k refuge in suicide. This victim's words have
barely died away when the blast of a horn is heard, and two naked
forms are seen fleeing madly before a huntsman and a pack of mastiffs.
The latter, pouncing upon one victim, tears him to pieces, while Dante
shudders at this sight. Meantime Virgil explains that the culprit was
a young spendthrift, and that huntsman and hounds represent the
creditors whose pursuit he tried to escape by killing himself.

_Canto XIV._ Leaving this ghastly forest, Dante is led to the third
division of this circle, a region of burning sands, where hosts of
naked souls lie on the ground, blistered and scathed by the rain of
fire and vainly trying to lessen their pain by thrashing themselves
with their hands. One figure, the mightiest among them, alone seems
indifferent to the burning rain, and, when Dante inquires who this may
be, Virgil returns it is Capaneus (one of the seven kings who besieged
Thebes[17]), who, in his indomitable pride, taunted Jupiter and was
slain by his thunder-bolt.

Treading warily to avoid the burning sands, Virgil and his disciple
cross a ruddy brook which flows straight down from Mount Ida in Crete,
where it rises at the foot of a statue whose face is turned toward
Rome. Virgil explains that the waters of this stream are formed by the
tears of the unhappy, which are plentiful enough to feed the four
mighty rivers of Hades! While following the banks of this torrent,
Dante questions why they have not yet encountered the other two rivers
which fall into the pit; and discovers that, although they have been
travelling in a circle, they have not by far completed one whole round
of the gigantic funnel, but have stepped down from one ledge to the
other after walking only a short distance around each circumference.

_Canto XV._ The high banks of the stream of tears protect our
travellers from the burning sands and the rain of fire, until they
encounter a procession of souls, each one of which stares fixedly at
them. One of these recognizes Dante, who in his turn is amazed to find
there his old school-master Ser Brunetto, whom he accompanies on his
way, after he learns he and his fellow-sufferers are not allowed to
stop, under penalty of lying a hundred years without fanning
themselves beneath the rain of fire. Walking by his former pupil's
side, Brunetto in his turn questions Dante and learns how and why he
has come down here, ere he predicts that in spite of persecutions the