The scene involving the frozen Lucifer is both fascinating and intriguing. Why did Dante, the most learned man of his age, depict the ninth circle of hell as a frozen world, when all his contemporaries painted it as a place of fire and smoke? Why was punishment for Lucifer permanent entombment in a pillar of ice? These were the questions I tried to answer back then.

It is only many years later, as I watch our beloved Hong Kong locked in a death spiral from which we cannot break free, when what were once the world’s most peaceful streets are regularly filled with fire and tear gas, and family and friends are divided and turning on each other, have I finally come to understand what Dante meant emotionally.

Xinhua News Agency office vandalised amid another Hong Kong weekend of protest unrest

When the Italian poet imagined hell from the fortress walls of Les Baux-de-Provence in France, what occupied his mind was not the deepest bowels of the Earth, but his home city of Florence hundreds of kilometres away.

Dante, who served as one of six priors governing the city, was later sent into exile amid bitter political turmoil. Florence, the world’s financial centre in the 14th century, was then gripped by social strife and unrest as Hong Kong is today.

In his imagination of hell, he assigned each of the nine circles to a particular sin and its related special form of punishment. It is partly based on the work of earlier writers such as Eratosthenes and Ptolemy, but to a great extent it reflects Dante’s most inner feelings and his reflections on life.

To most learned people in medieval times, the centre of the cosmos was the “unmoved mover”, which, according to Aristotle, is the primary cause of all motion in the universe.

Hong Kong crisis a big opportunity for US and Taiwan

The unmoved mover – modern scientific-minded readers should think of the Foucault pendulum and the religious of God – is in itself perfect, indivisible and omnipresent. It moves the world through the force of love, compassion and understanding. Its opposite, Dante argues, is a corrupted version.

The primary cause of Lucifer’s fall from grace is his pride – blinded by hubris, the devil cannot see things from the point of view of others. He is so full of himself that he lacks the ability to feel or understand those around him, and is the epitome of apathy and selfishness.

The way he moves the world is through hatred and anger. Owing to his inability to understand others and feel compassion, he is doomed to remain in this form, never able to evolve.

When will Hong Kong, Beijing officials stop fuelling the political violence?

As a result, Dante makes his Lucifer a gigantic, powerful but immobile figure, who sends cold waves throughout the ninth circle of hell that is forever frozen in hatred.

While I cannot condemn a single party for the problems we face today, when I look around I see the work of hatred, narrow-mindedness and a total lack of compassion.

Tragedy often occurs when two sides believe they are pursuing something noble and worthwhile, but refuse to reflect and look at things from the other’s perspective.

In the end, we all live in the hell we create for us. And if we cannot break the mould, we are condemned to this deepest circle of hell forever.

Chow Chung-yan is executive editor of the Post