Cheaters

“Ye made of defecation lies in the truth.”

This is what the sign had read right at the start.

For those at this level gaudy in themselves.

I saw pools of body waste not far apart.

Their fate and amount of waste controlled themselves.

The ruler found in this place is known as Lart.

Defecation piled in levels and levels.

Virgil said the sinners here were full of lies.

Some so buried under submerged as if tiny elves.

Past them were the cheaters, selfish in love and lust that cannot see.

Punished with falling in a Love as their lovers cheat.

A short vision is given, then forever blindness and broken hearts.

Worse cheaters would be forced to run backwards into a knife stabbing their hearts so slow.

Pain enduring, their bodies heal just to be stabbed again for eternal suffering.

The worst sinners would be turned to stone.

Alive, but forever stuck and never moving.

Suddenly, I  grew weak and I dropped.

Was this deepening inferno ending?

All 6 stanzas are written in Terza Rima, and the first 2 stanzas are written in 11 syllable lines. There are two types of sinners are found within this level of hell. First, the cheap sinners whom are full of lies and false identities, and secondly the sinners that were cheaters. It differs from the levels of greed and lust because they are not greed but liars, cheaters, and people who are full of falsehoods. The sinners found are cheaters of their own personal identities or cheaters in general. At first, Dante enters and sees many pools. In each pool lie the wastes of that being. The contrapasso found here is that because these people were always full of “crap” or lies all of their lives they are now buried in their fraud and lack of truth and identity. This is located at level 8.5 right in between level 8 and 9. The sign at the beginning of the poem reads “Ye made of defecation lies in the truth”, this means that those who are made of crap are forever in crap. In other words, those who were always lying and hiding their true identities by making stuff up about themselves will now forever lie in their crap. The more that someone was full of a fake self, the more crap they lied in. The more full of crap they were the more submerged in crap they were. Also the crap is green because it is a symbol of impurity. Next are the sinners whom had cheated or been unfaithful, they were the least of the offense and they received eternal blindness. Blindness was seen as mental and physical blindness. This symbolized physical blindness because they could not see and mental blindness because they were unaware of the circumstances. Then they were given vision and they saw all the horrible things that had happened to them and they were left in eternal blindness and a broken heart and the cycle would repeat. Those who were more serious cheater and really harmed someone through cheating were eternally running backwards into a knife that stabbed them through their backs into their hearts. The contrapasso here was that since they back stabbed others and left them with a broken heart they were being back stabbed and left with a broken heart and this process would go on and on. And lastly the worst offenders of cheating whom had a disregard for anyone else were turned into stone. The contrapasso found here was that because they had a stone heart they were eternally turned into stone and they could never move.