ound, I will tell of the other things that I saw
there. I cannot well recount how I entered it, so full was I of slumber
at that point where I abandoned the true way. But after I had arrived at
the foot of a hill, where that valley ended which had pierced my heart
with fear, I looked on high and saw its shoulders clothed already with
the rays of the planet[8] that leads men aright along every path. Then
was the fear a little quieted which in the lake of my heart had lasted
through the night that I passed so piteously. And even as one who, with
spent breath, issued out of the sea upon the shore, turns to the
perilous water and gazes, so did my soul, which still was flying, turn
back to look again upon the pass which never had a living person left.

After I had rested a little my weary body, I took my way again along the
desert slope, so that the firm foot was always the lower. And lo! almost
at the beginning of the steep a she-leopard, light and very nimble,
which was covered with a spotted coat. And she did not move from before
my face, nay, rather hindered so my road that to return I oftentimes had
turned.

The time was at the beginning of the morning, and the Sun was mounting
upward with those stars that were with him when Love Divine first set in
motion those beautiful things;[9] so that the hour of the time and the
sweet season were occasion of good hope to me concerning that wild beast
with the dappled skin. But not so that the sight which appeared to me of
a lion did not give me fear. He seemed to be coming against me, with
head high and with ravening hunger, so that it seemed that the air was
affrighted at him. And a she-wolf, who with all cravings seemed laden in
her meagreness, and already had made folk to live forlorn,--she caused
me so much heaviness, with the fear that came from sight of her, that I
lost hope of the height.[10] And such as he is who gains willingly, and
the time arrives that makes him lose, who in all his thoughts weeps and
is sad,--such made me the beast without repose that, coming on against
me, little by little was pushing me back thither where the Sun is
silent.

While I was falling back to the low place, before mine eyes appeared one
who through long silence seemed faint-voiced. When I saw him in the
great desert, "Have pity on me!" I cried to him, "whatso thou art, or
shade or real man." He answered me:--"Not man; man once I was, and my
parents were Lombards, and Mantuans by country