But this triumph was not of long duration.
Scarcely had the sun achieved this victory when his bark was borne by the tide into the realm of the night hours, and from that moment he was assailed, like Virgil and Dante at the Gates of Hell, by frightful sounds and clamourings.

Each circle had its voice, not to be confounded with the voices of other circles.

Here the sound was as an immense humming of wasps; yonder it was as the lamentations of women for their husbands, and the howling of she-beasts for their mates; elsewhere it was as the rolling of the thunder.

The sarcophagus, as well as the walls, was covered with these scenes of joyous or sinister import.

It was generally of red or black granite.