Dante went on, with his thoughts so full of this request, that he did not perceive he had arrived at the path which Virgil asked for, till the wandering spirits called out to them to say so.  The pilgrims then, with great difficulty, began to ascend through an extremely narrow passage; and Virgil, after explaining to Dante how it was that in this antipodal region his eastward face beheld the sun in the north instead of the south, was encouraging him to proceed manfully in the hope of finding the path easier by degrees, and of reposing at the end of it, when they heard a voice observing, that they would most likely find it expedient to repose a little sooner.  The pilgrims looked about them, and observed close at hand a crag of a rock, in the shade of which some spirits were standing, as men stand idly at noon.  Another was sitting down, as if tired out, with his arms about his knees, and his face bent down between them.[8]

“Dearest master!” exclaimed Dante to his guide, “what thinkest thou of a croucher like this, for manful journeying?  Verily he seems to have been twin-born with Idleness herself.”

The croucher, lifting up his eyes at these words, looked hard at Dante, and said, “Since thou art so stout, push on.”

Dante then saw it was Belacqua, a pleasant acquaintance of his, famous for his indolence.

“That was a good lesson,” said Belacqua, “that was given thee just now in astronomy.”

The poet could not help smiling at the manner in which his acquaintance uttered these words, it was so like his ways of old.  Belacqua pretended, even in another world, that it was of no use to make haste, since the angel had prohibited his going higher up the mountain.  He and his companions had to walk round the foot of it as many years as they had delayed repenting; unless, as in the case of Manfredi, their time was shortened by the prayers of good people.

A little further on, the pilgrims encountered the spirits of such Delayers of Penitence as, having died violent deaths, repented at the last moment.  One of them, Buonconte da Montefeltro, who died in battle, and whose body could not be found, described how the devil, having been hindered from seizing him by the shedding of a single tear, had raised in his fury a tremendous tempest, which sent the body down the river Arno, and buried it in the mud.[9]

Another spirit, a female, said to Dante, “Ah! when thou returnest to earth, and shalt have rested from thy long journey, remember me,—­Pia.  Sienna gave me life; the Marshes took it from me.  This he knows, who put on my finger the wedding-ring."[10]

The majority of this party were so importunate with the Florentine to procure them the prayers of their friends, that he had as much difficulty to get away, as a winner at dice has to free himself from the mercenary congratulations of the by-standers.  On resuming their way, Dante quoted to Virgil a passage in the AEneid, decrying the utility of prayer, and begged him to explain how it was to be reconciled with what they had just heard.  Virgil advised him to wait for the explanation till he saw Beatrice, whom, he now said, he should meet at the top of the mountain.  Dante, at this information, expressed a desire to hasten their progress; and Virgil, seeing a spirit looking towards them as they advanced, requested him to acquaint them with the shortest road.