But she, in the hastiness of her misery, said, “Suppose thou returnest not?”

“Then my successor will attend to thee,” replied the emperor.

“And what hast thou to do with the duties of another man,” cried she, “if thou attendest not to thine own?”

“Now, be of good comfort,” concluded Trajan, “for verily my duty shall be done before I go; justice wills it, and pity arrests me.”

Dante was proceeding to delight himself further with these sculptures, when Virgil whispered hint to look round and see what was coming.  He did so, and beheld strange figures advancing, the nature of which he could not make out at first, for they seemed neither human, nor aught else which he could call to mind.  They were souls of the proud, bent double under enormous burdens.

“O proud, miserable, woe-begone Christians!” exclaims the poet; “ye who, in the shortness of your sight, see no reason for advancing in the right path!  Know ye not that we are worms, born to compose the angelic butterfly, provided we throw off the husks that impede our flight?"[22]

The souls came slowly on, each bending down in proportion to his burden.  They looked like the crouching figures in architecture that are used to support roofs or balconies, and that excite piteous fancies in the beholders.  The one that appeared to have the most patience, yet seemed as if he said, “I can endure no further.”

The sufferers, notwithstanding their anguish, raised their voices in a paraphrase on the Lord’s Prayer, which they concluded with humbly stating, that they repeated the clause against temptation, not for themselves, but for those who were yet living.

Virgil, wishing them a speedy deliverance, requested them to spew the best way of going up to the next circle.  Who it was that answered him could not be discerned, on account of their all being so bent down; but a voice gave them the required direction; the speaker adding, that he wished he could raise his eyes, so as to see the living creature that stood near him.  He said that his name was Omberto—­that he came of the great Tuscan race of Aldobrandesco—­and that his countrymen, the Siennese, murdered him on account of his arrogance.

Dante had bent down his own head to listen, and in so doing he was recognised by one of the sufferers, who, eyeing him as well as he could, addressed him by name.  The poet replied by exclaiming, “Art thou not Oderisi, the glory of Agubbio, the master of the art of illumination?”

“Ah!” said Oderisi, “Franco of Bologna has all the glory now.  His colours make the pages of books laugh with beauty, compared with what mine do.[23] I could not have owned it while on earth, for the sin which has brought me hither; but so it is; and so will it ever be, let a man’s fame be never so green and flourishing, unless he can secure a dull age to come after him.  Cimabue, in painting, lately kept the field against all comers, and now