FIRST TERRACE.--Steep and narrow is the path up to the first terrace, where Pride is purged away (_Purg._ x). Carved upon the mountain side are fair white marble images of wondrous beauty, setting forth great examples of Humility, alike in “them of low degree” (Mary at the Annunciation) and in “the mighty” (David and Trajan, rulers respectively of the chosen people of the two dispensations, the Jews and the Romans). Wearily and painfully the souls of the proud pass round, pressed down by terrible weights, reciting a paraphrase of the Lord’s Prayer, for themselves and those they have left on earth. And seldom has the Catholic doctrine of prayer for the dead been more winningly set forth than in Dante’s comment (xi. 31-36). A partaker in some degree of their punishment, Dante, all bowed down, goes with these souls; he speaks with Omberto Aldobrandesco, who is expiating pride of birth, and Oderisi of Gubbio, the miniaturist, who is purifying his soul from pride of intellect. The latter points out the great Ghibelline burgher statesman of Siena, Provenzano Salvani, expiating pride of dominion--the sin which turned so many an Italian patriot of the Middle Ages into a tyrant. Figured upon the pavement below their feet are examples of Pride’s punishment, like the designs on the pavement of the Duomo of Siena (_Purg._ xii.). Noon has passed when the Angel of Humility shows the way up to the next terrace, and with the waving of his wing removes the first P from Dante’s forehead. “Blessed are the poor in spirit,” celestial voices sing, as, with almost all weariness gone since Pride is expiated, Dante ascends the steep way. SECOND TERRACE.--In the second and narrower circle Envy is purged. Examples of charity, “courteous invitations to the table of Love,” are cited by invisible spirits flying past. The envious, clothed in haircloth, lean helplessly shoulder to shoulder against the rock, their eyelids sewn up with iron stitching. Sapia of Siena, the kinswoman of Provenzano Salvani, at whose fall and the defeat of her countrymen she rejoiced, tells her history in lines of singular beauty (_Purg._ xiii.). Guido del Duca denounces the evil dispositions of the inhabitants of Tuscany, and bewails the degeneracy of the noble houses with the consequent decay of chivalry in his own province of Romagna; envious on earth of prosperity of others, these souls mourn now for its decline (xiv.). Like peals of thunder the cries of spirits follow each other in citing Envy’s punishment. As they go towards the sunset, the dazzling Angel of Fraternal Love removes the mark of Envy. “Blessed are the merciful,” “Rejoice thou that conquerest.” As they mount Virgil expounds the difference between material goods, which are diminished by sharing and beget envy, and the infinite good of Paradise, where love increases with every soul that enters into the joy of the Lord, and its communication is measured only by the charity of each soul that is made its mirror (_Purg._ xv.).