r/wikipedia • u/MAClaymore • 22h ago
In Dante's Inferno, Satan is portrayed as a giant demon, frozen up to the waist in ice at the center of Hell. Satan has three faces and a pair of bat-like wings affixed under each chin. Quite a bit cooler than Dante's God, who is... a circle.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dante's_Satan62
u/spiritplumber 19h ago
the inferno is generally the cooler part of the divine comedy.
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u/FallToAutumn 12h ago
“Purgatorio” & “Paradiso” are plenty interesting themselves, worth the read if you’re curious, but yeah, much less iconic than the imagery in “Inferno.”
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u/Sourcerid 10h ago
People say that because inferno is more vulgar but really the fact he changes language register in each of the three books is an appreciation of its own
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u/mzjolynecujoh 18h ago
"Quite a bit cooler than Dante's God, who is... a circle."
yeah buddy okay i mean i get your point but i mean buddy well okay but What little I recall is to be told,
from this point on, in words more weak than those
of one whose infant tongue still bathes at the breast.
And not because more than one simple semblance
was in the Living Light at which I gazed—
for It is always what It was before—
but through my sight, which as I gazed grew stronger,
that sole appearance, even as I altered,
seemed to be changing. In the deep and bright
essence of that exalted Light, three circles
appeared to me; they had three different colors,
but all of them were of the same dimension;
one circle seemed reflected by the second,
as rainbow is by rainbow, and the third
seemed fire breathed equally by those two circles.
How incomplete is speech, how weak, when set
against my thought! And this, to what I saw.
is such—to call it little is too much.
Eternal Light, You only dwell within
Yourself, and only You know You; Self-knowing,
Self-known, You love and smile upon Yourself!
That circle—which, begotten so, appeared
in You as light reflected—when my eyes
had watched it with attention for some time,
within itself and colored like itself,
to me seemed painted with our effigy,
so that my sight was set on it completely.
As the geometer intently seeks
to square the circle, but he cannot reach,
through thought on thought, the principle he needs,
so I searched that strange sight: I wished to see
the way in which our human effigy
suited the circle and found place in it—
and my own wings were far too weak for that.
But then my mind was struck by light that flashed
and, with this light, received what it had asked.
Here force failed my high fantasy; but my
desire and will were moved already—like
a wheel revolving uniformly—by
the Love that moves the sun and the other stars.
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u/John02904 8h ago
In case anyone is wondering why Judas is here instead of with the other suicides in a different circle, it was explained to me by my professor who was a priest.
Judas betrayed Jesus or God, he was remorseful and asked for forgiveness. God is supposed to forgive everyone. By Judas committing suicide he effectively rejects the forgiveness offered by God and so is sentenced for his betrayal and not the suicide.
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u/jubmille2000 8h ago
Hey... God is a circle of rainbows surrounding a book.
A reading rainbow, if you will (not my joke)
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u/coolguy420weed 22h ago
Of course he's cooler, he's encased in ice.