“It goes its way, still slowly swimming on, wheels, sinks, but I aware of this nowise save by the head-wind from beneath me blown”
. . . . .
The poets find themselves at the brink of Circle VIII with its ten "Malebolges" (meaning evil ditches or pockets or chasms), a cavern of stone with ten concentric Bowges (chasms or moats or trenches) dug into the rock in which the sinners of different natures reside. In the first chasm (or valley), the poets approach the first of what can also be thought of as chasms or valleys, filled with tormented sinners walking in both directions. Demons with horns flog them continuously to keep them moving. The first sinners that Dante confronts in the first ditch of Malebolge are the Panderers (those who used others to serve their own purposes). Due to the nature of retribution, Panderers will spend eternity prodded by malicious demons. The souls walking in the other direction are Seducers who are similar to the Panderers, because they also used others for their own needs. The figure of Jason is startling in this canto, because he is quite deep in the bowels of Hell, and he is a famous mythological figure. Dante, as the poet of courtly love, clearly dislikes Jason's behavior toward women — seduce them, get them with child, and desert them. The souls in the next ditch are the Flatterers, and again, in the theme of retribution, they wallow in filth and sewage, much like they did in life, with their false flattery.