EXCERPT OF THE COMEDY: Inf. 32, 1-9
An immense frozen lake occupies the entire bottom circle of Hell.
Here, the souls of traitors are encased in ice, buried in it to varying depths.
In life, these souls fled the warmth of charity; in death, their corresponding lot is bitter cold and ice, for all eternity.
Dante and Virgil stand at the edge of the lake.
They see before them the traitors to kin, caught up to their necks in the ice.
The small freedom they possess to move their heads is used to keep their eyes down, so that their frigid tears may drip down their faces and freeze elsewhere than upon their cheeks.
Dante speaks to two of these damned souls who are so near each other their bodies touch. As soon as they raise their heads, however, their tears freeze in their eye sockets, blinding them. In pain and enraged, they butt heads, while a third damned soul tells Dante that he is in Caina, first of four regions of this frozen lake.
This outermost region of Cocytus is named after Cain, who committed the very first murder in human history when he killed his brother, Abel. In the book of Genesis, Cain is the eldest son of Adam and Eve. Angry and envious that God preferred Abel’s offering to his own, Cain ended his brother’s life. His lack of regret for his brutal actions prompted God to place a mark on him and condemn him to err eternally.
In the illumination, Dante and Virgil walk across frozen Cocytus, where the souls of traitors are trapped in the ice. - Florence, Biblioteca Nazionale Centrale, Banco Rari 39, f. 135r.
EXCERPT OF THE COMEDY: Inf. 32, 43-48
As Dante and Virgil move tentatively through the darkness toward the center of Hell, Dante accidentally collides with one of the damned, who scolds him.
EXCERPT OF THE COMEDY: Inf. 32, 91-99.
Dante questions the soul to find out whom he has walked into, but the soul refuses to reveal himself: he does not wish to magnify his infamy. Dante yanks his face up by his hair and threatens him, but the soul does not speak; rather, another damned soul answers in his stead, revealing that the traitor’s name is Bocca degli Abati.
End of Inferno XXXI and beginning of Inferno XXXII. In the woodcut, Dante and Virgil traverse Cocytus. - Comento di Christophoro Landino fiorentino sopra la Comedia di Dante Alighieri poeta fiorentino, Brescia, Bonino Bonini, 1487, f. rr. McGill University, Incun 1487 Dante.
Dante recognizes Bocca as a Florentine belonging to the Ghibellines, a member of the political faction opposed to his own. Bocca, having become irate in his identification, vengefully names every soul in his vicinity so that Dante may tar their reputations with the same brush as Bocca’s in the world of the living.
The second region of the ninth circle is named after Prince Antenor of Troy, a man who, according to medieval lore, betrayed his home city by opening the gates to allow the Greeks’ wooden ‘gift’ horse to enter, and thus the soldiers concealed within it to destroy the city from the inside.
The Greeks repaid Antenor for his assistance by granting him his freedom, and the Trojan prince ran off to Italy, where he founded the city of Padua.
A little way beyond Bocca, Dante and Virgil encounter two damned souls caught in the same patch of ice. One chomps down on the head of the other, gnawing at the skull to reach the brains. This ravenous soul turns out to be Ugolino della Gherardesca, Podestà of Pisa.
Ugolino has no desire to explain his sin, preferring instead to recount his death, and thus underscore the infamy of those who caused it. He recalls how he, a Guelph, was betrayed by Ruggieri Ubladini, the Ghibelline Archbishop of Pisa whose skull he is gnawing.
EXCERPT OF THE COMEDY: Inf. 33, 1-9
Reliving his sorrow, he tells Dante how he came to be imprisoned in a tower with his four sons, and how the five of them slowly starved to death.
His tale told, Ugolino returns to his gruesome attack on Ruggieri’s skull, hoping that his story will bring infamy to those who killed him.
Inferno 33, with both the original Italian text and Émile Littré’s French translation. - Dante Alighieri, L’Enfer mis en vieux langage françois et en vers accompagné du texte italien, translated by Émile Littré, Paris, Hachette, 1879, p. 434-435. Université de Montréal, Bibliothèque des livres rares et collections spéciales, Collection générale, 851.15 Di.Fli.
Verse summary of Inferno 32 to 34. - Thomas D. J. Farmer, The Great Poets of Italy in Prose and Verse, Briggs, Toronto, 1916, p. 241. Université de Montréal, Centre de conservation Lionel-Groulx, 851.04 F234g.
The traitors to their guests are frozen up to their chins in ice, their faces turned up so that their tears can only pool and freeze in their eye sockets, blinding them.
Second page of “Le Nationaliste” dated June 1st, 1913. In the left-hand column, a French translation of Inferno 33.
One of these damned souls, Friar Alberigo de Manfredi, interpellates Dante. Alberigo has betrayed two of his kin by inviting them to a banquet in a plot to murder them. Dante, however, is confused: how can Alberigo be in Hell when Dante knows him to be alive?
Due to the gravity of his sin, Alberigo explains, his soul was plunged prematurely to the depths of Hell, while a demon inhabits his earthly body.
Dante does not specify after which Ptolemy he has named the third region of Cocytus. Is Ptolemy to be identified as the governor of Jericho, who the Bible recounts as having invited his father- and brothers-in-law - to a banquet in order to kill them? Or is it rather named for Ptolemy, King of Egypt and brother of Cleopatra, who housed and then murdered the Roman Pompey, one of the enemies of Julius Caesar? Either is a possibility.
EXCERPT OF THE COMEDY: Inf. 33, 109-117
Dante and Virgil reach the innermost region of Cocytus. Here, there are no souls with whom to speak as the traitors to their benefactors lie beneath their feet, fully encased in the depths of the frozen lake.
Withstanding the glacial wind, the poets journey forth to the center of Hell, arriving before Lucifer.
A towering Titan, Lucifer is trapped in the center of the Earth, visible only from the torso up.
His lower body is submerged in ice.
This is the angel who rebelled against God and whom God defeated and threw down to Earth, creating Hell in the process.
Illustration of Dante and Virgil reaching Lucifer. – Dante con l’espositioni di Christoforo Landino et d’Alessandro Vellutello sopra la sua Comedia dell’Inferno, del Purgatoiro e del Paradiso, Venice, Fratelli Sessa, 1596, p. 309v. Université de Montréal, Bibliothèque des livres rares et collections spéciales, Collection générale, PQ 4302 B96.
EXCERPT OF THE COMEDY: Inf. 34, 49-57.
Virgil points out to Dante Lucifer’s three faces and six wings; wings that now resemble that of a bat’s from having once been an angel. The wind put in motion by Lucifer’s giant wings is what ices over Cocytus.
In each of his three mouths, Lucifer chews up the three most infamous traitors in human history: in the left- and right-hand mouths are Brutus and Cassius, so tortured for betraying Julius Caesar whom they murdered in the Roman Senate; in the middle mouth, Judas Iscariot, the apostle who betrayed Christ.
Dante and Virgil face Lucifer. Below them, the 'traitors to their benefactors' are hidden beneath the ice. Illustration by Vincenzo La Bella. - La Divina Commedia: novamente illustrata da artisti italiani, Florence, Alinari, 1902-1903, p. 132. Université de Montréal, Bibliothèque des livres rares et collections spéciales, Collection générale, PQ 4302 F02 1902.
EXCERPT OF THE COMEDY: Inf. 34, 94-96
The light.
The poets look up as they reemerge upon the Earth’s surface, their eyes drawn to the welcome sight of the stars.
EXCERPT OF THE COMEDY: Inf. 34, 127-139