so bitter is it, death is little more; but of the good to treat, which there I found, speak will I of the other things I saw there. I cannot well repeat how there I entered, so full was I of slumber at the moment in which I had abandoned the true way.

but after I had reached a mountain's foot, at that point where the valley terminated, which had with consternation pierced my heart, upward I looked, and I beheld its shoulders, vested already with that planet's rays which leadeth others right by every road.

thou art my master, and my author thou, thou art alone the one from whom I took the beautiful style that has done honour to me. behold the beast, for which I have turned back; do thou protect me from her, famous Sage, for she doth make my veins and pulses tremble.

"thee it behoves to take another road," responded he, when he beheld me weeping, "If from this savage place thou wouldst escape; because this beast, at which thou criest out, suffers not any one to pass her way, but so doth harass him, that she destroys him";