Heavenly Messenger.--The Sixth Circle, that of the Heresiarchs.

That color which cowardice painted outwardly on me when I saw my
Guide turn back, repressed more speedily his own new color. He
stopped attentive, like a man that listens, for the eye could not
lead him far through the black air, and through the dense fog.

"Yet it must be for us to win the fight," began he, "unless--Such
an one offered herself to us.[1] Oh how slow it seems till Some
one here arrive!"[2]

[1] Beatrice.

[2] The messenger from Heaven, referred to in the last verses of
the last canto.


I saw well how he covered up the beginning with the rest that
came after, which were words different from the first. But
nevertheless his speech gave me fear, because I drew his broken
phrase perchance to a worse meaning than it held.

"Into this depth of the dismal shell does any one ever descend
from the first grade who has for penalty only hope cut off?"[1]
This question I put, and he answered me, "Seldom it happens that
any one of us maketh the journey on which I am going. It is true
that another time I was conjured down here by that cruel Erichtho
who was wont to call back shades into their bodies. Short while
had my flesh been bare of me, when she made me enter within that
wall in order to drag out for her a spirit from the circle of