Ninth Circle: Cocytus, the Icy Home of Traitors

Canto XXXII of Inferno

Apr 26, 2025

Friends,

Nearly four months after joining up with Dante and Virgil in the dark wood, we have now reached the lowest point of our journey. We will spend the next week in the ninth circle of Hell, at the veritable bottom of the universe. And it is every bit as awful as we feared it would be.

Today’s canto opens with a magnificent monologue on the part of Dante the poet-narrator (lines 1-15). Indeed, he pulls out all the rhetorical stops, including several of the features that we have examined in previous cantos. I will first read it in Italian and then point out a few of its particular gems.

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If I had the harsh and clucking rhymes to suit
the melancholy hole upon which
all the other rocks converge and rest,

I would press out the juice of my conception
more fully; but because I lack them,
not without fear do I bring myself to speak;

for it is not a task to take in jest,
to describe the base of all the universe,
nor for a tongue that cries out Mommy or Daddy.

But may those ladies now give aid to my verse
who assisted Amphion when he walled up Thebes,
so that the word may not differ from the fact.

O rabble, ill-created beyond all others,
there in the place of which it is hard to speak,
better if here you had been goats or sheep!

First up is the inexpressibility topos, which lasts for three tercets—nine full lines of Dante describing how impossible it is for him to describe the place! He wishes that he had the kind of “harsh and clucking rhymes” that would be appropriate for “the melancholy hole,” but unfortunately those are unavailable. Thus, given their lack, it is a fearful thing for him to speak about the wretched abyss—neither a joking matter nor child’s play (indeed, he seems to find himself tempted to revert back to infantile immaturity and call for his “Mommy or Daddy”).
How, then, will he manage this impossible task? Once again, he offers an invocation to the Muses. But unlike the previous time, when he conflated those ancient goddesses with his own “high genius” (2.7-9), this time he actually appears to appeal to the legendary ladies of lore to assist him in producing an accurate account, “that the word may not differ from the fact” (i.e., even in fabricating his stunning story, Dante continues to insist on his own reliability, the truthful correspondence between his literary words and literal reality)!
Finally, he adds an apostrophe to the damned (“O rabble, ill-created beyond all others”), combined with a biblical allusion to the Parable of the Sheep and the Goats (clearly, they belong to the latter category).

After this extraordinary introduction, what else is there for us to say, except “Wow!”?

Meanwhile, Dante the pilgrim-protagonist finds himself “down in the dark well” (16). He is still gazing upward at the retreating figure of Antaeus, who returns to the platform above that supports the giants, when he hears a voice warning him to watch his step. At this word of caution, he finally looks around and down to discover an astonishing scene: “beneath my feet, a lake that, frozen fast, had lost the look of water and seemed glass” (23-24). Colder than the Danube River in winter, it is so extremely thick that a falling mountain would fail to crack it “even at the edge” (30).

Indeed, we have reached Cocytus, the fourth and final river in Hell. Whereas the previous three consisted of water (Acheron), dirty swamp (Styx), and boiling blood (Phlegethon), this one is solid ice. Although the colloquial phrase “that will happen when Hell freezes over” connotes an exceedingly unlikely or impossible situation, this is precisely the case in Dante’s imagination: the heart of Hell is utterly frozen (we’ll find out why next week).

Within Cocytus, there are four regions, each of which is named after an especially notorious exemplar of a different type of treachery. Caina, the place of traitors against their relatives, is named after Cain, who killed his brother Abel. Antenora, the place of traitors against their countries or homelands, is named after Antenor, who (according to some accounts) opened the gates of Troy to the Greeks. Ptolomea, the place of traitors against their guests, is named after Ptolemy, the governor of Jericho, who orchestrated the murder of his in-laws while he was hosting them for a banquet. Finally, Judecca, the place of traitors against their lords, is named after Judas Iscariot, who handed Jesus over to his enemies, leading to the crucifixion. Today, we’ll traverse the first two, Caina and Antenora.

What these regions all have in common is the frigid punishment that their prisoners suffer: the sinners are submerged up to their necks, sealed in solid ice, with their faces downcast in the wind, shedding tears that soon freeze their eyelids shut. In a nod to the further dehumanization that this bestial retribution brings about, Dante likens them to croaking frogs (31) and chattering storks (36). It is a truly dreadful spectacle.

Since Dante must start somewhere, he looks down toward his feet and tries to commence a conversation with two shades that are positioned so closely to one another that “the hair upon their heads had intermingled” (42). When he asks them who they are, they bend back their necks to try and get a look at him, weep further tears that quickly congeal, and then butt their heads together like furious rams. It takes another shuddering soul to break the silence. Having first asked why Dante keeps on staring at them (literally, “Why do you mirror yourself in us,” 54), he identifies them as brothers who killed one another over their inheritance; they are entwined together for eternity, just as they had been in the womb. He also describes a few of Caina’s other nearby citizens (himself included) who betrayed their family members for the sake of money or property. At this, Dante-poet breaks back in to comment bleakly, “And after that I saw a thousand faces made doglike by the cold; for which I shudder, and always will when I face frozen fords” (70-72).

This seems to mark the subtle boundary between Caina and Antenora. As Dante-pilgrim moves forward, he strikes his foot against someone’s face, unsure whether that collision “was will or destiny or fortune” (76). Understandably, the shade protests, “Why do you pound me? ... why do you molest me?” (79, 81). This is remarkably similar to the reaction of Pier delle Vigne back in the poisoned wood of the seventh circle—“Why do you split me? ... why do you pluck me?” (13.33, 35). Back then, Dante was horrified at having unintentionally caused someone else pain! This time, however, his conscience does not feel the same compunction. Rather, he sees an opportunity to extract more information. Telling his guide that he needs a minute to investigate, Dante first tries the old “I’ll make you famous” trick that had seen work recently between Virgil and Antaeus. This falls flat immediately, with the nameless shade spitting back, “I am greedy for the contrary; so go away and do not harass me. You flatter badly in this place” (94-96). Dante’s response to this rejection shows how much the cold of Cocytus has already hardened his own heart: he bends down, grabs him by the scruff, and starts pulling out tufts of his hair! This is unauthorized coercion by torture, an appalling crime of its own. I’m afraid that Dante, rather than learning from the mistakes of sinners whom he meets, is now becoming more and more like them! The “mirroring” that Dante does is no longer limited to his own visual reflection in the ice, but also extends to his imitation of their wicked conduct. Indeed, the example that he is now following may be something even worse: when another nearby soul reveals the name of Dante’s victim (Bocca degli Abati, a Florentine who had betrayed Dante’s faction in battle), it also asks, “What devil is tickling you?” (108).

After this telling exchange, we come across an image that is, to me, the most horrific in all of Hell. Once again, there are two frozen sinners in one icy hole, one slightly above the other. But this time, the one on top is cannibalizing the other: “Just bread is chewed by the hungry, one sinner dug his teeth into the other there where the brain is joined with the nape” (127-129). This macabre meal arouses Dante’s curiosity, so he tries a different tack than that which had just fallen flat with Bocca. Instead of offering fame to the one in exchange for telling his story, he promises to bring further infamy to the other.

That proposal is left dangling as the canto closes. We’ll discover whether the cannibal accepts it on Wednesday with Inferno Canto 33. Until then, I think I’ll probably limit myself to a vegetarian diet, at least until the nausea subsides.

Yours on the journey,

Joshua

“The Second Coming” by William Butler Yeats (1919)

Turning and turning in the widening gyre
The falcon cannot hear the falconer;
Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,
The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere
The ceremony of innocence is drowned;
The best lack all conviction, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity.

Surely some revelation is at hand;
Surely the Second Coming is at hand.
The Second Coming! Hardly are those words out
When a vast image out of Spiritus Mundi
Troubles my sight: somewhere in sands of the desert
A shape with lion body and the head of a man,
A gaze blank and pitiless as the sun,
Is moving its slow thighs, while all about it
Reel shadows of the indignant desert birds.
The darkness drops again; but now I know
That twenty centuries of stony sleep
Were vexed to nightmare by a rocking cradle,
And what rough beast, its hour come round at last,
Slouches towards Bethlehem to be born?