"A Galeotto was the book and he who wrote it," she whispered. "That day, we read no further."
Minos growled, a sound like grinding stones, and turned back to a trembling soul before him. As the sinner confessed their life of lust, Minos ’s tail lashed out, encircling his body exactly . With a silent, horrific velocity, the soul was flung into the dark air, sucked into the vortex to join the millions already swirling there.
"O thou that comest to the abode of pain!" Minos bellowed, his voice vibrating in Dante's very marrow. "Look how thou enterest, and in whom thou trustest!" Inferno Episodio 2 di 7
She described how they were murdered by her husband—Paolo’s brother—before they could repent. As she spoke, Paolo did nothing but sob, his grief a silent echo to her tale.
The weight of their tragedy, the realization that their eternal togetherness was actually their eternal punishment, became too much for Dante. The wind, the weeping, and the sheer pity for their lost souls crushed his spirit. His knees buckled, the world turned to ink, and he fell to the rocky floor like a dead body falls. "A Galeotto was the book and he who wrote it," she whispered
Among the blurred shapes, two shadows caught his eye. They flew together, buffeted by the wind but never drifting apart.
Virgil stepped forward, his voice a calm anchor in the chaos. "Hinder not his fated going. It is so willed where power is what it wills; ask no more." With a silent, horrific velocity, the soul was
"Poet," Dante pleaded, "I would gladly speak to those two who go together and seem so light upon the wind." Virgil nodded. "Call them by the love that leads them."