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In ''Dante’s Inferno'', Satan is portrayed as a giant demon, frozen mid-breast in ice at the center of Hell. Satan has three faces and a pair of bat-like wings affixed under each chin. As Satan beats his wings, he creates a cold wind which continues to freeze the ice surrounding him, and the other sinners in the Ninth Circle. The winds he creates are felt throughout the other circles of Hell. Each of his three mouths chews on Judas, Brutus, and Cassius. Scholars consider Satan to be “a once splendid being (indeed the most perfect of God’s creatures) from whom all personality has now drained away.” 〔Jacoff, pg. 143〕 Satan, also known as Lucifer, was formerly the Angel of Light and once tried to usurp the power of God. As punishment, God banishes Satan out of Heaven to an eternity in Hell as the ultimate sinner. Dante illustrates a less powerful Satan than most standard depictions; he is slobbering, wordless, and receives the same punishments in Hell as the rest of the sinners. In the text, Dante vividly illustrates Satan’s grotesque physical attributes. :The Emperor of the kingdom dolorous / From his mid-breast forth issued from the ice; /And better with a giant I compare / Than do the giants with those arms of his; / Consider now how great must be that whole, / Which unto such a part conforms itself. / Were he as fair once, as he now is foul, / And lifted up his brow against his Maker, / Well may proceed from him all tribulation. / O, what a marvel it appeared to me, / When I beheld three faces on his head! / The one in front, and that vermilion was;〔Dante 〕 ==Description of the Ninth Circle== Dante’s Hell is divided into nine circles, the ninth circle being divided further into four rings, their boundaries only marked by the depth of their sinners' immersion in the ice; Satan sits in the last ring, Judecca. It is in the fourth ring of the ninth circle where the worst sinners, the betrayers to their benefactors, are punished. Here, these condemned souls, frozen into the ice, are completely unable to move or speak and contorted into all sorts of fantastical shapes as a part of their punishment. Unlike many other circles of Dante’s Hell, these sinners remain unnamed. Even Dante is afraid to enter this last circle, as he nervously proclaimed, "I drew behind my leader’s back again.” Uncharacteristically of Dante, he remains silent in Satan’s presence. Dante examines the sinners who are “covered wholly by ice, / showing like straw in glass- some lying prone, / and some erect, some with the head towards us, / the others with the bottoms of the feet; another like a bow bent feet to face.” This circle of Hell is a complete separation from any life and for Dante, “the deepest isolation is to suffer separation from the source of all light and life and warmth.” 〔 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Dante's Satan」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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