The Ring of Weights

In the poem it is the fourth circle, where hoarders and spenders shove weights with their chests and collide (Inf. VII 31-35); in the game two half files run the two half circles in opposite directions and meet at two points, which are also the two ways down: there is no quiet descent, and the rhythm is learned from the edge above.

It is the only place in the game where the gloss on the souls is switched off, and it is the canto that switches it off: «la sconoscente vita che i fé sozzi, / ad ogne conoscenza or li fa bruni» (Inf. VII 53-54). Two signs are left, the tonsure of those who never gave and the cropped hair of those who gave everything, and a notice explaining why there are no names.

The guardian is Plutus, who has no eyes and does not look for you: he swells on what he hears. Coins lie everywhere on the ground and nobody stoops for them: «Or puoi, figliuol, veder la corta buffa / d’i ben che son commessi a la fortuna» (Inf. VII 61-62).