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.
