The ancient rock was stricken and broke open.īut turn your eyes to the valley there we shall find That here and elsewhere in the pits of Hell, Whereby the world of matter, as some believe. The souls from Limbo, that all Hell was shakenĪnd all its elements moved toward harmony, It was just before the coming of Him who took This rock had not yet felt the ruinous blast. I came this dark way to the depths of Hell, Which is guarded by that beast upon whose fury “You are wondering perhaps about this ruin

I moved on, deep in thought and my Guide to me:

Of that ruined rock, which often slid and shifted So we went down across the shale and slate Into the pass, quick, and get over the side!” So danced the Minotaur, and my shrewd GuideĬried out: “Run now! While he is blind with rage! Has struck its death-blow, cannot stand nor runīut leaps from side to side with its life – To observe your punishment in the lost kingdom.”Īs a bull that breaks its chains just when the knife Instructed by your sister, but of himself Off with you, monster this one does not come Who in the world above served up your death?

He gnawed his own flesh in a fit of spleen.Īnd my Master mocked: “How you do pump your breath!ĭo you think, perhaps, it is the Duke of Athens, Such was the passage down the steep, and thereĪt the very top, at the edge of the broken cleft, To the plain below, the rock is so badly shatteredĪ man at the top might make a rough stair of it. Or of some massive fault in the escarpment –įor, from the point on the peak were the mountain split On the bank of the Adige, the result of an earthquake That every eye would shun the sight of it:Ī ruin like the Slides of Mark near Trent The scene that opened from the edge of the pit

Guardians inferno torrent