“Protruding from the mouth of each were seen a sinner's feet and legs so much as came up to the calf: the rest remained within”
. . . . .
Dante and Virgil make their way to the fifth chasm, which is very dark and filled with boiling pitch. Dante compares the pitch to the material used to caulk the seams of ships. Suddenly, a raging demon appears, and Virgil hides Dante behind a large rock so he can go to the demons and make a deal for their safe passage. The demon is carrying a sinner, which he tosses into the pitch, saying that he is going back for more sinners to place in the chasm of Grafters. The other demons warn the sinner to get beneath the pitch or the sinners will taste their grappling hooks. The language and imagery in Cantos XXI and XXII are coarse and full of grotesque imagery, far more than earlier cantos, suggesting that the lower a person travels in Hell, the more grotesque Hell becomes.