13
saw ruddy people moving in that marsh,
all naked, with their faces scarred by rage.
They fought each other, not with hands alone,
but struck with head and chest and feet as well,
with teeth they tore each other from limb to limb.
And the good teacher said: "My son, now see
the souls of those that anger overcame;
and I ask you to believe me when I say
beneath the slimy top are sighing souls
who make these waters bubble at the surface;
your eyes will tell you thisjust look around.
Bogged in this slime they say, ,,Sluggish we were
to the sweet air made happy by the sun,
and the smoke of sloth was smouldering in our hearts;
now we lie sluggish, here in this black muck!
This is the hymn they gurgle in their throats
but cannot sing in words that truly sound."
Then making a wide arc we walked around
the pond between the dry bank and the slime,
our eyes still fixed on those who gobbled mud
(VII. 109-129).
52
This pictures the hostile as unleashing their hostility without any restraint, repeatedly inflicting
maximum damage and pain on each other while the lazy are too sluggish to move themselves out
of the miserable muck that they continue to consume.
Punishments for various sins were ingeniously varied.
This wasteland was a dry expanse of sand,
thick, burning sand, . . .
Many separate herds of naked souls I saw,
all weeping desperately; it seemed each group
had been assigned a different penalty:
some were stretched out flat upon their backs,
others were crouching there all tightly hunched,
some wandered, never stopping, round and round.
Far more there were those who roamed the sand
and fewer were the souls stretched to suffer,
but their tongues were looser, for the pain was greater.
And over all that sandland, a fall of slowly
raining broad flakes of fire showered steadily
(a mountain snowstorm on a windless day).. . .
Here too a never ending blaze descended,