Cocytus

Footnote: Thus, he gives Urban IV as the reigning pope at the time of Dante's birth instead of Clement IV and Alberto instead of Bartolomeo della Scala as Lord of Verona at the time of Dante's exile.

His account of the Guelph and Ghibelline disputes and of the political events in which Dante was so closely concerned is vague and inadequate in the extreme, and he was capable, in another work, of representing Dante's Geryon as swimming about in the waters of Cocytus and so concealing his monstrous form.

De genealogia deorum, 1:21.

End footnote.

From rock to rock they fall into this valley; Acheron, Styx, and Phlegethon they form, Then downward go along this narrow sluice Unto that point where is no more descending.

They form Cocytus: what that pool may be Thou shalt behold; so here it is not narrated." And I to him: "If so the present runnel Doth take its rise in this way from our world, Why only on this verge appears it to us?" And he to me: "Thou knowest the place is round; And notwithstanding thou hast journeyed far, Still, to the left descending to the bottom, Thou hast not yet through all the circle turned: Therefore, if something new appear to us, It should not bring amazement to thy face." And I again: "Master, where shall be found Lethe and Phlegethon? For of one thou art silent, And sayst the other of this rain is made." "In all questions truly thou dost please me," Replied he; "but the boiling of the red water Might well salve one of them thou makest.

Thou shalt see Lethe; but outside this moat, There where the souls repair to lave themselves When sin, repented of, has been removed." Then said he: "It is time now to abandon the wood; Take heed that thou come after me.

Away The margins make that are not burning; And over them all vapors are extinguished." Inferno, Canto Fifteen.

Then was I more afraid of death than ever, for nothing more was needful than the fear, if I had not beheld the manacles.

Then we proceeded farther in advance, and to Antaeus came, who full five ells without the head, forth issued from the cavern.

O thou, who in the valley fortunate, which Scipio the hair of glory made when Hannibal turned back with all his hosts, once fraughtst a thousand lions for thy prey, and who hast thou been at the mighty war among thy brothers, some it seems still think, the sons of earth the victory would have gained, place us below, nor be disdainful of it, there where the colf doth lock Cocytus up.

Make us not go to Tydeus nor Typhoeus.

Then choosing out few words most horrible, Let none them read, thereof did verses frame, With which and other spells like terrible He bade awake black Pluto's grisly dame, And cursed heaven, and spake reproachful shame Of highest God, the Lord of life and light.

A bold bad man that dared to call by name Great Gorgon, prince of darkness and dead night, At which Cocytus quakes and Styx is put to flight.

And forth he called, out of deep darkness dread, Legions of sprites, the which, like little flies Fluttering about his ever-damned head, Await where to their service he applies To aid his friends or fray his enemies.

Of those he chose out two, the falsest two, And fittest for to forge true-seeming lies.