's wings are raised, darts beneath them, and clutching the
demon's shaggy sides painfully descends toward the centre of the
earth. Down, down they go until they reach the evil spirit's thighs,
where, the centre of earth's gravity being reached, Virgil suddenly
turns around and begins an upward climb with his burden. Although
Dante fully expects soon to behold Satan's head once more, he is
amazed to discover they are climbing up his leg. Then, through a
chimney-like ascent, where the climbing demands all their strength,
Dante and Virgil ascend toward the upper air.

Explaining they are about to emerge at the antipodes of the spot
where they entered Hades, where they will behold the great Western
Sea, Virgil adds they will find in its centre the Mount of Purgatory,
constructed of the earth displaced by Satan's fall. Thus, Dante and
his leader return to the bright world, and, issuing from the dark
passage in which they have been travelling, once more behold the
stars!

"By that hidden way
My guide and I did enter, to return
To the fair world: and heedless of repose
We climb'd, he first, I following his steps,
Till on our view the beautiful lights of heaven
Dawn'd through a circular opening in the cave:
Thence issuing we again beheld the stars."

PURGATORY

_Canto I._ About to sing of a region where human spirits are purged of
their sins and prepared to enter heaven, Dante invokes the aid of the
muses. Then, gazing about him, he discovers he is in an atmosphere of
sapphire hue, all the more lovely because of the contrast with the
infernal gloom whence he has just emerged. It is just before dawn, and
he beholds with awe four bright stars,--the Southern Cross,--which
symbolize the four cardinal virtues (Prudence, Justice, Fortitude, and
Temperance).

After contemplating these stars awhile, Dante, turning to the north to
get his bearings, perceives Virgil has been joined in this
ante-purgatorial region by Cato, who wonderingly inquires how they
escaped "the eternal prison-house."

Virgil's gesture and example have meantime forced Dante to his knees,
so it is in this position that the Latin poet explains how a lady in
heaven bade him rescue Dante--before it was too late--by guiding him
through hell and showing him how sinners are cleansed in Purgatory.
The latter part of Virgil's task can, however, be accomplished only if
Cato will allow them to enter the realm which he guards. M