Canto VI. Recovering his senses, Dante finds Virgil has meantime transferred him to the third circle, a region where chill rains ever fall, accompanied by hail, sleet, and snow.  Here all guilty of gluttony are rent and torn by Cerberus, main ruler of this circle.  Flinging a huge fistful of dirt into the dog’s gaping jaws to prevent his snapping at them, Virgil leads Dante quickly past this three-headed monster, to a place where they tread on the shades which pave the muddy ground.  One of these, sitting up, suddenly inquires of Dante whether he does not recognize him, adding that he is the notorious Florentine glutton Ciacco.  Fancying this shade may possess some insight into the future, Dante inquires what is to become of his native city, and learns that one political party will drive out the other, only to fall in its turn three years later.  The glutton adds that only two just men are left in Florence, and, when Dante asks what has become of his friends, tells him he will doubtless meet them in the various circles of Hades, should he continue his downward course.

Then the spirit begs that, on returning to the “pleasant world,” Dante will recall him to his friends’ memory, and, closing his eyes, sinks back among the other victims, all of whom are more or less blind.  Vouchsafing the information that this sinner will not rise again “ere the last angel trumpet blow,” Virgil leads Dante over the foul mixture of shades and mud, explaining that, although the accursed can never hope to attain perfection, they are not entirely debarred from improvement.

Canto VII. Talking thus, the two travellers descend to the fourth circle, ruled by Plutus, god of wealth, who allows them to proceed, only after Virgil has informed him their journey is ordained, and is to be pursued to the very spot where Michael confined Satan.  The mere mention of his master, the ex-archangel, causes Plutus to grovel; and Dante and Virgil, proceeding on their journey, discover that the fourth circle is occupied by all whom avarice mastered, as well as by prodigals, who are here condemned to roll heavy rocks, because their lives on earth were spent scuffling for money or because they failed to make good use of their gold.  Dante descries among the victims tonsured polls, proving that monks themselves are not exempt from these sins.  Meanwhile Virgil expounds how the Creator decreed nations should wield the mastery in turn, adding that these people are victims of Fortune, whose proverbial fickleness he ably describes.

After passing a well, whose boiling waters overflow and form a stream, they follow the latter’s downward course to the marsh called Styx, where hundreds of naked creatures wallow in the mire, madly clutching and striking each other.  Virgil explains that these are those “whom anger overcame,” and adds that the sullen are buried beneath the slimy waters, where their presence is betrayed by bubbles caused by their breath which continually rise to the surface.  Edging around this loathsome pool, the two poets finally arrive at the door of a tall tower.