Project Dante

Canto VIII

I say, going that long before 1
We reached the distant tower's floor
Our eyes were drawn towards the top
Where fires flashed like burning dots 4
And answer came from distant spire
As flickered there returning fire
Then cross the water comes a boat
That moved as fast as speeding bolt 8
And at its helm one spitting man
Who bears us down as if to ram
And cries he in his dreadful shout
'Now you are caught, O soul without!' 12
But Virgil stands in helmsman's way
And listened I to hear him say
'O Phleg-Yas do not torment your mind
His passing has been blessed you'll find 16
With you and we in binded truce
So ferry us cross muddy sluice.'
Enraged he was the demon red
As one who'd lost on sucker's bet 20
Then Virgil leads me on the boat
As lower then the ferry floats
But Phleg-Yas turns the skiff around
And pointed prow to distant ground 24
A hundred leagues and more did pass
Beneath the speeding demon craft
Then saw I thing before obscene
That rose from mire inbetween 28
A shade there formed of face I'd known
Com-patriot of distant home
Stares at me as I all shivver
Stands O'Reilly (dreadful sinner!) 32
Screams 'Who are you before your time
That floats across this world of slime?'
I answered him 'O slave of sin
You're looking great, so very thin 36
And I may come and I may go
But after all you'll never know.'*
And then I pulled my trusty glock
And had him in the crosshairs locked 40
I shot the fiend in his fiend head
Then spat into the river red
And then my guide, he then rejoiced
As singing raised he up his voice 44
And called he to the heaven's there
With words that burned in blackest air
'This my friend is right, is proper
These foul souls have come a cropper 48
Damned by God, by world forgotten
Curse their souls with curses rotten.'
I to him, 'I'd see him suffer!'
'Underneath this river smothered.' 52
He to me 'You'll get your wish
His torture here provides us bliss!
Our bliss, our bliss, the very joy!
To know his soul is devil toyed.' 56
Layed he then his palms together
Asking God for hell forever.
Continued on to distant gate
Where Phleg-Yas left us to our fate 60
And spikes arose like tongues of flame
Where devils lived and demons reigned.
So stood we there upon the brink
My mind so cowed I could not think 64
And up upon the rampart wall
A thousand devils made the call
'Who is this who without death
Can journey through the land of dread.' 68
My master made a secret sign
That devils knew from former time
Supressed they then their great disdain
These angels who from Heaven rained.** 72
But angel gate would open not
Our path ahead it seemed was blocked
But Virgil turns to me and says
'Now One descends through Lion's Gate.' 76
Who has been charged to clear our way
Till welcome here we must now pray
So knealth we there, with out escape
In fear I wept with mouth agape 80
As parley not the lords of rot
And jeered they from the rampart top.


* you'll never know refers to the punishment ascribed to all sinners that they should know the past and the future but not the present. They could remember and look forward to nothing but pain.

** angels rained regers to the fallen, the angels who aligned with Satan in the Great Rebellion. See Milton, Paradise Lost.