[862] _Judge then what bulk_: The arm of Lucifer was as much longer than the stature of one of the giants as a giant was taller than Dante. We have seen (_Inf._ xxxi. 58) that the giants were more than fifty feet in height--nine times the stature of a man. If a man's arm be taken as a third of his stature, then Satan is twenty-seven times as tall as a giant, that is, he is fourteen hundred feet or so. For a fourth of this, or nearly so--from the middle of the breast upwards--he stands out of the ice, that is, some three hundred and fifty feet. It seems almost too great a height for Dante's purpose; and yet on the calculations of some commentators his stature is immensely greater--from three to five thousand feet. [863] _Three faces_: By the three faces are represented the three quarters of the world from which the subjects of Lucifer are drawn: vermilion or carnation standing for Europe, yellow for Asia, and black for Africa. Or the faces may symbolise attributes opposed to the Wisdom, Power, and Love of the Trinity (_Inf._ iii. 5). See also note on line 1. [864] _A bat's wing_: Which flutters and flaps in dark and noisome places. The simile helps to bring more clearly before us the dim light and half-seen horrors of the Judecca. [865] _A heckle_: Or brake; the instrument used to clear the fibre of flax from the woody substance mixed with it. [866] _Sometimes nude_: We are to imagine that the frame of Judas is being for ever renewed and for ever mangled and torn. [867] _Cassius_: It has been surmised that Dante here confounds the pale and lean Cassius who was the friend of Brutus with the L. Cassius described as corpulent by Cicero in the Third Catiline Oration. Brutus and Cassius are set with Judas in this, the deepest room of Hell, because, as he was guilty of high treason against his Divine Master, so they were guilty of it against Julius Cæsar, who, according to Dante, was chosen and ordained by God to found the Roman Empire. As the great rebel against the spiritual authority Judas has allotted to him the fiercer pain. To understand the significance of this harsh treatment of the great Republicans it is necessary to bear in mind that Dante's devotion to the idea of the Empire was part of his religion, and far surpassed in intensity all we can now well imagine. In the absence of a just and strong Emperor the Divine government of the world seemed to him almost at a stand. [868] _Night is rising_: It is Saturday evening, and twenty-four hours since they entered by the gate of Inferno.