Dante’s Inferno Ep. 7: Cantos 32-34 with Evan Amato

The frozen heart of hell. Today, Dcn. Harrison Garlick is joined by Mr. Evan Amato to discuss the frozen wastes of the 9th Circle of Hell – the damned guilty of treachery (or complex fraud).

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A few questions from our guide to Dante’s Inferno:

78.     What happens in the ninth circle of hell: Treachery (Complex Fraud) (Canto 34)?

Pressing onward, Virgil leads the Pilgrim to “Judecca”—named after Judas Iscariot—in which those souls that have betrayed their benefactors or their lords are frozen completely in the ice.[1] The Pilgrim notes the distorted figures, saying: “To me they looked like straws worked into glass.”[2] Finally, the Pilgrim sees the gigantic figure of Satan. The figure of Lucifer, the arch-traitor against his Benefactor and Lord, God, is frozen in the ice to the waist as his six bat-like wings eternally beating—thus, causing the wind that freezes all in the pit of hell.[3] The Pilgrim observes, Satan, who has three faces on his head, “wept from his six eyes, and down three chins were dripping tears mixed with bloody slaver.”[4] Each one of Satan’s faces bears a distinct color—red, yellow, and black—and in each mouth Lucifer “crunched a sinner.”[5] In the mouth of the central red face, Judas, who “suffers most of all,” and is inserted headfirst.[6] The other two souls are inserted legs first and they are Brutus in the black face—“see how he squirms in silent desperation”—and Cassius in the yellow face.”[7] Bringing their journey to an end, Virgil, with the Pilgrim on his back, first climbs down the hairy shanks of Satan, and second, after passing the center of the earth, climbs up the legs of Satan.[8] Heading out toward the Mount of Purgatory, the Pilgrim and Virgil exit the earth and behold the stars in the sky.[9]

 79.      Why does Dante the Poet use ice to describe the bottom of hell?

In Aristotle’s Metaphysics, when he must answer how does the Unmoved Mover move all things if the Unmoved Mover does not move, he answers: love (eros). God is Pure Act, and all things are drawn to him by love—in other words, though unmoved himself, he is the source of all movement in the cosmos. As such, the pit of hell would be the furthest from God; thus, evil, as a type of anti-movement and anti-love finds a poetic home in the imagery of ice. Furthermore, evil is a privation of the good. Evil is not something real but rather something unreal, a lack. Evil is like a hole in the ground or like darkness is to light. Similarly, evil is like cold is the heat. Coldness is not necessarily real per se but is rather the absence of heat. Evil is the absence of good. As such, ice again makes a good image of evil and a fitting pit to a hell structured according to love.

80.      Why is the betrayal of family a lesser sin than that of country or political party?

In the ninth circle, we see betrayal of family come before betrayal of a political body or party. Again, one turns to Dante the Poet’s understanding of the common good to order these sins. Things can be ordered according to execution or being. In the order of execution, a chair, for example, would have its parts come first. The leg is made prior to the chair. Here, the family comes before the polis or political body (“state” in modern terms), and would thus seem more important. However, in the order of being, the leg only comes into existence for the sake of the chair—the part for the sake of the whole. Similarly, the family comes into existence for the sake of the polis, and the polis is the common good in which all the parts participate. Without a chair, there is no purpose for the leg. Similarly, no family is autonomous and must participate in the community.

81.      How is hell an act of mercy?

No matter how horrific the contrapasso is for a sinner, even Judas, it is a mercy. The finite creature can never truly bear the punishment for its sin against the infinite God. How can the finite make amends for an injustice against an infinite good? The just punishment for rejecting God is not bearable by man. All of hell is tempered by mercy and less than what man deserves for his sin.

[…]

Congrats! You have finished the Inferno.

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If you formed a small group for Lent to read Dante’s Inferno, keep meeting together. Pick a new text, maybe the Iliad, and read it together. Ascend will continue with the Greek plays in first half of 2025 with studies into Aeschylus, Sophocles, Euripides, and Aristophanes, and we will start to study Plato in the early fall of 2025. We plan to read Dante’s Purgatorio for Lent in 2026. You can read the great books with Ascend!

[1] Musa, 384; the contrapasso of the Ninth Circle of Hell may be, as Musa states, “the gelid abode of those souls in whom all warmth of love for God and for their fellow man has been extinguished.” Musa, 384. It is worth noting that in each region of Cocytus, the sinners are frozen deeper into the ice: in Caina, they are frozen to their waists; in Antenora, they are frozen to the chin; in Tolomea, they are frozen with their faces upward; and in Judecca, they are completely frozen. Also note that Lucifer, the arch-traitor, is the cause of everything being frozen.

[2] XXXIV, 12.

[3] Musa, 384;

[4] XXXIV, 53-4; Musa notes that the three faces are first and foremost another tripart and hellish distortion of the Holy Trinity, see Musa, 384.

[5] XXXIV, 55; for colors, XXXIV, 37-45; Musa adds, “Highest Wisdom would be opposed to ignorance (black), Divine Omnipotence by impotence (yellow), Primal Love by hared or envy (red).” Musa, 385.

[6] XXXIV, 61, cf. 62-3.

[7] XXXIV, 66, cf. 64-9; while Judas betrayed Christ, Brutus and Cassius betrayed Julius Caesar, representing treason against the Church and the State (Empire). See, Musa, 385.

[8] See XXXIV, 79-81; Musa, 385-87.

[9] See Musa, 387.