to touch it. Next running behind me, they tried to gripe me in their claws and cast me headlong into those sulphureous pits: but my conductor, who carried the clue, threw a thread of light over my shoulders, and doubling it, drew me strongly after him, and in this manner we ascended lofty fiery mountains, from which arose lakes, and burning rivers, and all kinds of burning metals, wherein I found immersed innumerable souls of the vassals and princes of my father and brothers, some up to the hair, others to the chin, and others to the middle, who mournfully cried out to me, 'While we were living, we were, together with you, and your father, and brothers, and uncles, fond of battle, and slaughter, and plunder, through lust of earthly things: wherefore we now undergo punishment in these boiling rivers, and in various kinds of liquid metal.' While I was, with the greatest alarm, attending to these, I heard some souls behind me crying out, 'The great will undergo still greater torment.' I looked back and beheld on the banks of the boiling river, furnaces of pitch and brimstone, filled with great dragons, and scorpions, and diiFerent kinds of serpents, where I also saw some of my father's nobles, some of my own, and of those of my brothers and of my uncles, who said, 'Alas, Charles, you see what dreadful torments we undergo on account of our malice, and pride, and the evil counsel which we gave to our kings and to you, for lust's sake.' When I could not help groaning mournfully at this, the dragons ran at me with open jaws filled with fire, and brimstone, and pitch, and tried to swallow me up. My conductor then tripled the thread of the clue around me, which by the splendour of its rays overcame their fiery throats: he then pulled me with greater violence, and we descended into a valley, which was in one part dark and burning like a fiery furnace, but in another so extremely enchanting and glorious, that I cannot describe it. I turned myself to the dark part which emitted flames, and there I saw some kings of my race in extreme torture; at which, affrighted beyond measure and reduced to great distress, I expected that I should be immediately thrown into these torments by some very black giants, who made the valley blaze with every kind of flame. I trembled very much, and, the thread of the clue of light assisting my eyes, I saw, on the side of the valley, the light somewhat
