is conversation.

_Canto XVII._ Out of the vapors of anger--as dense as any Alpine
fog--Dante, who has caught glimpses of famous victims of anger, such
as Haman and Lavinia, emerges with Virgil, only to be dazzled by the
glorious light of the sun. Then, climbing the ladder the angel points
out, Dante feels him brush away the third obnoxious P., while
chanting, "Blessed are the peacemakers." They now reach the fourth
ledge, where the sin of indifference or sloth is punished, and, as
they trudge along it, Virgil explains that all indifference is due to
a lack of love, a virtue on which he eloquently discourses.

_Canto XVIII._ A multitude of spirits now interrupt Virgil, and, when
he questions them, two, who lead the rest, volubly quote examples of
fervent affection and zealous haste. They are closely followed by
other spirits, the backsliders, who, not having had the strength or
patience to endure, preferred inglorious ease to adventurous life and
are now consumed with regret.

_Canto XIX._ In the midst of a trance which overtakes him, Dante next
has a vision of the Siren which beguiled Ulysses and of Philosophy or
Truth. Then, morning having dawned, Virgil leads him to the next
stairway, up which an angel wafts them, chanting "Blessed are they
that mourn, for they shall be comforted," while he brushes away
another sin scar from our poet's forehead.

In this fifth circle those guilty of avarice undergo punishment by
being chained fast to the earth to which they clung, and which they
bedew with penitent tears. One of these, questioned by Dante, reveals
he was Pope Adrian V., who, dying a month after his elevation to the
papal chair, repented in time of his grasping past. When Dante kneels
compassionately beside this august sufferer, he is implored to warn
the pope's kinswoman to eschew the besetting sin of their house.

_Canto XX._ A little further on, among the grovelling figures which
closely pave this fifth cornice, Dante beholds Hugues Capet, founder
of the third dynasty of French kings, and stigmatized as "root of that
ill plant," because this poem was composed only a few years after
Philip IV's criminal attempt against Pope Boniface at Agnani. The
poets also recognize there Pygmalion (brother of Dido), Midas, Achan,
Heliodorus, and Crassus, [18] ere they are startled by feeling the
whole mountain tremble beneath them and by hearing the spirits
exultantly cry "Glory to God!"

_Canto XXI._ Clinging to Virgil in