n going before me with velocity, but always unwinding this luminous
thread, he conducted me into deep valleys filled with fires, and wells
inflamed, blazing with all sorts of unctuous matter. There I observed
the prelates who had served my father and my ancestors. Although I
trembled, I still, however, inquired of them to learn the cause of their
torments. They answered, 'We are the bishops of your father and your
ancestors; instead of uniting them and their people in peace and
concord, we sowed among them discord, and were the kindlers of evil: for
this are we burning in these Tartarean punishments; we, and other
men-slayers and devourers of rapine. Here also shall come your bishops,
and that crowd of satellites who surround you, and who imitate the evil
we have done.'

"And while I listened to them tremblingly, I beheld the blackest demons
flying with hooks of burning iron, who would have caught the ball of
thread which I held in my hand, and have drawn it towards them, but it
darted such a reverberating light, that they could not lay hold of the
thread. These demons, when at my back, hustled to precipitate me into
those sulphureous pits; but my conductor, who carried the ball, wound
about my shoulder a double thread, drawing me to him with such force,
that we ascended high mountains of flame, from whence issued lakes and
burning streams, melting all kinds of metals. There I found the souls of
lords who had served my father and my brothers; some plunged in up to
the hair of their heads, others to their chins, others with half their
bodies immersed. These yelling, cried to me, 'It is for inflaming
discontents with your father, and your brothers, and yourself, to make
war and spread murder and rapine, eager for earthly spoils, that we now
suffer these torments in these rivers of boiling metal.' While I was
timidly bending over their suffering, I heard at my back the clamours of
voices, _potentes potenter tormenta patiuntur_! 'The powerful suffer
torments powerfully;' and I looked up, and beheld on the shores boiling
streams and ardent furnaces, blazing with pitch and sulphur, full of
great dragons, large scorpions, and serpents of a strange species; where
also I saw some of my ancestors, princes, and my brothers also, who
said to me, 'Alas, Charles! behold our heavy punishment for evil, and
for proud malignant counsels, which, in our realms and in thine, we
yielded to from the lust of dominion.' As I was grieving with th