With six eyes wept he, and three chins along
The weeping trickled, and a bloody foam.
At every mouth he shattered with his teeth
A sinner, in the manner of a brake,
So that he thus made woful three of them.
The biting for the foremost one was nought
Unto the scratching, for at times the spine
Remained of all the skin completely stripped.
'That soul above which has most punishment
Is,' said my lord, 'Judas Iscariot,
Who has his head within, and outside plies
His legs. O' the other two, whose head is down,
Brutus is he who from the black head hangs;
See how he writhes, and does not speak a word:
The other's Cassius, who appears, so gaunt,'"
(XXXIV, 28-67)
Now that the lesson is learned that the wages of sin is death, that sin
will find a man out and bring him to the judgment of God, the gracious
guide can release his companion from his awful contemplation.
"Now it is time for us to go," says Virgil, "for we have seen all." By a
secret path leading to Purgatory the pilgrims make their way through the
darkness, guided by the encouraging murmur of running water. It is a
streamlet of discarded sin, flowing constantly from Purgatory, whence
wickedness is washed down to its original Satanic source.
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