Fire and Ice

"Fire and Ice"

Some say the world will end in fire,
Some say in ice.
From what I've tasted of desire
I hold with those who favor fire.
But if it had to perish twice,
I think I know enough of hate
To say that for destruction ice
Is also great
and would suffice.

-Robert Frost

Robert Frost's poem states that both fire and ice are great forces, and that either could end the world though he would prefer it end in fire. He, like Dante, believes that ice is symbolic of hate. In Dante's Inferno, the ninth circle of Cocytus is a frozen pit with Satan in the center, unlike the other circles in which God's wrath is represented by fire. Ice is the natural opposite of fire as it is cold and relentless, like Satan. Any presence of God is an act of love, even if it is his wrath. Circle six is the first place fire is shown to exemplify God's wrath against the heretics who did not believe in the afterlife; part of the reason these souls are so heavily punished might be to reward the souls who obeyed God's laws during life by not being punished. The sinners in circle nine are so detached from God and his love and forgiveness that not even his wrath can fathom the punishment they deserve. Instead, God turns these sinners over to the ultimate evil, Satan, and his icy pit of Hell. At the beginning of Hell, there are words cut into stone that read, "Sacred justice moved my architect./I was raised here by divine omnipotence,/primordial love and ultimate intellect." It is implied that these are God's words, judging by the diction used such as "divine," "love," and "intellect." If God created Hell, it was probably an act of love to bring justice to the souls who did not live life to the fullest. Though fire is often part of the punishment, it represents God's presence in Hell. Those who did not obey God's will cannot go to Heaven or Purgatory because that would be unfair to the souls that did, so God created Hell for them. 

Whether the world will end in fire or ice is unknown, but judging by the symbolic reference Dante and Frost have given them, if the world ends in fire, God will have had enough of human disobedience and arrogance. If it ends in ice, Satan will have taken over the souls on Earth; not even God's wrath will be able to fix Satan's evil. Death in fire to me is more desirable because it is quick and destructive. Ice takes time to kill, it would be a slow and suffering punishment leading eventually to death. Satan is probably situated in ice because God's wrath cannot punish him. He is so extremely detached from his love that God's fire would do nothing to punish him. Instead, he is punished by his own evil, his very own wings freeze the lake of Cocytus in which he is stuck in. The sinners in circle nine committed crimes so terrible that they created their own fate by detaching themselves from God, therefore they cannot be in any other circle except the ninth because it is the only place where God is not present; there is only Satan and his evil situated perpetually on ice.

Jacob and Edward in the Twilight Saga represent fire and ice respectively. Jacob's skin is always hot and his heart beats, unlike Edward who is always ice cold and does not consider himself "alive."

The River

"...the marvel of the rill by which we stand,

for it stifles all the flames above its course

as if flows out across the burning sand."

So spoke my Guide across the flickering light,

and I begged him to bestow on me the food 

for which he had given me the appetite.

"In the middle of the sea, and gone to waste,

there lies a country known as Crete," he said,

"under whose king the ancient world was chaste.

Once Rhea chose it as the secret crypt

and cradle of her son' and better to hide him,

her Corybantes raised a din when he wept.

An ancient giant stands in the mountain's core.

...His head is made of gold; of silverwork

his breast and both his arms, of polished brass

the rest of his great torso to the fork

He is chosen iron from there down,

except that his right foot is terra cotta;

it is this foot he rests more weight upon.

Every part except the gold is split

...becoming Acheron, Phlegethon, and Styx.

Then by this narrow sluice they hurtle down

to the end of all descent, and disappear

into Cocytus. You shall see what sink that is

with your own eyes. I pass it in silence here."

(Dante 114).

In Dante's version of Hell, there are three rivers: Acheron bridges the gap between the Vestibule and Circle One, Styx is the muddy swamp that makes up Circle Five, and Phlegethon is a river of boiling blood in which first circle of sinners in Circle Seven are punished. The rivers of Hell are one giant symbol representing the Golden Age of Innocence, a time when people truly lived in peace and prosperity and lies did not exist. The Old Man of Crete is the statue or the "ancient giant," and the ages of mankind are depicted by the different metals of which he is made of. Silver and bronze represent the slight more impure ages that followed the golden one.The weight of the Iron, or the Age of Violence, rests on one clay terra cotta foot that is said to represent the Roman Catholic Church. Dante yet again is making references to the political state of Europe by inferring that Iron represents the Holy Roman Empire leaning on the weaker Roman Catholic Church. When man cried tears of woe, they create fissures (the rivers) in the man in all parts except the Gold, because the Golden Age was perfect and woe free.

Dante and Virgil begin talking about the rivers when they were walking through the third round of Circle Seven that punishes the violent against God, nature, and art. While they were marveling at the waterfall of blood Dante asked how the rivers were created. Rhea, the wife of Saturn hid her child in Crete to keep her husband from killing him, and instructed the people to not allow him to weep so that Saturn would not hear him. Infants are symbols of innocence, which ties into the Golden Age of Innocence. Since the child did not cry, the statue might have started out all gold, and progressively gained patches of silver, bronze, and iron later on when other in Crete became woeful and violent; their tears likely produced the beginnings of the rivers of Hell. The mood of this passage shifts from that of the rest of the book, as it is rare that Dante is this interested in the features of Hell. He is usually concentrating on the souls he finds there, or the punishment they recieve; he vaguely describes the features. The story gives Dante's version of Hell more depth by giving readers hints as to how it was created. 

The last stanza indicates that all the rivers flow into something called Cocytus, frozen lake at the bottom of Hell. Words such as "to the end off all descent," and "what sink that it is," give the reader a negative feeling about the place. Virgil insists that Dante must see it himself. The syntax of the last line, "I pass it in silence here," is very simple especially after the elaborate story. Virgil has seen some bad things in Hell, but for him to be almost at a loss of words foreshadows such a dark place that nothing else that Dante has seen in Hell could top it. The little Dante did write about Cocytus was probably to foreshadow feelings of fear and pity for the poor souls that have to endure what horrendous punishment it must have in store.

works cited for golden age:
http://matriarchy.info/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=28&Itemid=26

The Sweet Brook and Meadow

The overall appeal of Limbo is that it is not a terrible place to be; the only punishment is that the souls have no hope of going to heaven. They did not have the opportunity to know Christ in their lifetime, therefore they cannot know God in heaven. The Virtuous Pagans are damned to Limbo because they were born before Christ. Dante observes, "and by a sweet brook flowing round them all/....and came to a green meadow blooming round" (Alighieri 30). The serene quality illustrates part of Limbo's contrapasso in that it is not a bad place to be.The sinners did not mean to be bad in their lifetime, but they still sinned without knowing it. Therefore they reside in a nice place, to correspond with their innocence, but still have to endure punishment for eternity in Hell for their sin. Dante at first believes that Limbo is not an awful place, especially after experiencing the Vestibule. He recites, "No tortured wailing rose to greet us here/ but sounds of sighing rose from every side,/ sending a tremor through the timeless air" (27). The souls are constantly sighing and weeping because they have no hope to go to heaven, like they had no hope to know Jesus in their lives; their torment is in their heads. Like their sin, the punishment has to do with personal beliefs. They believe and know that there is no hope of going to heaven like they did not believe in or know Jesus in their lifetime. 

My initial reaction to reading of the first circle for many is that living without hope is a pretty lame punishment, they might as well be in heaven for all the minor amount of pain it is causing them. The souls who reside in Limbo have no control over their fate in Hell like they had no control over their lives without God. Dante says, " And I, sick with alarm at his new pallor,/ cried out, 'How can I go this way when you/ who are my strength in doubt turn pale with terror?'" Virgil's face goes pale when they enter Limbo; he is filled with torment in returning to his home. A place that is so terrible that it makes one sick must have a harsh punishment, yet to readers who have not lived without hope, the punishment seems minor and ineffective. Virgil's inability to control his emotions regarding hope further emphasizes the actual severity of the punishment. It is most unfortunate that Virgil and the others must endure such a harsh punishment for a crime they could not control.

Dante mentions that the Great Poets of All Time are in Limbo; Dante the author needs a place to put all the good people, who in the Catholic church, cannot go to heaven. He attempts to make Limbo as nice as possible for the poor Pagans that had no chance, leading readers to think that Dante believes that this particular law is a bit unfair to the Pagans.