First of all, this is the farewell for Virgil. As a pagan poet, he no longer has the right to guide Dante through realms that increasingly require faith over human reason. By the time Dante turns to find him gone, Virgil has already been a virtual non-presence in the text for some time.
Answer Expert VerifiedMedusa. He should avoid looking at it directly because Medusa can turn him into a stone. It's a famous mystical creature that always turns strangers into a stone.
Dante walks through the flames. At the entrance of the Earthly Paradise, Virgil announces that Dante is ready for ascent to Heaven. Virgil is as amazed as Dante at the sight of the extraordinary procession. Virgil disappears, leaving Dante distraught.
Dante sees an enormous rose, symbolising divine love, the petals of which are the enthroned souls of the faithful (both those of the Old Testament and those of the New). All the souls he has met in Heaven, including Beatrice, have their home in this rose.
Although Virgil says that malice "is the sin most hated by God," he goes on to explain that malice is done by fraud or by violence. As opposed to animals, only mankind is capable of fraud, and so God abhors this sin the most.
Trivia. In The Inferno, Dante and Virgil witness the shade of Fra Alberigo frozen within the ice of Cocytus' third round, Ptolomea, for the sinful act of betraying his own guests.
Hearing his name, Sinon hits Adam on his bloated belly and Adam responds by hitting him on his head.
In his three mouths, he chews on Judas Iscariot, Marcus Junius Brutus, and Gaius Cassius Longinus. Scholars consider Satan to be "a once splendid being (the most perfect of God's creatures) from whom all personality has now drained away". Dante refuses to keep his promise to remove the frozen tears from the shade's eyes, saying that rudeness in Hell is a courtesy. Dante makes a plea to the city of Genoa about this sinner, telling them that they have a demon in their midst, and says that he wishes the whole lot of them driven from the Earth.
The counterfeiters — who made what they had bigger than it should be — have dropsy (which makes part of their body swell up and be bigger than it should be). And the liars — whose testimony stank — are feverous and stink. All of these sinners are falsifiers.
We remember that there are four categories of falsifiers: 1) the falsifiers of metal, or alchemists, whom Dante met in the previous canto; 2) the falsifiers of persons, or impersonators; 3) the falsifiers of money, or counterfeiters; 4) the falsifiers of words, or liars.
Adam points out two members of the Fourth Zone, the Falsifiers of Words, or Liars: one is the wife of Potiphar, who falsely accused Joseph of trying to seduce her, and the other is a Greek man, Sinon. The latter apparently knows Adam and comes over to pick a fight with him.
Description: A member of the Jovial Friars and Manfredi family (Lords of Faenza), Fra Alberigo is condemned to Hell before his death for the treacherous murder of a relative at a banquet. At the words "bring the fruit" his henchmen appeared and murdered all the guests.
Virgil figures he may as well take advantage of their downtime to describe the layout of the upcoming circles. He explains, ''Malice is the sin most hated by God. And the aim of malice is to injure others whether by fraud or violence.
When an ally betrays you, the psychological pain is worse, which any person with empathy cannot help but recognize. The amount of pain a betrayer can inflict is therefore greater than any amount which can be caused by an enemy. Hence the evil is perceived as greater.
