Shadows

One of the most arresting images in Dante's Purgatorio is a scene where some of the now incorporeal inhabitants wonder at the all-too-solid Dante's ability to cast a shadow. It is not the kind of remark which a northern poet would have made: instead there would have been references to leaving squelchy footprints in the mud, or something about raindrops showing up on his clothes. Down here on the Mediterranean, however, shadow is something hard edged and substantial, and I still find a thrill casting my own shadow. Here are two images attesting to our Dantesque solidity, one on a dirt track above Pégomas, and the other taken from the landing stage on the Île Ste-Marguerite, just off shore from Cannes. Didn't meet any penitents purging the stain of sin, though.