why can’t the world be wiped clean of your race? 153 For in company with Romagna’s rankest soul I found one of your men, whose deeds were such that his soul bathes already in Cocytus 156 but his body alive and walks among you. Canto 34: The Traitors FAR ACROSS the frozen ice can be seen the gigantic figure of LUCIFER, who appears from this distance like a windmill seen through fog; and as the two travelers walk on toward that terrifying they see the shades of sinners totally buried in the frozen water. At the center of the earth Lucifer stands frozen from the chest downward, and his horrible ugliness (he has three faces) is made more fearful by the fact that in each of his three mouths he chews on one of the three worst sinners of all mankind, the worst of those who betrayed their benefactors: JUDAS ISCARIOT, BRUTUS, and CASSIUS. Virgil, with the Pilgrim on his back, begins the descent down the shaggy body of Lucifer. They climb down through a crack in the ice, and when they reach the Evil One’s thighs, Virgil turns and begins to struggle upward (because they have passed the center of the earth), still holding on to the hairy body of Lucifer, until they reach a cavern, where they stop for a short rest. Then a winding path brings them eventually to the earth’s surface, where they see the stars.
why can’t the world be wiped clean of your race? 153 For in company with Romagna’s rankest soul I found one of your men, whose deeds were such that his soul bathes already in Cocytus 156 but his body alive and walks among you. Canto 34: The Traitors FAR ACROSS the frozen ice can be seen the gigantic figure of LUCIFER, who appears from this distance like a windmill seen through fog; and as the two travelers walk on toward that terrifying they see the shades of sinners totally buried in the frozen water. At the center of the earth Lucifer stands frozen from the chest downward, and his horrible ugliness (he has three faces) is made more fearful by the fact that in each of his three mouths he chews on one of the three worst sinners of all mankind, the worst of those who betrayed their benefactors: JUDAS ISCARIOT, BRUTUS, and CASSIUS. Virgil, with the Pilgrim on his back, begins the descent down the shaggy body of Lucifer. They climb down through a crack in the ice, and when they reach the Evil One’s thighs, Virgil turns and begins to struggle upward (because they have passed the center of the earth), still holding on to the hairy body of Lucifer, until they reach a cavern, where they stop for a short rest. Then a winding path brings them eventually to the earth’s surface, where they see the stars.