Dante and Virgil turned to move onward, and had scarcely done so, when a tremendous voice met them, splitting the air like peals of thunder, and crying out, "Whoever finds me will slay me!" then dashed apart, like the thunder-bolt when it falls. It was Cain. The air had scarcely recovered its silence, when a second crash ensued from a different quarter near them, like thunder when the claps break swiftly into one another. "I am Aglauros," it said, "that was turned into stone." Dante drew closer to his guide, and there ensued a dead silence.[30]
The sun was now in the west, and the pilgrims were journeying towards it, when Dante suddenly felt such a weight of splendour on his eyes, as forced him to screen them with both his hands. It was an angel coming to show them the ascent to the next circle, a way that was less steep than the last. While mounting, they heard the angel's voice singing behind them, "Blessed are the merciful; for they shall obtain mercy!" and on his leaving them to proceed by themselves, the second letter on Dante's forehead was found to have been effaced by the splendour.
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]