your soul has been assailed by cowardice, which often weighs so heavily on a man — distracting him from honorable trials — as phantoms frighten beast… - Dante Alighieri

As phantoms frighten beasts when shadows fall.

Todos están llenos de espíritus malditos: Pero para que después te baste la vista , entiende cómo y porqué están así circunscritos. De toda maldad que al odio el cielo excita la injuria es el fin, y todo tal propósito con fuerza o con fraude a otro contrista. Mas como defraudar es propio mal del hombre, más desplace a Dios: por eso más abajo están los fraudulentos, y mayor dolor los acosa.

The law of Dante’s Hell is the law of symbolic retribution. As they sinned so are they punished. They took no sides, therefore they are given no place. As they pursued the ever-shifting illusion of their own advantage, changing their courses with every changing wind, so they pursue eternally an elusive, ever-shifting banner. As their sin was a darkness, so they move in darkness. As their own guilty conscience pursued them, so they are pursued by swarms of wasps and hornets. And as their actions were a moral filth, so they run eternally through the filth of worms and maggots which they themselves feed.

[...] when once our footsteps are set firm upon the melancholic shores of Acheron.