About this episode
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).Check out thegreatbookspodcast.com for other great books to read!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
