Marvelling that any one should wander among them with eyes unclosed, she inquires by what means Dante has come here, bespeaks his prayers, and implores him to warn her countrymen not to cherish vain hopes of greatness or to sin through envy.
_Canto XIV._ The two spirits leaning close together, in their turn question who Virgil and Dante may be?
When they hear mention of Rome and Florence, they hotly inveigh against the degeneracy of dwellers on the banks of the Tiber and Arno.
Shortly after leaving this place with his guide, Dante hears the wail: "Whosoever finds will slay me," a cry followed by a deafening crash.
_Canto XV._ Circling round the mountain, always in the same direction, Dante notes the sun is about to set, when another dazzling angel invites them up to the next level,--where anger is punished,--by means of a stairway less steep than any of the preceding.

As they climb, the angel softly chants "Blessed the merciful" and "Happy thou that conquer'st," while he brushes aside the second _P ._, and thus cleanses Dante from envy.

But, when Dante craves an explanation of what he has heard and seen, Virgil assures him that only when the five remaining "scars" have vanished from his brow, Beatrice herself can satisfy his curiosity.
On reaching the third level, they find themselves enveloped in a dense fog, through which Dante dimly beholds the twelve-year-old Christ in the Temple and overhears his mother chiding him.

Next he sees a woman weeping, and lastly Stephen stoned to death.
_Canto XVI._ Urged by his guide to hasten through this bitter blinding fog--a symbol of anger which is punished here--Dante stumbles along, mindful of Virgil's caution, "Look that from me thou part not." Meanwhile voices on all sides invoke "the Lamb of God that taketh away the sins of the world." Then, all at once, a voice addresses Dante, who, prompted by Virgil, inquires where the next stairway may be?
His interlocutor, after bespeaking Dante's prayers, holds forth against Rome, which, boasting of two suns,--the pope and the emperor,--has seen the one quench the other.

But the arrival of an angel, sent to guide our travellers to the next level, soon ends this conversation.
_Canto XVII._ Out of the vapors of anger--as dense as any Alpine fog--Dante, who has caught glimpses of famous victims of anger, such as Haman and Lavinia, emerges with Virgil, only to be dazzled by the glorious light of the sun.