Little way had we gone from that place, when I perceived that the mountain was hollowed out in like fashion as the valleys hollow them here on earth. “Yonder,” said that shade, “will we go, where the hillside makes a lap of itself, and there will we await the new day.” Between steep and level was a winding path that led us into a side of the dale, where more than by half the edge dies away. Gold and fine silver, and scarlet and white, Indian wood lucid and clear,[1] fresh emerald at the instant it is split, would each be vanquished in color by the herbage and by the flowers set within that valley, as by its greater the less is vanquished. Nature had not only painted there, but with sweetness of a thousand odors she made there one unknown and blended. [1] The blue of indigo. Upon the green and upon the flowers I saw souls who, because of the valley, were not visible from without, seated here singing “Salve regina.”[1] “Before the lessening sun sinks to his nest,” began the Mantuan who had turned us thither, “desire not that among these I guide you. From this bank ye will better become acquainted with the acts and countenances of all of them, than received among them on the level below. He who sits highest and has the semblance of having neglected what he should have done, and who moves not his mouth to the others’ songs, was Rudolph the Emperor, who might have healed the wounds that have slain Italy, so that slowly by another she is revived.[2] The next, who in appearance comforts him, ruled the land where the water rises that Moldau bears to Elbe, and Elbe to the sea. Ottocar was his name,[3] and in his swaddling clothes he was better far than bearded Wenceslaus, his son, whom luxury and idleness feed.[4] And that small-nosed one, who seems close in counsel with him who has so benign an aspect, died in flight and disflowering the lily;[5] look there how he beats his breast. See the next who, sighing, has made a bed for his cheek with his hand.[6] Father and father-in-law are they of the harm of France; they know his vicious and foul life, and thence comes the grief that so pierces them. He who looks so large-limbed,[7] and who accords in singing with him of the masculine nose,[8] wore girt the cord of every worth, and if the youth that is sitting behind him had followed him as king, truly had worth gone from vase to vase, which cannot be said of the other heirs: James and Frederick hold the realms; [9] the better heritage no one possesses. Rarely doth human goodness rise through the branches, and this He wills who gives it, in order that it may be asked from Him. To the large-nosed one also my words apply not less than to the other, Peter, who is singing with him; wherefore Apulia and Provence are grieving now.[10] The plant is as inferior to its seed, as, more than Beatrice and Margaret, Constance still boasts of her husband.[11] See the King of the simple life sitting there alone, Henry of England; he in his branches hath a better