Having arrived at the chasm or evil pouch in the eighth circle, Dante wants to stop for a moment to observe these suffering shades, but Virgil is impatient and tells him to move along. Dante tells Virgil that he is seeking one of his own kinsmen who, he believes, is here. “I think a spirit of my own blood is among the dammed.” Dante is tarrying only because he wants to speak with this relative, and he wishes Virgil would be more patient.
Virgil responds that he saw Dante’s kinsman under the bridge that they had just crossed, and that this shade, which the others had called Geri del Bello, had shaken its finger threateningly at Dante as they passed by. It is then that Dante realizes that the murder of Geri del Bello had never been revenged by any member of Dante’s family. And for this failure, Dante expresses his sorrow for his un-avenged kinsman.
While Virgil and Dante are talking, they reach the bridge over the tenth and final chasm of the eighth circle. Here they see the suffering and hear the wails and weeping of the Falsifiers. The noise is so loud that Dante covers his ears, and the stench is so powerful that it reminds him of rotting human flesh, lying exposed to the world.
Dante compares their state to that of the miserable people who cram the hospitals at three different cities. These souls lay about, as if dying from pestilence and disease. Some lay gasping, some lean on one another, and some pick one another’s scabs as if scaling a fish.
Virgil interrupts two of the souls who are picking at each other’s scabs and asks them if there are any Italians (Latians) among them. One replies that they are Italian and once Virgil explains their presence in the circle, the souls tell their history. One is from Arezzo ,and he supposedly joked with Albert of Siena that he could fly and thus, he was burned for the lie, though he is in this circle for alchemy, another form of falsifying. The other soul is Capocchio, Dante’s friend in his school days, who was burned for alchemy in 1293.
Dante begins Canto XXX with a long metaphorical mythological comparison to describe the rage of the two spirits that come furiously out of the darkness, one of which descends on Capocchio. The other alchemist tells Dante that this raging beast was Gianni Schicchi, who impersonated a dead man so that he cold benefit from the will. The other raging shade is Myrrha, who posed as another and mated with her father; once caught, she changed herself into a tree and bore Adonis from the trunk. These are the Evil Impersonators, damned to rage though Hell and seize on souls, and in turn, they are seized upon by one another.
The next class of Falsifiers that the poets encounter is in the form of Master Adam, a Counterfeiter who made florins from alloyed gold and was burned for the offense. On top of his afflictions and the curse of not being able to move, he is damned with extreme thirst, though his belly is waterlogged. He says that he imagines sweet water running from the Arno’s banks.
Finally, the poets meet a soul of the final class of Falsifiers, Sinon the Greek, a False Witness who beguiled the citizens of Troy to allow the Trojan Horse into the gate of Troy, thus allowing the soldiers inside to wreak havoc on that city. And they also meet Potiphar, who falsely accused Joseph.
Master Adam and Sinon the Greek exchange blows and begin bickering about who is the worse sinner. Sinon says that he is there for one sin, while Master Adam is there for thousands—each coin being a separate sin. Dante listens, fascinated, until Virgil reproaches him soundly, and Dante is overcome with shame, so much so that he cannot speak. Virgil senses his shame and says that less shame would wash away a greater fault, but that to listen to such petty arguing is degrading.
