Dante's eyes are so fixed on Beatrice that when the procession turns and moves away, he is pulled along like a child clutching a mother's hand, incapable of independent motion. The procession moves to a vast, bare, dead tree — a tree stripped of all leaves and flowers. Dante recognizes it as the tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil from which Adam ate: it is bare because of Adam's transgression. The Gryphon ties the chariot's shaft to it. As the Gryphon makes contact with the dead tree, it bursts into color — flowers and new green leaves spring from every branch, the color "less than rose and more than violet." The restoration of the tree by Christ (the Gryphon) is the Redemption figured botanically. The souls sing a hymn Dante cannot follow — too new for mortal ears.
Dante sleeps. When he wakes, Matelda, Statius, and Beatrice are with him; the vast procession is gone. Beatrice sits on the root of the tree guarding the chariot. What follows is a rapid, dark allegorical sequence that depicts the trials of the Church. An eagle strikes the chariot twice (the Roman persecutions of Christians). A fox leaps into the chariot (heresy, driven out by Beatrice). The eagle descends again and leaves feathers in the chariot's floor (the Donation of Constantine, the Church's disastrous acquisition of temporal wealth). A dragon bursts from below and tears away part of the chariot's bed (schism). The chariot sprouts feathers and is transformed — seven heads appear on it (the seven deadly sins), and a whore rides it while a giant beside her beats and kisses her, then drags the whole corrupt vehicle into the forest when the whore's eyes meet Dante's. The allegory is of the Church's progressive corruption: persecution, heresy, imperial endowment, schism, and finally the corrupt papal court (the whore) dominated by the French crown (the giant). It is Dante's most compressed and furious political vision.