gloom,
 That had mine eyes and bosom fill'd with grief.
 The radiant planet, that to love invites,
 Made all the Orient laugh, and veiled beneath
 The Pisces' light, that in his escort came.
 "To the right hand I turned, and fixed my mind
 On the other pole attentive, where I saw
 Four stars ne'er seen before save by the ken
 Of our first parents. Heaven of their rays
 Seemed joyous. O thou northern site! bereft
 Indeed, and widowed, since of these deprived."

As they stand watching this scene, a venerable old man (Cato, the guardian of the island) approaches and tells them to go to the seashore and wipe off the stains of hell with the reeds that grow there:

"The dawn had chased the matin hour of prime,
 Which fled before it, so that from afar
 I spied the trembling of the ocean stream.
 "We traversed the deserted plain, as one
 Who, wandered from his track, thinks every step
 Trodden in vain till he regain the path.
 "When we had come where yet the tender dew
 Strove with the sun, and in a place where fresh
 The wind breathed o'er it, while it slowly dried;
 Both hands extended on the watery grass
 My master placed, in graceful act and kind.
 Whence I of his intent before apprized,
 Stretched out to him my cheeks suffused with tears.
 There to my visage he anew restored
 That hue which the dun shades of hell concealed.
 "Then on the solitary shore arrived,
 That never sailing on its waters saw
 Man that could after measure back his course,
 He girt me in such manner as had pleased
 Him who instructed; and O strange to tell!
 As he selected every humble plant,
 Wherever one was plucked another there
 Resembling, straightway in its place arose."

As they linger by the seaside, they suddenly see a bright light far off over the waters, which, as it approaches nearer, turns out to be a boat wafted by angelic wings and bearing to purgatory the souls of the saved, among them a musician, a friend of Dante's who at his request, sings one of the poet's own songs:

"Meanwhile we lingered by the water's brink,
 Like men, who, musing on their road, in thought
 Journey, while motionless the body rests.
 When lo! as, near upon the hour of dawn,
 Through the thick vapors Mars with fiery beam
 Glares down in west, over the ocean floor;
 So seemed, what once again I hope to view,
 A light, so swiftly coming through the sea,
 No winged course might equal its career.
 From which when for a space I had withdrawn
 Mine eyes, to make inquiry of my guide,
 Again I looked, and saw it grown in size
 And brightness: then on either side appeared
 Something, but what I knew not, of bright hue,
 And by degrees from underneath it came
 Another. My preceptor silent yet
 Stood, while the brightness, that we first discerned,
 Opened the form of wings: then when he knew
 The pilot, cried aloud, 'Down, down; bend low
 Thy knees; behold God's angel: fold thy hands:
 Now shalt thou see true ministers indeed.
 Lo! how all human means he sets at nought;
 So that nor oar he needs, nor other sail
 Except his wings, between such distant shores.
 Lo! how straight up to heaven he holds them reared,
 Winnowing the air with those eternal plumes,
 That not like mortal hairs fall off or change.'
 "As more and more toward us came, more bright
 Appeared the bird of God, nor could the eye
 Endure his splendor near: I mine bent down.
 He drove ashore in a small bark so swift
 And light, that in its course no wave it drank.
 The heavenly steersman at the prow was seen,
 Visibly written Blessed in his looks.
 Within, a hundred spirits and more there sat.
 "'In Exitu Israel de Egypto,'
 All with one voice together sang, with what
 In the remainder of that hymn is writ.
 Then soon as with the sign of holy cross
 He blessed them, they at once leaped out on land:
 He, swiftly as he came, returned. The crew,
 There left, appear'd astounded with the place,
 Gazing around, as one who sees new sights.
 "From every side the sun darted his beams,
 And with his arrowy radiance from mid heaven
 Had chased the Capricorn, when that strange tribe,
 Lifting their eyes toward us: 'If ye know,
 Declare what path will lead us to the mount.'
 "Them Vergil answered: 'Ye suppose, perchance,
 Us well acquainted with this place: but here,
 We, as yourselves, are strangers. Not long erst
 We came, before you but a little space,
 By other road so rough and hard, that now
 The ascent will seem to us as play.' The spirits,
 Who from my breathing had perceived I lived,
 Grew pale with wonder. As the multitude
 Flock round a herald sent with olive branch,
 To hear what news he brings, and in their haste
 Tread one another down; e'en so at sight
 Of me those happy spirits were fixed, each one
 Forgetful of its errand to depart
 Where, cleansed from sin, it might be made all fair.
 "Then one I saw darting before the rest
 With such fond ardor to embrace me, I
 To do the like was moved. O shadows vain!
 Except in outward semblance: thrice my hands
 I clasped behind it, they as oft return'd
 Empty into my breast again. Surprise
 I need must think was painted in my looks,
 For that the shadow smiled and backward drew.
 To follow it I hastened, but with voice
 Of sweetness it enjoined me to desist.
 Then who it was I knew, and pray'd of it,
 To talk with me it would a little pause.
 It answered: 'Thee as in my mortal frame
 I loved, so loosed from it I love thee still,
 And therefore pause: but why walkest thou here?'
 "'Not without purpose once more to return,
 Thou find'st me, my Casella, where I am,
 Journeying this way;' I said: 'but how of thee
 Hath so much time been lost?' He answered straight
 "'No outrage hath been done to me, if he,
 Who when and whom he chooses takes, hath oft
 Denied me passage here; since of just will
 His will he makes. These three months past indeed,
 He, whoso chose to enter, with free leave
 Hath taken; whence I wandering by the shore
 Where Tiber's wave grows salt, of him gain'd kind
 Admittance, at that river's mouth, toward which
 His wings are pointed; for there always throng
 All such as not to Acheron descend.'
 "Then I: '"If new law taketh not from thee
 Memory or custom of love-tuned song,
 That whilom all my cares had power to 'swage:
 Please thee therewith a little to console
 My spirit, that encumber'd with its frame,
 Traveling so far, of pain is overcome.'
 "'Love, that discourses in my thoughts,' he then
 Began in such soft accents, that within
 The sweetness thrills me yet. My gentle guide,
 And all who came with him, so well were pleased,
 That seemed nought else might in their thoughts have room.
 "Fast fixed in mute attention to his notes
 We stood, when lo! that old man venerable
 Exclaiming, 'How is this, ye tardy spirits?
 What negligence detains you loitering here?
 Run to the mountain to cast off those scales,
 That from your eyes the sight of God conceal.'
 "As a wild flock of pigeons, to their food
 Collected, blade or tares, without their pride
 Accustomed, and in still and quiet sort,
 If aught alarm them, suddenly desert
 Their meal, assailed by more important care;
 So I that new-come troop beheld, the song
 Deserting, hasten to the mountain side,
 As one who goes, yet, where he tends, knows not.
 Nor with less hurried step did we depart."

Thus rebuked by Cato for delaying, even thus innocently, their first duty, which is to purge away their sins, the company of spirits breaks up and Dante and Vergil make their way to the mountain of purgatory, which lifts its seven terraces almost perpendicularly from the sea.

Before reaching the first of these terraces, however, they pass over a steep and rocky slope, ante-purgatory, as it may be called, where linger the souls of those who, although saved, neglected their repentance till late in life, or who died in contumacy with Holy Church. Among the latter Dante sees Manfred, the unfortunate son of Frederick II.,

"Comely and fair and gentle of aspect,"

who was slain at Benevento, in 1266; and likewise Buonconte da Montefeltro, who was killed in the battle of Campaldino (1289), and whose account of the post-mortem fate of his body is singularly impressive; "There is nothing like it in literature," says Ruskin:

"I thus:
 'From Campaldino's field what force or chance
 Drew thee, that ne'er thy sepulture was known?'
 "'Oh!' answered he, 'at Casentino's foot
 A stream there courseth, named Archiano, sprung
 In Apennine above the hermit's seat.
 E'en where its name is cancel'd, there came I,
 Pierced in the throat, fleeing away on foot,
 And bloodying the plain. Here sight and speech
 Fail'd me; and, finishing with Mary's name,
 I fell, and tenantless my flesh remain'd.
 I will report the truth; which thou again
 Tell to the living. Me God's angel took,
 Whilst he of hell exclaimed: "O thou from heaven:
 Say wherefore hast thou robb'd me? Thou of him
 The eternal portion bear'st with thee away,
 For one poor tear that he deprives me of.
 But of the other, other rule I make."
 "'Thou know'st how in the atmosphere collects
 That vapor dank, returning into water
 Soon as it mounts where cold condenses it.
 That evil will, which in his intellect
 Still follows evil, came; and raised the wind
 And smoky mist, by virtue of the power
 Given by his nature. Thence the valley, soon
 As day was spent, he covered o'er with cloud,
 From Pratomagno to the mountain range;
 And stretched the sky above; so that the air
 Impregnate changed to water. Fell the rain;
 And to the fosses came all that the land
 Contained not; and, as mightiest streams are wont,
 To the great river, with such headlong sweep,
 Rushed, that nought stayed its course. My stiffened frame
 Laid at his mouth, the fell Archiano found,
 And dashed it into Arno; from my breast
 Loosening the cross, that of myself I made
 When overcome with pain. He hurled me on,
 Along the banks and bottom of his course;
 Then in his muddy spoils encircling wrapt."

After leaving Buonconte, Dante and Vergil make their way upward and finally come across the spirit of Sordello, the famous troubadour, a native of Mantua and thus a fellow citizen of Vergil. The cordiality with which they greet each other gives Dante an opportunity to vent his indignation at the discord existing in Italy:

"Ah, slavish Italy! thou inn of grief!
 Vessel without a pilot in loud storm!
 Lady no longer of fair provinces,
 But brothel-house impure! this gentle spirit,
 Even from the pleasant sound of his dear land
 Was prompt to greet a fellow citizen
 With such glad cheer: while now thy living ones
 In thee abide not without war; and one
 Malicious gnaws another; aye, of those
 Whom the same wall and the same moat contains.
 Seek, wretched one! around thy seacoasts wide;
 Then homeward to thy bosom turn; and mark,
 If any part of thee sweet peace enjoy.
 What boots it, that thy reins Justinian's hand
 Refitted, if thy saddle be unprest?
 Nought doth he now but aggravate thy shame.
 Ah, people! thou obedient still shouldst live,
 And in the saddle let thy Cæsar sit,
 If well thou marked'st that which God commands."

As night is now coming on, during which upward progress cannot be made, Sordello conducts Dante and Vergil to a pleasant valley:

"Betwixt the steep and plain, a crooked path
 Led us traverse into the ridge's side,
 Where more than half the sloping edge expires.
 Refulgent gold, and silver thrice refined,
 And scarlet grain and ceruse, Indian wood
 Of lucid dye serene, fresh emeralds
 But newly broken, by the herbs and flowers
 Placed in that fair recess, in color all
 Had been surpassed, as great surpasses less.
 Nor nature only there lavish'd her hues.
 But of the sweetness of a thousand smells
 A rare and undistinguished fragrance made.
 "'Salve Regina,' on the grass and flowers,
 Here chanting, I beheld those spirits sit,
 Who not beyond the valley could be seen."

Here Sordello points out the souls of mighty princes who left deep traces in the history of the times, among them the Emperor Rudolph of Germany, Peter of Aragon, Philip III. of France, and

"The king of simple life and plain,"

Henry III. of England. The scene that follows is one of the most celebrated, as well as beautiful in the Divine Comedy:

"Now was the hour that wakens fond desire
 In men at sea, and melts their thoughtful heart
 Who in the morn have bid sweet friends farewell,
 And pilgrim newly on his road with love
 Thrills, if he hear the vesper bell from far,
 That seems to mourn for the expiring day:
 When I, no longer taking heed to hear,
 Began, with wonder, from those spirits to mark
 One risen from its seat, which with its hand
 Audience implored. Both palms it joined and raised,
 Fixing its steadfast gaze toward the east,
 As telling God, 'I care for nought beside.'
 "'Te Lucis Ante,' so devoutly then
 Came from its lip, and in so soft a strain,
 That all my sense in ravishment was lost.
 And the rest after, softly and devout,
 Follow'd through all the hymn, with upward gaze
 Directed to the bright supernal wheels.
 "I saw that gentle band silently next
 Look up, as if in expectation held,
 Pale and in lowly guise; and, from on high,
 I saw, forth issuing descend beneath,
 Two angels, with two flame-illumined swords,
 Broken and mutilated of their points.
 Green as the tender leaves but newly born,
 Their vesture was, the which, by wings as green
 Beaten, they drew behind them, fanned in air.
 A little over us one took his stand;
 The other lighted on the opposing hill;
 So that the troop were in the midst contained.
 Well I descried the whiteness on their heads;
 But in their visages the dazzled eye
 Was lost, as faculty that by too much
 Is overpowered. 'From Mary's bosom both
 Are come,' exclaimed Sordello, 'as a guard
 Over the vale, 'gainst him, who hither tends,
 The serpent.' Whence not knowing by which path
 He came, I turned me round; and closely pressed
 All frozen, to my leader's trusted side."
 "My insatiate eyes
 Meanwhile to heaven had traveled, even there
 Where the bright stars are slowest, as a wheel
 Nearest the axle: When my guide inquired:
 'What there aloft, my son, has caught thy gaze?'
 "I answered: 'The three torches, with which here
 The pole is all on fire.' He then to me:
 'The four resplendent stars, thou saw'st this morn,
 Are there beneath; and these, risen in their stead.'
 "While yet he spoke, Sordello to himself
 Drew him, and cried: 'Lo there our enemy!'
 And with his hand pointed that way to look.
 "Along the side, where barrier none arose
 Around the little vale, a serpent lay,
 Such haply as gave Eve the bitter food,
 Between the grass and flowers, the evil snake
 Came on, reverting oft his lifted head;
 And, as a beast that smooths its polished coat,
 Licking his back. I saw not, nor can tell,
 How those celestial falcons from their seat
 Moved, but in motion each one well descried.
 Hearing the air cut by their verdant plumes,
 The serpent fled; and, to their stations, back
 The angels up return'd with equal flight."

After conversing with several friends whom he meets here, Dante falls asleep and is carried thus unconscious by Lucia (symbol of divine grace) to the gate of purgatory proper. When he awakes the sun is two hours high. Three steps lead to the gate, one dark and broken, symbol of a "broken and a contrite heart"; one of smooth, white marble, symbol of confession; and one purple, repentance. On the threshold of diamond (the immovable foundation of Holy Church) sits an angel with a sword and two keys; with the former he cuts seven P's on Dante's forehead (the Latin word for sin, peccatum), and with the latter he opens the gate, which as it swings open sends forth a sound of heavenly music: