Thus rebuked by Cato for delaying, even thus innocently, their first duty, which is to purge away their sins, the company of spirits breaks up and Dante and Vergil make their way to the mountain of purgatory, which lifts its seven terraces almost perpendicularly from the sea. Before reaching the first of these terraces, however, they pass over a steep and rocky slope, ante-purgatory, as it may be called, where linger the souls of those who, although saved, neglected their repentance till late in life, or who died in contumacy with Holy Church. Among the latter Dante sees Manfred, the unfortunate son of Frederick II., "Comely and fair and gentle of aspect," who was slain at Benevento, in 1266; and likewise Buonconte da Montefeltro, who was killed in the battle of Campaldino (1289), and whose account of the post-mortem fate of his body is singularly impressive; "There is nothing like it in literature," says Ruskin: "I thus: 'From Campaldino's field what force or chance Drew thee, that ne'er thy sepulture was known?' "'Oh!' answered he, 'at Casentino's foot A stream there courseth, named Archiano, sprung In Apennine above the hermit's seat. E'en where its name is cancel'd, there came I, Pierced in the throat, fleeing away on foot, And bloodying the plain. Here sight and speech Fail'd me; and, finishing with Mary's name, I fell, and tenantless my flesh remain'd. I will report the truth; which thou again Tell to the living. Me God's angel took, Whilst he of hell exclaimed: "O thou from heaven: Say wherefore hast thou robb'd me? Thou of him The eternal portion bear'st with thee away, For one poor tear that he deprives me of. But of the other, other rule I make." "'Thou know'st how in the atmosphere collects That vapor dank, returning into water Soon as it mounts where cold condenses it. That evil will, which in his intellect Still follows evil, came; and raised the wind And smoky mist, by virtue of the power Given by his nature. Thence the valley, soon As day was spent, he covered o'er with cloud, From Pratomagno to the mountain range; And stretched the sky above; so that the air Impregnate changed to water. Fell the rain; And to the fosses came all that the land Contained not; and, as mightiest streams are wont, To the great river, with such headlong sweep, Rushed, that nought stayed its course. My stiffened frame Laid at his mouth, the fell Archiano found, And dashed it into Arno; from my breast Loosening the cross, that of myself I made When overcome with pain. He hurled me on, Along the banks and bottom of his course; Then in his muddy spoils encircling wrapt."