Dante-the-pilgrim wakes up in the third circle of hell, a weather-dominated place, full of hail, rain, and snow, all making the rancid ground a mucky swamp.

He and Virgil first encounter the guard dog Cerberus. Virgil doesn't try his spell this time on the beast, the spell that had worked on Charon and Minos. Instead, Virgil does something wilder: he rewrites his own work, The Aeneid.

As we walk across THE DIVINE COMEDY, let’s take our first look at this new rung of hell, a place where we'll come to understand that gluttony combined with envy is a recipe for social disaster.

Here’s my English translation of the passage, the one read on the podcast episode:

Inferno, Canto VI: Lines 1 – 33

 

When I came back to my mind, after it had shut down

Over the pity I’d felt for those two family members,

Which had thoroughly mixed me up with sadness,

 

New torments and new examples of the tormented

I see all around me, whichever way I move,

Or turn myself, or direct my sight.

 

I am in the third cicle, the one with the eternal,

Cursed, freezing, and leaden rain,

Which is never made new in either measure or quality.

 

Giant hailstones, fetid water, and snow

Fall down through the darkened air—

The ground that sucks it all up is rancid.

 

Cerberus, a horrid and cruel beast,

Barks from his three throats as a dog

Over the people who are submerged here.

 

His eyes are scarlet, his beard is oily and black,

His gut is swollen and his hands have talons.

He mauls, flays, and quarters the spirits.

 

The downpour makes them howl like dogs;

They toss and turn from one side to the other,

Trying to shield their profanely miserable selves.

 

When Cerberus, the tremendous worm, noticed us,

He unlatched his mouth and showed off his fangs—

No part of himself was held still.

 

At which point my leader extended his hands,

Grabbed some dirt, and threw full fists of it

Into the ravenous windpipes.

 

Just as a dog that lets it rip when it’s hungry

And quiets itself when it wolfs down its dinner,

Abandonning itself to chewing,

 

Just so those foul, ugly muzzles

Of that demon Cerberus were stilled, who otherwise is so loud

That those souls wish they were deaf.