Dante Alighiere, PURGATORIO, Canto III

Illustration by Salvador Dali
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Our Poet, perceiving no shadow except that cast by his own body, is fearful that Virgil has deserted him; but he is freed from that error, and both arrive together at the foot of the mountain: on finding it to steep to climb, thay inquire the way from a troop of spirits that are coming towards them, and are by them shown which is the easiest ascent. Manfredi, King of Naples, who is one of these spirits, bids Dante inform his daughter Constanza, Queen of Arragon, of the manner in which he had died.