There are four concentric rings in this ninth circle, increasing in
pain as they diminish in circumference. In Caina (_Inf._ xxxii. 58),
the treacherous murderers of their kindred are chattering with their
teeth like storks. In Antenora (88), traitors to country or party are
still more deeply frozen into the ice. Bocca degli Abati, who betrayed
the Guelfs to the Ghibellines at Montaperti, is side by side with
Buoso da Duera, who, five years later, betrayed the Ghibellines to the
lieutenant of Charles of Anjou. Frozen into one hole, Count Ugolino
della Gherardesca is gnawing the head of Archbishop Ruggieri of Pisa;
and the terror and pity of Dante’s lines have made the tale of the
dying agonies of the old noble and his children perhaps the most famous
episode in the _Commedia_. The terrible imprecation against Pisa adapts
Lucan’s curse upon Egypt after the murder of Pompey to the different
geographical conditions of the Tuscan city.[33] In Tolomea (_Inf._
xxxiii. 124), those who slew treacherously, under mask of hospitality,
have only their faces showing above the ice, their tears frozen into a
crystalline mask; on earth their bodies ofttimes still seem to live,
tenanted by a demon until their time is full, while the soul has
already gone down into the ice. In Giudecca (xxxiv. 117) are souls of
traitors to their lords and benefactors: “Already I was there (and with
fear I put it into verse) where the souls were all covered, and shone
through like straw in glass. Some are lying; some stand upright, this
on its head, and that upon its soles; another, like a bow, bends face
to feet” (_Inf._ xxxiv. 10-15); silent and immovable, in agonised and
everlasting adoration in the court of the Emperor of the dolorious
kingdom, who, gigantic and hideous, “from mid-breast stood forth out
of the ice.” The most radiant of God’s Angels has become the source
of evil, the symbol of sin’s hideousness. His three faces, red,
yellow-white, black, are an infernal parody of the Power, Wisdom, Love
of the Blessed Trinity. Under each face are two huge bat-like wings,
whose helpless flappings freeze all the lake of Cocytus. Tormented
by his teeth and claws are the three arch-traitors: Judas Iscariot,
who betrayed the Divine Founder of the Church; Brutus and Cassius,
who murdered the imperial founder of the Empire. The condemnation of
the two latter is an instance of how, while accepting the testimony
of his sources as to facts, Dante preserves independence of judgment
concerning their moral value; in Lucan’s _Pharsalia_, Brutus and
Cassius are the destined avengers of right, the champions of Roman
liberty, Brutus bearing the character with which we are familiar in
Shakespeare.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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