"
A troop of spirits rushed past them as morning broke, making up by their
haste for the sloth that had marked their lives on earth. As they hurried
on they urged themselves to diligence by cries of "In haste the mountains
blessed Mary won!" "Caesar flew to Spain!" "Haste! Grace grows best in
those who ardor feel!" As the poet meditated on their words, he lapsed
into a dream in which he saw the Siren who drew brave mariners from their
courses; and even as he listened to her melodious song, he beheld her
exposed by a saint-like lady, Lucia, or Illuminating Grace. Day dawned,
the Angel fanned the fourth "P" from his forehead, and the poet ascended
to the fifth terrace, where lay the shades of the avaricious, prostrate on
the earth, weeping over their sins. They who in life had resolutely turned
their gaze from Heaven and fixed it on the things of the earth, must now
grovel in the dust, denouncing avarice, and extolling the poor and liberal
until the years have worn away their sin.
Bending over Pope Adrian the Fifth, Dante heard his confession that he was
converted while he held the Roman shepherd's staff. Then he learned how
false a dream was life, but too late, alas! to escape this punishment. As
Dante spoke with the shade of Capet the elder, a mighty trembling shook
the mountain, which chilled his heart until he learned from the shade of
Statius, whom they next met, that it was caused by the moving upward of a
purified soul, his own, that had been undergoing purgation on this terrace
five hundred years and more.
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