The poet looked round in wonder on the new circle, where the sin of Anger was expiated, and beheld, as in a dream, three successive spectacles illustrative of the virtue of patience.  The first was that of a crowded temple, on the threshold of which a female said to her son, in the sweet manner of a mother, “Son, why hast thou thus dealt with us?  Behold, thy father and I have sought thee sorrowing:"[31]—­and here she became silent, and the vision ended.  The next was the lord of Athens, Pisistratus, calmly reproving his wife for wishing him to put to death her daughter’s lover, who, in a transport, had embraced her in public.  “If we are to be thus severe,” said Pisistratus, “with those that love us, what is to be done with such as hate?” The last spectacle was that of a furious multitude shouting and stoning to death a youth, who, as he fell to the ground, still kept his face towards heaven, making his eyes the gates through which his soul reached it, and imploring forgiveness for his murderers.[32]

The visions passed away, leaving the poet staggering as if but half awake.  They were succeeded by a thick and noisome fog, through which he followed his leader with the caution of a blind man, Virgil repeatedly telling him not to quit him a moment.  Here they heard voices praying in unison for pardon to the “Lamb of God, who taketh away the sins of the world.”  They were the spirits of the angry.  Dante conversed with one of them on free-will and necessity; and after quitting him, and issuing by degrees from the cloud, beheld illustrative visions of anger; such as the impious mother, who was changed into the bird that most delights in singing; Haman, retaining his look of spite and rage on the cross; and Lavinia, mourning for her mother, who slew herself for rage at the death of Turnus.[33]

These visions were broken off by a great light, as sleep is broken; and Dante heard a voice out of it saying, “The ascent is here.”  He then, as Virgil and he ascended into the fourth circle, felt an air on his face, as if caused by the fanning of wings, accompanied by the utterance of the words, “Blessed are the peace-makers;” and his forehead was lightened of the third letter.[34]

In this fourth circle was expiated Lukewarmness, or defect of zeal for good.  The sufferers came speeding and weeping round the mountain, making amends for the old indifference by the haste and fire of the new love that was in them.  “Blessed Mary made haste,” cried one, “to salute Elizabeth.”  “And Caesar,” cried another, “to smite Pompey at Lerida."[35] “And the disobedient among the Israelites,” cried others, “died before they reached the promised land.”  “And the tired among the Trojans preferred ease in Sicily to glory in Latium.”—­It was now midnight, and Dante slept and had a dream.

His dream was of a woman who came to him, having a tongue that tried ineffectually to speak, squinting eyes, feet whose distortion drew her towards the earth, stumps of hands, and a pallid face.  Dante looked earnestly at her, and his look acted upon her like sunshine upon cold.  Her tongue was loosened; her feet made straight; she stood upright; her paleness became a lovely rose-colour; and she warbled so beautifully, that the poet could not have refused to listen had he wished it.