When the Natural Order is Abrogated
From the point of view of the story, it is easy to see that Dante placed the Giants here, not merely to furnish a means of transport from Malbowges to the depth of the Well, but, artistically, to provide a little light releif between the sickening horrors of the last bowges of Fraud Simple and the still greater, but wholly different, horrors of the pit of Treachery. But allegorically, what do they signify? In one sense they are images of Pride; the Giants who rebelled against Jove typify the pride of Satan who rebelled against God. But they may also, I think, be taken as the images of the blind forces which remain in the soul, and in society, when the “general bond of love” is disolved and the “good of the intellect” wholly withdrawn, and when nothing remains but blocks of primitive mass-emotion, fit to be the “executives of Mars” and the tools of treachery. Nimrod is a braggart stupidity; Ephialtes, a senseless rage; Antaeus, a brainless vanity: one may call them the doom of nonsense, violence, and triviality, overtaking a civilization in which the whole natural order is abrogated.
-From Dorothy Sayers explanatory material (”The Images”) on Canto XXXI of her translation of The Inferno. Here she is explaining the literary and allegorical meanings of the Giants that guard the well that leads down into the final level of hell and residence of Lucifer himself. I am always amazed by Ms. Sayers ability to casually make the most profound observation as if it were really nothing but common sense.
The best estimates are that Americans murder about 3,000 babies per day - and it’s legal. The government allows citizens of our country to murder 3,000 children every day with impunity. That’s a 9/11 every day. We need to let that sink in.