"When all decreed that Florence should be laid
in ruin I alone with fearless face defended her."
(X, 91.)
In the seventh circle Virgil leads Dante to the river of blood, "in
which boils every one who by violence injures others." Centaurs, half
horses and half men, are there. "Around the fosse they go by thousands,
piercing with their arrows whatever spirit wrenches itself out of the
blood farther than its guilt has allotted for it." (XII, 73.) With
characteristic realism the poet describes Chiron, one of the leaders of
the Centaurs, pushing back with an arrow his beard as he prepares to
speak:
"Chiron took an arrow, and with the notch put back his beard upon
his jaws. When he had uncovered his great mouth, he said to his
companions: 'Have ye perceived that the one behind (Dante) moves
what he touches? The feet of the dead are not wont to do so.'"
(XII, 76.)
In the third round of Circle VII Dante meets his friend Brunetto Latini,
punished for unnatural offences.
"I remembered him and toward his face
My hand inclining, answered: Ser Brunetto!
And are ye here? He thus to me: 'My son!
Oh let it not displease thee, if Brunetto
Latini but a little space with thee
Turn back, and leave his fellows to proceed.
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