The Third Round: Violence against Nature

Then came we to the confine where disparted
The second round from the third, and where
A horrible form of Justice is beheld.

Clearly to manifest these novel things,
I say that we arrived upon a plain,
Which from its bed rejecteth every plant;

The dolorous forest is a garland to it
All round about, as the sad moat to that;
There close upon the edge we stayed our feet.

The soil was of an arid and thick sand,
Not of another fashion made than that
Which by the feet of Cato once was pressed.

The we a company of souls encountered,
Who came beside the dike, and every one
Gazed at us, as at evening we are wont

To eye each other under a new moon,
And so towards us they sharpened their brows
As an old tailor at the needle's eye.

Thus scrutinized by such a family,
By some one I was recognized who seized
My garment's hem and cried out, What a marvel

And I, when he stretched for this arm-to me,
On his baked aspect fastened so mine eyes,
That the scorched countenance prevented not

His recognition by my intellect;