spirits, flays them, and rends them. The rain makes them howl
like dogs; of one of their sides they make a screen for the
other; the profane wretches often turn themselves.

When Cerberus, the great worm, observed us he opened his mouths,
and showed his fangs to us; not a limb had he that he kept quiet.
And my Leader opened wide his hands, took some earth, and with
full fists threw it into the ravenous gullets. As the dog that
barking craves, and becomes quiet when he bites his food, and is
intent and fights only to devour it, such became those filthy
faces of the demon Cerberus, who so thunders at the souls that
they would fain be deaf.

We were passing over the shades whom the heavy rain subdues, and
were setting our feet upon their vain show that seems a body.
They all of them lay upon the ground, except one who raised
himself to sit, quickly as he saw us passing before him. "O thou
who art led through this Hell," he said to me, "recognize me, if
thou canst; thou wast made before I was unmade." And I to him,
"The anguish which thou hast perchance withdraws thee from my
memory, so that it seems not that I ever saw thee. But tell me
who thou art, that in a place so woeful art set, and with such a
punishment, that if any other is greater none is so displeasing."
And he to me, "Thy city which is so full of envy, that already
the sack runs over, held me in it, in the serene life. You
citizens called me Ciacco; [1] for the damnable sin of gluttony,
as thou seest, I am broken by the rain. And I, wretched soul, am
not alone, for all these endure like punishment, for like sin,"
and more he said not. I answered him, "Ciacco, thy trouble so
weighs upon me, that it invites me to weeping; but tell me, if