When thus my guide: "No more his bed he leaves, Ere the last angel-trumpet blow. The Power Adverse to these shall then in glory come, Each one forthwith to his sad tomb repair, Resume his fleshly vesture and his form, And hear the eternal doom re-echoing rend The vault." So pass'd we through that mixture foul Of spirits and rain, with tardy steps; meanwhile Touching, though slightly, on the life to come. For thus I question'd: "Shall these tortures, Sir! When the great sentence passes, be increas'd, Or mitigated, or as now severe?" He then: "Consult thy knowledge; that decides That as each thing to more perfection grows, It feels more sensibly both good and pain. Though ne'er to true perfection may arrive This race accurs'd, yet nearer then than now They shall approach it." Compassing that path Circuitous we journeyed, and discourse Much more than I relate between us pass'd: Till at the point, where the steps led below, Arriv'd, there Plutus, the great foe, we found. End of Project Gutenberg's The Vision of Hell, Part 3, by Dante Alighieri