It was the place of Gluttons.  The travellers passed over them, as if they had been ground to walk upon.  But one of them sat up, and addressed the Florentine as his acquaintance.  Dante did not know him, for the agony in his countenance.  He was a man nicknamed Hog (Ciacco), and by no other name does the poet, or any one else, mention him.  His countryman addressed him by it, though declaring at the same time that he wept to see him.  Hog prophesied evil to his discordant native city, adding that there were but two just men in it—­all the rest being given up to avarice, envy, and pride.  Dante inquired by name respecting the fate of five other Florentines, who had done good, and was informed that they were all, for various offences, in lower gulfs of hell.  Hog then begged that he would mention having seen him when he returned to the sweet world; and so, looking at him a little, bent his head, and disappeared among his blinded companions.

“Satan! hoa, Satan!” roared the demon Plutus, as the poets were descending into the fourth circle.

“Peace!” cried Virgil, “with thy swollen lip, thou accursed wolf.  No one can hinder his coming down.  God wills it.” [16]

Flat fell Plutus, collapsed, like the sails of a vessel when the mast is split.

This circle was the most populous one they had yet come to.  The sufferers, gifted with supernatural might, kept eternally rolling round it, one against another, with terrific violence, and so dashing apart, and returning.  “Why grasp?” cried the one—­“Why throw away?” cried the other; and thus exclaiming, they dashed furiously together.

They were the Avaricious and the Prodigal.  Multitudes of them were churchmen, including cardinals and popes.  Not all the gold beneath the moon could have purchased them a moment’s rest.  Dante asked if none of them were to be recognised by their countenances.  Virgil said, “No;” for the stupid and sullied lives which they led on earth swept their faces away from all distinction for ever.

In discoursing of fortune, they descend by the side of a torrent, black as ink, into the fifth circle, or place of torment for the Angry, the Sullen, and the Proud.  Here they first beheld a filthy marsh, full of dirty naked bodies, that in everlasting rage tore one another to pieces.  In a quieter division of the pool were seen nothing but bubbles, carried by the ascent, from its slimy bottom, of the stifled words of the sullen.  They were always saying, “We were sad and dark within us in the midst of the sweet sunshine, and now we live sadly in the dark bogs.”  The poets walked on till they came to the foot of a tower, which hung out two blazing signals to another just discernible in the distance.  A boat came rapidly towards them, ferried by the wrathful Phlegyas;[17] who cried out, “Aha, felon! and so thou hast come at last!”

“Thou errest,” said Virgil.  “We come for no longer time than it will take thee to ferry us across thy pool.”