“Cerberus, fell beast, whose like was never found, with three gullets in dog-like fashion howls over the people lying there half-drowned.”
. . . . .
The third circle of Hell - circle of the gluttons... Dante awakens in a stinking slush falling from the sky where Cerberus, the three-headed monster, stands over those sunk deep in the slush. He barks furiously and claws and bites all within reach. These spirits howl in the rain and attempt to evade the monster. With his constant hunger only appeased by feeding his three mouths, Cerberus is a fitting guard to the third circle of gluttons familiar from Homer and Virgil’s works. Dante asks Ciacco the hog the fate of Florence and why it is divided. Ciacco foretells war and defeat of one party. Ciacco says other ‘good citizens of Florence’ are in circles further down. In the intellectual progression down through Hell, Dante moves the readers from the circle of lust, a type of sin that was mutual or shared, to the third circle, which includes sin performed in isolation. The glutton is a person with an uncontrolled appetite, who deliberately, in his or her own solitary way, converted natural foods into a sort of god, or at least an object of worship. Therefore, the glutton's punishment is a reversal, and instead of eating the fine delicate foods and wines of the world, he or she is forced to eat filth and mud. Instead of sitting in his or her comfortable house relishing all the sensual aspects of good food and good wine and good surroundings, he or she lies in the foul rain. Note that the souls in upper Hell want to be remembered on Earth, while the souls in lower Hell are reluctant to even give Dante their names. as they leave this circle they meet Plutus from greek mythology, the blind god of wealth.