At the foot of the mountain they are joined by a band of spirits, and walking very slowly with them, conversing with Manfred, so much time passes that to Dante’s surprise, when they reach the place where the ascent is to be made (still on the eastern side), the sun has travelled fully fifty degrees since rising. As the sun passes over 360° in 24 hours, this indicates about 3½ hours after sunrise, or 9.30 a.m.[463] The climb to the first ledge is slow and very arduous, for as Virgil explains, the lower slopes are the most difficult, since the act of climbing becomes more and more easy as the ascent is made. Resting on a ledge, they look back and at the sun, and note how it has travelled north, so that it now strikes their left shoulders; and after a conversation with Belacqua Virgil begins to mount again, saying that it is noon. The other hemisphere consequently is all in darkness, from Ganges (“la riva”[464]) to Morocco. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ [463] If the meaning is that the sun is now 50° _above the horizon_, this would indicate a later hour, nearing midday, for the sun does not rise vertically in this latitude, and reaches only 58° at noon at the time of the equinox. But the first explanation is the more probable. [464] “The shore.” ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Other spirits have been met and spoken with, and they are still climbing when evening comes, and Dante, thinking he is to reach the summit of the mountain and see Beatrice that day, entreats Virgil to hasten. “See,” he says, “how the mountain now casts a shadow.” For the sun has travelled round to the west, and the poets, still on its eastern side, are in deep shadow: this explains how, when they meet Sordello, he does not recognize that Dante is a living man, as all the spirits until now have done. But Virgil assures him that the way is longer than he knows: before they reach the summit, the sun, now hidden behind the mountain and not causing Dante to cast any shadow, will return again to the east. [Illustration: Fig. 47. Northern slope of the Mountain of Purgatory, up which Dante climbed. Being in the southern hemisphere, this was the sunny side, and he followed the sun’s course, from east through north to west.]