The Ninth Circle. Treachery. Cocytus
Traitors to their Benefactors. Lucifer
“The banners of the King of Hell advance
toward us; now, therefore, look ahead of thee,”
my Teacher said, “and see if thou perceive him.”
As, when a heavy fog is breathed abroad,
or when at night our hemisphere grows dark,
a windmill looks when seen from far away;
even such a structure seemed I now to see;
then, for the wind, I shrank behind my Leader,
for other shelter was there none. I now —
and ’t is with fear I put it into verse, —
was where the shades were wholly covered up,
and visible as is a straw in glass;
some lying are; and some are standing up,
one on his head, the other on his soles;
one, like a bow, bends toward his feet his face.
When we had gone so far ahead, that now
it pleased my Teacher to reveal to me
the Creature who once seemed so beautiful,
he stepped from where he was in front of me,
stopped me, and said: “Lo Dis, and lo the place,
where thou must arm thyself with fortitude!”
How frozen and how weak I then became,
ask thou not, Reader, for I write it not,
because all speech would be of small avail.
I did not die, nor yet remained alive;
think for thyself now, hast thou any wit,
what I became, of both of these deprived.
The Emperor of the Realm of Woe stood forth
out of the ice from midway up his breast;
and I compare more closely with a Giant,
than merely with his arms the Giants do;
consider now how great that whole must be,
that with such parts as these may be compared.
If, once as beautiful as ugly now,
he still raised up his brows against his Maker,
justly doth every woe proceed from him.
Oh, what a marvel it appeared to me,
when I beheld three faces to his head!
One was in front of us, and that was red;
the other two were to the latter joined
right o’er the middle of each shoulder-blade,
and met each other where he had his crest;
that on the right twixt white and yellow seemed;
the left one such to look at, as are those
who come from there, where valeward flows the Nile.
Under each face two mighty wings stretched out,
of size proportioned to so huge a bird;
sails of the sea I never saw so large.
They had no feathers, but were like a bat’s
in fashion; these he flapped in such a way,
that three winds issued forth from him; thereby
Cocytus was completely frozen up.
With six eyes he was weeping, and his tears
and bloody slaver trickled o’er three chins.
In each mouth, as a heckle would have done,
a sinner he was crushing with his teeth,
and thus was causing pain to three of them.
To him who was in front of us the biting
