Making a sign of the cross upon each passenger’s brow, the angel allows his charges to land, and vanishes at sunrise, just as the new-comers, turning to Virgil, humbly inquire the way to the mountain.  Virgil rejoins that he too is a recent arrival, although he and his companion travelled a far harder road than theirs.  His words making them aware of the fact that Dante is a living man, the spirits crowd around him, eager to touch him.  Among them he recognizes the musician Casella, his friend.  Unable to embrace a spirit,—­although he tries to do so,—­Dante, after explaining his own presence here, begs Casella to comfort all present by singing of love.  Just as this strain ends, Cato reappears, urging them to hasten to the mountain and there cast aside the scales which conceal God from their eyes.  At these words all the souls present scatter like a covey of pigeons, and begin ascending the mountain, whither Virgil and Dante slowly follow them.

      “As a wild flock of pigeons, to their food
  Collected, blade or tares, without their pride
  Accustom’d, and in still and quiet sort,
  If aught alarm them, suddenly desert
  Their meal, assail’d by more important care;
  So I that new-come troop beheld, the song
  Deserting, hasten to the mountain’s side,
  As one who goes, yet, where he tends, knows not.”

Canto III. While painfully ascending the steep slope, Dante, seeing only his own shadow lengthening out before him, fears his guide has abandoned him, and is relieved to see Virgil close behind him and to hear him explain that disembodied spirits cast no shadow.  While they are talking, they reach the foot of the mountain and are daunted by its steep and rocky sides.  They are vainly searching for some crevice whereby they may hope to ascend, when they behold a slowly advancing procession of white-robed figures, from whom Virgil humbly inquires the way.

      “As sheep, that step from forth their fold, by one,
  Or pairs, or three at once; meanwhile the rest
  Stand fearfully, bending the eye and nose
  To ground, and what the foremost does, that do
  The others, gathering round her if she stops,
  Simple and quiet, nor the cause discern;
  So saw I moving to advance the first,
  Who of the fortunate crew were at the head,
  Of modest mien, and graceful in their gait. 
  When they before me had beheld the light
  From my right side fall broken on the ground,
  So that the shadow reach’d the cave; they stopp’d,
  And somewhat back retired:  the same did all
  Who follow’d, though unwitting of the cause.”

These spirits too are startled at the sight of a living being, but, when Virgil assures them Dante is not here without warrant, they obligingly point out “the straight and narrow way” which serves as entrance to Purgatory.  This done, one spirit, detaching itself from the rest, inquires whether Dante does not remember Manfred, King of Naples and Sicily, and whether he will not, on his return to earth, inform the princess that her father repented of his sins at the moment of death and now bespeaks her prayers to shorten his time of probation.