The Night Line and Negligent Kings — Divine Comedy

After seven joyful greetings Sordello draws back and asks who they are. Virgil answers in few words. Octavius buried his bones. He is Virgil, shut from heaven for no sin except lack of faith. Sordello wavers as a man who cries it is and is not, then bends his eyes and clasps him as a person of mean estate clasps a lord. Glory of Latium, utmost power of their tongue, honour of the birth-place. Virgil has come through every orb of that sad region by heavenly influence. Underneath is a place made not by sharp torments but by dun shades, where mourning breathes in sighs. He abides there with little innocents bitten before they were exempt, and with those who did not put on the three holy virtues yet followed the rest without blame. He asks the soonest way to where Purgatory truly begins.

Sordello has no certain place assigned. He may go up or round, and will join them as far as he can. Day declines. Night takes the power to proceed. He trails a finger along the ground: only this line thou shalt not overpass once the sun has disappeared. Nothing else impedes, save the shades of night, which perplex the will. A climber might return beneath, or wander to and fro while day is shut. Virgil asks to be led quickly where they may still enjoy delight. The mountain is hollowed like a large earthly valley. Gold, silver thrice refined, scarlet, ceruse, Indian wood, and newly broken emeralds would all be surpassed by the herbs and flowers, and a rare fragrance of a thousand smells. On that grass the spirits sit chanting Salve Regina, unseen beyond the valley. From the high bank, Sordello says, you discern acts and visages better than mixed among them.

He who sits highest, and seems to have neglected what he should have done, does not move his lip to the others' song: Emperor Rudolph, who might have healed the wounds of which fair Italy has died. Ottocar comforts him; in swaddling clothes he was of more worth than Wenceslaus his son, a bearded man pampered with ease. A depressed nose withered the lily. A father and a father-in-law of Gallia's bane knock the breast and make a couch of one hand, because they know that vicious life. Pedro's virtue was not poured into James and Frederick. Rarely into the branches of the tree doth human worth mount up; it is ordained a free gift so it may be called his. Harry of England sits alone, of simple life, and through his branches better issue spreads. Lowest on the ground, gaze aloft, sits William the Marquis, for whose war Conferrat and Canavese weep.