Chapter 5 · MalebolgecircleCircle VIIIBeing built
Malebolge, the Basin of the Ten Ditches
The basin of iron grey stone holding ten concentric ditches around a central pit.
«Luogo è in inferno detto Malebolge, tutto di pietra di color ferrigno, come la cerchia che dintorno il volge» (XVIII, 1-3). Dieci fosse concentriche, e nel mezzo un pozzo. Di sotto camminano in due file che non si guardano, e sul ciglio c’è chi le frusta.
Revealshow the map of chapter V is built.
This is the entry for the place, not for the chapter of the same name: chapter V is called Malebolge because the whole of it happens in here. In the poem Malebolge is the eighth circle, a basin of iron grey stone ringed by a cliff; in the game it is one single basin, with ten concentric ditches, a pit in the middle and bridges running out like spokes.
The grammar is radial: ditches are crossed on bridges, not walked along, and walking the length of one happens exactly once. The bridges are not lined up, so between one and the next you walk a narrow bank with nothing on either side, and the road that comes out of that makes more than a full turn: it is a spiral, not a ring.
No ditch is narrow enough to jump, and that measurement was taken on purpose, because narrower than this players cleared them with a run up. Down in the first one two files walk without looking at each other, and on the rim somebody whips them.
The numbers
| What | How much |
|---|---|
| Concentric ditches | 10 |
| Steps the road is cut into | 13 |
Links
- See also
- Geryon, The Burning Sand, The Well of the Giants
- Named by
- Malebolge, Geryon, The Horned Devils, The Giants, The Diviners, The First Ditch, the Panders, The Tenth Ditch, the Falsifiers, The Second Ditch, the Flatterers, The Third Ditch, the Simonists, The Fourth Ditch, the Diviners, The Fifth Ditch, the Pitch, The Sixth Ditch, the Hypocrites, The Seventh Ditch, the Thieves, The Eighth Ditch, the Flames, The Ninth Ditch, the Sowers of Discord, The Well of the Giants