e they may be oftener surprises than
infidelities.

To make known the nature of the particular sin he depicts Dante shows us
the evil in various phases. First of all it is personified in repulsive
demons, the guardians of the circles of Hell. At the very entrance,
sits, symbolizing the evil conscience, the sinners' judge "Minos
horrific and grins. The ill-born spirit comes before him, confesses all
and that sin-discerner (Minos) sees what place in Hell is for it, and
with his tail makes as many circles round himself as the degrees he will
have it descend." (Inf., V, 2.) In the circle of Gluttony, the sin is
symbolized by the three-headed monster Cerberus, "who clutches the
spirits, flays and piecemeal rends them."

Plutus, the ancient god of riches--"a cursed wolf"--commands the circle
of Avarice. Phlegyas, who in fury set fire to Apollo's temple, is head
of the circle of Anger. Symbolizing remorse, the three Furies, in the
semblance of women girt with green water snakes, with snakes for hair,
and the Gorgon Medusa, representing the heart-hardening effect of
sensual pleasures, are found on the fire-glowing towers of the City of
Dis, Inner Hell. In the seventh circle presides Minotaur, half-man,
half-bull, the symbol of bloodthirsty violence and brutal lust.

Fraud is typified by Geryon, having the face of an honest man and the
body of a dragon. Further down giants are seen, emblematic of the
enormity of crime. At the very lowest point of Hell is Lucifer, "emperor
of the Realm of Sorrow." A gigantic monster, he is imprisoned in ice
formed from rivers which freeze by the movements of his bat-like wings
flapping in vain efforts to raise himself. To him, as to the source of
all evil, flow back all the streams of guilt. As he sinned against the
Tri-une God, he is represented with three faces, one crimson, another
between white and yellow, and the third black. (XXXIV, 55.)

Not only by such terrible monsters, but by the environment of the
condemned sinner, does our poet reveal the hideousness of sin. To
mention only the three great divisions of Hell, the abodes of
incontinence, bestiality and malice, we find in murky gloom the
incontinent whose sin had darkened their understanding. In the City of
Dis, red with fire, are the violent and the bestial, who in this life
had burned either with consuming rage or unnatural passion; in the
frozen circle of malice are those whose sins had congealed human
sympathy and love into cold