Chapter 5 · MalebolgeditchCircle VIIIBeing built
The Sixth Ditch, the Hypocrites
Cloaks gilded outside and lead beneath, and one man who is naked.
Revealswhat the sixth ditch does to whoever goes through it, and who is met there.
The hypocrites walk in friars’ cloaks gilded on the outside and lead underneath (Inf. XXIII 64-65), and one alone is naked, staked out crosswise on the ground with three poles: Caiaphas, who must feel the weight of everyone who walks over him (Inf. XXIII 119-121). In the game the cloaks on the stretch you cover are thirteen and they move at a third of your pace, and you really do walk over Caiaphas, because his collider is set low on purpose.
It is the sixth of the ten districts of the pit, and the widest of them all: sixteen drawing metres from lip to lip against the twelve of the others. One cloak alone never catches anybody, because they are slow; what weighs is the number of them in a narrow floor, and the weight is literally their punishment. Down there they do not see you: they hear you by your step.
The numbers
| What | How much |
|---|---|
| Outer radius | 109 drawing metres, 60.0 m in the scene |
| Width, lip to lip | 16 drawing metres, 8.8 m in the scene |