e hand the
love of those two fellow citizens drawn together by no other bond than
affection for their native place and on the other hand hatred with which
living contemporaries rend one another.

"Ah Italy, thou slave, that gentle spirit was thus quick, merely at the
sweet name of his city, to give greeting there to his fellow citizen and
now in thee thy living abide not without war and one doth rend the other
of those that one wall and one foss shuts in" (VI, 79).

As night approaches Sordello leads the poets to the angelically
protected Flowery Valley wherein are found the souls of those rulers who
were negligent of the spiritual life. Many of them were once old enemies
but now they not only sing together but live in harmony, united also in
paying tributes to the worth of some reigning monarchs or in expressing
denunciation at the degeneracy of others. Here in the Valley of the
Princes, while sleeping on the grass and among the flowers, Dante has a
strange dream indicative of a near episode in his journey. He sees an
eagle in the sky with wings wide open and intent upon swooping

"Then wheeling somewhat more, it seemed to me
Terrible as the lightning he descended
And snatched me upward even to the (sphere of) fire
Therein it seemed that he and I were burning,
And the imagined fire did scorch me so
That of necessity my sleep was broken."
(IX, 28.)

He awakes to find himself actually transported up the perpendicular wall
to the entrance Gate of Purgatory. Virgil interprets the dream, pointing
out that the eagle represents Lucia (Illuminating Grace) who has carried
the poet to St. Peter's Gate.

"Thou hast at length arrived at Purgatory;
See there the cliff that closeth it around;
See there the entrance, where it seems disjoined.
While at dawn, which doth precede the day,
When inwardly thy spirit was asleep
Upon the flowers that deck the land below,
There came a Lady and said: 'I am Lucia;
Let me take this one up, who is asleep;
So will I make his journey easier for him.'
Sordello and the other noble shapes
Remained; she took thee, and, as day grew bright,
Upward she came, and I upon her footprints.
She laid thee here; and first her beauteous eyes
That open entrance pointed out to me;
Then she and sleep together went away."
(IX, 49.)

The poet, as we said before, cannot enter Purgatory until he mounts the
three steps of confession, contrition and