'
I thus to him replied: 'Much as I can,
I thereto pray thee: and if thou be willing
That I here seat me with thee, I consent:
His leave with whom I journey, first obtain'd.'
'O Son,' said he, 'whoever of this throng
One instant stops, lies then a hundred years,
No fan to ventilate him, when the fire
Smitest sorest. Pass thou therefore on. I close
Will at thy garments walk and then rejoin
My troup, who go mourning their endless doom.'"
* * * * *
"Were all my wish fulfill'd," I straight replied,
Thou from the confines of man's nature yet
Hadst not been driven forth; for in my mind
Is fix'd, and now strikes full upon my heart,
The dear, benign, paternal image, such
As thine was, when so lately thou didst teach me
The way for man to win eternity:
And how I prized the lesson, it behoves,
That, long as life endures, my tongue should speak.
(XV, 28.)
The eighth circle is known as Malebolge, Evil Pouches, of which there
are ten. Here are punished differently panders, seducers, flatterers,
simonists, magicians, cheats, hypocrites, thieves, evil-counsellors,
forgers.
In the ninth circle, the abode of traitors, which comprises four
divisions, named respectively after Cain (Caina), Antenor of Troy
(Antenora), Ptolemy of Jericho (Tolomea), and Judas Iscariot (Giudecca),
Dante sees in the second division, Antenora, the shade of the traitor
Ugolino imprisoned in ice with his enemy, Archbishop Ruggieri, by whom
he was betrayed.
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