On reaching the new circle, Dante, instead of the fierce wailings that used to meet him at every turn in hell, heard voices singing, “Blessed are the poor in spirit."[27] As he went, he perceived that he walked lighter, and was told by Virgil that the angel had freed him from one of the letters on his forehead.  He put his hand up to make sure, as a man does in the street when people take notice of something on his head of which he is not aware; and Virgil smiled.

In this new circle the sin of Envy was expiated.  After the pilgrims had proceeded a mile, they heard the voices of invisible spirits passing them, uttering sentiments of love and charity; for it was charity itself that had to punish envy.

The souls of the envious, clad in sackcloth, sat leaning for support and humiliation, partly against the rocky wall of the circle, and partly on one another’s shoulders, after the manner of beggars that ask alms near places of worship.  Their eyes were sewn up, like those of hawks in training, but not so as to hinder them from shedding tears, which they did in abundance; and they cried, “Mary, pray for us!—­Michael, Peter, and all the saints, pray for us!”

Dante spoke to them; and one, a female, lifted up her chin as a blind person does when expressing consciousness of notice, and said she was Sapia of Sienna, who used to be pleased at people’s misfortunes, and had rejoiced when her countrymen lost the battle of Colle. “Sapia was my name,” she said, “but sapient I was not[28], for I prayed God to defeat my countrymen; and when he had done so (as he had willed to do), I raised my bold face to heaven, and cried out to him, ’Now do thy worst, for I fear thee not!’ I was like the bird in the fable, who thought the fine day was to last for ever.  What I should have done in my latter days to make up for the imperfect amends of my repentance, I know not, if the holy Piero Pettignano had not assisted me with his prayers.  But who art thou that goest with open eyes, and breathest in thy talk?”

“Mine eyes,” answered Dante, “may yet have to endure the blindness in this place, though for no long period.  Far more do I fear the sufferings in the one that I have just left.  I seem to feel the weight already upon me."[29]

The Florentine then informed Sapia how he came thither, which, she said, was a great sign that God loved him; and she begged his prayers.  The conversation excited the curiosity of two spirits who overheard it; and one of them, Guido del Duca, a noble Romagnese, asked the poet of what country he was.  Dante, without mentioning the name of the river, intimated that he came from the banks of the Arno; upon which the other spirit, Rinier da Calboli, asked his friend why the stranger suppressed the name, as though it was something horrible.  Guido said he well might; for the river, throughout its course, beheld none but bad men and persecutors of virtue.  First, he said, it made its petty way by the sties of those