Three hundred years before Shakespeare, Dante had already mapped the territory into which Macbeth descends. And the detail that changes everything is this: at the bottom of Hell there is no fire. There is ice.
The bottom of Hell is cold
We usually imagine hell as flames. But, in the Divine Comedy, Dante reserves the deepest level, below all fire, for ice. There are no passionate or violent killers there. There are traitors. Betrayal is, for Dante, the coldest sin: the deliberate denial of love and bond, the breach of trust that sustains every human relationship. Whoever kills the heat deserves the absolute cold.
Macbeth's three betrayals
The last Dantesque circle is divided between those who betray relatives, homeland, guests and benefactors. And here's the point: by murdering King Duncan, Macbeth commits several of these betrayals at once. Duncan was his relative (cousin), his lord (the king to whom he owed loyalty) and his guest (he slept under the roof of Macbeth, who in medieval Scotland owed his guest sacred protection). To kill a sleeping king in his own house is to desecrate three bonds at once.
Dante's ice is the end of Macbeth: a frozen man, without friends, without love, without fear, without anything.
The freezing of the soul
Shakespeare doesn't quote Dante, but he gets to the same place. In the end, Macbeth describes life itself as empty, "sound and fury, signifying nothing." He lost his wife, his allies, his sleep, his meaning. He doesn't even feel afraid. It's exactly the image of ice: the total anesthesia of someone who betrayed someone who trusted them. The fall is not just political, it is metaphysical.
Why read them both together?
Macbeth and the Divine Comedy illuminate each other. Dante gives the moral map, the geography of sin; Shakespeare gives the case study, the soul within. Reading one in light of the other shows that betrayal does not need external demons to punish: it freezes on the inside, and the icy castle that remains is one's own conscience.
Complete class
Macbeth, by William Shakespeare, on video
The fall of Macbeth and the parallel with Dante, in the complete analysis of the play on the channel Nous.
Watch the class on YouTubeFrequently asked questions
Why does Dante put traitors on ice instead of fire?
In Dante's Inferno, the bottom is not fire, it is ice. Betrayal is the coldest sin, the denial of love and bonding, which is why it receives the punishment of a total absence of warmth. In the last circle are traitors to relatives, country, guests and benefactors.
What betrayals does Macbeth commit?
Macbeth commits all three at once when he kills King Duncan: he betrays a relative (he was the king's cousin), he betrays his guest (Duncan slept under his roof) and he betrays his lord (Duncan was his king). It is the triad that Dante reserves for the bottom of Hell.
Does the ending of Macbeth remind you of Dante's Inferno?
Yes. Macbeth ends up like a frozen man: without love, without friends, without fear, without anything. It is Dante's image of ice applied to a soul that betrayed those who trusted it.
Continue: The Anatomy of Fear in Macbeth · "Sound and fury, signifying nothing" · The lion episode in Don Quixote