Dante and Virgil climb out of the valley of the thieves and see the next valley below them dark and dotted with small lights like fireflies. As they get closer they see that these lights are really flames with souls encased inside of them. This is the valley of the Deceivers and evil counsellors. Just as in life they sinned with their tongues, they are now condemned to live eternally in tongues of fire. Dante and Virgil approach a flame with two heads holding two souls, Ulysses and Diomede. Ulysses and Diomede planned the plot to use the trojan horse to enter and destroy Troy and subsequently steal the pagan statue of Pallas.

Ulysses (inside the flame with Diomede) then tells Virgil of his last voyage through the Pillars of Hercules (the end of the known world at the Straits of Gibraltar). Ulysses sailed through the forbidden sea and at last saw a mountain in the distance. However a storm arose and sunk his ship, killing everyone, before they were able to reach the mountain. The mountain they saw in the distance was the seven story mountain of Purgatory, which will be the setting for the next section of the Divine Comedy.

Dante and Virgil then move on to talk to another sinner encased in flame. …continue…  … or go back…

The soul, Vanni Fucci, being punished for stealing makes an obscene gesture directed to God. This provokes all the snakes to swarm around his body and neck, paralyzing him. Immediately a centaur appears covered with snakes and a fire-breathing dragon on his back, to torment Fucci further. In an incredible scene, two other sinners appear, one as a man, the other as a lizard-like reptile.

A stunned Dante watches as these two sinners gradually and painfully transform and merge into one horrible monster. Next, another sinner in the form of a snake attacks a soul in the form of a man, causing their forms to slowly transform into the other, snake becomes man, man becomes snake. Dante describes these transformations in detail as their colors change, faces recede, and tongues become forked.

As in life, these sinners constantly transformed ownership of property they stole, their punishment is to never have any permanent ownership of their own bodies. As in many other cantos, the souls being punished were characters that Dante knew of from Florentine politics. Dante and Virgil then continue into the flames of Hell. …continue.. …or go back…

Dante and Virgil climb over the broken bridge deeper into Hell. Since Virgil has no physical body, climbing is only tiring and difficult for Dante. As they descend, Dante sees a sight that makes his “blood run cold”. It is a ditch filled with snakes tormenting another group of the damned. These are the souls of the thieves being punished. The serpents wrap themselves around the hands of the souls and coil themselves all around the bodies of these sinners. There is nowhere for these souls to hide from the eternal torment of the snakes.

Dante then sees a snake dart out and bite the neck of one of the sinners. The sinner immediately flares up and turns into a pile of ashes, only to quickly re-form into his original “body”, confused and in terror. Dante compares this metamorphoses to a Phoenix rising from the ashes. This sinner, Vanni Fucci, then explains to Dante that he was from Tuscany and was guilty of stealing the treasury from the church. He then gives Dante a prophecy about what will happen to Dante’s political party (and life) in Florence.

Dante and Virgil remain in this area briefly to witness another incredible and horrifying scene. … continue … or …go back...