Inferno

Dante wakes to find himself across Acheron. The Poets are now on the brink of Hell itself, which Dante conceives as a great funnel-shaped cave lying below the northern hemisphere with its bottom point at the earth's center. Around this great circular depression runs a series of ledges, each of which Dante calls a CIRLCE. Each cirlce is assigned to the punishment of one category of sin.
      As soon as Dante's strength returns, the Poets begin to cross the FIRST CIRCLE. Here they find the VIRTUOUS PAGANS. They were born without the light of Christ's revelation, and, therefore, they cannot come into the light of God, but they are not tormented. Their only pain is that they have no hope.
      Ahead of them, Dante sights a great dome of light, and a voice trumphets through the darkness welcoming Virgil back, for this is his eternal place in Hell. Immediately the great Poets of his time appear -- HOMER, HORACE, OVID, and LUCAN. They greet Virgil, and they make Dante the sixth in their company.
      With them Dante enters the Citadel of Human Reason and sees before his eyes the master Souls of Pagan Antiquity gathered on a green, and illuminated by the radiance of Human Reason. This is the highest state man can achieve without God, and the glory of it dazzles Dante, but he also knows that it is nothing compared to the glory of God.

The Poets leave Limbo and enter the SECOND CIRLCE. Here begin the torments of Hell proper, and here, blocking the way, sits MINOS, the dread and semi-beastical judge of the damned who assigned to each sould its eternal torment. He orders the Poets back; but Virgil silence him as he earlier silence Charon, and the Poets move on.
      They find themselves on a dark ledge swept by a great whirlwind, which spins within it the souls of the CARNAL, those who betrayed reason to their appetites. Their sins was to abandon themselves to the tempest of their passion; so they are swept forever in the tempest of Hell, forever denied the light of reason and of God. Virgil identifies many among them SEMIRAMIS is there, and DIDO, CLEOPATRA, HELEN, ACHILLES, PARIS, and TRISTAN. Dante sees PAOLO and FRANCESCA swept together, and in the name of love he calls to them to tell their sad story. They pause from their eternal flight to come to him, and Francesca tells their history while Paolo weeps at her side. Dante is so stricken by compansion at their tragic tale that he swoons once again.

Dante recovers from his swoon and finds himself in the THIRD CIRCLE. A great storm of putrefaction falls incessantly, a mixture of stinking snow and freezing rain, which forms into a vile slush underfoot. Everything about this Circle suggests a gigantic garbage dump. The souls of the damned lie in the icy paste, swollen and obscene, and CERBERUS, the ravenous three-headed dog of Hell, stands guard over them, ripping and tearing them with his claws and teeth.
      These are the GLUTTONS. In life they made no higher use of the gifts of God than to wallow in food and drink, producers of nothing but garbage and offal. Here they lie through all eternity, themselves like garbage, half buried in fetid slush, while Cerberus slavers over them as they in life slavered over their food.
      As the Poets pass, one of the speakers sits up and addresses Dante, He is CIACCO, THE HOG, a citizen of Dante's own Florence. He recognizes Dante and asks eagerly for news of what is happening there. With the foreknowledge of the damned, Ciacco then utters the first off the political prophecies that are to become a recurring theme of the Inferno. The Poets then move one toward the next Circle, at the edge of which they encounter the monster Plutus.

PLUTUS menaces the Poets, but once more Virgil shows himself more powerful than the rages of Hell's monsters. The Poets enter the FOURTH CIRCLE and find what seems to be a war in progress.
      The sinners are divided into two raging mobs, each soul among them straining madly at a great boulder-like weight. The two mobs meet, clashing their weights against one another, after which they separate, pushing the great weights apart, and begin over again.
      One mob is made up of the HOARDERS, the other of the WASTERS. In life, they lacked all moderation in regulating their expenses; they destroyed the light of God within themselves by thinking of nothing but money. Thus in death, their souls are encumbled by dead weights (mundanity) and one fruitless rages that there is no hope of recognizing any among them.
      The Poets pass on while Virigl explains the function of DAME FORTUNE in the Divine Scheme. As he finishes(it is past midnight now of Good Friday) they reach the inner edge of the ledge and come to a Black Spring which bubbles murkily over the rocks to form the MARSH OF STYX, which is the FIFTH CIRCLE, the last station of the UPPER HELL.
      Across the marsh they see countless souls attacking one another in the foul slime. These are the WRATHFUL and the symbolism of their punishment is obvious. Virgil also points out to Dante certain bubbles rising from the slime and informs him that below that mud like entombed the souls of the SULLEN. In life they refuse to welcome the sweet light of the Sun (Divine Illumination) and in death they are buried forever below the stinking waters of the Styx, garling the words of an enless chant in a grotesque parody of singing in hymn.

At the Gate of Dis the Poets wait in dread. Virgil tries to hide his anxiety from Dante, but both realize that without Divine Aid they will surely be lost. To add to their terrors THREE INFERNAL FURIES, symbol of Eternal Remorse, appear on a near-by tower, from which they threaten the Poets and call for MEDUSA to come and change them to stone. Virgil at once commands Dante to turn and shut his eyes. To make doubly sure, Virgil himself places his hands over Dante's eyes, for there is an Evil upon which man must not look if he is to be saved.
      But at the moment of greatest anxiety a storm shakes the dirty air of Hell and the sinners in the marsh begin to scatter like frightened frogs. THE HEAVENLY MESSENGER is approaching. He appears walking majestically through Hell, looking neither left nor right. With a touch he throws open the Gate of Dis while his words scatter the Rebellious Angels. Then he returns as he came.
      The Poets now enter the gate unopposed and find themselves in the Sixth Circle. Here they found a country-side like a vast cemetery. Tombs of every size stretch out before them, each with its lid lying beside it, and each wrapped in flames. Cries of anguish sounds endlessly from the entombed dead.
      This is the torment of the HERETICS of every cult. By Heretic, Dante means specifically those who did violence to God by denying immortality. Since they taught that the souls dies with the body, so their punishment is an eternal grave on the fiery morgue of God's wrath.

As the poets pass on, one of the damned hears Dante speaking, recognizes him as a Tuscan, and calls to him from one of the fiery tombs. A moment later he appears. He is FARINATA UBERTI, a great war-chief of the Tuscan Ghibellines. The majesty and power of his bearing seem to diminish Hell itself. He asks Dante's lineage and recognizes him as an enemy. They began to talk politics, but are interrupted by another shade, who rises from the same tomb.
      This one is CAVALCANTE DEI CAVACANTI, father of Guido Cavalcanti, a contemporary poet. If it is genius that lead Dante on his great journey, the shade asks, why is Guido not with him? Can Dante presume to a greater genuis than Guido's? Dante replies that he comes his way only with the aid of powers Guido has not sought. His reply is a classic example of many- leveled symbolism as well as an overt critisism of a rival poet. The senior Cavalcanti mistakenly infers from Dante's reply that Guido is dead, and swoons back into the flames.
      Farinata, who has not deigned to notice his fellow-sinner, continues from the exact point at which he had been interrupted. It is as if he refuses to recognize the flames in which he is shrouded. He proceeds to prophesy Dante's banishment from Florence, he defends his part in Florentine politics, and then, in answer to Dante's question, he explains how it is that the damned can foresee the future but have no knowledge of the present. He then named others who shared his tomb, and Dante takes his leaves with considerable respect for his great enemy, pausing only long enough to leave words for Cavalcanti that Guido is still alive.

The Poets reach the inner edge of the SIXTH CIRLCE and find a great jumble of rocks that had once been a cliff, but which has fallen into rubble as the result off the great earthquake that shook Hell when Christ died. Below them lies the SEVENTH CIRCLE, and so fetid is the air that arises from it that the Poets cower for shelter behind the great tomb until their breaths can ground accustomed to the stench.
      Dante finds an inscription on the lid of the tomb labelling it as the place of Hell of POPE ANASTASIUS.
      Virgil takes advantege of the delay to outline in detail THE DIVISION OF THE LOWER HELL, a theological discourse based on The Ethics and the Physics of Aristotle with subsequent medieval interpretations. Virgil explains also why it is that the Incontinent are not punished within the walls of Dis, and rather ingeniously sets forth the reason why Usury is an act of Violence against Art, God (By "Art," Dante means the arts and crafts by which man draws from nature,i.e., industry.)
      As he concludes he rises and urges Dante on. By means known only to Virgil, he is aware of the motion of the stars and from them he sees that it is about two hours before Sunrise of Holy Saturday.

The Poets begin the descent of the fallen rock wall, having first to evade the MINOTAUR, who menaces them. Virgil tricks him and the Poets hurry by.
      Below them they see the RIVER OF BLOOD, which marks the First Round of the Seventh Circle as detailed in the previous Canto. Here are punished the VIOLENT AGAINST THEIR NEIGHBORS, great war-makers, cruel tyrants, highwaymen-- all who shed the blood beyond the limits permitted him. ALEXANDER THE GREAT is here, up to his lashes in the blood, and with him ATTILLA, THE SCOURGE OF GOD. They are immersed in the deepest part of the river, which grows shallower as it circles to the other side of the ledge, then deepens again.
      The Poets are challenged by the Centaurs, but Virgil wins a safe conduct from CHIRON, their chief, who assigns NESSUS to guide them and to bear them across the shallows of the boiling blood. Nessus carries them across at the point wher it is only ankle deep and immediately leaves and returns to his patrol.

Dante, in pity, restores the torn leaves to the soul of his countryman and the Poets move on to the next round, a great PLAIN OF BURNING SAND upon which there descends an eternal slow RAIN OF FIRE. Here, a scorched by fire from above and below, and three classes of sinners suffering differing degrees of exposure to the fire. The BLASPHEMERS(The Violent against God) and stretched supine upon the sand, the SODOMITES(The Violent against Nature) runs in endless circles, and the USURERS(The Violent against Art, which is the Grandchild of God) huddle on the sands.
      The Poets find CAPNEUS stretched out on the burning sands, the chief sinner of that place. He is still blaspheming against God. They continue along the edge of the Wood of the Suicides and come to a blood-red rill which flows boiling from the Wood and crosses the burning plain. Virgil explains the miraculous power of its waters and discourses on the OLD MAN OF CRETE and the origin of all the rivers of Hell.
      The symbolism of the burning plain is obviously centered in sterility(the desert image) and wrath (the fire image). Blasphemy, sodomy, and usury are all unnatural and sterile actions; this the unbearing desert is the eternity of these sinners; and thus the rain, which in nature should be fertile and cool, descends as fire. Capaneus, moreover, is subjected not only to the wrath of nature(the sand below) and the wrath of God(the fire from above), but is tortured most by his own inner violence, which is the root of blasphemy.

Protected by the marvelous powers of the boing rill, the Poets walk along the banks across the burning plain. The WOODS OF THE SUICIDES is behind them; the GREAT CLIFF at whose foot lies the EIGHT CIRCLE is before them.
      They pass one of the roving band of SOMOMITES. One of the sinners stops Dante, and with great difficulty the Poet recognizes him under his baked features as SIR BRUNETTO LATINO. This is a great reunion with a dearly-loved man and writer, one who had considerably influenced Dante's own development, and Dante addresses him with great and sorrowful affection, paying him the highest tribute offered to any sinner in the Inferno. BRUNETTO prophesies Dante's sufferings at the hands of the Florentines, gives an account of the souls that move with him through the fire, and finally, under Divine Compulsion, race off across the plain.

The Poets arrive within hearing of the waterfall that punges over the GREAT CLIFF, into the EIGHTH CIRCLE. The sound is still a distant throbbing when three wraiths, recognizing Dante's Florentine dress, detach themselves from their band and come running toward him. They are JACOPO RUSTICUCCI, GUIDO GUERRA, and TEGGHIAIO ALDOBRANDI, all of them Florentines whose policies and personalities Dante admired. Rusticucci and Teggahiaio have already been mentioned in a highly complimentary way in Dante's talk with Cicacco (Canto VI).
      The sinners ask for news of Florence, and Dante replies with a passionate lament for her present degradation. The three wraiths return to their band and the Poets continue to the top of the falls. Here, at Virgil's command, Dante removes a CORD from about his waist and Virgil drops it over the edge of the abyss. As if in answer to a signal, a great distorted shape comes swimming up through the dirty air of the pit.

The monstrous shape lands on the brink and Virgil salutes it ironically. It is GERYON, the MONSTER OF FRAUD. Virgil announces that they must fly down from the cliff on the back of this monster. While Virgil negotiates for their passage, Dante is sent to examine the USURERS(The Violent against Art.)
      These sinners sit in a crouch slong the edge if the burning plain that approaches the cliff. Each of them has a leather purse around his neck, and each purse is blazoned with a coat of arms. Their eyes, gushing with tears, are forever fixed on these purses. Dante recognizes none of these sinner, but their coats of arms are unmistakably those of well-known Florentine families.
      Having understood who they are and the reason for their present condition, Dante cuts short his excursion and returns to find Virgil mounted on the back of Geryon. Dante joins his Master and they fly down the great cliff.
      Their flight carries them from the Hell of the VIOLENT AND THE BESTIAL(The Sins of the Lion) into the Hell of the FRAUDULENT AND MALICIOUS(The Sins of the Leopard.)

Dismounted from Geryon, the Poets find themselves in the EIGHT CIRLCE, called MALEBOLGE(The Evil Ditchs.) This is the upper lalf of the HELL OF THE FRAUDULENT AND MALICIOUS. Melebolge is a great circle of stone that slopes like an amphitheater. The slopes are divided into ten concentric ditches; and within these ditches, each with his own kind, are punished those guilty of SIMPLE FRAUD.
      A series of stone dikes runs like spokes from the edge of the great cliff face to the center of the place, and these serves as bridges.
      The Poets bear left toward the first ditch, and Dante observes below him and to his right the sinners of the first bolgia. the PANDERERS and SEDUCERS. These make two files, one along either bank of the ditch, and are driven at an endless fast walk by horned demons who hurry them along with great lashes. In life these sinners goaded others on to serve their own foul purposes; so in Hell are they driven in their turn. The horned demons who drive them symbolizes the sinners' own vicious natures, embodiments of their own guilty consciences. Dante may or may not have intended the horns of the demons to symbolize cuckoldry and adultery.
      The Poets see VENEDICO CACCIANEMICO and JASON in the first pit, and pass on to their second, where they find the souls of the FLATTERERS sunk in excrement, the true equivalent of their false flatteries on earth. They observe ALESSIO INTERMINELLI and THAIS, and pass on.

Dante comes upon the SIMONIACS (seller of ecclesiastic favors and offices) and his heart overflows with the wrath he feels against those who corrupt the things of God. This bolgia is lined with round tube-like holes and the sinners are placed in them upside down with the soles of the feet ablaze. The heat of the blaze is proportioned to their guilt.
      The holes in which these sinners are placed are the based equivalents of the baptismal fonts common in the cities of Northern Italy and the sinners' confinement in them is temporary; as new sinners arrive, the souls drop through the bottoms of their holes and disappear eternally into the crevices of the rock.
      As always, the punishment is a symbolic retribution. Just as the Simoniacs made a mock of holy office, so are they turned upside down in the mockery of the baptismal font. Just as they made mockery of the holy water of baptism, so is their hellism baptism of fire, after they are wholly immersed in the crevices below. The oily fire that licks at their soles may also suggest a travesty on the oil used in Extreme Unction.
      Virgil carries Dante down an almost sheer ledge and let him speak to one who is the chief sinner of the place, POPE NICHOLAS III. Dante delivers himself of another stirring denunciation of those who have corrupted church office, and Virgil carries him back up the steep ledge toward the FOURTH BOLGIA.

Dante stands in the middle of the bridge over the FOURTH BOLGIA and looks down at the souls of the FORTUNE TELLERS and DIVINERS. Here are the souls of all those who attempted by forbidden arts to look into the future. Among these damned are: AMPHIAREUS, TIRESIAS, ARUNS, MANTO, EURYPYLUS, MICHAEL SCOTT, GUIDO BONATTI, and ASDENTE.
      Characteristically, the sin of these wretches is reversed upon them: their punishment is to have their heads turned backwards through all eternity, their eyes blinded with tears. Thus, those who sought to penetrate the future cannot even see in front of themselves; they attempted to move themselves forward in time, so must they go backwards through all eternity; and as the arts of sorcery are a distortion of God's law, so are their bodies distorted in Hell.
      No more need be said of them: Dante names them, and passes on to fill the Canto with a lengthy account of the founding of Virgil's native city of Mantua.

The Poets move on, talking as they go, and arrive at the FIFTH BOLGIA. Here the GRAFTERS are sunk in boiling pitch and guarded by DEMONS, who tear them to pieces with claws and grappling hooks if they catch them above the surface of the pitch.
      The sticky pitch is symbolic of the sticky fingers of the Grafters. It serves also to hide them from sight, as their sinful dealings on earth were hidden from men's eyes. The demons, too, suggest symbolic possibilities, for they are armed with grappling hooks and are forever ready to rend and tear all they can get their hands on.
      The Poets watch a demon arrive with a grafting SENATOR of LUCCA and fling him into the pitch where the demons sit upon him.
      To protect Dante from their wrath, Virgil hides him behind some jagged rocks and goes ahead alone to negotiate with the demons. They set upon him like a pack of mastiffs, but Virgil secure a safe-set off when they discover that the BRIDGE ACROSS THE SIXTH BOLGIA lie shattered. Malacoda tells them there is another further on and sends a squad of demonds to escort them. Their adventures with the demons continue through the next Canto.
      These two Cantos may convenietly be remembered as the GARGOYLE CANTOS. If the total Commedia is built like a cathedral, it is here certainly that Dante attaches his grotesqueries. At no other point on the Commedia does Dante give such free reign to his coarsent style.

The Poets set off with their escorts of demons. Dante sees the GRAFTERS lying in the pitch like frogs in water with only their muzzles out. They disappear as soon as they sight the demons and ony a ripple on the surface betrays their presence.
      One of the Grafters, AN UNIDENTIFIED NAVARESE, ducks too late and is seized by the demons who are about to claw him, but CURLYBEARD holds them back while Virgil questions him. The wretch speaks of his fellow sinners, FRIAR GOMITA and MICHAEL ZANCHE, while the uncontrollable demons rake him from time to time with their hooks.
      The Navarese offers to lure some of his fellow sufferers into the hands of the demons, and when his plan is accepted he plunges into the pitch and escape. HELLKEN and GRIZZLY fly after him, but too late. they start a brawl in mid-air and fall into the pitch themselves. Curlybeard immediately organizes a rescue party and the Poets, fearing the bad temper of the frustrated demons, take advantage of the confusin to slip away.

The Poets are pursued by the Fiends and escape them by sliding down the sloping bank of the next pit. They are now in the SIXTH BOLGIA. Here the HYPOCRITES, weighted down by great leaden robes, walk eternally round and round a narrow track. The robes are brilliantly gilded on the outside and are shaped like a monk's habit, for the hypocrite's outward appearance shines brightly and passes for holiness, but under that show lies the terrible weight of his deceit which the soul must bear through all eternity.
      The Poets talk to TWO JOVIAL FRIARS and come upon CAIAPHAS, the chief sinner of the place. Caiaphas was the High Priest of the Jews who counseled the Pharisees to crucify Jesus in the name of public expedience. He is punished by being himself crucified to the floor of Hell by three great stakes, and in such a position that every passing sinner must walk upon him. Thus he must suffer upon his own body the weight of all the world's hyporcrisy, as Christ suffered upon his body the pain of all the world's sins.
      The Jovial Friars tell Virgil how he may climb from the pit, and Virgil discovers that Malacoda lied to him about the bridges over the Sixth Bolgia.

The Poets climb the right bank laboriously, cross the bridge of the SEVENTH BOLGIA and descend the far bank to observe the THIEVES. They find the pit full of monstrous reptiles who curl themselves about the sinners like living coils of rope, binding each sinner's hand behind his back, and knotting themselves through the loins. Other reptiles dart about the place, and the Poets see one of them fly through the air and pierce the jugular vein of one sinner who immediately burst into flames until only ashes remain. From the ashes the sinner reforms painfully.
      These are Dante's first observations of the Thieves and will be carried further into the next Canto, but the first allegoral retribution is immediately apparent. Thievery is reptilian in its secrecy; therefore its forever. And as the thief destroys his fellowmen by making their substance disappear, so is he painfully destroyed and made to disappear, not once but over and over again.
      The sinner who has risen from his own ashes reluctantly identifies himself as VANNI FUCCI. He tells his story, and to revenge himself for having been forced to reaveal his identity he utters a dark prophecy against Dante.

Vanni's rage mounts to the point where he hurls an ultimate obscenity at God, and the serpents immediately swarms over him, driving him off in great pain. The Centaur, CACUS, his back covered with serpents and a fire-eating dragon, also give chase to punish the wretch.
      Dante then meets FIVE NOBLE THIEVES OF FLORENCE and sees the further retribution visited upon the sinners. Some of the thieves appears first in human form, others as reptiles. All but one merged with CIANFA, who appears as a six-legged lizard. BUOSO appears as a man and changes with FRANCESCAO, who first appears as a tiny reptile. Only PUCCIO SCIANCATO remains unchanged, though we are made to understand that his turn will come.
      For endless and painful transformation is the final state of the thieves. In life they took the substance of others, transforming it into their own. So in Hell their very bodies are constantly being taken from them, and they are left to steal back a human form from some sinner. Thus they waver constanty between man and reptile, and no sinner knows what to call his own.

Dante turns from the Thieves toward the Evil Counselors of the next Bolgia, and between the two he addresses a passionate lament to Florence prophesying the griefs that will befall her from these two sins. At the purported time of the Vision, it will be recalled, Dante was a Chief Magistrate of Florence and was forced into exile by men he had reason to consider both thieves and counselors. He seems prompted, in fact, to say much more on their score, but he restrains himself when he comes in sight of the sinners of the next Bolgia, for they are a moral symbolism, of all men who abused their genius, perverting it to wiles and stratagems. Seeing them in Hell he knows his must be another road; his way shall not be by deception.
      So the Poets move on and Dante observes the EIGHT BOLGIA in detail. Here the EVIL COUNSELORS move about endlessly, hidden from view inside great flames. Their sin was to abuse the gift of the Almighty, to steal his virtues for low purposes. And as they stole from God in their lives and worked by hidden ways, so are they stolen from sight and hidden in the great flames which are their own guilty consciences. And as, in most instances at least, they sinned by glibness of tongue, so are the flames made into a fiery traverty of tongues.
      Among the others, the Poet see a great doubleheaded flames, and discover that ULYSSES and DIOMEDE are punished together within it. Virgil addresses the flame, and through its wavering tongue Ulysses narrates an unforgettable tale of his last voyage and death.

The double flames departs at a word from Virgil and behind it appears another which contains the soul of COUNT GUIDO DA MONTEFELTRO, a Lord of Romagna. He had overheard Virgil speaking Italian, and the entire flame in which his soul is wrapped quivers with his eagerness to hear recent news of his war-torn country.
      Dante replies with a stately and tragic summary of how things stand in the cities of Romagna. When he had finished, he askes Guido for his story, and Guido recounts his life, and how Boniface VIII persuaded him to sin.

The Poets come to the edge of the NINTH BOLGIA and look down at a parade of hideously mutilated souls. These are the SOWERS OF DISCORD, and just as their sin was to rend asunder what God had meant to be united, so are they hacked and torn through all eternity by a great demon with a bloody sword. After each mutilation the souls are compelled to drag their broken bodies around the pit and to return to the demon, for in the course of the circuit their wounds knit in time to be inflicted anew. Thus is the law of retribution observed, each sinner suffering according to his degree.
      Among them Dante distinguishes three classes with varying degrees of guilt within each class. First come the SOWER OF RELIGIOUS DISCORD. Mahomet is chief among them, and appears first, cleft from crotch to chin, with his internal organs dangling between his legs. His son-in-law, Ali, drags in ahead of him, cleft from topknot to chin. These reciprocal wounds symbolizes Dante's judgement that, between them, these two sum up the total schism between Christianity and Mohammedanism. The revolting details of Mahomet's condition clearly imply Dante's opinion of the doctrine. Mohamet issues an ironic warning to another schismatic, FRA DOLCINO.
      Next come the SOWER OF POLITICAL DISCORD, among them PIER DA MEDICINA, the Tribune CURIO, and MOSCADEI LAMBERTI, each mutilated according to the nature of his sin.
      Last of all is BERTRAND DE BORN, SOWER OF DISCORD BETWEEN KINSMEN. He separated father from son, and for that offense carries his head separated from his body, holding it with one hand by the hair, an endless way. The image of Bertrand raising his head at arm's length in order that it might speak more clearly to the Poets on the ridge os one of the most memorable in the Inferno. for some reason that cannot be ascertained, Dante makes these sinners quite eager to be remembered in the world, despite the fact that many who lie above them in Hell were unwilling to be recognized.

Dante lingers on the edge of the Nineth Bolgia expecting to see one of his kinsmen, GERI DEL BELLO, among the Sowers of Discord. Virgil, however, hurries him on, since time is short, and as they cross the bridge over the TENTH BOLGIA. Virgil explains that he had a glimpse of Geri among the crowd near the bridge and that he had been making threatening gestures at Dante.
      The Poets now look into the last Bolgia of the Eighth Circle and see THE FALSIFIERS. They are punished by afflictions of every sense: by darkness, stench, thirst, filth, loathsome discases, and a shrieking den. Some of them, moreover, run ravening through the pit, tearing others to pieces. Just as in life they corrupted society by their falsifications, so in death these sinners are subjected to a sum of corruptions. In one sense they figure forth what society would be if all falsifiers succeeded-- a place where the senses of affliction(since falsification deceives the sense rather than a guide,) where even the body has no honesty, and where some lie prostrate while others run ravening to prey upon them.
      Not all of these details are made clear until the next Canto, for Dante distinguishes four classes of Falsifiers, and in the present Canto we meet only the First Class, THE ALCHEMISTS, the Falsifiers of Things. Of this class are GRIFFOLINO D'AREZZO and CAPOCCHIO with both of whim Dante speaks.

Just as Capocchio finishes speaking, two ravenous spirits come racing through the pit; and one of them, sinking his tusks into Capocchio's neck, drags him away life prey. Capocchio's companion, Griffolino, identifies the two as GIANNI SCHICCI and MYRRHA, who runs ravening through the pit through all eternity, snatching at other souls and rending them, These are the EVIL IMPERSONATORS, Falsifiers of Persons. In life they seized upon the appearance of others, and in death they must run with never a pause, seizing upon the infernal apparition of these souls, while they in turn are preyed upon by their own furies.
      Next the Poets encounter MASTER ADAM, a sinner of the third class, a Falsifier of Money. Like the alchemists, he is punished by a loathesome disease and he cannot move from where he lies, but his disease is compounded by other afflictions, including an eternity of unbearable thirst. Master Adam identifies two spirits lying beside him as POTIPHAR'S WIFE nad SINON THE GREEK, sinners of the fourth class, THE FALSE WITNESSES.
      Sinon, angered by Master Adam's identification of him, strikes him across the belly with one arm he able to move. Master Adam replies in kind, and Dante, fascinated by their continuing exchange of abuse, stands staring at them until Virgil turns on him in great anger, for "The wish to hear such baseness is degrading." Dante burns in shame, and Virgil immediately forgives him because of his great and genuine respect.

Dante's spirits rise again as the Poets approach the Central Pit, a great well, at the bottom of which lies Cocytus, the Ninth and final circle of Hell. Through the darkness Dante sees what appears to be a city of great towers, but as he draws near he discovers that the great shapes he has seen are the Giants and Titans who stand perpectual guard inside the well-pit with upper halves of their body rising above the rim.
      Among the giants, Virgil identifies NIMROD, builder of the Tower of Babel; EPHILATES and BRIAREUS, who warred against the gods; and TITYOS and TYPHON, who insulted Jupiter. Also here, but for no specific offense, is NATAEUS, and his presence makes it clear that the Giants are placed here less for their particular sins than for their general nature.
      These are the sons of earth, embodiments of elemental forces unbalanced by love, desire without restraint and without knowledgement of moral and theological law. They are symbols of the earth- trace that every devout man must clear of his soul, the unchecked passions of the beast. Raised from the earth, they make the very gods tremble. Now they are returned to the darkness of their origins, guardians of earth's last depth.
      At Virgils persuasion, Antaeus takes the Poets in his huge palm and lowers them gently to the final floor of Hell.

At the bottom of the bottom of the well Dante finds himself on a huge frozen lake. This is COCYTUS, the NINTH CIRCLE, the fourth and last great water of Hell, and here, fixed in the ice, each according to his guilt, are punished sinners guilty of TREACHERY AGAINST THOSE TO WHOM THEY WERE BOUND BY SPECIAL TIES. The ice is divided into four concentric rings marked only by the different positions of the damned within the ice.
      This is Dante's symbolic equivalent of the final guilt. The treacheries of these souls were denials of love(which is God) and of all human warmth. Only the remoseless dead center of the ice will serve to express their natures. As they denied God's love, so are they furthest removed from the light and warmth of His Sun. As they denied all human ties, so are bound only by the unyielding ice.
      The firs round is CAINA, named after Cain. Here lies those who were treacherous against blood ties. They have their necks and heads out of the ice and are permitted to bow their heads-- a double boon since it allows them some protection from the freezing gale and, further, allows their tears to fall without freezing their eyes shut. Here Dante sees ALENSSANDRO and NAPOLEONE DEGLI ALBERTI, and he speaks to CAMICION, who identifies other sinners of this round.
      The second round is ANTENORA, named for Antenor, the Trojan who was believed to have betrayed his city to the Greeks. Here lie those guilty of TREACHERY TO COUNTRY. They, too, have their heads above the ice, but they cannot bend their necks, which are gripped by the ice. Here Dante accidentally kicks the head of BOCCA DEGLI ABBATI and then proceeds to treat him with a savagery he has shown to no other soul in Hell. Bocca names some of his fellow traitors, and the Poets pass on to discover two heads frozen together in one hole. One of them is gnawing the nape of the other's neck.

In reply to Dante's exhortation, the sinner who is gnawing his companion's head looks up, wipes his bloody mouth on his victim hair, and tells him harrowing story. He is COUNT UGOLINO and the wretch he gnaws is ARCHBISHOP RUGGIERI. Both are in Antenora for treason. In life the had once plotted together. Then Ruggieri betrayed his fellow-plotter and caused his death, by starvation, along with his four "sons." In the most pathetic and dramatic passage of the Inferno, Ugolino details how their prison was sealed and how his "sons" dropped dead before him one by one, weeping for food. His terrible tale serves only to renew his grief and hatred, and he had hardly finished it before he begins to gnaw Ruggieri again with renewed fury. In the immutable Law of Hell, the killer-by- starvation becomes the food of his victim.
      The Poets leave Ugolino and enter PTOLOMEA, so named for the Ptolomaeus of Maccabees, who murdered his father-in-laws at a banquet. Here are punished those who are TREACHEROUS AGAINST THE TIES OF HOSPITALITY. They lie with only half their faces above the ice and their tears freeze in their eye sockets, sealing them with little crystal visors. Thus even the comfort of tears is denied to them. Here Dante finds FRIAR ALBERIGO and BRANCA D' ORIA, and discovers the terrible powers of Ptolomea; so great is its sin that the souls of the guilty fall to its torment even before they die, leaving their bodies still on earth, inhabited by Demons.

"On march the banners of the King," Virgil begins as the Poets face the last depth. He is quoting a medieval hymn, and to it he adds the distortion and perversion of all that lies about him. "On march the banners of the King-- of Hell." And there before them, in an infernal parody of Godhead, they see Satan in a distance, his great wings beating like a windmill. it is their beating that is the source of the icy wind of Cocytus, the exhalation of all evil.
      All about him in the ice are strewn the sinners of the last round, JUDECCA, a named for Judas Iscariot. These are the TREACHEROUS TO THEIR MASTERS. They lie completely sealed in the ice, twisted and distorted into every conceivable posture. It is impossible to speak to them, and the Poets move on the observe Satan.
      He is fixed into the ice at the center to which flow all the rivers of guilt; and as he beats his great wings as if to escape, the icy wind only freezes him more surely into the polluted ice. In the grotesque parody of the Trinity, he has three faces, each a different color, and in each mouth he clamps a sinner whom he rip eternally with his teeth. JUDAS ESCARIOT is in the central mouth, BRUTUS and CASSIUS in the mouth on either side.
      Having seen all, the Poets now climb through the center, grappling hand over hand down the fiery flank of Satan himself-- a last supremely symbolic action-- and at last, when they have passed the center of all gravity, the emerge from Hell. A long climb from the earth's center to the Mount of Purgatory awaits them, and they push on without rest, ascending along the sides off the river Lethe, till they emerge once more to see the stars of Heaven, just before dawn on Easter Sunday.

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