It’s interesting to note how deeper Dante descends in hell, his pity for the damned souls diminishes. In the lower circles, the punishment for the souls becomes harsher. For example, in Canto 26 Dante sees flames all around him. When he further inspects him and he finds that each flame has a soul that is imprisoned within the fire and here we encounter Ulysses. When first reading the Canto, I thought Ulysses was some random person that I’ve never heard of but as time progressed, I figure out that it was Odysseus! It made sense why he was located in one of the fraudulent circles of hell. The Italians didn’t particularly like the Greeks due to the Greeks winning the Trojan War. However, there’s more of a purpose why Odysseus is in that circle. Odysseus used his intellect to deceive the Trojans when he gave them the gift of the Trojan horse. Furthermore, we can see his pity be completely gone by the 9th circle. He placed traitors in ice in Circle 9 because traitors are the farthest away from God’s light. The most interesting thing to note is that when a Friar asks him to clean his eyes from his ice so he has a little bit of time to cry before the ice comes back, Dante says nope and shows no courtesy. Personally, I would have cleaned his eyes because like he’s spending the rest of eternity there in Hell. Also, who are you to judge and just have no pity towards them in that one second? But that’s just my opinion. Like yes, they were wrongful in doing what they did, but you’re no better in any circumstance and we can’t help the fact that we’re sinners by nature. But we are humans and we have souls, show some compassion.