The portal by which Purgatory was entered was embedded in a cliff.  It had three steps, each of a different colour; and on the highest of these there sat, mute and watching, an angel in ash-coloured garments, holding a naked sword, which glanced with such intolerable brightness on Dante, whenever he attempted to look, that he gave up the endeavour.  The angel demanded who they were, and receiving the right answer, gently bade them advance.

Dante now saw, that the lowest step was of marble, so white and clear that he beheld his face in it.  The colour of the next was a deadly black, and it was all rough, scorched, and full of cracks.  The third was of flaming porphyry, red as a man’s blood when it leaps forth under the lancet.[19] The angel, whose feet were on the porphyry, sat on a threshold which appeared to be rock-diamond.  Dante, ascending the steps, with the encouragement of Virgil, fell at the angel’s feet, and, after thrice beating himself on the breast, humbly asked admittance.  The angel, with the point of his sword, inscribed the first letter of the word peccatum (sin) seven times on the petitioner’s forehead; then, bidding him pray with tears for their erasement, and be cautious how he looked back, opened the portal with a silver and a golden key.[20] The hinges roared, as they turned, like thunder; and the pilgrims, on entering, thought they heard, mingling with the sound, a chorus of voices singing, “We praise thee, O God!"[21] It was like the chant that mingles with a cathedral organ, when the words that the choristers utter are at one moment to be distinguished, and at another fade away.

The companions continued ascending till they reached a plain.  It stretched as far as the eye could see, and was as lonely as roads across deserts.

This was the first flat, or table-land, of the ascending gradations of Purgatory, and the place of trial for the souls of the Proud.  It was bordered with a mound, or natural wall, of white marble, sculptured all over with stories of humility.  Dante beheld among them the Annunciation, represented with so much life, that the sweet action of the angel seemed to be uttering the very word, “Hail!” and the submissive spirit of the Virgin to be no less impressed, like very wax, in her demeanour.  The next story was that of David dancing and harping before the ark,—­an action in which he seemed both less and greater than a king.  Michal was looking out upon him from a window, like a lady full of scorn and sorrow.  Next to the story of David was that of the Emperor Trajan, when he did a thing so glorious, as moved St. Gregory to gain the greatest of all his conquests—­the delivering of the emperor’s soul from hell.

A widow, in tears and mourning, was laying hold of his bridle as he rode amidst his court with a noise of horses and horsemen, while the Roman eagles floated in gold over his head.  The miserable creature spoke out loudly among them all, crying for vengeance on the murderers of her sons.  The emperor seemed to say, “Wait till I return.”