Information on Inferno through Canto XXXI

Book VI (6)

As usual, note who is here and how they are punished. Know what the place looks, sounds, and smells like. Note the mythical creature(s) here. Who is Cerberus? Note the main sinner here and how Dante regards him--with contempt, indifference, or pity? Look closely at the text. This is still the realm of the incontinent. Think about what that means here.

Note the description of Cerberus: "His eyes are red, his beard is greased with phlegm, his belly is swollen, and his hands are claws to rip the wretches and flay and mangle them" (16-18).

I'll bet Yeats may have borrowed the next lines for his poem, "The Second Coming":

And they, too, howl like dogs in the freezing storm, / turning and turning from it as if they thought / one naked side could keep the other warm."

Remember too: Hell is gyre shaped.

Now note the wonderful description of Cerberus:
"When Cerberus discovered us in that swill / his dragon-jaws yawed wide, his lips drew back / in a grin of fangs. No limb of him was still" (22-24).

Again, note how Dante treats this sinner. Know too, that we learn here, in the footnotes, that while sinners can see the past and prophesy the future, they cannot see the present. Pay attention to the sinner's prophesy.

This character is also the first we encounter to ask to be remembered on Earth. "But when you move among the living/ oh speak my name to the memory of men!" Note what the footnote in your book says about this. And remember how this is one reason that I think Hamlet's father is actually in Hell.

Canto VII (7)

Which sinners are in Circle 4? Which are in Circle 5? What is a hoarder? Compare to the wasters. What is the difference between the wrathful and the sullen?

Know how each is punished and why each is punished in this particular way.

Again, note the great diction: "Plutus clucked and stuttered in his rage" (2).
Great, descriptive verbs!

Note the simile. Note also the dialogue--Virgil to Dante and then to the sinners (notice the difference in diction but also in tone): "'Do not be startled, for no power of his, / however he may lord it over the damned, / may hinder your descent through this abyss.' / And turning to that carnival of bloat / cried: 'Peace, you wolf of Hell. Choke back your bile / and let its venom blister your own throat. / Our passage through this pit is willed on high/ by that same Throne that loosed the angel wrath of Michael on ambition and mutiny.' / As puffed out sails fall when the mast gives way / and flutter to a self-convulsing heap--so collapsed Plutus into that dead clay" (4-15).

Notice the mythical allusions (consider the Odyssey). Why can't Dante recognize some of these sinners? What is Virgil's explanation?

Canto VIII (8)

Who is Phlegyas? Describe him.

Who is Filippo Argenti? How does Dante treat Argenti? How does Virgil react to Dante's treatment of Argenti?

Who are the Rebellious Angels? How does Virgil react to the Rebellious Angels?

Again, note the diction: "two horns of flame / flared from the summit, one from either side" (3-4).

Note the metaphor and the characterizing dialog: "No twanging bowspring ever shot an arrow/ that bored the air it rode dead to the mark/ more swiftly than the flying skiff whose prow/ shot toward us over the polluted channel/ with a single steersman at the helm who called: 'So, do I have you at last, you whelp of Hell?'" (13-17).

Note how Dante's weight affects the boat and how Phlegyas reacts to this.

What is the name of the city that lies ahead? What does it look like?

Canto IX (9)

What do Virgil and Dante need in order to overcome the obstacles at the border of Dis? What are the Three Infernal Furies? What do they symbolize? Who has the power to turn them into stone? How does Virgil protect Dante here? Which sinners are here? What circle is this?

Note the diction and the metaphors: "My face had paled to a mask of cowardice / when I saw my Guide turn back. The sight of it/ the sooner brought the color back to his. / He stood apart like one who strains to hear/ what he cannot see, for the eye could not reach far/ across the vapors of that midnight air" (1-6).

Canto X

Usury is another concept that will come up in the next couple of cantos. Today, usury means lending money at exorbitant interest rates. The word has been used often in referring to the payday-lending industry and recent legislation.

In the Middle Ages, usury meant lending money at any interest rate. One was supposed to make one's living off of one's talents--talents like painting, shoe-making, building, copying manuscripts, etc. You were not supposed to make money from money. Part of this is a sign of Medieval anti-Semitism. You will see that in the canto.

Canto X--the Heretics

Who is Farinata degli Uberti? How does Dante know him?
How do these two treat each other?

Who is Cavalcante dei Cavalcanti? How does Dante know him? What does Dante say to upset Cavalcanti? How does he "fix" this later?

Note the many-leveled symbolism of this encounter, especially as it pertains to a rival poet.
Note all the gyre-imagery (pertains to Yeats' poem, "The Second Coming"). It is even in the dialog:

"'Supreme Virtue, who through the impious land/ wheel me at will down these dark gyres,' I said, / speak to me, for I wish to understand'" (4-6).
Note the reference to Epicurus and his followers--it is in the footnotes.

Note how the sinner flatters Dante in this realm: "'O Tuscan, who go on living through this lace/ speaking so decorously, may it please you pause/ a moment on your way, for by the grace/ of that high speech in which I hear your birth,/ I know you for a son of that noble city/ which perhaps I vexed too much in my time on earth'" (23-27).

Note the physical movement and the tone of admiration: "My eyes were fixed on him already. Erect, / he rose above the flame, great chest, great brow;/ he seemed to hold all Hell in disrespect" (34-36).

Virgil admonishes Dante to "'mind how you speak to him'" (39).

Note the following description and the use of pathos: "At this another shade rose gradually, / visible to the chin. It had raised itself, / I think, upon its knees, and it looked around me / as if it expected to find through the black air / that blew around me, another traveler. / And weeping when it found no one there, turned back" (52-57).

Note Farinata's connection to the earth still--he blames his plight, in part, on "'edicts pronounced against my strain'" (84).

Farinata regrets the destruction of Florence, something he would not have done.

Know that sinners lack the knowledge of the present! "'We see asquint, like those whose twisted sight / can make out only the far-off,' he said, 'for the King of All still grants us that much light'" (100-102).

"'Except what others bring us / we have no news of those who are alive'" (104-105).
He mentions some sinners, but "'of the rest let us be dumb'" (120).

Great description:
"So saying, he bore left, turning his back / on the flaming walls, and we passed deeper yet / into the city of pain, along a track / which plunged down like a scar into a sink/ which sickened us already with its stink" (134-137).

Note how the above passage foreshadows or transitions into the next canto!

Canto XI--The Heretics

The footnotes talk about the harrowing of Hell. Note that.

Know about Pope Anastasius (496-498)--the Great Schism

Lower Hell is based upon Aristotle's The Ethics and The Physics. It ends two ours before Holy Saturday.

Note the transition at the opening of the canto: "We came to the edge of an enormous sink / rimmed by a circle of great broken boulders" (1-2).

Know Plotinus (see footnotes).

Malice differs from sins of incontinence because it has to do with intent. Earlier, we had the sins of incontinence. They have more to do with our animal appetites.

Virgil: "'Malice is the sin most hated by God. / And the aim of malice is to injure others / whether by fraud or violence. But since fraud / is the vice of which man alone is capable / God loathes it most. Therefore, the fraudulent / are placed below, and their torment is more painful'" (22-27).

Violence "'sins in three persons, so is that circle formed / of three descending rounds of cruel torments. / Against God, self, and neighbor is violence shown'" (29-31).

"A man may lay violent hands upon his own / persons and substance; so in that second round / eternally in vain repentance moan/ the suicides and all who gamble away / and waste the good substance of their lives / and weep in that sweet time when they should be gay" (40-45).

Unlike the Medieval man, the Renaissance man was supposed to love the world as part of God's creation. We are seeing some of that represented in the above passage.

"Violence may be offered the deity/ in the heart that blasphemes and refuses Him / and scorns the gifts of Nature, her beauty and her bounty" (46-48).

Note the descriptive nature of Dante's question to Virgil: "'But tell me: those who lie in the swamp's bowels, /those the wind blows about, those the rain beats, / and those who meet and clash with such mad howls--/ why are they not punished in the rust-red city / if God's wrath be upon them? And if it is not, / why must they grieve through all eternity?'" (70-75).

Here, Virgil rebukes him for not knowing the answer through reason--particularly, through Aristotle's Ethics. This was the only pagan philosopher permitted and his structures helped to shape the hierarchy of the Roman Catholic church.

Usury is mentioned. Dante asks why it is so bad and Virgil explains:

"'Philosophy makes it plain by many reasons,' he answered me, 'to those who heed her teachings, / how all of Nature, --her laws, her fruits, her seasons,--springs from the Ultimate Intellect and its art: / and if you read your Physics with due care, / you will note, not many pages from the start , / that Art strives after her by imitation, / as the disciple imitates the master; / Art, as it were, the Grandchild of Creation./ By this, recalling the Old Testament / near the beginning of Genesis, you will see / that in the will of Providence, which was meant/ to labor and to prosper. But usurers, by seeking their increase in others ways, / scorn Nature in herself and her followers'" (97-111).

In other words, you are not supposed to make money from money. That was not considered a talent.

Note the transitional nature of the last line of the canto:
"'But come, for it is my wish now to go on:/ the wheel turns and the Wain lies over Caurus, the Fish are quivering low on the horizon, / and there beyond us runs the road we go/ down the dark scarp into the depths below'" (112-116).

Canto XII--Circle Seven: Round One--the Violent Against Neighbors

Dante and Virgil have to evade which mythological creature?

Below is the River of Blood-described in the previous canto: "As they wallowed in blood during their lives, so they are immersed in the boiling blood forever, each according to the degree of his guilt, while fierce Centaurs patrol the banks, ready to shoot with their arrows any sinner who raises himself out of the boiling blood beyond the limits permitted him" (1190).

Know which famous sinners can be found here.

Who is Chiron and what does he do for the pair? What is Chiron's relationship to Achilles?

Note the transitional nature of the first line as well as its descriptive nature, which includes several metaphors.

"The scene that opened from the edge of the pit/ was mountainous, and such a desolation/ that every eye would shun the sight of it: / a ruin like the Slides of Mark near Trent/ on the bank of the Adige, the result of an earthquake/ or of some massive fault in the escarpment--/ for, from the point on the peak where the mountain split/ to the plain below, the rock is so badly shattered / a man on the top might make a rough stair of it" (1-9).

Pay attention to the footnotes about the wicked queen and the Minotaur. Know the story.

Know Nesus' story too, also in the footnotes.

Note the descriptive nature of the following passage: "We drew near those swift beasts. In a thoughtful pause / Chiron drew an arrow, and with its notch / he pushed his great beard back along his jaws. / And when he had thus uncovered the huge pouches/ of his lips, he said to his fellows: 'Have you noticed how the one who walks behind moves what he touches? That is not how the dead go'" (76-82).

Canto XIII--The Violent Against Themselves

This is one of the most poignant for me--the suicides. We know a lot more about issues like depression than they knew in Dante's time and that there is often a bio-chemical component that can now be treated. Even without that understanding, Dante's narrator is sympathetic. Know how the suicides are punished. It actually reminds me of the scene in "The Wizard of Oz," when Dorothy picks an apple from a tree.

Note the Unknown Florentine Suicide who appears at the end of the canto. His anonymity is part of his punishment. There is no remembering him. That is very sad. Now, for the canto and any interesting lines--and especially diction--take note.

I want you to do what Dante does--to bring a scene to life with words. Try reading the lines aloud. The rhythms of the language also contribute to the sensory perceptions. "Its foliage was not verdant, but nearly black. / The unhealthy branches, gnarled and warped and tangled, / bore poison thorns instead of fruit" (4-6).

Look at the description of the Harpies. Note the simplicity of the language. It is simple, but specific. Try to picture this. "Their wings are wide, their feet clawed, their huge bellies / covered with feathers, their necks and faces human. / They croak eternally in the unnatural trees" (13-15).

"I heard cries of lamentation rise and spill / on every hand, but saw no souls in pain / in all that waste; and, puzzled, I stood still. / I think perhaps he thought that I was thinking / those cries rose from among the twisted roots / through which the spirits of the damned were slinking / to hide from us" (22-28).

Look at this wonderful dialog and the diction. By the way, unless you are writing in verse, I want you to put different speakers in new paragraphs. At the end, note how Virgil apologizes for having to hurt the sinner and how he promises that Dante will talk about the sinner when he gets back on earth as a kind of compensation for the pain caused: "'If you break off a twig, what you will learn / will drive what you are thinking from your head.' / Puzzled, I raised my hand a bit and slowly / broke off a branchlet from an enormous thorn: / and the great trunk of it cried: ' Why do you break me?' / And after the blood had darkened all the bowl / of the wound, it cried again: 'Why do you tear me? / Is there no pity left in any soul? / Men we were, and now we are changed to sticks; / well might your hand have been more merciful were we no more than souls of lice and ticks.' / As a green branch with one end all aflame / will hiss and sputter sap out of the other / as the air escapes--so from that trunk there came / words and blood together, gout by gout. / Startled, I dropped the branch I was holding / and stood transfixed by fear, half turned about / to my Master, who replied: ' O wounded soul, / could he have believed before what he has seen / in my verses only, you would yet be whole, / for his hand would never have been raised against you. / But knowing this truth could never be believed / till it was seen, I urged him on to do / what grieves me now; and I beg to know your name, / that to make you some amends in the sweet world / when he returns, he may refresh your fame'" (29-54).

Pay attention to how the sinner blames others for his plight: "'Through every strife / I was so faithful to my glorious office / that for it I gave up both sleep and life./ That harlot, Envy, who on Caesar's face / keeps fixed forever her adulterous stare, / the common plague and vice of court and palace, / inflamed all minds against me. these inflamed / so inflamed him that all my happy honors / were changed to mourning. Then, unjustly blamed, my soul, in scorn, made me at last, though just, unjust to myself. By the roots of this tree / I swear to you that never in word or spirit / did I break faith to my lord and emperor / who was so worthy of honor in his merit./ If either of you return to the world, speak for me, / to vindicate in the memory of men / one who lies prostrate from the blows of Envy'" (61-78). Again, note the attitude toward suicide: "'Like the rest, we shall go for our husks on Judgment Day, / but not that we may wear them, for it is not just / that a man be given what he throws away'" (103-105).

Canto XIV--Circle Seven, Round Three--the Violent Against God [blasphemers], Nature [homosexuals], and Art [usury]

Know how they are punished.

Who is Capaneus?

"Enormous herds of naked souls I saw, / lamenting till their eyes were burned of tears; / they seemed condemned by an unequal law, / for some were stretched supine upon the ground, / some squatted with their arms about themselves, and others without pause roamed round and round" (16-21).

According to the footnotes, why did Rhea have to dupe Saturn?

What is the name of the frozen lake at the bottom of the Inferno?

Canto XV--Circle Seven: Round Three--The Violent Against Nature

This may be my favorite canto because it is a tribute to a beloved teacher. It conjures in my mind teachers and mentors who greatly influenced my own life. Ser Brunetto Latino is the main character here. He is here because he is supposedly a homosexual. In real life, there is no proof one way or the other whether Latino was a homosexual. He was married and had several children. He might have been gay, but it was against the law. Those found or even assumed guilty of homosexual acts were often hunted down, tortured, and then executed--publicly.

By the way, Dante is the one who places homosexuals in his Inferno. Some people still feel that way. I do not and would therefore not include one in writing a contemporary Inferno.

Nice simile: "They stared at us / as men at evening by the new moon's light / stare at one another when they pass by / on a dark road, pointing their eyebrows toward us / as an old tailor squints at his needle's eye" (17-21).

"And I, when he stretched out his arm to me, / searched his baked features closely, till at last / I traced his image from my memory / in spite of the burnt crust, and bending near / to put my face closer to his, at last / I answered: 'Ser Brunetto, are you here?'" (25-30).

"I did not dare descend to his own level/ but kept my head inclined, as one who walks / in reverence meditating good and evil" (43-45).

"And he: 'Follow your star, for if in all / of the sweet life I saw one truth shine clearly, / you cannot miss your glorious arrival. / And had I lived to do what I meant to do, / I would have cheered and seconded your work, / observing Heaven so well disposed toward you. / But that ungrateful and malignant stock / that came down from Fiesole of old / and still smacks of the mountain and the rock, / for your good works enemy. / And there is cause: the sweet fig is not meant / to bear its fruit beside the sorb tree. / Even the old adage calls them blind, / an envious, proud, and avaricious people: / see that you root their customs from your mind'" (55-69).

Look at how the narrator expresses his grief over Brunetto's plight: "'Ah, had I all my wish,' I answered then, ' you would not yet be banished from the world / in which you were a radiance among men, / for that sweet image, gentle and paternal, / you were to me in the world when hour by hour / you taught me how man makes himself eternal,* lives in my mind, and now strikes to my heart; / and while I live, the gratitude I owe it / will speak to men out of my life and art'" (79-87). *

This teacher taught Dante his art--poetry. When we create art, we create a kind of immortality--for ourselves and for the subjects of that art. Note too, that Dante offers Latino the same kind of immortality. Dante will tell the world about his beloved mentor. Latino does not have to ask to be remembered. Dante will make sure that this is so.

Canto XVI--Circle Seven: Round Three--the Violent Against Nature and Art

How is Dante recognized by "the three stooges"--Jacopo Rusticucci, Guido Guerra, and Tegghiaiao Aldobrandi?

What does Virgil do at the end?

Note the transitional sentence at the beginning of this canto. For your Infernos, you will need transitional sentences at the beginning and at the end of the cantos.

"We could already hear the rumbling drive / of the waterfall in its plunge to the next circle, / a murmur like the throbbing of a hive, / when three shades turned together on the plain, / breaking toward us from a company / that went its way to torture in that rain" (1-6).

By the way--and a side note--DO NOT END YOUR INFERNOS WITH "AND THEN I WOKE UP" OR ANYTHING EVEN REMOTELY CLOSE TO THAT.

How does Virgil tell Dante to treat these sinners?

Note the following description and the simile. You will be describing and using similes and metaphors: "As naked and anointed champions do / in feeling out their grasp and their advantage / before they close in for the thrust or blow--/ so circling, each one stared up at my height, / and as their feet moved left around the circle, / their necks kept turning backward to the right" (22-27).

Again, the sinners suffer the anxiety of not being remembered: "'Therefore, if you win through this gloomy pass/ and climb again to see the heaven of stars; / when it rejoices you to say "I was," / speak of us to the living.' They parted then, / breaking their turning wheel, and as they vanished / over the plain, their legs seemed wings" (83-87).

Look at the end of this canto in its amazing descriptive and transitional nature. Think again of Yeats' poem, "The Second Coming" and the "rough beast."

"Reader, I swear / by the lines of my Comedy--so may it live--/ that I saw swimming up through that foul air / a shape to astonish the most doughty soul, / a shape like one returning through the sea / from working loose an anchor run afoul / of something on the bottom--so it rose, / its arms spread upward and its feet drawn close" (127-134).

Note the wonderful swimming motion--only it is swimming through air!

Canto XVII--Circle Seven: Round Three--the Violent Against Art and Geryon

Geryon is the monster of what particular vice? It's not usury.

By the way, how are the usurers punished?

Again, note the descriptive and transitional method of the opening. Note too the classical mythological allusions:

"'Now see the sharp-tailed beast that mounts the brink. / He passes mountains, breaks through walls and weapons. / Behold the beast that makes the whole world stink.' / These were the words my Master spoke to me; / then signaled the weird beast to come to the ground / close to the sheer end of our rocky levee. / The filthy prototype of Fraud drew near / and settled his head and breast upon the edge / of the dark cliff, but let his tail hang clear. / His face was innocent of every guile, / benign and just in feature and expression; / and under it his body was half reptile. / His two great paws were hairy to the armpits; / all his back and breast and both his flanks / were figured with bright knots and subtle circlets: / never was such a tapestry of bloom / woven on earth by Tartar or by Turk,/ nor by Arachne at her flowering loom. / As a ferry sometimes lies along the strand, / part beached and part afloat; and as the beaver, / up yonder in the guzzling Germans' land, / squats halfway up the bank when a fight is on--/ just so lay that most ravenous of beasts/ on the rim which bounds the burning sand with stone. / His tail twitched in the void beyond that lip, / thrashing, and twisting up the envenomed fork / which, like a scorpion's stinger, armed the tip" (1-27).

How are these sinners adorned?

"He half-arose, / twisted his mouth, and darted out his tongue / for all the world like an ox licking its nose" (67-69).

Note how frightening the following passage is and how it characterizes both narrator and guide:

"Returned, I found my Guide already mounted / upon the rump of that monstrosity. / He said to me: 'Now must you be undaunted: / this beast must be our stairway to the pit: / mount it in front, and I will ride between / you and the tail, lest you be poisoned by it.' / Like one so close to the quaternary chill / that his nails are already pale and his flesh trembles / at he very sight of shade or a cool rill--/ so did I tremble at each frightful word. / But his scolding filled me with that shame that makes / the servant brave in the presence of his lord. / I mounted the great shoulders of that freak / and tried to say 'Now help me to hold on!' / But my voice clicked in my throat and I could not speak" (73-87). Again, note the wonderful description--using a simile.

Note too the rhythms of the language, which make you feel as though you are actually riding the beast with them:

"As a small ship slides from a beaching on its pier, / backward, backward--so that monster slipped / back from the rim. And when he had drawn clear / he swung about, and stretching out his tail / he worked it like an eel, and with his paws/ he gathered in the air, while I turned pale" (94-99).

Note the reference to Icarus and Phaethon. Read the footnotes and know those stories. Both characters are famous "over-reachers." Again, note where Yeats took from this particular canto for "The Second Coming":

"Slowly, slowly, he swims on through space, / wheels and descends, but I can sense it only / by the way the wind blows upward past my face. / Already on the right I heard the swell / and thunder of the whirlpool. Looking down / I leaned my head out and stared into Hell. / I trembled again at the prospect of dismounting / and cowered in on myself, for I saw fires / on every hand, and I heard a long lamenting. / And then I saw--till then I had but felt it--/ the course of our down-spiral to the horrors / that rose to us from all sides of the pit. / As a flight-worn falcon sinks down wearily / though neither bird nor lure has signalled it, / the falconer crying out: ' What! spent already!'--/ then turns and in a hundred spinning gyres / sulks from her master's call, sullen and proud--/ so to that bottom lit by endless fires / the monster Geryon circled and fell, / setting us down at the foot of the precipice / of ragged rock on the eighth shelf of Hell. / And once freed of our weight, he shot from there / in the dark like an arrow into air" (109-131).

Canto XVIII (18)--Circle Eight: Malebolge: the Fraudulent and Malicious

Bolgia 1--The Panderers and Seducers

What does Malebolge mean?

Describe Malebolge.

How many concentric ditches are there?

Describe what serves as the ditches.

Besides Venedico Caccianemico, what famous mythological sinner is here? Think of Medea....

"All these sinners were naked; on our side/ of the middle they walked toward us; on the other, / in our direction, but with swifter stride. / Just so the Romans, because of the great throng/ in the year of the Jubilee, divided the bridge/ in order that the crowds may pass along,/ so that all face the Castle as they go/ on one side toward St. Peter's, while on the other,/ all move along facing toward Mount Giordano./ And everywhere along that hideous track/ I saw horned demons with enormous lashes / move through those souls, scourging them on the back./ Ah, how the stragglers of that long rout stirred, / their legs quick-march at the first crack of the lash!" (28-38).

What is the Year of the Jubilee all about? What does it have to do with a particular pope hated by Dante?

Panderer: someone who caters to or exploits the weaknesses of others; to provide gratification for desires--to the basest emotions; a pimp.

Seduce: to persuade to disobedience or disloyalty; to lead astray usually by persuasion or false promises; to carry out the physical seduction of.

Seducer: One who seduces.

How did Venedico Caccianemico of Bologna exploit his own sister? Why?

Note the great dialog: "...and as he spoke, one of those lashes fell/ across his back, and a demon cried, 'Move on,/ you pimp, there are no women here to sell'" (64-66). The demon seems to be enjoying himself!

Know about Jason, the Golden Fleece, and Hypsipyle (in the footnotes).

Bolgia Two: The Flatterers

Know how they are punished.

Canto XIX

Simoniacs: sellers of ecclesiastic favors and offices. In the Middle Ages, the church and the government were one and the same. If you wanted to get ahead, you did so only through the church. It did not matter whether you were a teacher, a barber, a brewer, a shoemaker, a lawyer, or a bishop. Simoniacs sold ecclesiastic favors--perhaps indulgences, but also, as put down in your books, political offices or other goodies. Consider a contemporary framework of lobbyists and members of Congress. If Alaska got the new bridge to a remote island inhabited by some fifty people, some contractor would stand to make a lot of money--and all at the taxpayer's expense. Maybe the national education budget will be cut in its place--to pay for the bridge and the contractor and his/her cronies. People in positions of power are supposed to lead but they are also supposed to serve and they are supposed to serve our best interests. Now add to that yet another moral component. If one follows the ten commandments, and Christians are supposed to do so, then one does not steal. To award a position of power to someone who does not deserve it is to steal that position from one that does. In addition, stealing is stealing, period. One certainly does not steal from the poor unfortunates. And here you have cut the education budget for millions (stealing) in favor of building a bridge that will benefit only a handful of people. Not only that, but in this case, we have the Church, the symbol of moral righteousness or rectitude, and it's pandering to rich people and taking from the poor for the gain of a few powerful individuals. This is not exactly a good role model. And yet, it's as real today as it was then. We just call them lobbyists and politicians instead of Simoniacs.

Know how the Simoniacs are punished and why. Know what I mean by symbolic retribution.
Know about Extreme Unction (Last Rites for the dying).

Know about Pope Nicholas III.

Some great descriptions:

"I saw along the walls and on the ground / long rows of holes cut in the livid stone; / all were cut to a size, and all were round" (13-15).

"They seemed to be exactly the same size / as those in the font of my beautiful San Giovanni, / built to protect the priests who come to baptize; / one of which, not so long since, I broke open to rescue a boy who was drowning in it" (16-20).

"From every mouth a sinner's legs stuck out / as far as the calf. The soles were all ablaze / and the joints of the legs quivered and writhed about. / Withes and tethers would have snapped in their throes. / As oiled things blaze upon the surface only, so did they burn from the heels to the points of their toes" (22-29).

Dialog:
"'Master,' I said, 'who is that one in the fire / who writhes and quivers more than all the others? / From him the ruddy flames seem to leap higher. / And he to me: 'If you wish me to carry you down / along that lower bank, you may learn from him / who he is and the evil he has done.' / And I: ' What you will, I will. You are my lord and know I depart in nothing from your wish; / and you know my mind beyond my spoken word'" (28-36).

"We moved to the fourth ridge, and turning left / my Guide descended by a jagged path / into the strait and perforated cleft. / Thus the good Master bore me down the dim / and rocky slope, and did not put me down / till we reached the one whose legs did penance for him. / 'Whoever you are, sad spirit,' I began, 'who lie here with your head below your heels / and planted like a stake--speak if you can.' I stood like a friar who gives the sacrament / to a hired assassin, who, fixed in the hole, /recalls him, and delays his death a moment" (37-48).

Note the anger in the following dialog:
"'Are you there already, Boniface*? Are you there / already?' he cried. 'by several years the writ / has lied. And all that gold, and all that care--/ are you already sated with the treasure / for which you dared to turn on the Sweet Lady / and trick and bleed her at your pleasure?' / I stood like one caught in some raillery,/ not understanding what is said to him, / lost for an answer to such mockery" (49-57).

*read the footnote a bout Boniface VIII
Look at this description: "The sinner's feet jerked madly; then again / his voice rose, this time choked with sighs and tears, / and said at last: 'What do you want of me then? / If to know who I am drives you so fearfully / that you descend the bank to ask it, know / that the Great Mantle** was once hung upon me" (61-66).

** read footnote about the Great Mantle

"'Beneath my head are dragged all who have gone / before me in buying and selling holy office; / there they cower in fissures of the stone. / I too shall be plunged down when that great cheat / for whom I took you comes here in his turn. / Longer already have I baked my feet / and been planted upside-down, than he shall be / before the west sends down a lawless Shepherd / of uglier deeds to cover him and me'" (70-78).

Canto XX

Though forbidden, fortune-telling, numerology, astrology, and other such practices were very popular in the Middle Ages. Popes were even said to have had their charts done. Even though it was practiced, everyone knew it was a sin. You sinned if you went to a fortune teller. You were an even bigger sinner if you were a fortune-teller. Know how these sinners are punished. It's actually a little bit funny, when you think about it. Know that he encounters Tiresias. Know Tiresias' story as delineated in the footnotes.

Cantos XXI & XXII

Graft: to implant living tissue surgically; to unite with a stock. the acquisition of gain (as money) in dishonest or questionable ways; illegal or unfair gain.

Canto XXI

Know how they are punished and pay special attention to some of the wonderfully and horribly descriptive passages of those punishments.

Note how it relates to the word "graft." "I saw the pitch; but I saw nothing in it / except the enormous bubbles of its boiling, / which swelled and sank, like breathing, through all the pit. / And as I stood and stared into that sink, / my Master cried, 'Take care!' and drew me back / from my exposed position on the brink./ I turned like one who cannot wait to see / the thing he dreads, and who, in sudden fright, / runs while he looks, his curiosity / competing with his terror--and at my back / I saw a figure that came running toward us / across the ridge, a Demon huge and black. / Ah what a face he had, all hate and wildness! / Galloping so, with his great wings outspread / he seemed the embodiment of all bitterness. / Across each high-hunched shoulder he had thrown / one haunch of a sinner, whom he held in place / with a great talon round each ankle bone" (19-36).

There is also some great dialog in this canto, so take note. These Demons seem to be having fun at their jobs. They also have some great Mafia or gang-sounding nicknames. The ending of this canto is absolutely hilarious.

Canto XXII

Great similes:

"All my attention was fixed upon the pitch: / to observe the people who were boiling in it, / and the customs and the punishments of that ditch. As dolphins surface and begin to flip / their arched backs from the sea, warning the sailors / to fall-to and begin to secure ship--/ So now and then, some soul , to ease his pain / showed us a glimpse of his back above the pitch / and quick as lightning disappeared again. / and as, at the edge of a ditch, frogs squat about / hiding their feet and bodies in the water, / leaving only their muzzles sticking out--/ so stood the sinners in that dismal ditch; / but as Curlybeard approached, only a ripple / showed where they had ducked back into the pitch. / I saw--the dread of it haunts me to this day--one linger a bit too long, as it sometimes happens / one frog remains when another spurts away; / and Catclaw, who was nearest, ran a hook / through the sinner's pitch hair and hauled him in. / He looked like an otter dripping from the brook (16-35). Again, we get some great names and descriptions and dialog.

Canto XXIII--The Hypocrites

Know how the hypocrites are punished. Know why they are punished this way.

Who is Caiaphas? How is his punishment different from the friars'?

Who accompanies Caiaphas in his punishment?

Know the Aesop fable referenced on page 1097 in Dante's words and in the footnotes on the same page.

Why does Virgil have to protect Dante? Note the description of the actions: "Seizing me instantly in his arms, my Guide-- / like a mother wakened by a midnight noise / to find a wall of flame at her bedside / (who takes her child and runs, and more concerned / for him than for herself, does not pause even / to throw a wrap about her) / raised me, turned, / and down the rugged bank from the high summit / flung himself down supine onto the slope / which walls the upper side of the next pit. / Water that turns the great wheel of a land-mill / never ran faster through thte end of a sluice / at the point nearest the paddles--as down that hill / my Guide and Master bore me on his breast, /as if I were not a companion, but a son" (34-47).

Look at the beauty of these lines. Dante uses alliteration as well as evocative rhythms and a brief "brush stroke" of a description: "About us now in the depth of the pit we found / a painted people, weary and defeated" (56-57).

When writing your own Infernos, consider applying such devices. Try reading your own work aloud too.

What kind of clothing do these kind of people wear? What kind of monks were they?

It's interesting that the Hypocrites ask of Dante's background.

Why are the friars called the "Jovial Friars"?

Who are the Pharisees and how are they punished?

Who lies to Dante and Virgil? Who is the "father of lies"?


Canto XXIV (24)--Circle VIII--Bolgia VII: The Thieves

If you have read The Kite Runner, you know that one of the characters says that stealing or thievery is the worst sin because it encompasses so many other sins. When we kill, we steal a life--not only from that person but from his/her family. When we cheat, we steal answers, etc. In Dante's Divine Comedy, pride is the worst of the seven deadly sins because every other sin (even stealing) has at its basis a kind of hubris. In Shakespeare's Hamlet or Macbeth, pride lies at the root of their transgressions. "I'm so special. Ghosts talk to me. And because I'm so special that ghost must be my dad," thinks Hamlet.

"I'm so special that I deserve to be king, even if it isn't my time," thinks Macbeth. His wife is guilty of an even greater pride. She gets him to do it because she wants to be queen. She doesn't have time for people to die of natural causes. She also knows that she has her husband under her control. Having a husband under control just isn't enough for her, though.

But let's get back to the thieves.


They have a great punishment, so pay attention. Know how it works in terms of symbolic retribution.

Vanni Fucci is one of the characters. Know about him.

Note the early reference to "the turning season of the youthful year, / when the sun is warming his rays beneath Aquarius / and the days and nights begin to near / their perfect balance" (1-4).

Note the descriptive nature of the following passage and how it also characterizes Virgil--and in the context of his relationship with his pupil. Note too, the metaphors / similes--in blue.

"...so in that place / when I saw my Guide and Master's eyebrows lower, / my spirits fell and I was sorely vexed; / and as quickly came the plaster to the sore: / for when he had reached the ruined bridge, he stood / and turned on me that sweet and open look* / with which he had greeted me in the dark wood. / When he had paused and studied carefully / the heap of stones, he seemed to reach some plan, / for he turned and opened his arms and lifted me. / Like one who works and calculates ahead, / and is always ready for what happens next-- / so, raising me above the dismal bed / to the top of one great slab of the fallen slate, / he chose another saying: ' Climb here, but first / test it to see if it will hold your weight. / It was no crime for a lead-hung hypocrite: / for scarcely we--he light and I assisted--/ could crawl handhold by handhold from the pit; / and were it not that the bank along this side / was lower than the one down which we had slid, / I at least--I will not speak for my Guide--/ would have turned back" (15-37).

* He turned that sweet and open look upon him. That reveals a lot about the nature of their almost father-son relationship. Though it is not a relationship of equals or a peer-type friendship, there is real love between these two.

"My lungs were pumping as if they could not stop; / I thought I could not go on, and I sat exhausted / the instant I had clambered to the top. / 'Up on your feet! This is no time to tire!'/ my Master cried. 'The man who lies asleep / will never waken fame, and his desire / and all his life drift past him like a dream, / and the traces of his memory fade from time / like smoke in air, or ripples on a stream. Now, therefore, rise. Control your breath, and call / upon he strength of soul that wins all battles / unless it sink in the gross body's fall. There is a longer ladder yet to climb: this much is not enough. If you understand me, / show that you mean to profit from your time'" (43-63).

Note the wonderful mythical allusions. Read about the phoenix and remember also, Yeats could be referring to that creature also in his poem, "The Second Coming." You will be using mythical allusions in your work, so pay attention:

"Precisely so, philosophers declare, / the Phoenix dies and then is born again / when it approaches its five hundredth year" (106-108).

Note how Vanni Fucci is characterized and how Dante does it through the use of dialog:

"'That you have found me out among the strife / and misery of this place grieves my heart more / than did the day that cut me from my life. / But I am forced to answer truthfully: / I am put down so low because it was I / who stole the treasure from the Sacristy, / for which others once were blamed. But that you may / find less to gloat about if you escape here, / prick up your ears and listen to what I say: / First Pistoia is emptied of the Black, / then Florence changes her party and her laws. / From Valdimagra the God of War brings back / a fiery vapor wrapped in turbid air: / then in a storm of battle at Piceno / the vapor breaks apart the mist, and there / every White shall feel his wounds anew. / And I have told you this that it may grieve you'" (133-150).

Canto XXV (25)--Circle VIII--Bolgia VII: The Thieves

Know what happens to ol' Vanni. Know about the Five Noble Thieves of Florence. By the way, "Noble" relates to class, not behavior.

Know about the merging between Cianfa and Agnello and the punishment in general.

Know how this works in terms of symbolic or divine retribution.

Read the footnote about Cacus, also punished here.

anni blasphemes God and Cacus chases him. Know Vanni and Cacus. Know about the Noble Thieves of Florence. Knwo how they change. It is really cool.

Note the descriptive nature and the concise nature of this passage: "'Where is Cainfa?' he cried; / 'Why has he fallen back?' I placed a finger across my lips as a signal to my Guide./ Reader, should you doubt what next I tell,/ it will be no wonder, for though I saw it happen,/ I can scarce believe it possible, even in Hell./ For suddenly, as I watched, I saw a lizard/ come darting forward on six great taloned feet/ and fasten itself to a sinner from crotch to gizzard./ Its middle feet sank in the sweat and grime/ of the wretch's paunch, its forefeet clamped its arms, its teeth bit throuh both hceeks./ At the same time/ its hind feet fastened on the sinners thighs: its tail thrust forward through his legs and its coil/ over his loins!" (40-54) Very descriptive and very grotesque!

Great description of their metamorphosis: "No ivy ever grew about a tree/ as tightly as that monster wove itself/ limb by limb about the sinner's body;/ they fused like hot wax,and their colors ran/ together until neither wretch nor monster/ appeared what he had begun when he began: / just so, before the running edge of the heat/ on a burning page, a brown discoloration/ changes to black as the white dies from the sheet./ The other two cried out as they looked on:/ 'Alas! Alas! Agnello, how you change!/ Already you are neither two nor one!'/ The two heads had already blurred and blended;/ now two new semblances appeared and faded,/ one face where neither face began nor ended./ From the four upper limbs of man and beast/ two arms were made, then members never seen/ grew from the thighs and legs, belly and breast./ Their former likenesses mottled and sank/to something that was both of them and neither;/ and so transformed, it slowly left our bank./ As lizards at high noon of a hot day/ dart out from hedge to hedge, from shade to shade, / and flash like lightning when they cross the way,/ so toward the bowesls of th ohter two,/ shot a smal monster; livid, furious,/ and black as a pepper corn. Its lunge bit thorgh the part of one of them from which man receives/ his earliest nourishment; then it fell back/and lay sprawled out in front of the two thieves./ Its victim stared at it but did not speak:/ indeed, he stood there like a post, and yawned/ as if lack of sleep, or a feer, had left him week./ The reptile stared at him, he at the reptile;/ two smokes poured out and mingled, dark and vile" (55- 90).

Another great but gross description:

"Responding sympathetically to each other,/ the reptile cleft his tail into a fork,/ and the wounded sinner drew his feet together./ The sinner's legs and thighs began to join:/ they grew together so, that soon no trace/ of juncture could be seeen from toe to loin./ Point by point the reptile's cloven tail/ grew to the form of what the sinner lost;/ one skin began to soften, one to scale./ The armpits swallowed the arms, and the short shank/ of the reptile's forefeet simultaneously lengthened by as much as the man's arm shrank" (100-111).

Great descriptions:

Point by point the reptile's cloven tail / grew to the form of what the sinner lost; / one skin began to soften, one to scale./ The armpits swallowed the arms, and the short shank/ of the reptile's forefeet simultaneously/ lengthened by as much as the man's arms shrank...." (106-112).

"The soul that had become a beast went flitting / and hissing over the stones, and after it/ the other walked along talking and spitting" (133-135).

Canto XXVI (26)--Circle VIII--Bolgia VIII: The Evil Counselors

Know about the prophesy.

Know that this is about "men of gift who abused their genius, perverting it to wiles and stratagems" (1250). Know how these men of gift are punished.

Here Dante encounters Ulysses (Odysseus) and Diomede. Let me give you a context for this. What, you ask, did Ulysses (Odysseus) do wrong? He kept trying to get back home.

First, it has nothing to do with the flings with the nymphs or goddesses. As I said, they don't count.

Here is the medieval context:

Medieval man and woman were supposed to stay focused on the next world, not this one. That is one reason there were no major scientific discoveries until the Renaissance. That is also why it took so long to find the New World.

All works were to be done for the glory of God, not for personal glory. Medieval artists did not sign their paintings. Well, there are some exceptions in the late middle ages....

People were not to seek glory abroad, but to remain at home, to live as simply as possible, and to pray, pray, pray. The more one suffered or denied oneself, the better one was. Ulysses and Diomede were wanderers. Besides, Ulysses was always on about how he was "the great tactician," "the master this and that," yadi-yadi-yadi. And I guess the trickery aspect of the Trojan horse and the fact that they killed lots of people instead of turning the other cheek....

Let's just get to the good stuff:

"I stood on the bridge, and leaned out from the ledge / without being pushed. And seeing me so intent, / my Guide said: 'There are souls within those flames; / each sinner swathes himself in his own torment.' / 'Master,' I said, 'your words make me more sure, / but I had already seen already that it was so / and meant to ask what each spirit must endure / the pains of that great flame which splits away / in two great horns, as if it rose from the pyre / where Eteocles and Polynices lay?'" (43-54).

By the way, know the story of Eteocles and Polynices. See the footnotes in your book.

"'Forever round this path / Ulysses and Diomede move in such dress, / united in pain as they once were in wrath; / there they lament the ambush of the Horse / which was the door through which the noble seed / of the Romans issued from its holy source; / there they mourn that for Achilles slain / sweet Deidamia weeps even in death; / there they recall the Palladium in their pain'" (55-63).

Now pay special attention to this wonderfully characterizing dialog. Note the deferential tone:

"And when the flame had come where time and place / seemed fitting to my Guide, I heard him say / these words to it: 'O you two souls who pace / together in one flame!--if my days above / won favor in your eyes, if I have earned / however much or little of your love / in writing my High Verses, do not pass by, / but let one of you be pleased to tell where he, / having disappeared from the world, went to die'" (73-81).

Note the spin that Ulysses (Odysseus) gives to his story!

"As if it fought the wind, the greater prong / of the ancient flame began to quiver and hum; / then moving its tip as if it were a tongue / that spoke, gave out a voice above the roar. / 'When I left Circe,' it said, 'who more than a year / detained me near Gaeta long before* / Aeneas came and gave the place that name, / not fondness for my son, nor reverence / for my aged father, nor Penelope's claim / to the joys of love, could drive out of my mind / the lust to experience the far-flung world/ and the failings and felicities of mankind. / I put out on the high and open sea / with a single ship and only those few souls / who stayed true when the rest deserted me. / As far as Morocco and as far as Spain / I saw both shores; and I saw Sardinia / and the other islands of the open main. / I and my men wee stiff and slow with age / when we sailed at last into the narrow pass / where, warning all men back from further voyage, / Hercules' Pillars rose upon our sight. / Already I had left Ceuta on the left; / Seville now sank behind me on the right. / "Shipmates," I said, "who through a hundred thousand / perils have reached the West, do not deny / to the brief remaining watch our senses stand / experience of the world beyond the sun. / Greeks! You were not born to live like brutes, / but to press on toward manhood and recognition!** / With this brief exhortation I made my crew / so eager for the voyage I could hardly / have held them back from it when I was through; / and turning our stem toward morning, our bow toward night, / we bore southwest out of the world of man; / we made wings of our oars for our fool's flight. / That night we raised the other pole ahead / with all its stars, and ours had so declined / it did not rise out of its ocean bed. / Five times since we had dipped our bending oars / beyond the world, the light beneath the moon / had waxed and waned, when dead upon our course / we sighted, dark in space, a peak so tall / I doubted any man had seen the like. / Our cheers were hardly sounded, when a squall / broke hard upon our bow from the new land: /three times it sucked the ship and the sea about / as it pleased Another to command./ At the fourth, the poop rose and the bow went down / till the sea closed over us and the light was gone'" (82-131).

*Note the passive nature of what he says. Circe detained him for a year. He says it as though he had no say in the matter.

**Not only was Ulysses guilty of wanderlust, but he corrupted the men who admired him to also be guilty of the same sin. Not only that, but this corruption led to their deaths!

Canto XXVII (27)--Circle VIII--Bolgia VIII: The Evil Counselors

How does Guido da Montefeltro recognize Dante? How does Guido physically explain?

Remember how the sinners "have prophetic powers, but lose all track of events as they approach" (1111). Who does Guido blame for his sin?

Know about the reference to the Sicilian bull (footnoted on page 1112).

Note Guido's plea: "'If you have fallen only recently/ to this blind world from that sweet Italy/ where I acquired my guilt, I pray you, tell me:/ is there peace or war in Romagna/ for on earth/ I too was of those hills between Urbino / and the fold from where the Tiber springs to birth'" (25-30).

How does Dante respond to this question?

Note this too: "'Now, I beg you, let us know your name; / do not be harder than one has been to you; / so, too, you will preserve your earthly fame'" (52-54).

Of which holy order was this sinner?

Who is the "'Great Priest'" sarcastically referred to in line 67?

Who is "'The Prince of the New Pharisees'" referred to in line 82?

Great description and history: "So it stood / until he said: 'Your soul need fear no wound; / I absolve your guilt beforehand; and now teach me / how to smash Penestrino to the ground'" (97-99).

It goes against the rules to absolve someone of his/her sins before he/she commits them. Therefore, the pope who offers this lies.

"'The Gates of Heaven, as you know, are mine/ to open and shut, for I hold the two Great Keys / so easily let go by Celestine'" (100-102).

Which Celestine?

"'Later, when I was dead, St. Francis came / to claim my soul, but one of the Black angels/ said: "Leave him. Do not wrong me. This one's name / went into my book the moment he resolved / to give false counsel. Since then he has been mine, / for who does not repent cannot be absolved; / nor can we admit the possibility / of repenting a thing at the time it is willed,/ for the two acts are contradictory"'" (108-117).

Canto XXVIII (28)--Circle VIII--Bolgia IX: The Sowers of Discord

Know how they are punished.

Know the levels: Sowers of Religious Discord

Sowers of Political Discord

Sowers of Discord Between Kinsmen

Know who Fra Dolcino was and what happened to him.

Know about Bertrand de Born and the story that sent him to the Inferno.

Know that these sinners want to be recognized.

Canto XXIX (29)--Circle VIII--Bolgia X: The Falsifiers (Class I, Alchemists)

Who is Geri del Bello, and how does Dante react to him? How does Geri react to Dante?

How are the Falsifiers punished?

Griffolino was punished as a sorcerer. He was really guilty of what, however?

Canto XXX (30)--Circle VIII--Bolgia X: The Falsifiers (Evil Impersonators, Counterfeiters, False Witnesses)

What happens to Capocchio?

What does it mean to be a Falsifier of Persons?

Who is Master Adam and of what sin was he guilty?

How is Master Adam punished?

Who lies beside Adam and of what are they guilty?

Which sinner gets angry by Master Adam's identification of him and what does he do?

Know about the myth of Myrrha (footnoted on page 1124).

Who is "'the liar who charged young Joseph wrongly'" (97)?

Who was Sinon in Greek legend? What had he done? See footnote on page 1125.

Great dialog:

"'Although I cannot stir / my swollen legs, I still have a free arm / to use at times when nothing else will answer'" (106-108).

"And the other wretch said: 'It was not so free / on your last walk to the stake, free as it was / when you were coining.' And he of the dropsy: 'That's true enough, but there was less truth in you/ when they questioned you at Troy'" (109-113).

"And Sinon then: 'For every word I uttered that was not true / you uttered enough false coins to fill a bushel: / I am put down here for a single crime,/ But you for more than any Fiend in Hell'" (113-117).

"'Think of the Horse,' replied the swollen shade, / 'and may it torture you, perjurer, to recall / that all the world knows the foul part you played'" (118-120).

"'And to you the torture of the thirst that fries / and cracks your tongue,' said the Greek, 'and of the water / that swells your gut like a hedge before your eyes'" (121-123).

"And the coiner: 'So is your own mouth clogged / with the filth that stuffs and sickens it always; / if I am parched while my paunch is waterlogged, / you have the fever and your cankered brain; / and were you asked to lap Narcissus' mirror / You would not wait to be invited again'" (124-129).

Sounds a lot like a "yo' momma" kind of argument.

Canto XXXI (31)--The Central Pit of Maleboge: The Giants

Try to picture this in its wonderful detail.

Nimrod is among the Giants. What did he do? I told you about him earlier in the year when we were reading some of the Old Testament passages.

Who were Ephialtes and Brareus? What did they do?

Who were Tityos and Typhon and what did they do?

Know that Antaeus is also here, mostly for transportation, it seems.