The Divine Comedy Purgatory Author:Dante Alighieri Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: CANTO III Ante-Purgatory. — Souls of those who have died in contumacy of the Church. — Manfred. Although the sudden flight had scattered them over the plai... more »n, turned to the mount whereto reason spurs us, I drew up close to my trusty companion. And how should I have run without him ? Who would have led me up over the mountain ? He seemed to me of his own self remorseful. O conscience, upright and stainless, how bitter a sting to thee is little fault! When his feet left the haste which mars the dignity of every act, my mind, which at first had been restrained, let loose its attention, as though eager, and I set my face against the hill which rises highest towards heaven from the sea. The sun, which behind was flaming ruddy, was broken in front of me by the figure which the staying of its rays upon me formed. When I saw the ground darkened only in front of me,' I turned me to one side with fear ofhaving been abandoned: and my Comfort, turning wholly round to me, began to say : " Why dost thou still distrust ? Dost thou not believe me with thee, and that I guide thee ? It is already evening there where the body is buried within which I cast a shadow; Naples holds it, and from Brundusium it was taken : if in front of me there is no shadow now, marvel not more than at the heavens, of which the one obstructs not the other's radiance.2 The Power, which wills not that how it acts be revealed to us, disposes bodies like this to suffer torments both of heat and cold. Mad is he who hopes that our reason can traverse the infinite way which One Substance in Three Persons holds. Be content, O human race, with the quia;3 for if ye had been able to see everything, there had been no need for Mary to bear child: and ye have seen desiring fruitlessly men such that their desire would have been...« less