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Dante – The Divine Comedy  INFERNO I

CANTO VII

So we went down the bank of the foul ditch
Going a little further into the pit
Which is stuffed with all the evil of the universe

Justice of God!  Who except you could gather
As many pains and punishments as I saw?
And why is it our faults must devour us so?

Here the biggest crowd had come together
With great howls, from one side and the other
And rolling heavy weights forward against their chests

So they struck one another as they met;
And then turned round and rolling back again
Some shouted 'Why hold on? Some 'Why let go?'

So they flowed back around the dark circle
From each side of us, to meet on the other side
Where once again they shouted their shameful chant

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 I said 'My master, if you will, please indicate
What people these are....

He answered 'The whole lot of them were cross eyed,
So to speak, in their minds, in their first life,
And did not know how to spend moderately

You may know their voices, they make outcry enough
When they arrive at the two points of the circle
Where their contrary faults set them at odds

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They are the ones in whom avarice does its best