THE SIREN AND THE ANGEL OF ZEAL.--Before the dawn of the third day in Purgatory, Dante has in his sleep a marvellous dream of the Siren (sensual seduction, concupiscence of the flesh), from which he is delivered by a holy and alert lady who calls upon Virgil (prevenient grace, or the wisdom and prudence of Proverbs vii.). The Siren is the dream-prelude to the purgation of sins of the flesh, as the Eagle had been to that of sins of the spirit. The sun has risen; and the Angel of Zeal (or of Spiritual Joy) cancels the fourth P and shows the way up to the next terrace. “Blessed are they that mourn, for they shall have their souls wed to consolation.” Sloth is a heaviness and sadness which weighs down the soul, a sadness at spiritual good, to be fought by thinking on spiritual things. Most fitly then do the wings of the Angel of Zeal point upwards, and his words tell of a nobler sorrow, a mourning which shall be followed by Divine consolation (_Purg._ xix.). FIFTH TERRACE.--In the fifth terrace, the avaricious and prodigal, whose souls on earth cleaved to the dust, lie face downwards to earth; unable to move hand or foot until the sin of Covetousness is purged away, the sin which, according to Aquinas, “although not absolutely the greatest of sins, yet has in some sense a greater deformity than the rest, since by it the human heart is subjected even to external things.” Pope Adrian V. tells the story of his tardy conversion, and has tender words for his niece Alagia, the wife of Moroello Malaspina (_Purg._ xix.). It is a companion episode to that of Nicholas III. in the corresponding canto of the _Inferno_. In this circle the souls themselves cry out the examples and warnings, by day and night respectively. The soul of Hugh Capet, “the root of the evil plant which overshadows all the Christian earth,” pours forth bitter sarcasm and scathing invective upon all the royal house of France, the great Guelf power that opposed the Empire, oppressed Italy, and wrought scandal in the Church. A monument of poetic infamy is especially raised to Philip the Fair and the three Carlos; and there are few more glorious examples of Christian magnanimity than the burning words in which Dante, distinguishing the man from the office, brands the sacrilege of Anagni, the outrage committed upon him whom the poet held as his own deadliest foe, and yet the unworthy Vicar of Christ. Nowhere else, save in the reference to the Jubilee (_Purg._ ii. 98, 99), does Dante treat Boniface as lawful pope (_cf. Inf._ xix. 52-57; _Par._ ix. 142, xxvii. 22-24). It has been thought that Canto xx. was composed while the Church was ostensibly supporting the policy of Henry VII.; before attacking the Templars, the French king had endeavoured to renew the outrage of Anagni by inducing Pope Clement to condemn the memory of Boniface. With a mighty earthquake, a universal chorus of _Gloria in excelsis_ from the suffering souls, the poet Statius is liberated, and