From bridge to bridge thus, speaking other things 301 Of which my Comedy cares not to sing, 302 We came along, and held the summit, when We halted to behold another fissure Of Malebolge and other vain laments; And I beheld it marvellously dark. As in the Arsenal of the Venetians 303 Boils in the winter the tenacious pitch To smear their unsound vessels o’er again, For sail they cannot; and instead thereof One makes his vessel new, and one recaulks The ribs of that which many a voyage has made; One hammers at the prow, one at the stern, This one makes oars, and that one cordage twists, Another mends the mainsail and the mizzen; Thus, not by fire, but by the art divine, Was boiling down below there a dense pitch Which upon every side the bank belimed. I saw it, but I did not see within it Aught but the bubbles that the boiling raised, And all swell up and resubside compressed.