The Devil (Dante's Divine Comedy)



Satan (or Dis) is the main antagonist of Divine Comedy, though he does not make and appearance until The Inferno.

The Inferno
In The Inferno, Satan is trapped in Cocytus, the ninth and final circle of Hell; the circle reserved for the treacherous and traitorous. He was one the highest of all angels until he became inflamed by hie ego and superiority towards the other angels and was bansihed into Hell by God for it. He would later manipulate humans and other angels into going against God. He would trap his followers in the Inferno where the murders drown in the fiery blood of their own victims, and others were forced to eat their own children.

He is depicted with three heads, in a mockery of the Holy Trinity (God, Jesus, and the Holy Spirit), and each head is chewing on a dead soul. Within Satan's left and right mouths feet-first are Brutus and Cassius, the murderers of Roman dictator Julius Caesar. In the middle mouth head-first is Judas Iscariot, former Apostle and betrayer of Jesus Christ. He suffers the worst torment of all, having his head chewed and back raked by Satan's claws for all eternity.

Satan himself is trapped waist-deep in a sheet of ice. His wings beat in an eternal struggle to escape his frigid prison, yet the winds that his wings create only ensures that he is trapped further along with every other soul in Cocytus. Vergil and Dante escape Cocytus by climbing down Satan's fur through the center of the world, and reemerging at the mount of Purgatory.