aul, who called the Gentiles into the Church of
Christ, went to Naples and sanctified with his tears the tomb of the
prince of poets.* This was some ground for believing that Virgil, like
the Emperor Trajan, was admitted to Paradise because even in error he
had a presentiment of the truth. We are not compelled to believe it, but
I can easily persuade myself that it is true."

*Ad maronis mausoleum
Ductus, fudit super eum
Piae rorem lacrymae.
Quem te, intuit, reddidissem,
Si te vivum invenissem
Poetarum maxime!

Having thus spoken, old Hilary wished me the peace of a holy night and
went away with Brother Jacinth.

I resumed the delightful study of my poet. Book in hand, I meditated
upon the way in which those whom Love destroys with its cruel malady
wander through the secret paths in the depth of the myrtle forest, and,
as I meditated, the quivering reflections of the stars came and mingled
with those of the leafless eglantines in the waters of the cloister
fountain. Suddenly the lights and the perfumes and the stillness of the
sky were overwhelmed, a fierce Northwind charged with storm and darkness
burst roaring upon me. It lifted me up and carried me like a wisp of
straw over fields, cities, rivers, and mountains, and through the midst
of thunder-clouds, during a long night composed of a whole series of
nights and days. And when, after this prolonged and cruel rage, the
hurricane was at last stilled, I found myself far from my native land at
the bottom of a valley bordered by cypress trees. Then a woman of wild
beauty, trailing long garments behind her, approached me. She placed
her left hand on my shoulder, and, pointing her right arm to an oak with
thick foliage:

"Look!" said she to me.

Immediately I recognised the Sibyl who guards the sacred wood of
Avernus, and I discerned the fair Proserpine's beautiful golden twig
amongst the tufted boughs of the tree to which her finger pointed.

"O prophetic Virgin," I exclaimed, "thou hast comprehended my desire and
thou hast satisfied it in this way. Thou hast revealed to me the tree
that bears the shining twig without which none can enter alive into the
dwelling-place of the dead. And in truth, eagerly did I long to converse
with the shade of Virgil."

Having said this, I snatched the golden branch from its ancient trunk
and I advanced without fear into the smoking gulf that leads to the
miry banks of the Styx, upon which the shades