being a demon; 'tis not a thing wholly incredible. Such creatures as God
framed to have no part in Adam's heritage, these can no more be damned
than they can be saved. I can never believe that the Centaur Cheiron,
who was wiser than men are, is suffering eternal torments in the belly
of Leviathan. A traveller who penetrated once into Limbo, relates how he
saw him seated in a grassy spot and conversing with Rhipheus, the most
righteous man of all the Trojans. Others indeed affirm that Holy
Paradise itself has been opened to admit Rhipheus of Troy. Any way the
case Is one where doubt Is not unlawful. But you lied, old man, when you
told me you were a Saint, who are not so much even as a man."

The goat-foot made answer:

"My son, when I was young, I was no more used to lie than the sheep
whose milk I sucked or the he-goats with which I would butt in the joy
of my strength and beauty. Lies were unknown In those times, nor had the
sheep's fleece yet learned to assume factitious hues; and my soul has
remained unchanged from that day to this. See, I go naked as in the
golden age of Saturn; and my spirit is veiled as little as my body. I am
no liar. And why indeed should you deem It a thing so extraordinary, my
son, that I have become a Saint in the train of the Galilean, albeit no
offspring of the first mother some name Eve and others Pyrrha, and whom
it is very meet to reverence under either title? Nay! for that matter,
neither is St. Michael woman-born. I know him, and at times we have
talks together, he and I. He tells me of the days when he was an ox-herd
on Mount Garganus...."

But here Fra Mino interrupted the Satyr:

"I cannot suffer you to say St. Michael was an ox-herd, because he