Friday, October 1, 2010

Summer Reading: Inferno (canto 34)

At the lowest pit, Judecca, the damned lie frozen under the ice. And in the darkness, iced up to his chest & still towering overhead, stands Satan. The most grotesque monster in Inferno, he's got three weeping faces above three sets of bat-wings. His chin drools blood because he's eternally chomping on three arch-betrayers: Judas, Brutus & Cassius (aha! a clue to Dante's politics). Dante & Virgil climb down Satan's pelt to the Earth's center (at Satan's groin), flip around, & climb up the shanks! Suddenly, it's morning, not evening! We're out, under a dawning sky—welcome to Purgatory.

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