the past and see the future. He foretells the duration of the poet's
exile and boasts that he himself saved Florence from being razed to the
ground.

"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.'
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. He