Chapter 5 · MalebolgeditchCircle VIIIBeing built
The Seventh Ditch, the Thieves
Snakes, and bodies that trade places with them while you watch.
Revealswhat the seventh ditch does to whoever goes through it, and who is met there.
In the seventh the thieves run among snakes, and the punishment you see in the act is an exchange: the snake takes the man’s body and the man takes the snake’s (Inf. XXV 49-78). In the game it is the first time an enemy is not one single thing: the bite becomes a man, the man becomes a snake, and it starts over. There is nothing to win, there is watching, and getting past while it happens.
It is the seventh of the ten districts of the pit, crossed on its own spoke of a bridge like the rest, and the snakes in it from the start are nine. Vanni Fucci of Pistoia is here as well, throwing obscene signs at God and taken by them for it (Inf. XXV 3): from that moment the snakes no longer stay in their own ditch, they climb onto the banks and follow the trace of a living body all the way to the well.
The numbers
| What | How much |
|---|---|
| Outer radius | 87 drawing metres, 47.9 m in the scene |
| Width, lip to lip | 12 drawing metres, 6.6 m in the scene |