The second terrace is bare and colorless — no carvings, no decoration, only ashen stone. The examples of charity (the opposite virtue) are heard rather than seen: disembodied voices flying through the air. The first voice cites the wedding at Cana, where Mary said to the servants, "They have no wine," thinking of others. The second: "I am Orestes" — Pylades and Orestes each crying out to be the one to die so the other might live, the classical paradigm of self-giving friendship. The third voice: "Love those who have done you harm." The examples are carefully chosen to show love that exceeds what envy can conceive of — love that gives, sacrifices, forgives.
The souls here sit along the wall, huddled against each other, dressed in haircloth, their eyelids sewn shut with iron wire as falconers sew the eyes of hawks during training. It is an exact and harrowing contrapasso: the envious looked with poisoned eyes at others' goods; now they are denied all sight and must lean on one another in darkness. The very community they couldn't bear — others' prosperity, others' joy — now becomes their only support.
Sapia of Siena speaks with Dante. She confesses with disarming honesty: she rejoiced when the Sienese forces were defeated at the battle of Colle (1269) because she hated her own countrymen. When she saw them routed and pursued, she cried out to God: "Now I fear you no more!" Her repentance was genuine but came very late, helped by the prayers of the hermit Pier Pettinaio. She has a wry clarity about herself that is one of Purgatorio's most human portraits: she knew what she was, hated it, and wept. She asks Dante to pray for her when he returns among the living.