From me removed, so that, I know not how,
From all fatigue in walking I am free ?”

He answer'd, “ When the P's,1 which on thy brow
Remain, though fainter they have grown, indeed,
Shall all have been erased, as one is now,

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Through that good-will which shall within thee breed, Thy feet not only no fatigue will know,

But by delight urged upward shall proceed."2
Then did I what is done by those who go.

With something on their head, of which they gain
No knowledge save what hints of others show.
The hand then lends its help to ascertain,

Searches and finds it, by that service graced
For which the eyesight had been used in vain.
Then when my right-hand finger I had placed,

I found but six the letters which the mild
Lord of the keys had on my temples traced :3
At which my guide, when he beheld it, smiled.

1 See note on line 98.

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2 "I will run the way of thy commandments, when thou shalt enlarge my heart."-Psalm cxix. 32 "They shall run, and not be weary; they shall persevere, and not faint.”—Isaiah xl. 31. 3 Canto ix. 112.

Arrived in the second round of Purgatory, they hear, without see-
ing any speaker, voices indicating examples of disinterested.
love. Here the envious are punished. The poet perceives a
crowd seated at the foot of the precipice, covered with hair-
cloth, and their eyelids pierced and sewn up with a thread of
iron. He converses with Sapia, a lady of Siena, who relates the
particulars of her offence, ascribes her salvation to the prayers
of Pier Pettinago, inquires the purpose of Dante's journey, and
implores him to vindicate her fame among her kindred.
WE now had reach'd the summit of the stair,
Where the huge mount a second parting finds,
For disinfecting those ascending there.
And as a cornice which completely binds,

This like the first around the hill was thrown,
Save that its arch with sweep less ample winds.
No shades were here, no sculptured figure shown;
The bank uprose, and path before us lay,
With livid colour of the rock alone.1
"If here we wait for some to ask our way,"

The poet said, "I fear perhaps that we
So doing shall our choice too much delay.

Then on the sun his eyes look'd fixedly :

His right side of his motion made the centre,

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He turn'd his left side round.. "Sweet light!" said he,

1 A livid or leaden colour is the hue of Envy. Livor edax.LUCRETIUS.

"In firm reliance upon whom I venture Into a path so new, conduct us thou,

In the right way by which we here must enter : With light and heat the world thou rulèst now;

And if no urgent cause oppose, mankind
Thy rays to guide them ever should allow."1
As far as is on earth a mile defined,

We now had journey'd there, impell'd to move
So swiftly onward by a willing mind.

And towards us flying were perceived above

Spirits, though yet unseen, with courteous greeting, And invitations to the feast of love.2

The first voice pass'd us, as it flew retreating,

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And in loud tone exclaim'd, "No wine have they :"3
Which still behind us it went on repeating.

The sounds had not yet wholly died away
Through distance when another pass'd along,
And cried, "I am Orestes ;"4 nor would stay.

1 See John viii. 12; and xi. 9, 10.

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Love or Charity, being the virtue most opposed to the vice of envy, is inculcated here by precept and example. The poet had in view the marriage of Cana in Galilee; John ii. 1—11, and the agape or love-feasts of the Primitive Christians; Jude 12.

"And when they wanted wine, the mother of Jesus saith unto him, They have no wine."—John ii. 3.

• Orestes and his friend Pylades, attempting to carry off the statue of Diana from Taurica Chersonessus (the Crimea), fell into the hands of the king, and were about to be offered in sacrifice to Diana. On Iphigenia, as her priestess, devolved the office of immolating the strangers. Finding that they were from Greece, she wished to learn from them something of her country; and even offered to spare the life of one of them, on condition of his carrying thither a letter. The friendship displayed by Orestes and Pylades on this trying occasion has rendered their names for ever illustrious.—

"To whom, O father, may that voice belong?"

I said; and as I ask'd, lo, thus there spoke [wrong." A third; "Love those from whom you've suffer'd "The chastisement which envious faults provoke,"

My master said, " are suffer'd in this round.
And therefore it is Love that deals each stroke.2
The curb requires to be of different sound,s
As I believe thou for thyself wilt hear,

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Before the pass of pardon thou hast found.1

"Pylades about to die commands his dear Orestes to depart, While he refuses; and in turn each strives to be the victim." OVID. Ex. Pont. lib. iii. ep. ii. 1. 85.

See also Euripides, Iphigenia in Tauris. At length Pylades yields to the entreaties of his friend; but the letter with which he is intrusted, being addressed to Orestes, proves Iphigenia to be the sister of him whom she is about to slay. On this discovery all three escape to Greece, carrying with them the statue of Diana. Dante's immediate allusion is to a passage in Cicero, De Amicitia, vii., where he quotes from the drama of Orestes by Pacuvius. "The king being ignorant which of the two friends is Orestes, Pylades, that he may die instead of his friend, exclaims, ‘I am Orestes;' while Orestes insists that to himself that name belongs." In placing Orestes among the "elect spirits," as one whose example of disinterested amity condemns the sin of envy, Dante does poetical justice; and, as in other instances, displays his good sense and humanity, in opposition to the theory of his Church, which doomed all the unbaptized to eternal misery.-See Inferno, iv. 35, note.

1 See Matt. v. 44.

2 "I drew them with cords of a man, with bands of love."Hosea xi. 4.

3 The chastisement of Envy here consists in hearing examples of the opposite virtue; but as a further curb to this vice, Dante is presently to see and hear those who suffer its penalty.

4 The stair leading to the third circle, where the angel is stationed who absolves from the sin of envy.-Canto xv. 35.

But look intently through the atmosphere,

And thou wilt see a crowd before us bent
Along the bank's rough base all seated there."
Then wider open'd I mine eyes, intent
On what I saw, the shades with mantles on,

In colour from the rock not different.1
And when a little further I had gone,

I heard the cry, "For us, O Mary, pray!"
Then "Michael, Peter, and all Saints," anon.2
No man so callous walks the earth to day,

I think, who had not felt the pungent force
Of pity for what there I did survey.
For when by drawing near I had recourse

To close inspection and a view more clear,
My tears gush'd forth upon me from their source.
Cover'd with hair-cloth vile did they appear,

And one the other's shoulder lean'd upon,

And by the bank they all supported were.

The blind folk thus, who sustenance have none,

Stand near the shrines3 to ask for what they need; And one his head upon the next lays down,

Since pity will in human bosoms plead,

Not merely at the sound of what is said,
But at the sight will no less intercede.

And as the sunbeams from the blind are fled,

Even so the shades whose grief I now rehearse,
Saw not the light of heaven upon them shed.

A thread of iron did their eyelids pierce,

And sew'd them up; as, when it will not rest,

1 See line 9 and note.

3

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60

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2 The Litany for "Sabbato Santo," or day before Easter. 'Perdoni," the Churches to which Papal indulgence is granted.