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Dante – The Divine Comedy INFERNO I

CANTO XIV

We arrived at a sandy waste
From the surface of which every living plant had been scoured

The sorrowful wood stands like a garland about it
As the sad ditch circles around the wood
Here we stopped, standing just at the edge

The ground was thickly covered with dry sand
Not different in fashion from that which was
Trodden under the feet of Cato

O vengeance of God, how much you ought
To be feared by everyone who reads
What was there manifested to my eyes

I saw many droves of naked souls
All of them weeping in great wretchedness
But subject apparently to different laws

Some of them lay supine on the ground;
While others were sitting there, all hunched up
And others were continually wandering

Those who were on the move were more numerous;
And those who lay down in the torment were fewer
But had their tongues more loosened by cries of pain.............

Upon them all the great sand, falling slowly
Rained down dilated flakes of fire, just as
In the mountains snow falls without wind

…......

So fell the eternal heat and just in this manner
The sand would catch alight, as if it were tinder
Under the steel, and so the pain doubled

There was no rest ever from the dance
Of wretched hands, which were now here, now there
Each one shaking from himself the fresh burning