taints must needs be ingrained strangely in the being, so
long as they have grown with it. So they are schooled
with punishment, and pay in suffering for ancient ill: 25
some are hung up and dispread to the piercing winds:
others have the stain of wickedness washed out under the
whelming gulf, or burnt out with fire: each is chastised
in his own spirit: then we are sped through the breadth
of Elysium, while some few remain to inhabit these happy 30
plains, till the lapse of ages, when time’s cycle is complete,
has cleansed the ingrained blot and left a pure