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 speechless terror, Dante hears his guide assure the spirit which suddenly appears before them that the Fates have not yet finished spinning the thread of his companion’s life.  When questioned by the travellers in regard to the noise and earthquake, this spirit informs them that the mountain quivers with joy whenever a sinner is released, and that, after undergoing a punishment of five hundred years, he—­Statius—­is now free to go in quest of his master Virgil, whom he has always longed to meet.  Dante’s smile at these words, together with his meaning glance at Virgil, suddenly reveal to the spirit that his dearest wish is granted, and Statius reverently does obeisance to the poet from whose fount he drew his inspiration.

Canto XXII. The three bards are next led by an angel up another staircase, to the sixth cornice (Dante losing another P. on the way), where the sins of gluttony and drunkenness are punished.  As they circle around this ledge, Dante questions how Statius became guilty of the sin of covetousness, for which he was doomed to tramp around the fifth circle.  In reply Statius rejoins that it was not because of covetousness, but of its counterpart, over-lavishness, that he suffered so long, and principally because he was not brave enough to own himself a Christian.  Then he inquires of Virgil what have become of their fellow-countrymen Terence, Caecilius, Plautus, and Varro, only to learn that they too linger in the dark regions of ante-hell, where they hold sweet converse with other pagan poets.

Reverently listening to the conversation of his companions, Dante drinks in “mysterious lessons of sweet poesy” and silently follows them until they draw near a tree laden with fruit and growing beside a crystal stream.  Issuing from this tree a voice warns them against the sin of gluttony—­which is punished in this circle—­and quotes such marked examples of abstinence as Daniel feeding on pulse and John the Baptist living on locusts and wild honey.