“Curs’d wolf! thy fury inward on thyself

      Prey, and consume thee! Through the dark profound

      Not without cause he passes. So ’t is will’d

      On high, there where the great Archangel pour’d

      Heav’n’s vengeance on the first adulterer proud.”

      As sails full spread and bellying with the wind

      Drop suddenly collaps’d, if the mast split;

      So to the ground down dropp’d the cruel fiend.

      Thus we, descending to the fourth steep ledge,

      Gain’d on the dismal shore, that all the woe

      Hems in of all the universe. Ah me!

      Almighty Justice! in what store thou heap’st

      New pains, new troubles, as I here beheld!

      Wherefore doth fault of ours bring us to this?

      E’en as a billow, on Charybdis rising,

      Against encounter’d billow dashing breaks;

      Such is the dance this wretched race must lead,

      Whom more than elsewhere numerous here I found,

      From one side and the other, with loud voice,

      Both roll’d on weights by main forge of their breasts,

      Then smote together, and each one forthwith

      Roll’d them back voluble, turning again,

      Exclaiming these, “Why holdest thou so fast?”

      Those answering, “And why castest thou away?”

      So still repeating their despiteful song,

      They to the opposite point on either hand

      Travers’d the horrid circle: then arriv’d,

      Both turn’d them round, and through the middle space

      Conflicting met again. At sight whereof

      I, stung with grief, thus spake: “O say, my guide!

      What race is this? Were these, whose heads are shorn,

      On our left hand, all sep’rate to the church?”

      He straight replied: “In their first life these all

      In mind were so distorted, that they made,

      According to due measure, of their wealth,

      No use. This clearly from their words collect,

      Which they howl forth, at each extremity

      Arriving of the circle, where their crime

      Contrary’ in kind disparts them. To the church

      Were separate those, that with no hairy cowls

      Are crown’d, both Popes and Cardinals, o’er whom

      Av’rice