Chapter 3 · IncontinencecircleCircle VBeing built
The Styx
The lake at the bottom of the funnel, with a tower whose foot stands in the water.
L’alta torre. In cima ci sono due bacili vuoti: due fuochi accesi qui sono un segnale, e da qualche parte, di là dalla palude, qualcuno risponde. Il piede sta nell’acqua, e nell’acqua non si cammina.
Questi si percotean non pur con mano,ma con la testa e col petto e coi piedi,troncandosi co’ denti a brano a brano.
Revealswhere chapter III ends.
In the poem it is the fifth circle: the wrathful strike each other on the surface, «non pur con mano, / ma con la testa e col petto e coi piedi» (Inf. VII 112-113), and under the film of the water the sullen gurgle, who do not even have a voice. In the game it is a lake twenty eight metres across at the bottom of the funnel, and the bed is flat.
The wrathful do not look for you. Their question is who is the nearest of their own within thirty metres, and the answer is never the player, because the player is not one of theirs. They hurt whoever ends up among them, which is a different thing from attacking, and it is the definition of wrath.
On the bank the spring boils, the hole all this water comes from, and facing it stands the high tower, foot in the lake and two empty basins on top. The chapter ends here, and it does not end on foot: somewhere beyond the marsh, somebody answers.
The numbers
| What | How much | When |
|---|---|---|
| Width of the lake | 28 metres | |
| Where the tower stands | 120 degrees | |
| Where the spring boils | 300 degrees | facing the tower |