[2] At the passage from each round, the Angel at the foot of the stairs repeats words from the Beatitudes adapted to those purified from the sin punished upon the ledge which is being left. [3] In the last canto, Guido del Duca had exclaimed, “O human race, why dost thou set thy heart there where companionship must needs be excluded!” [4] The Empyrean. [5] “Since good, the more Communicated, the more abundant grows.” Milton, Paradise Lost, v. 73. [6] “True love in this differs from gold and clay, That to divide is not to take away.”—Shelley, Epipsychidion. [7] The pain of contrition. As I was about to say “Thou satisfiest me,” I saw myself arrived on the next round,[1] so that my eager eyes made me silent. There it seemed to me I was of a sudden rapt in an ecstatic vision, and saw many persons in a temple, and a lady at the entrance, with the sweet action of a mother, saying, “My son, why hast thou done thus toward us? Lo, sorrowing, thy father and I were seeking thee;” and when here she was silent, that which first appeared, disappeared. [1] Where the sin of anger is expiated. Then appeared to me another, with those waters down along her cheeks which grief distils when it springs from great despite toward others, and she was saying, “If thou art lord of the city about whose name was such great strife among the gods, and whence every science sparkles forth, avenge thyself on those audacious arms, that have embraced our daughter, O Pisistratus.” And the lord appeared to me, benign and mild, to answer her, with temperate look, “What shall we do to him who desires ill for us, if he who loves us is by us condemned?”[1] [1] Dante translated this story from Valerius Maximus, Facta et dicta mem., vi. 1. Then I saw people kindled with fire of wrath, killing a youth with stones, loudly crying to each other only, “Slay, slay.” And I saw him bowed by death, which now was weighing on him, toward the ground, but in such great strife he ever made of his eyes gates for heaven, praying to the high Lord, that He would pardon his persecutors, with that aspect which unlocks pity.[1] [1] See Acts, vii. 55-60.