Sowers of discord and Schismatics
Circle VIII, Bolgia IX. "The disgusting mode of the ninth Bolgia" consists in torturing those who worked to tear apart the given order (religious, social or political). As in life they dedicated themselves to "divide", their punishment now is to be "divided", mutilated, gutted and eviscerated by a Devil with a sword.
"While I was all absorbed in seeing him,
He looked at me, and opened with his hands
His bosom, saying: "See now how I rend me;
[...]
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.
A devil is behind here, who doth cleave us
Thus cruelly, unto the falchion's edge
Putting again each one of all this ream,
When we have gone around the doleful road;
By reason that our wounds are closed again
Ere any one in front of him repass.
But who art thou, that musest on the crag,
Perchance to postpone going to the pain
That is adjudged upon thine accusations?"
Inferno, XXVIII, 30-45
