Each evil should be punished according to its kind
The Wood of Suicides was home to wooden souls, guilty of violence against themselves.
All through the journey each successive ring of Hell is home to a unique breed of sinner. One such punishment is that of the Violent against Themselves. Their punishment is, as summarized by the translator, John Ciardi, that those "who destroyed their own bodies are denied human form; and just as the supreme expression of their lives was self-destruction, so they are permitted to speak only through that which tears and destroys them" (118). This is one of many examples of the direct relationship between sin and punishment. To further reinforce this idea, Dante includes many people with famously great sins and grants them the 'worst punishment in the round.' Examples include Ceasar (for murder), and Caiaphas (for hypocrisy). Each round houses a chief sinner who holds the worst punishment, often unique from the others in the ring. A motif can be gleaned from each of the descriptions of punishment. It is the statement of "each according to its own degree". Each sinner receives a punishment according to the severity of their crime. In the River of Blood, for example, each sinner is boiled in blood according to the count of their murders. Some only to their ankles, while others are submerged to their eyes.