little
forbear weeping to see him thus hungering and thirsting, though he had
expected to find him in the outskirts of the place, among the delayers
of repentance. He asked his friend how he had so quickly got higher.
Forese said it was owing to the prayers and tears of his good wife
Nella; and then he burst into a strain of indignation against the
contrast exhibited to her virtue by the general depravity of the
Florentine women, whom he described as less modest than the half-naked
savages in the mountains of Sardinia.

"What is to be said of such creatures?" continued he. "O my dear cousin!
I see a day at hand, when these impudent women shall be for bidden from
the pulpit to go exposing their naked bosoms. What savages or what
infidels ever needed that? Oh! if they could see what Heaven has in
store for them, their mouths would be this instant opened wide for
howling."[44]

Forese then asked Dante to explain to himself and his astonished
fellow-sufferers how it was that he stood there, a living body of flesh
and blood, casting a shadow with his substance.

"If thou callest to mind," said Dante, "what sort of life thou and I led
together, the recollection may still grieve thee sorely. He that walks
here before us took me out of that life; and through his guidance it
is that I have visited in the body the world of the dead, and am now
traversing the mountain which leads us to the right path."[45]

After some further explanation, Forese pointed out to his friend, among
the expiators of intemperance, Buonaggiunta of Lucca, the poet; and Pope
Martin the Fourth, with a face made sharper than the rest for the eels
which he used to smother in wine; and Ubaldino of Pila, grinding his
teeth on air; and Archbishop Boniface of Ravenna, who fed jovially on
his flock; and Rigogliosi of Forli, who had had time enough to drink in
the other world, and yet never was satisfied. Buonaggiunta and Dante
eyed one another with curiosity; and the former murmured something about
a lady of the name of Gentucca.

"Thou seemest to wish to speak with me," said Dante.

"Thou art no admirer, I believe, of my native place," said Buonaggiunta;
"and yet, if thou art he whom I take thee to be, there is a damsel there
shall make it please thee. Art thou not author of the poem beginning

"Ladies, that understand the lore of love?"[46]

"I am one," replied Dante, "who writes as Love would have him, heeding
no manner but his dictator's, and utterin