CANTO XVIII

Hell hath a region, Malebolge called.
All stone and iron-coloured is the place,
Like the round barrier wherewith it is walled.
Right in the middle of the malignant space
There yawns a well exceeding deep and wide,
Whose structure hereinafter I shall trace.
The margin therefore that remains beside,
Between the well and the cliff's root, is round;

CANTO XVII

" Behold the fell beast with the sharp tail curled
That mountains, walls and armour pierces through!
Behold him who corrupteth the whole world! "
Thus did my Master speak to me anew,
And beckoned him that he should come ashore
Where to the stony causeway's end we drew.
And that obscene image of Fraud then bore
Onward, and landed with his head and chest,

CANTO XVI

Now was I in a place where the deep drum
Of water falling into the other ring
Was heard resounding like a bee-hive's hum,
When three shades parted, in their haste running
Together, from a troop that passed beside
Beneath the rain that scorched them with its sting.
Toward us they ran and each with one voice cried:
" Stop thou, who of our perverse city's brood

CANTO XV

Now one of the hard banks our footing bears,
And the stream's smoke maketh a shadowy shield
So that the fire both bank and water spares.
As 'twixt Wissant and Bruges the Flemings build,
Dreading the tide that ever toward them pours,
Their rampart that compels the waves to yield,
And as the Paduans do by Brenta's shores,
Their villages and castles to make fast,

CANTO XIV

The dearness of my native place perforce
Constraining me, those lost leaves back I brought
With full hands to him, now grown faint and hoarse.
Then came we where is the division wrought
Between the first ring and the second: here
Heaven's justice hath conceived a fearful thought.
To make the strangeness of the new things clear,
I say we reached a waste, which from its bed

CANTO XIII

N ESSUS had not regained the bank beyond
When we betook us onward from the shore
To a wood, wherein no path was to be found.
No green leaves there, but all of dim colour:
Smooth branches none, but wry with knot and gnarl;
No apples, but lean twigs with poison sore.
Not scrub or thicket rougher hides the snarl
'Twixt Cecina and Corneto of the beasts

CANTO XII

Craggy the place was where for our advance
We must descend, and by such presence marred,
That any eye would look on it askance.
Like to the desolation hitherward
Of Trent, on Adige, which, by want of prop
Or earthquake, has the river's flank all scarred,
For down to the level even from the mountain-top
The rock there is so ruined by its fall

CANTO XI

O N the edge of a circle of great broken stones
Rimming a cliff, we came above the place
Wherein are packed worse sins and deeper groans.
And here, because of the horrible excess
Of stench thrown upward from the unfathomed pit,
We approached, for refuge from its noisesomeness,
Behind a monument, whereon was writ:
" Pope Anastasius is here immured;

CANTO X

Now journeying along a secret track
Between the ramparts and the sufferers
My Master goes, and I behind his back.
" O sovran Virtue, who down the circling tiers
Of the impious leadest me where thou dost bid,
Satisfy, " I said, " the wish that in me stirs.
The people who in these sepulchres are hid,
May they be seen? None watches; none keeps guard.

CANTO IX

The colour cowardice had painted pale
Upon my cheek, seeing my Guide turn back,
Made him more promptly his own hue countervail.
He stopt, like one who some far sound would track,
Listening: for but short distance could eye strive
Into the dim air filmed with vapour black.
" Yet needs must that the victory we contrive, "
He began; " unless, ... we were promised aid ...