Canto XI

In the meantime troubled breathing 1
Staggered through this hell deep heaving
Master stops to hear me gasping
Breath from me in gulps, throat rasping 4
So came we to a rim like shoulder
Ringed all around by giant boulders
And found more gangs of sinners pent
In air full foul with dreadful stench 8
So bide we while to catch some air
Before we left that edge most bare
In the meantime ragged breathing
Lay against this headstone heaving
As shelter there with both our backs
Sit tight against this masoned* plaque 14
Names carved deep within that stone
List all the popes from number one.
To pass the time and keep me sane
My guide the map of hell explains
'Beyond this broken ring of stones
Three rings descend to Satan's bones 20
The six behind were of their sort
But those below this circle fort 22
Reflect the worst that man can be
All locked in pain eternally
The way that hell is crafted here
From top to bottom make it clear 26
Those cowards who from hell without
Then Limbo ring in thickest cloud
Then the lustful in the second
Sex the sin, just for the record 30
Third ring holds those gluttons most
Who sit in stinking rain as ghosts
The fourth ring is the place to be
If you have been consumed by greed 34
The weight of wealth will drag them down
Upon their death to prison round
We then descend to circle five
Where wrathful and the sullen thrive 38
And then we enter circle six
The burning graves beyond the Styx
Now comes the time to draw a line
That separates these different crimes 42
As all below this bitter rim
Are all those damned by deeper sin
The seventh set in circles three
Divided by severity 46
The first reserved for those who kill
And those that rob and things worse still
The next is there for those that die
By their own hand, in hell they lie 50
The last for those who dare blaspheme
In circle third their ass is reamed
And so we come to circle eight
A place arranged for those too late 54
The lawyers and the liars crash
With flatterers and like same trash
The final ring is number nine
The deepest place for deepest crime 58
Those foulest who betrayed their lords
In lake of ice impaled on swords
And so the souls of traitors born
In hells ninth ring by heaven scorned 62
So there it is boy, top to pit
The lay of layered prison split
The sings arranged from least to worst
A place in death for all those cursed 66
Where every sin is marked in line
How foul it was, how base the crime.'
As sat we down to clear the air
I thanked my guide for wisdom shared 70
Though glad I was to know the way
That God did punish sin today
And not one sin would go unpaid
For those fell and those who strayed 74
‘But tell me, those the Dead Marsh holds
Or the lustful who fore cold wind blow
If God intends to punish sin
Then why indeed aren’t all within?’ 78
The City Dis, within its walls
The better they might feel the fall?’
‘Why do you let your reason pour
So far from its accustomed course?’ 82
Then Virgil stands and looks to sky
To see which stars above fly by
And so we leave for level round
Path that leads us to devil down. 86
The rings that hold those left behind
We'd set ourselves to it, we'd bind
Our fate to travel down this trail
From now until the end of days. 90

* Masoned: That which has had masons** applied to it
** Masons: (also known as Freemasons) belong to the oldest and third creepiest*** fraternal organization in the world.
*** The second creepiest is the notorious ‘Skull and Bones’, and the creepiest fraternal organization in the world is the utterly disgusting ‘Toad-suckers of the World and Anonymous Tadpole Ticklers’, or TWATT.

I started working on the notes and appendix data for this canto (as a diversion, it was taking too long). I'm happy enough to move on, nothing but a conversation occurs between Dante and Virgil about the nature of sin and the layout of Hell.