TERRAMORTIS (THE BAND) Resurrected from Hell

TERRAMORTIS

OLD SCHOOL DEATH METAL

Terramortis are:

Dave Smit (ETERNAL SCAPEGOAT) Oskar "Terramortis" (THE BIZARRE BLUE SPECTRE) Max Steidl (ex- BLASFEMIA)

DEATH

Death is the cessation of the biological functions which define living organisms. Numerous factors can cause death: predation, disease, habitat destruction, senescence, conflict, malnutrition, for example, or mere accidents resulting in terminal physical injury. Principal cause of death in people in developed countries is disease precipitated by aging. The chief concern of medicine has been to postpone and avert death. Precise medical definition of death, however, becomes more problematical, paradoxically, as scientific knowledge and technology advance.

MISDIAGNOSED DEATH

There are many anecdotal references to people being declared dead by physicians and then 'coming back to life', sometimes days later in their own coffin, or when embalming procedures are just about to begin. Owing to significant scientific advancements in the Victorian era, some people in Britain became obsessively worried about living after being declared dead.

A first responder is not authorized to pronounce a patient dead. Some EMT training manuals specifically state that a person is not to be assumed dead unless there are clear and obvious indications that death has occurred. These indications include mortal decapitation, rigor mortis (rigidity of the body), livor mortis (blood pooling in the part of the body at lowest elevation), decomposition, incineration, or other bodily damage that is clearly inconsistent with life. If there is any possibility of life and in the absence of a do not resuscitate (DNR) order, emergency workers are instructed to begin resuscitation and not end it until a patient has been brought to a hospital to be examined by a physician. This frequently leads to situation of a patient being pronounced dead on arrival (DOA). However, some states allow paramedics to pronounce death. This is usually based on specific criteria. Aside from the above mentioned, conditions include advanced measures including CPR, intubation, IV access, and administering medicines without regaining a pulse for at least 20 minutes.

In cases of electric shock, CPR for an hour or longer can allow stunned nerves to recover, allowing an apparently dead person to survive. People found unconscious under icy water may survive if their faces are kept continuously cold until they arrive at an emergency room. This "diving response", in which metabolic activity and oxygen requirements are minimal, is something humans share with cetaceans called the mammalian diving reflex.

As medical technologies advance, ideas about when death occurs may have to be re-evaluated in light of the ability to restore a person to vitality after longer periods of apparent death (as happened when CPR and defibrillation showed that cessation of heartbeat is inadequate as a decisive indicator of death). The lack of electrical brain activity may not be enough to consider someone scientifically dead. Therefore, the concept of information theoretical death has been suggested as a better means of defining when true death actually occurs, though the concept has few practical applications outside of the field of cryonics.

There have been some scientific attempts to bring dead organisms back to life, but with limited success. In science fiction scenarios where such technology is readily available, real death is distinguished from reversible death.

DEMONIC POSSESSION

Demonic possession is often the term used to describe the control over a human form by the Devil himself or one of his assigned advocates. Descriptions of demonic possessions often include: erased memories or personalities, convulsions, fits and fainting as if one were dying. Unlike in channelling or other benign forms of possession, the subject has no control over the possessing entity and so it will persist until forced to leave the victim, usually through a form of exorcism. Many cultures and religions contain some concept of demonic possession, but the details vary considerably. Some cultures, in particular the Roma people believe that demons can also possess animals, plants, deceased persons or inanimate objects.

The oldest references to demonic possession are from the Sumerians, who believed that all diseases of the body and mind were caused by sickness demons called gidim or gid-dim . The priests who practiced exorcisms in these nations were called ashipu (sorcerer) as opposed to an asu (physician) who applied bandages and salves. Many cuneiform tablets contain prayers to certain gods asking for protection from demons, while others ask the gods to expel the demons that have invaded their bodies.

Most illustrations portray these spirits as small, gruesome characters with inhuman distinctiveness. Often referenced as a witchs familiars demons and other evil-spirits employed by witches are also displayed as societys cast-offs or those beings incapable of caring for themselves thus seeking refuge with a witch. Witches would provide shelter and nourishment via the witchs teat in exchange for the valuable services of the familiars in addition to spells, potions and other attempts by a witch to case evil or maleficium over another.

Nevertheless there are no descriptions of specific punishments against possessed persons as it happened later many times in Christian societies. Shamanic cultures also believe in demon possession and shamans perform exorcisms too; in these cultures often diseases are attributed to the presence of an evil spirit or demon in the body of the patient.

Demon possession became a plague among Christians; exorcisms and executions were performed on persons allegedly possessed; many mentally ill people were accused of being demon-possessed and were killed. The Malleus Maleficarum speaks about some exorcisms that can be done in different cases. In Christianity, animals were also believed to be able of being possessed; during the Middle Ages, hundreds of cats, goats, and other animals were slain because of the idea that they were either an incarnation of a demon or possessed by one.

ASURAS

Originally, the word Asura in the earliest hymns of the Rig Veda (the holy book of the Indo-Aryans) meant any supernatural spirit good or bad. Hence even some of the devas (demigods), especially Varuna, have the epithet of Asura. In fact, since the /s/ of the Indic linguistic branch is cognate with the /h/ of the Early Iranian languages, the word Asura, representing a category of celestial beings, became the word Ahura (Mazda), the Supreme God of the monotheistic Zoroastrians. But very soon, among the Indo-Aryans, Asura came to exclusively mean any of a race of anthropomorphic but hideous demons. All words such as Asura, Daitya (lit., sons of the demon-mother Diti), Rakshasa (lit. from harm to be guarded against) are translated into English as demon. These demons are inherently evil and are in a constant battle against the demigods. Hence in Hindu iconography, the gods / demigods are shown to carry weapons to kill the asuras. Unlike Christianity, the demons are not the cause of the evil and unhappiness in present mankind (which occurs on the account of ignorance from recognizing one's true self). In later Puranic mythology, exceptions do occur in the demonic race to produce god-fearing Asuras like Prahalada. Also, many Asuras are said to have been granted boons from one of the members of the Hindu trinity, viz., Brahma, Vishnu and Shiva when the latter had been appeased from penances. All Asuras, unlike the devas, are said to be mortals (though they vehemently wish to become immortal). Many people metaphorically interpret these demons as manifestations of the ignoble passions in human mind.

XIBALBA

In Maya mythology Xibalba , roughly translated as Place of fear, is the name of the underworld, ruled by Mayan spirits of disease and death. In the 16th-century Verapaz, the entrance to Xibalba was traditionally held to be a cave in the vicinity of Copán, Guatemala. To some of the Quiché descendants of the Maya people living in the vicinity, the area is still associated with death. Cave systems in nearby Belize have also been referred to as the entrance to Xibalba. Another physical incarnation of the road to Xibalba as viewed by the Quiché peoples is the dark rift which is visible in the Milky

Way.Xibalba is described in the Popol Vuh as a court below the surface of the Earth. It is unclear if the inhabitants of Xibalba are the souls of the deceased or a separate race of beings worshipping death, but they are often depicted as being human-like in form. The place Xibalba was associated with death and was ruled by twelve gods or powerful rulers known as the Lords of Xibalba. The first among the Lords of Xibalba were One Death and Seven Death. The remaining ten Lords are often referred to as demons and are given commission and domain over various forms of human suffering: to cause sickness, starvation, fear, destitution, pain, and ultimately death. The remaining residents of Xibalba are thought to have fallen under the dominion of one of these Lords, going about the face of the Earth to carry out their listed duties.

Xibalba was a large place and a number of individual structures or locations within Xibalba are described or mentioned in the Popol Vuh. Chief among these was the council place of the Lords, the five or six houses that served as the first tests of Xibalba, and the Xibalban ballcourt. Also mentioned are the homes of the Lords, gardens, and other structures indicating that Xibalba was at least a great city.

Xibalba seemed to be rife with tests, trials and traps for anyone who came into the city. Even the Road to Xibalba was filled with obstacles: first a river filled with scorpions, a river filled with blood, and then a river filled with pus. Beyond these was a crossroads where travellers had to choose from between four roads that spoke in an attempt to confuse and beguile. Upon passing these obstacles one would come upon the Xibalban council place, where it was expected visitors would greet the seated Lords. Realistic mannequins were seated near the Lords to confuse and humiliate people who greeted them, and the confused would then be invited to sit upon a bench, which was actually a hot cooking surface. The Lords of Xibalba would entertain themselves by humiliating people in this fashion before sending them into one of Xibalba's deadly tests.

The city was home to at least six deadly houses filled with trials for visitors. The first was Dark House, a house that was completely dark inside. The second was Rattling House or Cold House, full of bone-chilling cold and rattling hail. The third was Jaguar House, filled with hungry jaguars. The fourth was Bat House, filled with dangerous shrieking bats, and the fifth was Razor House, filled with blades and razors that moved about of their own accord. In another part of the Popol Vuh, a sixth test, Hot House, filled with fires and heat, is identified. The purpose of these tests was to either kill or humiliate people placed into them if they could not outwit the test.

SIHUANABA

Sihuanaba, sometimes referred to as La Siguanaba, is a legendary character of Salvadoran, Hondurian folklore.

The legend of Sihuanaba says that the woman, originally called Sihuehuet (beautiful woman), was a peasant girl that ascended to queen using her charms (and a witch's brew) to lure into marriage to Tlalocs son, Yeisun, who was a nahuatl prince. After marriage, when his husband went to war, she had affairs with other men, and Cipito was the child of this relationship. Sihuehuet was a bad mother, neglecting her son, leaving him alone to meet her lovers. To inherit the throne she concocted a plot: Use another witch potion to poison Yeisun during a festival, and so, claim the throne for her lover. But the plan worked too well. Yeisun was converted in a savage giant monster with two heads, who ravaged the attendants to the palace's feast. The guard struggled and defeated the creature, ending Yeisun's life. When Tlaloc found out about this, he sought the help of the almighty god, Teotl whom condemned and cursed Sihuehuet: She would be called Sihuanaba (hideous woman); she would be beautiful at first sight, but she would turn into a horrible abomination after luring her victims to isolated gorges. She was forced to wander the countryside, appearing to men who travelled alone at night. She is supposed to be seen at night in the rivers of El Salvador,Honduras washing clothes and always looking for her son, Cipitio, who was also cursed by Teotl to remain a boy for eternity.

The Siguanaba appear in two ways: When encountered, she is a beautiful woman naked (or dressed in flimsy white) that usually appears doing her laundry in the river, or near lonely paths. She likes to lure single men and men looking for nocturnal adventures, without letting them see her face at first. Then, she shows her real self: An horrible crone with long lice-ridden hair, black taloned hands, greenish o grayish wrinkled skin, an elongated jaw with yellowish tusk, and big waist-long hanging breast (that she uses to smash on rocks to produce an unnerving sound). After that, the victims is temporarily addle-minded (jugado) and she looses him in the gorges. The victims recover, but the ordeal leaves them some sequels: Wracking fevers, scratches in the armas, and hair filled with big black lice.There is a story that happened in the suburb of Ojo de Agua. Near the path of Pila Seca a man was walking when he noticed that in the San Francisco Tank there was a woman with long, black, beautiful hair and white dress that was taking a bath. The man said: Hey, pretty, wouldn't you like me to bathe you? At that moment, the woman stop bathing and without showing her face started calling him. Flattered, the lover followed her. They walked for many blocks, always trying to reach her but without success, and when he noticed they had reached the cemetery. Inside, the woman approached him and taking him aside she turned around. At that moment he saw her face looked like the face of a horse. She hurled over him trying to grab him so that she could bury his body in the gorges.

After fighting for a few minutes, he remembered he was wearing a small medal on his neck. He put it in his mouth, bite it and prayed. When she saw it she threw herself to the gorge. At that moment he understood that this woman was the Siguanaba. He ran back to his house really scared. The next day he noticed his face and arms were scratched. His family tried to heal his wounds, but they never healed.

PAZUZU

In Assyrian and Babylonian mythology, Pazuzu was the king of the demons of the wind, and son of the god Hanbi. He also represented the southwestern wind, the bearer of storms and drought. Pazuzu is often depicted as a combination of animal and human parts. He has the body of a man, the head of a lion or dog, eagle-like taloned feet, two pairs of wings, a scorpion's tail, and a serpentine penis. He is often depicted with his right hand pointing upward and his left hand downward. Pazuzu is the god of the southwest wind known for bringing droughts and famine during dry seasons, and locusts during rainy seasons. Recent research suggests Pazuzu may have been associated with a cold, northeasterly wind. Pazuzu was said to be invoked in amulets which combat the powers of the malicious goddess, and hated rival, Lamashtu, who was believed to cause harm to mother and child during childbirth. Although Pazuzu is, himself, an evil spirit, he drives away other evil spirits, thus protecting humans against plagues and misfortunes.

TETRODOXITIN a.k.a ZOMBINOL

Tetrodotoxin (anhydrotetrodotoxin 4-epitetrodotoxin, tetrodonic acid, TTX) is a potent neurotoxin with no known antidote, which blocks action potentials in nerves by binding to the pores of the voltage-gated, fast sodium channels in nerve cell membranes. The binding site of this toxin is located at the pore opening of the voltage-gated Na+ channel. Its name derives from Tetraodontiformes, the name of the order that includes the pufferfish, porcupinefish, ocean sunfish or mola, and triggerfish, several species of which carry the toxin. Although tetrodotoxin was discovered in these fish and found in several other animals (e.g., Blue-ringed Octopus, Rough-skinned newt), it is actually the product of certain bacteria such as Pseudoalteromonas tetraodonis, certain species of Pseudomonas and Vibrio, as well as some others.Its mechanism was discovered in the early 1960s by Toshio Narahashi working at Duke University.

NINE CIRCLES OF HELL

Virgil guides Dante through the nine circles of Hell. The circles are concentric, representing a gradual increase in wickedness, and culminating at the center of the earth, where Satan is held in bondage. Each circles sinners are punished in a fashion fitting their crimes: each sinner is afflicted for all of eternity by the chief sin he committed. People who sinned but prayed for forgiveness before their deaths are found in Purgatory -- where they labor to be free of their sins -- not in Hell. Those in Hell are people who tried to justify their sins and are unrepentant. Furthermore, those in hell have knowledge of the past and future, but not of the present. This is a joke on them in Dante's mind because after the Final Judgment, time ends; those in Hell would then know nothing. The nine circles are:

First Circle (Limbo) Here reside the unbaptized and the virtuous pagans, who, though not sinful, did not accept Christ. Here also reside those who, if they lived before the coming of Christ, did not pay fitting homage to their respective deity. They are not punished in an active sense, but rather grieve only their separation from God, without hope of reconciliation. The chief irony in this circle is that Limbo shares many characteristics with Elysian Fields; thus the guiltless damned are punished by living in a deficient form of Heaven. Without baptism (the portal of faith,Canto IV, l.36) they lacked the hope for something greater than rational minds can conceive. Limbo includes green fields and a castle, the dwelling place of the wisest men of antiquity, including Virgil himself, as well as the Islamic philosophers Averroes and Avicenna. In the castle Dante meets the poets Homer, Horace, Ovid, and Lucan and the philosophers Socrates and Plato. Interestingly, he also sees Saladin in Limbo. (Canto IV) Dante implies that all virtuous pagans find themselves here, although he later encounters two in heaven and one (Cato of Utica) in Purgatory.

Beyond the first circle, all of those condemned for active, deliberately willed sin are judged by Minos, who sentences each soul to one of the lower eight circles by wrapping his tail around himself a corresponding number of times. The lower circles are structured according to the classical (Aristotelian) conception of virtue and vice, so that they are grouped into the sins of incontinence, violence, and fraud (which for many commentators are represented by the leopard, lion, and she-wolf). The sins of incontinence &8212; weakness in controlling one's desires and natural urges &8212; are the mildest among them, and, correspondingly, appear first:

Second Circle Those overcome by lust are punished in this circle. They are the first ones to be truly punished in Hell. These souls are blown about to and fro by a violent storm, without hope of rest. This symbolizes the power of lust to blow one about needlessly and aimlessly. Francesca da Rimini informs Dante of how she and her husband's brother Paolo committed adultery and died a violent death at the hands of her husband. (Canto V)

Third Circle Cerberus guards the gluttons, forced to lie in a vile slush made by freezing rain, black snow, and hail. This symbolizes the garbage that the gluttons made of their lives on earth, slavering over food. Dante converses with a Florentine contemporary identified as Ciacco (Hog - probably a nickname) regarding strife in Florence and the fate of prominent Florentines. (Canto VI)

Fourth Circle Those whose concern for material goods deviated from the desired mean are punished in this circle. They include the avaricious or miserly, who hoarded possessions, and the prodigal, who squandered them. Guarded by Plutus (whom Dante almost certainly conflated with Pluto), each group pushes a great weight against the heavy weight of the other group. After the weights crash together the process starts over again. (In Gustave Doré's illustrations for this scene, the damned push huge money bags.) (Canto VII)

Fifth Circle In the swamp-like water of the river Styx, the wrathful fight each other on the surface, and the sullen or slothful lie gurgling beneath the water. Phlegyas reluctantly transports Dante and Virgil across the Styx in his skiff. On the way they are accosted by Filippo Argenti, a Black Guelph from a prominent family. (Cantos VII and VIII)

Lower Hell, inside the walls of Dis, in an illustration by Stradanus. There is a drop from the sixth circle to the three rings of the seventh circle, then again to the ten rings of the eighth circle, and, at the bottom, to the icy ninth circle.The lower parts of hell are contained within the walls of the city of Dis, which is itself surrounded by the Stygian marsh. Punished within Dis are active (rather than passive) sins. The walls of Dis are guarded by fallen angels. Virgil is unable to convince them to let Dante and him enter, and the Furies and Medusa threaten Dante. An angel sent from Heaven secures entry for the poets. (Cantos VIII and IX)

Sixth Circle Heretics are trapped in flaming tombs. Dante holds discourse with a pair of Florentines in one of the tombs: Farinata degli Uberti, a Ghibelline; and Cavalcante de' Cavalcanti, a Guelph who was the father of Dante's friend and fellow poet Guido Cavalcanti (Cantos X and XI). The followers of Epicurus are also located here (Canto X).

Seventh Circle

This circle houses the violent. Its entry is guarded by the Minotaur, and it is divided into three rings:

Outer ring : housing the violent against people and property, who are immersed in Phlegethon, a river of boiling blood, to a level commensurate with their sins. The Centaurs, commanded by Chiron, patrol the ring, firing arrows into those trying to escape. The centaur Nessus guides the poets along Phlegethon and across a ford in the river. (Canto XII)

Middle ring: In this ring are the suicides, who are transformed into gnarled thorny bushes and trees. They are torn at by the Harpies. Unique among the dead, the suicides will not be bodily resurrected after the final judgment, having given their bodies away through suicide. Instead they will maintain their bushy form, with their own corpses hanging from the limbs. Dante breaks a twig off one of the bushes and hears the tale of Pier delle Vigne, who committed suicide after falling out of favor with Emperor Frederick II. The other residents of this ring are the profligates, who destroyed their lives by destroying the means by which life is sustained (i.e. money and property). They are perpetually chased by ferocious dogs through the thorny undergrowth. (Canto XIII) The trees are a metaphor; in life the only way of the relief of suffering was through pain (i.e. suicide) and in Hell, the only form of relief of the suffering is through pain (breaking of the limbs to bleed).

Inner ring: The violent against God (blasphemers), the violent against nature (sodomites), and the violent against art (usurers), all reside in a desert of flaming sand with fiery flakes raining from the sky. The blasphemers lie on the sand, the usurers sit, and the sodomites wander about in groups. Dante converses with two Florentine sodomites from different groups. One of them is Dante's mentor, Brunetto Latini. Dante is very surprised and touched by this encounter and shows Brunetto great respect for what he has taught him. The other is Iacopo Rusticucci, a politician. (Cantos XIV through XVI) Those punished here for usury include Florentines Catello di Rosso Gianfigliazzi, Ciappo Ubriachi, and Giovanni di Buiamonte, and Paduans Reginaldo degli Scrovegni and Vitaliano di Iacopo Vitaliani.

Eighth Circle The last two circles of Hell punish sins that involve conscious fraud or treachery. The circles can be reached only by descending a vast cliff, which Dante and Virgil do on the back of Geryon, a winged monster represented by Dante as having the face of an honest man and a body that ends in a scorpion-like stinger. (Canto XVII)

The fraudulent those guilty of deliberate, knowing evil are located in a circle named Malebolge (Evil Pockets), divided into ten bolgie, or ditches of stone, with bridges spanning the ditches:

Bolgia 1: Panderers (pimps) and seducers march in separate lines in opposite directions, whipped by demons. Just as they misled others in life, they are driven to march by demons for all eternity. In the group of panderers the poets notice Venedico Caccianemico, who sold his own sister to the Marchese d'Este, and in the group of seducers Virgil points out Jason. (Canto XVIII)

Bolgia 2: Flatterers are steeped in human excrement. This is because their flatteries on earth were nothing but a load of crap. (Canto XVIII)

Bolgia 3: Those who committed simony are placed head-first in holes in the rock, with flames burning on the soles of their feet (resembling an inverted baptism). One of them, Pope Nicholas III, denounces as simonists two of his successors, Pope Boniface VIII and Pope Clement V. (Canto XIX)

Bolgia 4: Sorcerers and false prophets have their heads twisted around on their bodies backward. In addition, they cry so many tears that they cannot see. This is symbollic because these people tried to see into the future by forbidden means; thus in Hell they can only see what is behind them and cannot see forward. (Canto XX)

Bolgia 5: Corrupt politicians (barrators) are immersed in a lake of boiling pitch, which represents the sticky fingers and dark secrets of their corrupt deals. They are guarded by devils called the Malebranche (Evil Claws). Their leader, Malacoda (Evil Tail), assigns a troop to escort Virgil and Dante to the next bridge. The troop hook and torment one of the sinners (identified by early commentators as Ciampolo), who names some Italian grafters and then tricks the Malebranche in order to escape back into the pitch. (Cantos XXI through XXIII)

Bolgia 6: The bridge over this bolgia is broken: the poets climb down into it and find the Hypocrites listlessly walking along wearing gold-gilded lead cloaks. Dante speaks with Catalano and Loderingo, members of the Jovial Friars. It is also ironic in this canto that whilst in the company of hypocrites, the poets also discover that the guardians of the fraudulent (the malebranche) are hypocrites themselves, as they find that they have lied to them, giving false directions, when at the same time they are punishing liars for similar sins. (Canto XXIII)

Bolgia 7: Thieves, guarded by the centaur (as Dante describes him) Cacus, are pursued and bitten by snakes. The snake bites make them undergo various transformations, with some resurrected after being turned to ashes, some mutating into new creatures, and still others exchanging natures with the snakes, becoming snakes themselves that chase the other thieves in turn. Just as the thieves stole other peoples substance in life, and because thievery is reptillian in its secrecy, the thieves' substance is eaten away by snakes and their bodies are constantly stolen by other thieves. (Cantos XXIV and XXV)

Bolgia 8: Fraudulent advisors are encased in individual flames. Dante includes Ulysses and Diomedes together here for their role in the Trojan War. Ulysses tells the tale of his fatal final voyage (an invention of Dantes), where he left his home and family to sail to the end of the Earth. He equated life as a pursuit of knowledge that humanity can attain through effort, and in his search God sank his ship outside of Mount Purgatory. This symbolizes the inability of the individual to carve out one's own salvation. Instead, one must be totally subservient to the will of God and realize the inability of one to be a God unto oneself. Guido da Montefeltro recounts how his advice to Pope Boniface VIII resulted in his damnation, despite Boniface's promise of absolution. (Cantos XXVI and XXVII)

Bolgia 9: A sword-wielding demon hacks at the sowers of discord. As they make their rounds the wounds heal, only to have the demon tear apart their bodies again. How mutilated, see, is Mahomet; In front of me doth Ali weeping go, Cleft in the face from forelock unto chin; And all the others whom thou here beholdest, Disseminators of scandal and of schism. While living were, and therefore are cleft thus. Muhammad tells Dante to warn the schismatic and heretic Fra Dolcino (Cantos XXVIII and XXIX). Interestingly enough, Dante views both Muhammad and Ali as schismatic Christians, blaming the former for conflict between Christian and Muslim, and the second for conflict between Sunni and Shiite.

Bolgia 10: Here various sorts of falsifiers (alchemists, counterfeiters, perjurers, and impersonators), who are a disease on society, are themselves afflicted with different types of diseases (Cantos XXIX and XXX). Potiphar's wife is briefly mentioned here for her false accusation of Joseph. In the notes on her translation, Dorothy L. Sayers remarks that Malebolge "began with the sale of the sexual relationship, and went on to the sale of Church and State; now, the very money is itself corrupted, every affirmation has become perjury, and every identity a lie; no medium of exchange remains.

Ninth Circle The Ninth Circle is ringed by classical and Biblical giants. The giants are standing either on, or on a ledge above, the ninth circle of Hell, and are visible from the waist up at the ninth circle of the Malebolge. The giant Antaeus lowers Dante and Virgil into the pit that forms the ninth circle of Hell. (Canto XXXI) Traitors, distinguished from the merely fraudulent in that their acts involve betraying one in a special relationship to the betrayer, are frozen in a lake of ice known as Cocytus. Each group of traitors is encased in ice to a different depth, ranging from only the waist down to complete immersion. The circle is divided into four concentric zones:

Zone 1: Caïna, named for Cain, is home to traitors to their kindred. The souls here are immersed in the ice up to their necks. (Canto XXXII)

Zone 2: Antenora is named for Antenor of Troy, who according to medieval tradition betrayed his city to the Greeks. Traitors to political entities, such as party, city, or country, are located here. Count Ugolino pauses from gnawing on the head of his rival Archbishop Ruggieri to describe how Ruggieri imprisoned and starved him and his children. The souls here are immersed at almost the same level as those in Caïna, except they are unable to bend their necks. (Cantos XXXII and XXXIII)

Zone 3: Ptolomæa is probably named for Ptolemy, the captain of Jericho, who invited Simon Maccabaeus and his sons to a banquet and then killed them. Traitors to their guests are punished here. Fra Alberigo explains that sometimes a soul falls here before the time that Atropos (the Fate who cuts the thread of life) should send it. Their bodies on Earth are immediately possessed by a fiend. The souls here are immersed so much that only half of their faces are visible. As they cry, their tears freeze and seal their eyes shut- they are denied even the comfort of tears. (Canto XXXIII)

Zone 4: Judecca, named for Judas the Iscariot, Biblical betrayer of Christ, is for traitors to their lords and benefactors. All of the sinners punished within are completely encapsulated in ice, distorted to all conceivable positions.

Dante and Virgil, with no one to talk to, quickly move on to the center of hell. Condemned to the very center of hell for committing the ultimate sin (treachery against God) is Satan, who has three faces, one red, one black, and one a pale yellow, each having a mouth that chews on a prominent traitor. Satan himself is represented as a giant, terrifying beast, weeping tears from his six eyes, which mix with the traitors' blood sickeningly. He is waist deep in ice, and beats his six wings as if trying to escape, but the icy wind that emanates only further ensures his imprisonment (as well as that of the others in the ring). The sinners in the mouths of Satan are Brutus and Cassius in the left and right mouths, respectively, who were involved in the assassination of Julius Caesar (an act which, to Dante, represented the destruction of a unified Italy), and Judas Iscariot (the namesake of this zone) in the central, most vicious mouth, who betrayed Jesus. Judas is being administered the most horrifying torture of the three traitors, his head in the mouth of Lucifer, and his back being forever skinned by the claws of Lucifer. (Canto XXXIV) What is seen here is a perverted trinity. Satan is impotent, ignorant, and evil while God can be attributed as the opposite: all powerful, all knowing, and good. The two poets escape by climbing down the ragged fur of Lucifer, passing through the center of the earth, emerging in the other hemisphere just before dawn on Easter Sunday beneath a sky studded with stars.