Ancient World

Episode 44 - The Well of the Giants. Dante is almost at the center of the Inferno, and meets the Greek Titans.


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After seeing the "falsifiers" in the last part of Circle 8, Dante encounters the Well of Giants, where biblical and Greek Mythological figures are bound with chains. They represent the betrayal and the combination of strength, intellect and evil will.


Dante reflects:

for when the faculty of intellect
is joined with brute force and with evil will,
no man can win against such an alliance.

Verse 55-57, Canto XXXI

The end of this canto ends with Dante and Virgil being lifted down to a lake of ice, and the 9th circle of Hell. Deep in the pit.

Here is the giant Antaeus bending down, and then rising up again afterwards, like a ship's mast:

As the Garisenda looks from underneath
its leaning side, at the moment when a cloud
comes drifting over against the tower's slant,

just so the bending giant Antaeus seemed
as I looked up, expecting him to topple.
I wished then I had gone another way.

But he, most carefully, handed us down
to the pit that swallows Lucifer with Judas.
And then, the leaning giant immediately

drew himself up as tall as a ship's mast.

Canto XXXI, verse 130-145



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Ancient WorldBy Richard Emerson

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