Threading the margin of the boiling blood Where they who seethed were raising loud lament. People I saw up to the chin imbrued, 'These all are tyrants,' the great Centaur said, 'Who blood and plunder for their trade pursued. Here for their pitiless deeds tears now are shed By Alexander,[408] and Dionysius fell, Through whom in Sicily dolorous years were led. The forehead with black hair so terrible Is Ezzelino;[409] that one blond of hue, 110 Obizzo[410] d'Este, whom, as rumours tell, His stepson murdered, and report speaks true.' I to the Poet turned, who gave command: 'Regard thou chiefly him. I follow you.' Ere long the Centaur halted on the strand, Close to a people who, far as the throat, Forth of that bulicamë[411] seemed to stand. Thence a lone shade to us he pointed out Saying: 'In God's house[412] ran he weapon through The heart which still on Thames wins cult devout.' 120 Then I saw people, some with heads in view, And some their chests above the river bore; And many of them I, beholding, knew. And thus the blood went dwindling more and more, Until at last it covered but the feet: Here took we passage[413] to the other shore. 'As on this hand thou seest still abate In depth the volume of the boiling stream,' The Centaur said, 'so grows its depth more great, Believe me, towards the opposite extreme, 130 Until again its circling course attains The place where tyrants must lament. Supreme Justice upon that side involves in pains, With Attila,[414] once of the world the pest, Pyrrhus[415] and Sextus: and for ever drains Tears out of Rinier of Corneto[416] pressed And Rinier Pazzo[417] in that boiling mass, Whose brigandage did so the roads infest.' Then turned he back alone, the ford to pass. FOOTNOTES: [392] _Our descent_: To the Seventh Circle. [393] _Adige_: Different localities in the valley of the Adige have been fixed on as the scene of this landslip. The Lavini di Marco, about twenty miles south of Trent, seem best to answer to the description. They 'consist of black blocks of stone and fragments of a landslip which, according to the Chronicle of Fulda, fell in the year 883 and overwhelmed the valley for four Italian miles' (Gsell-Fels, _Ober. Ital._ i. 35). [394] _The Cretan Infamy_: The Minotaur, the offspring of Pasiphaë; a half-bovine monster who inhabited the Cretan labyrinth, and to whom a human victim was offered once a year. He lies as guard upon the Seventh Circle--that of the violent (_Inf._ xi. 23, _note_)--and is set at the top of the rugged slope, itself the scene of a violent convulsion.