Mercy for the Moneylender
Let us carefully tiptoe with Dante Alighieri, indisputably the Italian language’s greatest poet, as he descends reluctantly yet resolutely into a yet more remote corner of the Inferno, and meets there a former acquaintance:
Still further ventured I, alone, unto the seventh circle’s rim, Where sat the weeping, woeful folk; And to and fro they waved their hands, to ‘scape the burning coals and flames, As dogs in summer scratch and bite, and swat at stinging fleas and gadflies
Dante has led us to a corner of Hell reserved for a particular group of
