On the second terrace of the Ante-Purgatory, on the Purgatorial Mount, were the spirits of those whose lives were ended by violence. Among those who here addressed Dante was Buonconte di Montefeltro, who was slain in the battle of Campaldino, and whose body was never found.
Another then: "Ah, be thy cherished aim
Attained that to the lofty Mount thee draws,
As thou with pity shalt advance my cause.
Of Montefeltro I Buonconte am;
Giovanna, and she only, for me cares;
Hence among those am I whom waiting wears."
"What violence or what chance led thee so wide
From Campaldino," I of him inquired,
"That's still unknown thy burial-place retired?"
"Oh, Casentino's foot," he thus replied,
"Archiano's stream o'erflows, which hath its rise
Above the Hermitage under Apennine skies.
There where its name is lost did I arrive,
Pierced through and through the throat, in flight,
Upon the plain made with my life-blood bright;
"There sight I lost, and did for speech long strive;
At last I uttered Mary's name, and fell
A lifeless form, mine empty flesh a shell.
Truth will I speak, below do thou it hymn;
Took me God's Angel up, and he of Hell
Cried out: 'O thou from Heaven, thou doest well
To rob from me the eternal part of him
For one poor tear, that me of him deprives;
In other style I'll deal with other lives!'
"Well know'st thou how in air is gathered dim
That humid vapor which to water turns
Soon as the cold its rising progress learns.
The fiend that ill-will joined (which aye seeks ill)
To intellectual power, which mist and wind
Moved by control which faculties such can find,
And afterwards, when the day was spent, did fill
The space from Protomagno to where tower
The Mounts with fog; and high Heaven's covering power
"The pregnant atmosphere moist to water changed.
Down fell the rain, and to the ditches fled,
Whate'er of it the soil's thirst had not sped;
And, as it with the mingling torrents ranged
Towards the royal river, so it flowed
That over every obstacle wild it rode.
The robust river found my stiffened frame
Near to its outlet, and it gave a toss
To Arno, loosening from my breast the cross
"I made of me when agony me o'ercame;
Along his banks and bottoms he me lapped,
Then in his muddy spoils he me enwrapped."
Wilstach's Translation, Purgatorio, Canto V.
BEATRICE DESCENDING FROM HEAVEN.
Dante and Vergil mounted to the Terrestial Paradise, where, while they talked with Matilda, the Car of the Church Triumphant appeared in the greatest splendor. As it stopped before Dante it was enveloped in a shower of roses from the hands of a hundred angels.
I have beheld ere now, when dawn would pale,
The eastern hemisphere's tint of roseate sheen,
And all the opposite heaven one gem serene,
And the uprising sun, beneath such powers
Of vapory influence tempered, that the eye
For a long space its fiery shield could try:
E'en so, embosomed in a cloud of flowers,
Which from those hands angelical upward played,
And roseate all the car triumphal made,
And showered a snow-white veil with olive bound,
Appeared a Lady, green her mantle, name
Could not describe her robe unless 't were flame.
And mine own spirit, which the past had found
Often within her presence, free from awe,
And which could never from me trembling draw,
And sight no knowledge giving me at this time,
Through hidden virtue which from her came forth,
Of ancient love felt now the potent worth.
As soon as on my vision smote sublime
The heavenly influence that, ere boyhood's days
Had fled, had thrilled me and awoke my praise,
Unto the leftward turned I, with that trust
Wherewith a little child his mother seeks,
When fear his steps controls, and tear-stained cheeks,
To say to Vergil: "All my blood such gust
Of feeling moves as doth man's bravery tame;
I feel the traces of the ancient flame."
Wilstach's Translation, Paradiso, Canto XXX.