Limbo
The concept of Limbo--a region on the edge of hell (limbus means "hem" or "border") for those who are not saved even though they did not sin--exists in Christian theology by Dante's time, but the poet's version of this region is more generous than most. Dante's Limbo--technically the first circle of hell--includes virtuous non-Christian adults in addition to unbaptized infants. We thus find here many of the great heroes, thinkers, and creative minds of ancient Greece and Rome as well as such medieval non-Christians as Saladin, Sultan of Egypt in the late twelfth century, and the great Islamic philosophers Avicenna (Ibn Sina) and Averroës (Ibn Rushd). For Dante, Limbo was also the home of major figures from the Hebrew Bible, who--according to Christian theology--were "liberated" by Jesus following his crucifixion (see Harrowing of Hell).
back to top
Classical Poets (Homer, Ovid, Lucan, Horace)
Among the magnanimous shades in Limbo is a distinguished group of four classical poets--Homer (8th century B.C.E.), Horace (65-8 B.C.E.), Ovid (43 B.C.E. - 17 C.E.), and Lucan (39-65 C.E.)--who welcome back their colleague Virgil and honor Dante as one of their own (Inf. 4.100-2). The leader of this group is Homer, author of epic poems treating the war between the Greeks and Trojans (Iliad) and Ulysses' adventurous return voyage (Odyssey). Although Dante had no direct familiarity with Homer's poetry (it wasn't translated and Dante didn't read Greek), he knew of Homer's unsurpassed achievement from references in works by Latin writers he admired. Dante knew works of the other three poets--each wrote in Latin--very well, particularly Ovid's Metamorphoses (mythological tales of transformations, often based on relations between gods and mortals) and Lucan's Pharsalia (treating the Roman civil war between Caesar and Pompey); Horace was best known as the author of satires and an influential poem about the making of poetry (Ars poetica). The vast majority of characters and allusions from classical mythology appearing in the Divine Comedy derive from the works of these writers, primarily those of Ovid and Lucan in addition to Virgil.
Lust   Here Dante explores the relationship--as notoriously challenging in his time and place as in ours--between love and lust, between the ennobling power of attraction toward the beauty of a whole person and the destructive force of possessive sexual desire. The lustful in hell, whose actions often led them and their lovers to death, are "carnal sinners who subordinate reason to desire" (Inf. 5.38-9). From the examples presented, it appears that for Dante the line separating lust from love is crossed when one acts on this misguided desire. Dante, more convincingly than most moralists and theologians, shows that this line is a very fine one indeed, and he acknowledges the potential complicity (his own included) of those who promulgate ideas and images of romantic love through their creative work. Dante's location of lust --one of the seven capital sins--in the first circle of hell in which an unrepented sin is punished (the second circle overall) is similarly ambiguous: on the one hand, lust's foremost location--farthest from Satan--marks it as the least serious sin in hell (and in life); on the other hand, Dante's choice of lust as the first sin presented recalls the common--if crude--association of sex with original sin, that is, with the fall of humankind (Adam and Eve) in the garden of Eden. back to top Minos    Typical of the monsters and guardians of hell, Dante's Minos is an amalgam of figures from classical sources who is completed with a couple of the poet's personal touches. His Minos may in fact be a combination of two figures of this name--both rulers of Crete--one the grandfather of the other. The older Minos, son of Zeus and Europa, was known--because of his wisdom and the admired laws of his kingdom-- as the "favorite of the gods." This reputation earned him the office-- following his death--of supreme judge of the underworld. He was thus charged, as Virgil attests, with verifying that the personal accounting of each soul who came before him corresponded with what was written in the urn containing all human destinies: "He shakes the urn and calls on the assembly of the silent, to learn the lives of men and their misdeeds" (Aen. 6.432-3). The second Minos, grandson of the first, exacted harsh revenge on the Athenians (who had killed his son Androgeos) by demanding an annual tribute of fourteen youths (seven boys and seven girls) as a sacrificial offer to the Minotaur, the hybrid monster lurking in the labyrinth built by Daedalus. Minos' long tail, which he wraps around his body a number of times equal to the soul's assigned level (circle) of hell (Inf. 5.11-12), is Dante's invention. How do you think the judged souls travel to their destined location in hell for eternal punishment? Might Minos' tail be somehow involved in this unexplained event? Dante leaves this detail to our imagination. The original Italian of the first line describing Minos --"Stavvi Minòs orribilmente, e ringhia" (Inf. 5.4)--is a wonderful example of onomatopoeia (the sound of the words imitating their meaning) as the repeated trilling of the r's in "orribilmente e ringhia" evokes the frightening sound of a growling beast. |
Gluttony
Gluttony--like lust--is one of the seven capital sins (sometimes called "mortal" or "deadly" sins) according to medieval Christian theology and church practice. Dante, at least in circles 2-5 of hell, uses these sins as part--but only part--of his organizational strategy. While lust and gluttony were generally considered the least serious of the seven sins (and pride almost always the worst), the order of these two was not consistent: some writers thought lust was worse than gluttony and others thought gluttony worse than lust. The two were often viewed as closely related to one another, based on the biblical precedent of Eve "eating" the forbidden fruit and then successfully "tempting" Adam to do so (Genesis 3:6). Based on the less than obvious contrapasso of the gluttons and the content (mostly political) of Inferno 6, Dante appears to view gluttony as more complex than the usual understanding of the sin as excessive eating and drinking.
back to top
Cerberus
A three-headed dog who guards the entrance to the classical underworld. In the Aeneid Virgil describes Cerberus as loud, huge, and terrifying (with snakes rising from his neck); to get by Cerberus, the Sibyl (Aeneas' guide) feeds him a spiked honey-cake that makes him immediately fall asleep (Aen. 6.416-25). Look at Dante's related but very different version of Cerberus in Inferno 6.13-33. How has Dante transformed him to fit the role of guardian in the circle of gluttony? How does Cerberus himself shed light on Dante's conception of the sin? Verses 28-30, describing the actual experience of a dog intent on his meal, exemplify Dante's attention to the real world in his depiction of the afterlife.
back to top
Avarice and Prodigality
Avarice--greed, lust for material gain--is one of the iniquities that most incurs Dante's scornful wrath. Consistent with the biblical saying that avarice is "the root of all evils" (1 Timothy 6:10), medieval Christian thought viewed the sin as most offensive to the spirit of love; Dante goes even further in blaming avarice for ethical and political corruption in his society. Ciacco identifies avarice--along with pride and envy--as one of the primary vices enflaming Florentine hearts (Inf. 6.74-5), and the poet consistently condemns greed and its effects throughout the Divine Comedy. Dante accordingly shows no mercy--unlike his attitude toward Francesca (lust) and Ciacco (gluttony)--in his selection of avarice as the capital sin punished in the fourth circle of hell (Inferno 7). He viciously presents the sin as a common vice of monks and church leaders (including cardinals and popes), and he further degrades the sinners by making them so physically squalid that they are unrecognizable to the travelers (Inf. 7.49-54). By defining the sin as "spending without measure" (7.42), Dante for the first time applies the classical principle of moderation (or the "golden mean") to criticize excessive desire for a neutral object in both one direction ("closed fists": avarice) and the other (spending too freely: prodigality). Fittingly, these two groups punish and insult one another in the afterlife.
back to top
Plutus
Dante's Plutus, guardian-symbol of the fourth circle (avarice and prodigality), is--like other infernal creatures--a unique hybrid of sources and natures. Often portrayed as the mythological god of the classical underworld (Hades), Plutus also appears in some cases as the god of wealth. Dante neatly merges these two figures by making Plutus the "great enemy" (Inf. 6.115) in hell with a special relationship to the sin most closely associated with material wealth. Dante similarly combines human and bestial natures in his conception of Plutus (Inf. 7.1-15): he possesses the power of speech (though the precise meaning of his words--some sort of invocation to Satan--is unclear) and the ability to understand--or at least react to--Virgil's dismissive words, while at the same time displaying a distinctly bestial rage and probably animal-like features as well.
back to top
Fortuna
Consistent with his devastating indictment of sinful attitudes toward material wealth, Dante has a very strong and original idea of the role of fortune in human affairs (Inf. 7.61-96). Fortune is certainly a powerful force in earlier philosophy and literature, most notably in Boethius' Consolation of Philosophy. Dante claims to have read this Latin work, which was highly influential throughout the Middle Ages, in the difficult period following the death of his beloved Beatrice. Fortune, for Boethius, is represented as a fickle and mischievous goddess who delights in her ability to change an individual's circumstances--for better or ill--on a whim. It is far more constructive, according to Boethius (who has been unjustly deprived of his possessions, honors, and freedom), to ignore one's earthly status altogether and trust only in what is certain and immutable. Adverse fortune is ultimately better than good fortune because it is more effective in teaching this lesson.
Dante's Fortuna is also female but he imagines her as a "divine minister" (an angelic intelligence) who guides the distribution of worldly goods, just as God's light and goodness are distributed throughout the created universe. She is above the fray, immune to both praise and blame from those who experience the ups and downs of her actions. Much as Dante "demonizes" mythological creatures from the classical underworld, so he "deifies" in a positive sense the traditional representation of fortune. The ways of fortune, like the application of divine justice generally, are simply beyond the capacity of human understanding.
Wrath and Sullenness (7-8)
Like the fourth circle of hell, the fifth circle--presented in Inferno 7 and 8--contains two related groups of sinners. But whereas avarice and prodigality are two distinct sins based on the same principle (an immoderate attitude toward material wealth), wrath and sullenness are basically two forms of a single sin: anger that is expressed (wrath) and anger that is repressed (sullenness). This idea that anger takes various forms is common in ancient and medieval thought. Note how the two groups suffer different punishments appropriate to their type of anger--the wrathful ruthlessly attacking one another and the sullen stewing below the surface of the muddy swamp (Inf. 7.109-26)--even though they are all confined to Styx.
back to top
Dis (8-9)
Dante designates all of lower hell--circles 6 through 9, where more serious sins are punished--as the walled city of Dis (Inf. 8.68), one of the names for the king of the classical underworld (Pluto) and--by extension--the underworld in general. For Dante, then, Dis stands both for Lucifer and the lower circles of his infernal realm. It may be significant that Virgil--a classical poet who refers to Dis in his Aeneid--is the one who now announces the travelers' approach to Dis in the Divine Comedy. Details of the city and its surroundings in Inferno 8 and 9--including moats, watch towers, high walls, and a well guarded entrance--suggest a citizenry ready for battle.
back to top
Phlegyas (8)
The infernal employee who transports Dante and Virgil in his boat across the Styx (Inf. 8.13-24)--circle of the wrathful and sullen--is appropriately known for his own impetuous behavior. In a fit of rage, Phlegyas set fire to the temple of Apollo because the god had raped his daughter. Apollo promptly slew him. Phlegyas, whose own father was Mars (god of war), appears in Virgil's underworld as an admonition against showing contempt for the gods (Aen. 6.618-20). Megaera, one of the Furies, tortures a famished and irritable Phlegyas in Statius' Thebaid (1.712-15).
back to top
Filippo Argenti (8)
Apart from what transpires in Inferno 8.31-63, we know little of the hot-headed character who quarrels with Dante, lays his hands on the boat (to capsize it?), and is finally torn to pieces by his wrathful cohorts, much to Dante's liking. Early commentators report that his name--Argenti--derived from an ostentatious habit of shoeing his horse in silver (argento). A black guelph, Filippo was Dante's natural political enemy, but the tone of the episode suggests personal animosity as well. Some try to explain Dante's harsh treatment of Filippo as payback for an earlier offense--namely, Filippo once slapped Dante in the face, or Filippo's brother took possession of Dante's confiscated property after the poet had been exiled from Florence. Boccaccio, in his Decameron, highlights Filippo's violent temper by having the character throttle a man who had crossed him (Day 9, novella 8).
back to top
Fallen Angels (8)
Dante's fallen angels--they literally "rained down from heaven" (Inf. 8.82-3)--defend the city of Dis (lower hell) just as they once resisted Christ's arrival at the gate of hell. These angels joined Lucifer in his rebellion against God; cast out of heaven, they laid the foundation for evil in the world. Once beautiful, they are now--like all things infernal--transformed into monstrous demons.
back to top
Furies and Medusa (8-9)
With the appearance of the three Furies, who threaten to call on the Medusa, Virgil's credibility and Dante's survival certainly appear to be at risk. Virgil is exceptionally animated as he directs Dante's attention to the Furies (also called "Erinyes") and identifies each one by name: Megaera, Tisiphone, and Allecto. This is a moment in the journey when Virgil's legacy as the author of his own epic poem--in which he himself writes of such creatures as the Furies and the Medusa--is central to the meaning of Dante's episode. The Furies, according to Virgil's classical world, were a terrifying trio of "daughters of Night"--bloodstained with snakes in their hair and about their waists--who were often invoked to exact revenge on the part of offended mortals and gods. The Medusa, one of three sisters known as the Gorgons, was so frightening to behold that those who looked at her would turn to stone. Conventionally adorned with a head full of serpents, she was decapitated by the Greek hero Perseus. Representations of Perseus holding aloft the horrible head of the Medusa were common in the early modern period. A Renaissance sculpture of the scene, by Cellini, has for many years decked the Loggia in Piazza della Signoria, one of the main squares in Florence. The fact that the Furies and Medusa were commonly thought to signify various evils (or components of sin) in the Middle Ages, from obstinacy and doubt to heresy and pride, may help to explain the travelers' difficulties at the entrance to Dis.
back to top
Heaven's Messenger (9)
Although the arrival of the messenger from heaven--who rebukes the demons so that the travelers may enter Dis (lower hell)--was anticipated by Virgil (Inf. 8.128-30; 9.8-9), the precise identification of the powerful being is never made clear. Literally "sent from heaven" (Inf. 9.85), he supports both classical and Christian interpretations in his appearance and actions. As an enemy of hell who walks on water (Inf. 9.81) and opens the gates of Dis as Christ once opened the gate of hell (Inf. 8.124-30), the messenger is certainly a Christ-like figure. He also bears similarities to Hermes-Mercury, the classical god who--borne on his winged feet--delivers messages to mortals from the heavens. The little wand of the heavenly messenger (Inf. 9.89) recalls the caduceus, the staff with which Hermes-Mercury guides souls of the dead to Hades. Both Christ and Hermes were strongly associated with the kind of allegory Dante describes in Inferno 9.61-3--namely, the idea that deeper meaning is hidden beneath the surface-level meaning of words. See allegory.
back to top
Styx (7-8)
The Styx is a body of water--a marsh or river--in the classical underworld. Virgil describes it in his Aeneid as the marsh across which Charon ferries souls of the dead--and the living Aeneas--into the lower world (Aen. 6.384-416). Dante's presentation of the infernal waterways--and the topography of the otherworld in general--is much more detailed and precise (and therefore more realistic and recognizable) than the descriptions of his classical and medieval precursors. The Styx, according to Dante's design, is a vast swamp encompassing the fifth circle of hell, in which the wrathful and sullen are punished. It also serves a practical purpose in the journey when Dante and Virgil are taken by Phlegyas--in his swift vessel--across the marsh to the city of Dis. Note the effects of Dante's body--modeled on a similar scene in the Aeneid (6.412-16)--when he boards Phlegyas' craft (Inf. 8.25-30).
back to top
Harrowing of Hell (8)
The harrowing of hell is previously described in Inferno 4. Virgil now alludes to a specific effect of the harrowing--damage to the gate of hell--in noting the arrogance of the demons at the entrance to Dis (Inf. 8.124-7).
back to top
Theseus and Hercules (9)
The heavenly messenger pointedly reminds the demons at the entrance to Dis that Dante will not be the first living man to breach their walls. Theseus and Hercules, two classical heroes each with a divine parent, previously entered the underworld and returned alive. Hercules, in fact, descended into Hades to rescue Theseus, who had been imprisoned following his unsuccessful attempt to abduct Persephone, Queen of Hades. While the Furies express regret at not having killed Theseus when they had the chance (Inf. 9.54), the heavenly messenger recalls that Cerberus bore the brunt of Hercules' fury as he was dragged by his chain along the hard floor of the underworld (Inf. 9.97-9). In the Aeneid Charon tries to dissuade Aeneas from boarding his boat by voicing his displeasure at having previously transported Hercules and Theseus to the underworld (6.392-7).
back to top
Erichtho (9)
Dante's desire to know--with not-so-subtle implications--if anyone has previously made the journey from upper hell, say Limbo, down to lower hell is evidence of the mind games that he and Virgil occasionally play with one another during their time together (Inf. 9.16-18). Given the impasse at the entrance to Dis, Dante understandably wants to know if his guide is up to the task. Virgil's savvy response that, yes, he himself once made such a journey, is his way of saying: "Don't worry, I know what I'm doing!" Virgil's story, that he was summoned by Erichtho to retrieve a soul from the lowest circle of hell (Inf. 9.25-30), is Dante's invention. Dante the poet thus invents a story so that Virgil can save face and reassure Dante the character. The poet likely based this story on a gruesome episode from Lucan's Pharsalia (6.507-830): Erichtho, a blood-thirsty witch, calls back from the underworld the shade of a freshly killed soldier so he can reveal future events in the civil war between Pompey and Caesar. By making Virgil a victim of Erichtho's sorcery, Dante draws on the popular belief--widespread in the Middle Ages--that Virgil himself possessed magical, prophetic powers.
back to top
Allegory (9)
When Dante interrupts the narrative to instruct his (smart) readers to "note the doctrine hidden under the veil of strange verses" (Inf. 9.61-3), he calls upon the popular medieval tradition of allegorical reading. Commonly applied to the interpretation of sacred texts (e.g., the Bible), allegory--in its various forms--assumes that other, deeper levels of meaning (often spiritual) lie beneath the surface in addition to (or in place of) the literal meaning of the words. Allegory was also used to "moralize" (or Christianize) classical works, such as Ovid's Metamorphoses. The medieval Platonic tradition often allegorically interpreted texts according to a body of esoteric doctrine believed to originate with Hermes (hence "hermeticism").
Heresy
Dante opts for the most generic conception of heresy--the denial of the soul's immortality (Inf. 10.15)--perhaps in deference to spiritual and philosophical positions of specific characters he wishes to feature here, or perhaps for the opportunity to present an especially effective form of contrapasso: heretical souls eternally tormented in fiery tombs. More commonly, heresy in the Middle Ages was a product of acrimonious disputes over Christian doctrine, in particular the theologically correct ways of understanding the Trinity and Christ. Crusades were waged against "heretical sects," and individuals accused of other crimes or sins--e.g., witchcraft, usury, sodomy--were frequently labeled heretics as well.
Heresy, according to a theological argument based on the dividing of Jesus' tunic by Roman soldiers (Matthew 27:35), was traditionally viewed as an act of division, a symbolic laceration in the community of "true" believers. This may help explain why divisive, partisan politics is such a prominent theme in Dante's encounter with Farinata.
Set in a northern Italian monastery, Umberto Eco's best-selling novel The Name of the Rose (1980)--made into a film (1986) starring Sean Connery, Christian Slater, and F. Murray Abraham--provides a learned and entertaining portrayal of heretics and their persecutors only a few decades after the time of Dante's poem.
back to top
Farinata
Farinata cuts an imposing figure--rising out of his burning tomb "from the waist up" and seeming to "have great contempt for hell"--when Dante turns to address him in the circle of the heretics (Inf. 10.31-6). His very first question to Dante--"Who were your ancestors?" (10.42)-- reveals the tight relationship between family and politics in thirteenth-century Italy. As a Florentine leader of the ghibellines, Farinata was an enemy to the party of Dante's ancestors, the guelphs (before the ghibellines were defeated and the guelphs splintered into white and black factions). Although Farinata's ghibellines twice defeated the guelphs (in 1248 and 1260), the guelphs both times succeeded in returning to power--unlike the ghibellines following their defeat in 1266. Farinata's family (the Uberti) was explicitly excluded from later amnesties (he had died in 1264), and in 1283 he and his wife (both posthumously charged with heresy) were excommunicated. Their bodies were disinterred and burned, and the possessions of their heirs confiscated.
These politically motivated wars and vendettas, in which victors banished their adversaries, literally divided Florence's populace. While there is certainly no love lost between Dante and Farinata, there is a measure of respect. Farinata, called magnanimo--"great-hearted"--by the narrator (10.73), put Florence above politics when he stood up to his victorious colleagues and argued against destroying the city completely (10.91-3). What does it say about Dante, himself an exiled victim of partisan politics, to present Farinata as both a political enemy and a defender of Florence?
back to top
Cavalcante de' Cavalcanti
Whereas Farinata cuts an imposing figure, extending out of his tomb and towering above his interlocutor, Cavalcante de' Cavalcanti lifts only his head above the edge of the same tomb. A member of a rich and powerful guelph family, Cavalcante--like Dante's ancestors--was an enemy to Farinata and the ghibellines. To help bridge the hostile guelph-ghibelline divide, Cavalcante married his son (see Guido Cavalcanti below) to Farinata's daughter (Beatrice degli Uberti). While Farinata's primary concern is politics, Cavalcante is obsessed with the fate of his son (Inf. 10.58-72), whom Dante in another work calls his best friend. Cavalcante's alleged heresy may be more a matter of guilt by association with his son's world-view than a reflection of his own spiritual beliefs.
back to top
Guido Cavalcanti
Dante's best friend, Guido Cavalcanti--a few years older than Dante--was an aristocratic white guelph and an erudite, accomplished poet in his own right. Guido's best known poem, Donna me prega ("A lady asks me"), is a stylistically sophisticated example of his philosophical view of love as a dark force that leads one to misery and often to death. When Dante says that Guido perhaps "held in disdain" someone connected with his friend's journey (Inf. 10.63), he may simply mean that Guido did not appreciate Beatrice's spiritual importance (she died in 1290). Guido's father, in any case, takes this past tense to mean that his son is already dead, while Dante-character in fact knows that Guido is still alive at the time of the journey (April 1300). But he will not live much longer. Worse still, Dante himself is partly--if indirectly--responsible for the death of his best friend in August 1300. As one of the priors of Florence (June 15 - August 15, 1300), Dante joined in a decision to punish both parties--white and black guelphs--for recent fighting by banishing ring-leaders, one of whom was Guido Cavalcanti, of the two sides. Tragically, Guido fell ill--he likely contracted malaria--due to the bad climate of the region to which he was sent, and he died later that summer shortly after his return to Florence.
back to top
Epicurus
Epicurus was a Greek philosopher (341-270 B.C.E) who espoused the doctrine that pleasure--defined in terms of serenity, the absence of pain and passion--is the highest human good. By identifying the heretics as followers of Epicurus (Inf. 10.13-14), Dante condemns the Epicurean view that the soul--like the body--is mortal.
back to top
Frederick II
Apart from Farinata's mention of him here in the circle of heresy (Inf. 10.119), the emperor Frederick II was important to Dante as the last in the line of reigning Holy Roman Emperors. Raised in Palermo, in the Kingdom of Sicily, Frederick was crowned emperor in Rome in 1220. A central figure in the conflicting claims of the empire and the papacy, he was twice excommunicated--in 1227 and 1245-- before his death in 1250. In placing Frederick among the heretics, Dante is likely following the accusations of the emperor's enemies. Elsewhere Dante praises Frederick--along with his son Manfred--as a paragon of nobility and integrity (De vulgari eloquentia 1.12.4). Frederick's court at Palermo was known as an intellectual and cultural capital, with fruitful interactions among talented individuals-- philosophers, artists, musicians, scientists, and poets--from Latin, Arabic, Italian, Northern European, and Greek traditions. Frederick's court nourished the first major movement in Italian vernacular poetry; this so-called "Sicilian School" of poetry (in which the sonnet was first developed) contributed greatly to the establishment of the Italian literary tradition that influenced the young Dante.
back to top
Guelphs and Ghibellines
While the Florentine political parties of Dante's day were the white and black guelphs--the blacks more favorable to interests of the old noble class, the whites more aligned with the rising merchant class--Florence before Dante's childhood participated in the more general political struggle between guelphs and ghibellines on the Italian peninsular and in other parts of Europe. Derived from two warring royal houses in Germany (Waiblingen and Welf), the sides came to be distinguished by their adherence to the claims of the emperor (ghibellines) or the pope (guelph). The guelph cause finally triumphed with the death of Manfred--son of Emperor Frederick II--at the battle of Benevento (in southern Italy) in 1266. Until this time, Florence alternated between guelph and ghibelline rule, beginning--according to medieval chronicles--with a violent conflict between two prominent families and their allies in 1215: young Buondelmonte de' Buondelmonti, the story goes, was murdered by the Amidei clan on Easter Sunday after he broke his promise to marry an Amidei (as part of a peace arrangement) and married one of the Donati instead. This event came to be seen as the origin of the factional violence that would plague Florence for the next century and beyond.
back to top
Hyperopia
We learn from Farinata in Inferno 10 that the heretics--and apparently all the damned--possess the supernatural ability to "see" future events (Inf. 10.94-108). However, like those who suffer from hyperopia ("far-sightedness"), their visual acuity decreases as events come closer to the present. Because there will no longer be a future when the world ends (see Last Judgment), souls of the damned will have no external awareness to distract them from their eternal suffering.
back to top
More Fraud: Theft (24-5), Fraudulent Rhetoric (26-7), Divisiveness (28), Falsification (29-30)         Included among Virgil's catalogue of fraudulent offenses in Inferno 11 are theft, falsifying, and "like trash" (59-60)--the sins that are punished in the final four ditches of circle 8. With the thieves appearing in the seventh pit and the falsifiers in the tenth, the "like trash" must by default fill up ditches eight and nine. Divisive individuals--sowers of scandal and discord--are tormented in the ninth ditch, and the shades punished in the eighth pit (hidden within tongues of fire) are traditionally thought of as "evil counselors," based on the damnation of Guido da Montefeltro (Inf. 27.116). A more accurate description, consistent with both the contrapasso of the tongue-like flames and the Ulysses episode in Inferno 26 as well as with Guido's appearance in Inferno 27, might be the use of rhetoric--understood as eloquence aimed at persuasion--by talented individuals for insidious ends. Rhetoric, according to a classical tradition familiar to Dante, is essential for civilized life when used wisely. However, eloquence without wisdom--far worse even than wisdom without eloquence--is an evil that can "corrupt cities and undermine the lives of men" (Cicero, De inventione 1.2.3). Dante appropriately defines the concept of contrapasso in his presentation of divisive shades, the most clear-cut manifestation of a logical relationship between the offense and the punishment: as they divided institutions, communities, and families in life, so these figures are physically--and repeatedly--sliced apart for eternity in hell (Inf. 28.139-42). The contrapasso for the thieves, on the other hand, is arguably the most conceptually sophisticated of the poem. The tenuous hold on one's identity--with dramatic transformations of human and reptilian forms--suggests that no possession, no matter how personal, is safe in the realm of theft. Slightly less subtle is the contrapasso for the falsifiers, whose corrupting influence--on metals (alchemists), money (counterfeiters), identity (imposters), and truth (liars)--is reflected in their diseased bodies and minds in the tenth and final pit of circle 8, the realm of fraud. back to top Vanni Fucci (24-5)   Vanni Fucci, the thief who is incinerated (after receiving a snakebite) and then regains his human form (like the Phoenix rising from the ashes [Inf. 24.97-111]), was a black guelph from Pistoia, a town not far from rival Florence. He admits--grudgingly--to having stolen holy objects (possibly silver tablets with images of the Virgin Mary and the apostles) from a chapel in the Pistoian cathedral, a confession he certainly did not offer when another man was accused of the crime and very nearly executed before the true culprits were identified. Vanni subsequently gave up an accomplice, who was executed instead. Dante says he knew Vanni as a man "of blood and anger" (Inf. 24.129; he in fact committed numerous acts of violence, including murder), qualities on full display in Inferno 24 and 25: he first gets back at his interlocutor by announcing future political events--for example, exiled Pistoian black guelphs joining with exiled Florentines to overthrow and banish the white guelphs of Florence in 1301--personally painful to Dante (Inf. 24.142-51); immediately after this symbolic "screw you!" to Dante, the thief actually gives God the proverbial finger (he makes "figs"--signifying copulation--by placing his thumb between the forefinger and middle finger of each hand) (Inf. 25.1-3). No wonder Vanni Fucci takes the prize as the shade most arrogant to God in Dante's experience of hell (Inf. 25.13-15). back to top Cacus (25)    Cacus is the angry Centaur who seeks to punish Vanni Fucci in the pit of the thieves. Dante presents this horse-man as an elaborate monster, with snakes covering his equine back and a dragon--shooting fire at anyone in the way--astride Cacus' human shoulders (Inf. 25.16-24). Virgil explains that Cacus is not with the other Centaurs patrolling the river of blood in the circle of violence (Inferno 12) because he fraudulently stole from a herd of cattle belonging to Hercules, who brutally clubbed Cacus to death (28-33). In the Aeneid Virgil portrays Cacus as a half-human, fire-breathing monster who inhabits a cavern--under the Aventine hill (near the future site of Rome)--filled with gore and the corpses of Cacus' victims. Cacus steals Hercules' cattle--four bulls and four heifers--by dragging them backwards into his cavern (in order to conceal evidence of his crime). When Hercules hears the cries of one of his stolen cows, he tears the top off the hill and, to the delight of the native population, strangles Cacus to death (Aen. 8.193-267). The account of Hercules using his massive club to kill Cacus--instead of strangulation--appears in Livy's History of Rome (1.7.7) and Ovid's Fasti (1.575-8). back to top Ulysses and Diomedes (26)   Appearing in a single yet divided flame in the eighth pit of circle 8 are Ulysses and Diomedes, two Greek heroes from the war against Troy whose joint punishment reflects their many combined exploits. Dante would have known of these exploits not from Homer's poetry--as the Iliad (recounting the Trojan War) and the Odyssey (telling of Ulysses' ten-year wandering before returning home to Ithaca) were not available to him--but from parts and reworkings of the Homeric story contained in classical and medieval Latin and vernacular works. Virgil, who writes extensively of Ulysses from the perspective of the Trojan Aeneas (Aeneid 2), now as Dante's guide lists three offenses committed by Ulysses and Diomedes: devising and executing the stratagem of the wooden horse (an ostensible gift that--filled with Greek soldiers--occasioned the destruction of Troy); luring Achilles--hidden by his mother, Thetis, on the island of Skyros--into the war effort (for which Achilles abandoned Deidamia and their son); and stealing the Palladium--a statue of Athena which protected the city of Troy--with the help of a Trojan traitor, Antenor (Inf. 26.58-63). That Virgil is the one to address Ulysses--the "greater horn" of the forked flame (85)--is itself noteworthy. On the one hand, this may simply reflect a cultural affinity between Virgil and Ulysses, two men from--in Dante's view--the ancient world. On the other hand, Virgil's appeal to Ulysses based on whether he was "deserving" of Ulysses in his "noble lines" rings false (Virgil in fact has nothing good to say about the Greek hero in the Aeneid)--so false that some think Virgil may be trying to trick Ulysses by impersonating Homer! Blissfully ignorant of the Odyssey--and either ignorant or dismissive of a medieval account in which Ulysses is killed by Telegonus, son of the enchantress Circe--Dante invents an original version of the final chapter of Ulysses' life, a voyage beyond the boundaries of the known world that ends in shipwreck and death. However, the voyage itself may or may not be implicated in Ulysses' damnation. Certainly, Ulysses' quest for "worth and knowledge" (120) embodies a noble sentiment, one consistent with Cicero's praise of Ulysses as a model for the love of wisdom (De finibus 5.18.49). Conversely, Ulysses' renunciation of all family obligations (94-9) and his highly effective use of eloquence to win the minds of his men (112-20) may be signs that this voyage is morally unacceptable no matter how noble its goals. You be the judge. Ulysses, in any case, represents an immensely gifted individual not afraid to exceed established limits and chart new ground. Sound familiar? It is perhaps appropriate that Dante prefaces the presentation of Ulysses with a self-reflective warning not to abuse his own talent (Inf. 26.19-24). back to top Guido da Montefeltro (27)   Whereas Virgil addresses the Greek hero Ulysses in Inferno 26, Dante himself inquires of Guido da Montefeltro--a figure from Dante's medieval Italian world--in Inferno 27. Guido (c. 1220-98), a fraudulent character who may himself be a victim of fraud, immediately reveals the limits of his scheming mind when he expresses a willingness to identify himself only because he believes (or claims to believe) that no one ever returns from hell alive (Inf. 27.61-6). T. S. Eliot uses these lines in the Italian original as the epigraph to his famous poem about a modern-day Guido, "The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock": S'i' credesse che mia risposta fosse a persona che mai tornasse al mondo, questa fiamma staria sanza più scosse; ma però che già mai di questo fondo non tornò vivo alcun, s'i' odo il vero, sanza tema d'infamia ti rispondo. If I thought my answer was to someone who might return to the world, this flame would move no more; but since from this depth it never happened that anyone alive returned (if I hear right), without fear of infamy I'll answer you Note how the double s's imitate the hissing sound of the speaking flame. Similar to Ulysses, Guido was a sly military-political leader--more fox than lion--who knew "all the wiles and secret ways" of the world (Inf. 27.73-8). He was a prominent ghibelline who led several important military campaigns in central Italy. In the 1270s and the early 1280s he scored decisive victories over guelph and papal forces before suffering defeat in 1283 at Forlí (in Romagna). Excommunicated, he later captained the forces of the Pisan ghibellines against Florence (1288-92); in 1296 Pope Boniface VIII rescinded the excommunication as part of a political strategy to remove the dangerous Guido from the scene. Thus Dante relates how Guido, unlike Ulysses, made an attempt--at least superficially--to change his devious ways when he retired from his active warrior life to become a Franciscan friar (Inf. 27.67-8; 79-84). In a previous work, Dante praises Guido's apparent conversion as a model for how the virtuous individual should retire from worldly affairs late in life (Convivio 4.28.8); Dante certainly uses Guido's story for a very different purpose here in the Inferno. Now the poet calls into question Guido's pretense to a pious life at the same time that he strikes another blow against the pope he loves to hate: Boniface induces Guido to provide advice for destroying the pope's enemies--a broken promise of amnesty for the Colonna family--in exchange for the impossible absolution of this sin even before Guido commits it (85-111). back to top Mohammed and Ali (28) Consistent with medieval Christian thinking, in which the Muslim world was viewed as a hostile usurper, Dante depicts both Mohammed--the founder of Islam--and his cousin and son-in-law Ali as sowers of religious divisiveness. One popular view held that Mohammed had himself been a cardinal who, his papal ambitions thwarted, caused a great schism within Christianity when he and his followers splintered off into a new religious community. Dante creates a vicious composite portrait of the two holy men, with Mohammed's body split from groin to chin and Ali's face cleft from top to bottom (Inf. 28.22-33). According to tradition, the prophet Mohammed founded Islam in the early seventh century C.E. at Mecca. Ali married Mohammed's daughter, Fatima, but a dispute over Ali's succession to the caliphate led, after his assassination in 661, to a division among Muslims into Sunni and Shi'ite. Still very much part of the collective memory in Dante's world were the crusades of the 12th and 13th centuries, in which Christian armies from Europe fought--mostly unsuccessfully and with heavy losses on all sides--to drive Muslims out of the "holy land" (Jerusalem and surrounding areas). In the Middle Ages, Islam had great influence in Europe in terms of both culture--particularly in medicine, philosophy, and mathematics--and politics (e.g., complete or partial Muslim control of Spain from the 8th through 15th century). back to top Bertran de Born (28)     Dante selects a troubadour poet--Bertran de Born--for the defining example of contrapasso, the logical relationship between the sin and its punishment in hell (Inf. 28.139-42). Because he allegedly instigated a rift between King Henry II of England and his son, the young prince Henry, Bertran is now himself physically divided: he carries his decapitated head, which--though separated from the body--inexplicably manages to speak (Inf. 28.118-26). Bertran (c. 1140 - c. 1215) was a nobleman of a region--mostly contained in southern France--famous for the production of Provençal literature, in particular the first lyric poems written in a vernacular romance language. Most of these poems speak of love but others deal with moral or political themes. In the case of Bertran, Dante likely had in mind the following verses, in which the troubadour celebrates the mayhem and violence of warfare: Maces, swords, helmets--colorfully-- Shields, slicing and smashing, We'll see at the start of the melee With all those vassals clashing, And horses running free From their masters, hit, downtread. Once the charge has been led, Every man of nobility Will hack at arms and heads. Better than taken prisoner: be dead. (trans. James J. Wilhelm, Lyrics of the Middle Ages [Garland: New York & London, 1990], p. 91) back to top Master Adam and Sinon the Greek (30)  Adam and Sinon--counterfeiter and liar, respectively--trade blows and then an escalating series of verbal barbs that illustrates the hostile attitude of shades toward one another in lower hell (Inf. 30.100-29). Adam was probably an Englishman who plied his illicit trade in late thirteenth-century Italy by manufacturing florins--the prestigious medieval currency of Florence--each containing only twenty-one of the standard twenty-four carats of gold. Sinon, a Greek participant in the Trojan War known to Dante from Virgil's Aeneid (2.57-198), earned his place in the pit of the falsifiers for telling a devastating lie: claiming to have escaped from his Greek comrades before they left Troy (he says they planned to sacrifice him in return for a safe voyage home), Sinon convinces the Trojans that the Greeks built the large wooden horse to placate the goddess (Athena) whose statue Ulysses and Diomedes had stolen from Troy. The Trojans believe Sinon and think to protect Troy by bringing the horse inside the city walls; this enables the Greeks (hidden inside the horse) to accomplish by fraud--destroy Troy--what they failed to do by force alone. back to top Incarnational Parody (25)  The second transformation of the thieves, in which a human and a six-legged serpent fuse into a grotesque new form that is "neither two nor one" [né due né uno] (Inf. 25.69), is likely meant to be understood as a parody of the incarnation. This doctrine, established at the Council of Chalcedon (451 C.E.) after years of acrimonious debate among theologians, states that Christ is both human and divine, with each nature complete in its own right. Christ, who--along with the Virgin Mary--is never named in the Inferno, therefore comprises "two natures in one person." It is only natural for this theologically correct formulation to be parodied in hell, perhaps by the hybrid creatures (e.g., Minotaur, Centaurs, Harpies) as well as by the thieves joined in a form that is "neither two nor one." Look for other examples of incarnational parody in the Inferno. back to top Lucan and Ovid (25) Lucan and Ovid are two of the elite group of poets in Limbo--the others are Homer, Horace, and Virgil--who honor Dante by welcoming him as one of their own (Inf. 4.100-2). Here Dante interrupts his extraordinary description of a mutual transformation of natures--a man and a reptile exchanging forms--to brag that his verses surpass those of Lucan and Ovid, who wrote merely of uni-directional transformations (Inf. 25.94-102). Lucan, for example, tells how Sabellus--a soldier fighting in the Roman civil war--liquefies into a small pool of gore after being bitten by a snake in the Libyan desert, and how another unfortunate soldier, Nasidius, falls victim to a serpent's venom as his body swells into a featureless mass (Pharsalia 9.761-804). Ovid's Cadmus, brother of Europa and founder of Thebes, is transformed into a serpent at the end of his life for slaying a dragon sacred to Mars, and Arethusa is a nymph transformed into a fountain (by Diana) to avoid the amorous advances of Alpheus, a river-god in human form who then reverts to his watery nature; he thus succeeds in merging with Arethusa before the earth opens up and she plunges into the cavernous underworld (Metamorphoses 4.571-603 and 5.572-641). Note how Dante's language suggests that he is the actual creator of this mutual transformation and not merely an observer who later describes what he saw. What might this imply about Dante's participation in the realm of theft? back to top Elijah's Chariot (26) In the eighth pit of circle 8, Dante compares the flames that conceal the shades of the damned to the chariot that carried the prophet Elijah to the heavens (Inf. 26.34-42; 4 Kings 2:11-12). As "he who was avenged by bears" (26.34)--that is, Elisha: two bears killed the boys who had mocked him (4 Kings 2:23-4)--could only follow Elijah's ascent by watching the fire-ball high in the sky, so Dante sees the flames but not the human forms they envelop. back to top Eteocles and Polynices (26) Dante compares the twinned flame concealing the shades of Ulysses and Diomedes to the divided flame that rose from the funeral pyre containing the corpses of Eteocles and Polynices (Inf. 26.52-4). These twin brothers were sons of Jocasta and Oedipus, who prayed that Eteocles and Polynices would be forever enemies after they forced him to abdicate and leave Thebes. This prayer-curse came to fruition when Eteocles refused to give up power (the brothers had agreed to take turns ruling Thebes): Polynices enlisted the aid of King Adrastus of Argos, thus initiating the war of the "Seven against Thebes" (see Capaneus). After the brothers killed one another in combat, their bodies were placed together in a single pyre but their mutual hatred, even after death, was such that the rising flame divided in two (Statius, Thebaid 12.429-32). Consider the implications of this story for imagining the relationship between Ulysses and Diomedes in hell, now concealed within a single yet divided flame. back to top Audio "Togli, Dio, ch'a te le squadro!" (25.3) Here you are, God, I point them at you! "Vedi che già non se' né due né uno" (25.69) Look how already you're neither two nor one "fatti non foste a viver come bruti" (26.119) you weren't made to live like beasts "ed eran due in uno e uno in due" (28.125) and they were two in one and one in two "Così s'osserva in me lo contrapasso" (28.142) thus you observe in me the contrapasso back to top Study Questions How do the transformations of the thieves relate to their sin? How is Dante the poet participating in the sin of theft? What differences and similarities do you see between Ulysses (26) and Guido (27)? Why are they both punished as tongues of fire in the same ditch? Why does Dante take Ulysses' story so personally (see 26.19-24)? How do you understand the contrapasso for the falsifiers (29-30)--that is, why does their punishment consist of diseased bodies and minds? |
More Fraud: Theft (24-5), Fraudulent Rhetoric (26-7), Divisiveness (28), Falsification (29-30) Included among Virgil's catalogue of fraudulent offenses in Inferno 11 are theft, falsifying, and "like trash" (59-60)--the sins that are punished in the final four ditches of circle 8. With the thieves appearing in the seventh pit and the falsifiers in the tenth, the "like trash" must by default fill up ditches eight and nine. Divisive individuals--sowers of scandal and discord--are tormented in the ninth ditch, and the shades punished in the eighth pit (hidden within tongues of fire) are traditionally thought of as "evil counselors," based on the damnation of Guido da Montefeltro (Inf. 27.116). A more accurate description, consistent with both the contrapasso of the tongue-like flames and the Ulysses episode in Inferno 26 as well as with Guido's appearance in Inferno 27, might be the use of rhetoric--understood as eloquence aimed at persuasion--by talented individuals for insidious ends. Rhetoric, according to a classical tradition familiar to Dante, is essential for civilized life when used wisely. However, eloquence without wisdom--far worse even than wisdom without eloquence--is an evil that can "corrupt cities and undermine the lives of men" (Cicero, De inventione 1.2.3). Dante appropriately defines the concept of contrapasso in his presentation of divisive shades, the most clear-cut manifestation of a logical relationship between the offense and the punishment: as they divided institutions, communities, and families in life, so these figures are physically--and repeatedly--sliced apart for eternity in hell (Inf. 28.139-42). The contrapasso for the thieves, on the other hand, is arguably the most conceptually sophisticated of the poem. The tenuous hold on one's identity--with dramatic transformations of human and reptilian forms--suggests that no possession, no matter how personal, is safe in the realm of theft. Slightly less subtle is the contrapasso for the falsifiers, whose corrupting influence--on metals (alchemists), money (counterfeiters), identity (imposters), and truth (liars)--is reflected in their diseased bodies and minds in the tenth and final pit of circle 8, the realm of fraud. back to top Vanni Fucci (24-5) Vanni Fucci, the thief who is incinerated (after receiving a snakebite) and then regains his human form (like the Phoenix rising from the ashes [Inf. 24.97-111]), was a black guelph from Pistoia, a town not far from rival Florence. He admits--grudgingly--to having stolen holy objects (possibly silver tablets with images of the Virgin Mary and the apostles) from a chapel in the Pistoian cathedral, a confession he certainly did not offer when another man was accused of the crime and very nearly executed before the true culprits were identified. Vanni subsequently gave up an accomplice, who was executed instead. Dante says he knew Vanni as a man "of blood and anger" (Inf. 24.129; he in fact committed numerous acts of violence, including murder), qualities on full display in Inferno 24 and 25: he first gets back at his interlocutor by announcing future political events--for example, exiled Pistoian black guelphs joining with exiled Florentines to overthrow and banish the white guelphs of Florence in 1301--personally painful to Dante (Inf. 24.142-51); immediately after this symbolic "screw you!" to Dante, the thief actually gives God the proverbial finger (he makes "figs"--signifying copulation--by placing his thumb between the forefinger and middle finger of each hand) (Inf. 25.1-3). No wonder Vanni Fucci takes the prize as the shade most arrogant to God in Dante's experience of hell (Inf. 25.13-15). back to top Cacus (25) Cacus is the angry Centaur who seeks to punish Vanni Fucci in the pit of the thieves. Dante presents this horse-man as an elaborate monster, with snakes covering his equine back and a dragon--shooting fire at anyone in the way--astride Cacus' human shoulders (Inf. 25.16-24). Virgil explains that Cacus is not with the other Centaurs patrolling the river of blood in the circle of violence (Inferno 12) because he fraudulently stole from a herd of cattle belonging to Hercules, who brutally clubbed Cacus to death (28-33). In the Aeneid Virgil portrays Cacus as a half-human, fire-breathing monster who inhabits a cavern--under the Aventine hill (near the future site of Rome)--filled with gore and the corpses of Cacus' victims. Cacus steals Hercules' cattle--four bulls and four heifers--by dragging them backwards into his cavern (in order to conceal evidence of his crime). When Hercules hears the cries of one of his stolen cows, he tears the top off the hill and, to the delight of the native population, strangles Cacus to death (Aen. 8.193-267). The account of Hercules using his massive club to kill Cacus--instead of strangulation--appears in Livy's History of Rome (1.7.7) and Ovid's Fasti (1.575-8). back to top Ulysses and Diomedes (26) Appearing in a single yet divided flame in the eighth pit of circle 8 are Ulysses and Diomedes, two Greek heroes from the war against Troy whose joint punishment reflects their many combined exploits. Dante would have known of these exploits not from Homer's poetry--as the Iliad (recounting the Trojan War) and the Odyssey (telling of Ulysses' ten-year wandering before returning home to Ithaca) were not available to him--but from parts and reworkings of the Homeric story contained in classical and medieval Latin and vernacular works. Virgil, who writes extensively of Ulysses from the perspective of the Trojan Aeneas (Aeneid 2), now as Dante's guide lists three offenses committed by Ulysses and Diomedes: devising and executing the stratagem of the wooden horse (an ostensible gift that--filled with Greek soldiers--occasioned the destruction of Troy); luring Achilles--hidden by his mother, Thetis, on the island of Skyros--into the war effort (for which Achilles abandoned Deidamia and their son); and stealing the Palladium--a statue of Athena which protected the city of Troy--with the help of a Trojan traitor, Antenor (Inf. 26.58-63). That Virgil is the one to address Ulysses--the "greater horn" of the forked flame (85)--is itself noteworthy. On the one hand, this may simply reflect a cultural affinity between Virgil and Ulysses, two men from--in Dante's view--the ancient world. On the other hand, Virgil's appeal to Ulysses based on whether he was "deserving" of Ulysses in his "noble lines" rings false (Virgil in fact has nothing good to say about the Greek hero in the Aeneid)--so false that some think Virgil may be trying to trick Ulysses by impersonating Homer! Blissfully ignorant of the Odyssey--and either ignorant or dismissive of a medieval account in which Ulysses is killed by Telegonus, son of the enchantress Circe--Dante invents an original version of the final chapter of Ulysses' life, a voyage beyond the boundaries of the known world that ends in shipwreck and death. However, the voyage itself may or may not be implicated in Ulysses' damnation. Certainly, Ulysses' quest for "worth and knowledge" (120) embodies a noble sentiment, one consistent with Cicero's praise of Ulysses as a model for the love of wisdom (De finibus 5.18.49). Conversely, Ulysses' renunciation of all family obligations (94-9) and his highly effective use of eloquence to win the minds of his men (112-20) may be signs that this voyage is morally unacceptable no matter how noble its goals. You be the judge. Ulysses, in any case, represents an immensely gifted individual not afraid to exceed established limits and chart new ground. Sound familiar? It is perhaps appropriate that Dante prefaces the presentation of Ulysses with a self-reflective warning not to abuse his own talent (Inf. 26.19-24). back to top Guido da Montefeltro (27) Whereas Virgil addresses the Greek hero Ulysses in Inferno 26, Dante himself inquires of Guido da Montefeltro--a figure from Dante's medieval Italian world--in Inferno 27. Guido (c. 1220-98), a fraudulent character who may himself be a victim of fraud, immediately reveals the limits of his scheming mind when he expresses a willingness to identify himself only because he believes (or claims to believe) that no one ever returns from hell alive (Inf. 27.61-6). T. S. Eliot uses these lines in the Italian original as the epigraph to his famous poem about a modern-day Guido, "The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock": S'i' credesse che mia risposta fosse a persona che mai tornasse al mondo, questa fiamma staria sanza più scosse; ma però che già mai di questo fondo non tornò vivo alcun, s'i' odo il vero, sanza tema d'infamia ti rispondo. If I thought my answer was to someone who might return to the world, this flame would move no more; but since from this depth it never happened that anyone alive returned (if I hear right), without fear of infamy I'll answer you Note how the double s's imitate the hissing sound of the speaking flame. Similar to Ulysses, Guido was a sly military-political leader--more fox than lion--who knew "all the wiles and secret ways" of the world (Inf. 27.73-8). He was a prominent ghibelline who led several important military campaigns in central Italy. In the 1270s and the early 1280s he scored decisive victories over guelph and papal forces before suffering defeat in 1283 at Forlí (in Romagna). Excommunicated, he later captained the forces of the Pisan ghibellines against Florence (1288-92); in 1296 Pope Boniface VIII rescinded the excommunication as part of a political strategy to remove the dangerous Guido from the scene. Thus Dante relates how Guido, unlike Ulysses, made an attempt--at least superficially--to change his devious ways when he retired from his active warrior life to become a Franciscan friar (Inf. 27.67-8; 79-84). In a previous work, Dante praises Guido's apparent conversion as a model for how the virtuous individual should retire from worldly affairs late in life (Convivio 4.28.8); Dante certainly uses Guido's story for a very different purpose here in the Inferno. Now the poet calls into question Guido's pretense to a pious life at the same time that he strikes another blow against the pope he loves to hate: Boniface induces Guido to provide advice for destroying the pope's enemies--a broken promise of amnesty for the Colonna family--in exchange for the impossible absolution of this sin even before Guido commits it (85-111). back to top Mohammed and Ali (28) Consistent with medieval Christian thinking, in which the Muslim world was viewed as a hostile usurper, Dante depicts both Mohammed--the founder of Islam--and his cousin and son-in-law Ali as sowers of religious divisiveness. One popular view held that Mohammed had himself been a cardinal who, his papal ambitions thwarted, caused a great schism within Christianity when he and his followers splintered off into a new religious community. Dante creates a vicious composite portrait of the two holy men, with Mohammed's body split from groin to chin and Ali's face cleft from top to bottom (Inf. 28.22-33). According to tradition, the prophet Mohammed founded Islam in the early seventh century C.E. at Mecca. Ali married Mohammed's daughter, Fatima, but a dispute over Ali's succession to the caliphate led, after his assassination in 661, to a division among Muslims into Sunni and Shi'ite. Still very much part of the collective memory in Dante's world were the crusades of the 12th and 13th centuries, in which Christian armies from Europe fought--mostly unsuccessfully and with heavy losses on all sides--to drive Muslims out of the "holy land" (Jerusalem and surrounding areas). In the Middle Ages, Islam had great influence in Europe in terms of both culture--particularly in medicine, philosophy, and mathematics--and politics (e.g., complete or partial Muslim control of Spain from the 8th through 15th century). back to top Bertran de Born (28) Dante selects a troubadour poet--Bertran de Born--for the defining example of contrapasso, the logical relationship between the sin and its punishment in hell (Inf. 28.139-42). Because he allegedly instigated a rift between King Henry II of England and his son, the young prince Henry, Bertran is now himself physically divided: he carries his decapitated head, which--though separated from the body--inexplicably manages to speak (Inf. 28.118-26). Bertran (c. 1140 - c. 1215) was a nobleman of a region--mostly contained in southern France--famous for the production of Provençal literature, in particular the first lyric poems written in a vernacular romance language. Most of these poems speak of love but others deal with moral or political themes. In the case of Bertran, Dante likely had in mind the following verses, in which the troubadour celebrates the mayhem and violence of warfare: Maces, swords, helmets--colorfully-- Shields, slicing and smashing, We'll see at the start of the melee With all those vassals clashing, And horses running free From their masters, hit, downtread. Once the charge has been led, Every man of nobility Will hack at arms and heads. Better than taken prisoner: be dead. (trans. James J. Wilhelm, Lyrics of the Middle Ages [Garland: New York & London, 1990], p. 91) back to top Master Adam and Sinon the Greek (30) Adam and Sinon--counterfeiter and liar, respectively--trade blows and then an escalating series of verbal barbs that illustrates the hostile attitude of shades toward one another in lower hell (Inf. 30.100-29). Adam was probably an Englishman who plied his illicit trade in late thirteenth-century Italy by manufacturing florins--the prestigious medieval currency of Florence--each containing only twenty-one of the standard twenty-four carats of gold. Sinon, a Greek participant in the Trojan War known to Dante from Virgil's Aeneid (2.57-198), earned his place in the pit of the falsifiers for telling a devastating lie: claiming to have escaped from his Greek comrades before they left Troy (he says they planned to sacrifice him in return for a safe voyage home), Sinon convinces the Trojans that the Greeks built the large wooden horse to placate the goddess (Athena) whose statue Ulysses and Diomedes had stolen from Troy. The Trojans believe Sinon and think to protect Troy by bringing the horse inside the city walls; this enables the Greeks (hidden inside the horse) to accomplish by fraud--destroy Troy--what they failed to do by force alone. back to top Incarnational Parody (25) The second transformation of the thieves, in which a human and a six-legged serpent fuse into a grotesque new form that is "neither two nor one" [né due né uno] (Inf. 25.69), is likely meant to be understood as a parody of the incarnation. This doctrine, established at the Council of Chalcedon (451 C.E.) after years of acrimonious debate among theologians, states that Christ is both human and divine, with each nature complete in its own right. Christ, who--along with the Virgin Mary--is never named in the Inferno, therefore comprises "two natures in one person." It is only natural for this theologically correct formulation to be parodied in hell, perhaps by the hybrid creatures (e.g., Minotaur, Centaurs, Harpies) as well as by the thieves joined in a form that is "neither two nor one." Look for other examples of incarnational parody in the Inferno. back to top Lucan and Ovid (25) Lucan and Ovid are two of the elite group of poets in Limbo--the others are Homer, Horace, and Virgil--who honor Dante by welcoming him as one of their own (Inf. 4.100-2). Here Dante interrupts his extraordinary description of a mutual transformation of natures--a man and a reptile exchanging forms--to brag that his verses surpass those of Lucan and Ovid, who wrote merely of uni-directional transformations (Inf. 25.94-102). Lucan, for example, tells how Sabellus--a soldier fighting in the Roman civil war--liquefies into a small pool of gore after being bitten by a snake in the Libyan desert, and how another unfortunate soldier, Nasidius, falls victim to a serpent's venom as his body swells into a featureless mass (Pharsalia 9.761-804). Ovid's Cadmus, brother of Europa and founder of Thebes, is transformed into a serpent at the end of his life for slaying a dragon sacred to Mars, and Arethusa is a nymph transformed into a fountain (by Diana) to avoid the amorous advances of Alpheus, a river-god in human form who then reverts to his watery nature; he thus succeeds in merging with Arethusa before the earth opens up and she plunges into the cavernous underworld (Metamorphoses 4.571-603 and 5.572-641). Note how Dante's language suggests that he is the actual creator of this mutual transformation and not merely an observer who later describes what he saw. What might this imply about Dante's participation in the realm of theft? back to top Elijah's Chariot (26) In the eighth pit of circle 8, Dante compares the flames that conceal the shades of the damned to the chariot that carried the prophet Elijah to the heavens (Inf. 26.34-42; 4 Kings 2:11-12). As "he who was avenged by bears" (26.34)--that is, Elisha: two bears killed the boys who had mocked him (4 Kings 2:23-4)--could only follow Elijah's ascent by watching the fire-ball high in the sky, so Dante sees the flames but not the human forms they envelop. back to top Eteocles and Polynices (26) Dante compares the twinned flame concealing the shades of Ulysses and Diomedes to the divided flame that rose from the funeral pyre containing the corpses of Eteocles and Polynices (Inf. 26.52-4). These twin brothers were sons of Jocasta and Oedipus, who prayed that Eteocles and Polynices would be forever enemies after they forced him to abdicate and leave Thebes. This prayer-curse came to fruition when Eteocles refused to give up power (the brothers had agreed to take turns ruling Thebes): Polynices enlisted the aid of King Adrastus of Argos, thus initiating the war of the "Seven against Thebes" (see Capaneus). After the brothers killed one another in combat, their bodies were placed together in a single pyre but their mutual hatred, even after death, was such that the rising flame divided in two (Statius, Thebaid 12.429-32). Consider the implications of this story for imagining the relationship between Ulysses and Diomedes in hell, now concealed within a single yet divided flame. back to top Audio
"Togli, Dio, ch'a te le squadro!" (25.3) Here you are, God, I point them at you! "Vedi che già non se' né due né uno" (25.69) Look how already you're neither two nor one "fatti non foste a viver come bruti" (26.119) you weren't made to live like beasts "ed eran due in uno e uno in due" (28.125) and they were two in one and one in two "Così s'osserva in me lo contrapasso" (28.142) thus you observe in me the contrapasso back to top Study Questions How do the transformations of the thieves relate to their sin? How is Dante the poet participating in the sin of theft? What differences and similarities do you see between Ulysses (26) and Guido (27)? Why are they both punished as tongues of fire in the same ditch? Why does Dante take Ulysses' story so personally (see 26.19-24)? How do you understand the contrapasso for the falsifiers (29-30)--that is, why does their punishment consist of diseased bodies and minds? |
Dante divides circle 9, the circle of treachery--defined in Inferno 11 as fraudulent acts between individuals who share special bonds of love and trust (61-6)--into four regions. Caina is named after the biblical Cain (first child of Adam and Eve), who slew his brother Abel out of envy after God showed appreciation for Abel's sacrificial offering but not Cain's (Genesis 4:1-17); condemned to a vagabond existence, Cain later built a city (named after his son, Henoch) that for certain Christian theologians--notably Augustine (City of God, book 15)--represented the evils of the earthly city. In the circle of the lustful, Francesca identified her husband (Gianciotto)--who murdered her and Paolo (Gianciotto's brother)--as a future inhabitant of Caina (Inf. 5.107). Dante's attention is here drawn to two brothers, the ghibelline Napoleone and the guelph Alessandro, who murdered one another because of a dispute over their inheritance (Inf. 32.55-60).
The second region, Antenora, is named for the Trojan prince Antenor. While the classical sources--notably Homer's Iliad--present Antenor in a positive (or at least neutral) light as one in favor of returning Helen to the Greeks for the good of Troy, medieval versions--histories, commentaries, and romances--view him as a "treacherous Judas" who plots with the Greeks to destroy the city. Dante places in this region those who betrayed their political party or their homeland.
In the third zone of circle 9 suffer those who betrayed friends or guests. Ptolomea is named after one or both of the following: Ptolemy, the captain of Jericho, honored his father-in-law, the high priest Simon Maccabee, and two of Simon's sons with a great feast and then murdered them (1 Maccabees 16:11-17); Ptolemy XII, brother of Cleopatra, arranged that the Roman general Pompey--seeking refuge following his defeat at the battle of Pharsalia (48 B.C.E.)--be murdered as soon as he stepped ashore. Dante displays his abhorrence of such crimes by devising a special rule for those who betray their guests: their souls descend immediately to hell and their living bodies are possessed by demons when they commit these acts (Inf. 33.121-6).
Judecca, named after the apostle who betrayed Jesus (Judas Iscariot), is the innermost zone of the ninth and final circle of hell. The term also hints at a manifestation of Christian prejudice--which Dante certainly shares--against Judaism and Jews in the Middle Ages: it alludes to the names--Iudeca, Judaica--for the area within certain cities (e.g., Venice) where Jews were forced to live, apart from the Christian population. Together with Judas in this region of hell are others who, by betraying their masters or benefactors, committed crimes with great historical and societal consequences. Completely covered by the ice--like "straw in glass"--the shades are locked in various postures with no mobility or sound whatsoever (Inf. 34.10-15).
back to top
Giants (31)
The Giants physically connect circles 8 and 9: standing on the floor of circle 9--or perhaps on a ledge above the bottom of hell--the upper halves of their huge bodies tower over the inner edge of circle 8. From a distance, in fact, Dante initially mistakes the Giants for actual towers (Inf. 31.19-45). Anticipating the even larger figure of Lucifer, Dante's Giants--drawn from both biblical and classical stories--are archetypal examples of defiant rebels. Nimrod, described in the Bible as a "stout hunter before the Lord" (Genesis 10:9), was viewed as a Giant in the medieval tradition that Dante follows. According to the biblical account, people in the region ruled by Nimrod--Babylon and other cities in the land of Sennaar--plan to build a tower that will reach to heaven; God shows his displeasure by scattering the people and destroying the unity of their language so they will no longer understand one another's speech (Genesis 11:1-9). Dante, following tradition, places the blame for this linguistic confusion on Nimrod, whose own language is now as incomprehensible to others as their languages are to him (Inf. 31.67-9; 76-81). In his physical description of Nimrod, Dante reinforces the association of the Giants with the ruinous consequences of pride: 1) comparing the size of Nimrod's face to the pine cone at St. Peter's in Rome (Inf. 31.58-60), Dante perhaps means to draw an unflattering parallel with the current pope, Boniface VIII; 2) the word Dante uses--perizoma--to convey how the inner bank of circle 8 covers the lower half of the Giants' bodies like an "apron" (Inf. 31.61-2) is an unusual word (of Greek origin) likely familiar to Dante's readers from a biblical verse describing the shame of Adam and Eve following their disobedience in the Garden of Eden: "And the eyes of them both were opened: and when they perceived themselves to be naked, they sewed together fig leaves, and made themselves aprons [perizomata]" (Genesis 3:7).
In their passage from circle 8 to circle 9, Dante and Virgil view two other Giants, both from the classical tradition. Ephialtes was one of the Giants who fought against Jove and the other Olympian gods (Inf. 31.91-6). Ephialtes and his twin brother Otus (they were sons of Neptune and Iphimedia, wife of the giant Aloeus), attempted to scale Mount Olympus and dethrone the gods by stacking Mount Pelion on top of Mount Ossa in Macedonia (Aen. 6.582-4); they were killed, according to Servius' well known medieval commentary on the Aeneid, with arrows shot by Apollo and Diana. Note Ephialtes' reaction to Virgil's statement that another Giant--Briareus--has an even more ferocious appearance (Inf. 31.106-11). Like the other Giants who challenged the gods, Ephialtes is immobilized by chains in Dante's hell. Antaeus, who can speak, is probably unfettered because he was born after his brothers waged war against the gods. He is therefore able to lift Dante and Virgil and deposit them on the floor of the ninth and final circle of hell (Inf. 31.130-45). To secure this assistance, Virgil entices Antaeus with the prospect of continued fame (upon Dante's return to the world) based on the Giant's formidable reputation. Here Dante's source is Lucan, who recounts how Antaeus, a fearsome offspring of Earth whose strength was replenished from contact with his mother, feasted on lions and slaughtered farmers and travelers around his cavernous dwelling in North Africa until he met his match in Hercules. The hero and the Giant engaged in a wrestling contest, which Hercules finally won by lifting Antaeus off the ground and squeezing him to death (Pharsalia 4.593-653). The Giant's fatal encounter with Hercules is recalled not by Virgil in his plea for Antaeus' help (Inf. 31.115-29) but by the narrator (31.132). Virgil, however, is sure to reiterate Lucan's suggestion that the Giants might in fact have defeated the gods had Antaeus been present at the battle of Phlegra (31.119-21; see also Inf. 14.58).
back to top
Bocca degli Abati (32)
Dante certainly feels no remorse for kicking a shade hard in the face once he learns the identity of the political traitor (Inf. 32.73-8). The offended shade immediately piques Dante's interest by alluding to Montaperti (near Siena), site of the legendary battle (1260) in which Florentine guelphs were routed by ghibelline forces that included, among exiles from Florence, Farinata degli Uberti. The shade's identity remains concealed, even as Dante tries to elicit it by tearing out chunks of his hair, until another traitor in the ice calls out the wretch's name: Bocca promptly lives up to his name (bocca means "mouth") by identifying the informer along with four other traitors to political party or homeland (Inf. 32.112-23). Bocca degli Abati belonged to a ghibelline family that remained in Florence after other ghibellines were banished in 1258 for their role in a foiled plot. Pretending to fight on the side of the guelphs (as part of the cavalry), Bocca betrayed his guelph countrymen at a decisive moment in the battle--as German mercenary troops attacked in support of the Tuscan ghibellines--by cutting off the hand of the guelph standard-bearer. Demoralized by Bocca's treachery and the loss of their flag, the guelphs panicked and were roundly defeated.
back to top
Ugolino and Ruggieri (32-3)
There is perhaps no more grisly scene in all the Inferno than Dante's depiction of Ugolino eating the back of Ruggieri's head like a dog using its strong teeth to gnaw a bone (Inf. 32.124-32; 33.76-8). Ugolino's story, the longest single speech by one of the damned, is Dante's final dramatic representation in the Inferno of humankind's capacity for evil and cruelty. Aimed at explaining the scene of cannibalism in hell, Ugolino's story is all the more powerful because the speaker makes no attempt to exonerate himself of the crime--political treachery--for which he is condemned to eternal damnation. He instead wishes to defame his enemy and elicit compassion from his audience by recounting the brutal manner in which he and his innocent children were killed.
Count Ugolino della Gherardesca earned his place in Antenora--the realm of political traitors--for a series of betrayals against Pisa and her political leadership. Dante mentions only the reputed act of treason that eventually led to Ugolino's downfall: in an effort to appease hostile and powerful guelph forces in Tuscany, Ugolino ceded Pisan castles to Florence and Lucca in 1285 (Inf. 33.85-6). However, early commentators and chroniclers describe other--even more damning--examples of shifting allegiances and betrayals in the long political life of Count Ugolino. Born into a prominent ghibelline family in Pisa, Ugolino switched to the guelph side following their ascendancy in Tuscan politics and tried to install a guelph government in Pisa in 1274-5. Unsuccessful in this attempt, he was imprisoned and later exiled. In 1284, several years after his return, Ugolino led Pisan forces in a naval battle against rival Genoa; despite his defeat, Ugolino was elected podestà (political head) of Pisa and his guelph grandson, Nino Visconti, soon joined him in power as "captain of the people." It was in this period that Ugolino, out of political expediency, ceded the Pisan castles to Lucca and Florence, a decision that caused a rift between him and his grandson and between their guelph followers. Taking advantage of resurgent ghibelline fortunes in Tuscany, Ugolino connived with the Pisan ghibellines, led by the Archbishop Ruggieri degli Ubaldini; Ugolino agreed to ghibelline demands that his grandson Nino be driven from the city, an order that was carried out--with Ugolino purposefully absent from the city--in 1288. The traitor, however, was then himself betrayed: upon Ugolino's return to Pisa, Ruggieri incited the public against him (by cleverly exploiting Ugolino's previous "betrayal of the castles") and had the count--along with two sons (Gaddo and Uguiccione) and two grandsons (Anselmo and Brigata)--arrested and imprisoned. They were held in the tower for eight months until, with a change in the ghibelline leadership of Pisa, it was decided to nail shut the door to the tower and to throw the key into the Arno. They starved to death, as Dante's Ugolino recalls, in a matter of days (Inf. 33.67-75).
back to top
Fra Alberigo (33)
Dante cleverly tricks a shade into revealing his identity by making a devious deal (Inf. 33.109-17): if he doesn't relieve the traitor's suffering (by removing ice--frozen tears--from the traitor's face) in exchange for this information, Dante says he should be sent to the very bottom of hell! Dante thus learns that the soul of Fra Alberigo is in hell even as his body is still alive on earth in 1300, the year of the journey (he is thought to have died in 1307). Drawing Dante's attention to the shade of Branca Doria (who will actually live another twenty-five years), Alberigo explains that the souls of those who betray their guests descend immediately to Ptolomea as their bodies are possessed by demons (Inf. 33.124-47). Fra Alberigo, of the ruling guelph family of Faenza (near Ravenna), was a Jovial Friar--a religious order established with the goal of making peace (in families and cities) but soon better known for decadence and corruption. A close relative, Manfred, plotted against Alberigo for political power; as a result of this dispute, Manfred struck Alberigo, whose cruel response well earned him a place among the traitors in hell. Pretending that the altercation was forgotten, Alberigo invited Manfred and his son to a sumptuous banquet; when, at the end of the meal, the host gave the signal ("Bring the fruit!"), armed servants emerged from behind a curtain and slaughtered the guests, much to the delight of Alberigo.
back to top
Lucifer (with Brutus, Judas, & Cassius) (34)
Lucifer, Satan, Dis, Beelzebub--Dante throws every name in the book at the Devil, once the most beautiful angel (Lucifer means "light-bearer") then--following his rebellion against God--the source of evil and sorrow in the world, beginning with his corruption of Eve and Adam in the Garden of Eden (Genesis 3). Dante's Lucifer is a parodic composite of his wickedness and the divine powers that punish him in hell. As ugly as he once was beautiful, Lucifer is the wretched emperor of hell, whose tremendous size (he dwarfs even the Giants) stands in contrast with his limited powers: his flapping wings generate the wind that keeps the lake frozen and his three mouths chew on the shade-bodies of three arch-traitors, the gore mixing with tears gushing from Lucifer's three sets of eyes (Inf. 34.53-7). Lucifer's three faces--each a different color (red, whitish-yellow, black)--parody the doctrine of the Trinity: three complete persons (Father, Son, Holy Spirit) in one divine nature--the Divine Power, Highest Wisdom, and Primal Love that created the Gate of Hell and, by extension, the entire realm of eternal damnation. With the top half of his body towering over the ice, Lucifer resembles the Giants and other half-visible figures; after Dante and Virgil have passed through the center of the earth, their perspective changes and Lucifer appears upside-down, with his legs sticking up in the air. Consider the implications of visual parallels between Lucifer and other inhabitants of hell.
Eternally eaten by Lucifer's three mouths are--from left to right-- Brutus, Judas, and Cassius (Inf. 34.61-7). Brutus and Cassius, stuffed feet first in the jaws of Lucifer's black and whitish-yellow faces respectively, are punished in this lowest region for their assassination of Julius Caesar (44 B.C.E.), the founder of the Roman Empire that Dante viewed as an essential part of God's plan for human happiness. Both Brutus and Cassius fought on the side of Pompey in the civil war. However, following Pompey's defeat at Pharsalia in 48 B.C.E., Caesar pardoned them and invested them with high civic offices. Still, Cassius continued to harbor resentment against Caesar's dictatorship and enlisted the aid of Brutus in a conspiracy to kill Caesar and re-establish the republic. They succeeded in assassinating Caesar but their political-military ambitions were soon thwarted by Octavian (later Augustus) and Antony at Philippi (42 B.C.E.): Cassius, defeated by Antony and thinking (wrongly) that Brutus had been defeated by Octavian, had himself killed by a servant; Brutus indeed lost a subsequent battle and took his life as well. For Dante, Brutus and Cassius' betrayal of Julius Caesar, their benefactor and the world's supreme secular ruler, complements Judas Iscariot's betrayal of Jesus, the Christian man-god, in the Bible. Judas, one of the twelve apostles, strikes a deal to betray Jesus for thirty pieces of silver; he fulfills his treacherous role--foreseen by Jesus at the Last Supper--when he later identifies Jesus to the authorities with a kiss; regretting this betrayal that will lead to Jesus' death, Judas returns the silver and hangs himself (Matthew 26:14-16; 26:21-5; 26:47-9; 27:3-5). Suffering even more than Brutus and Cassius, Dante's Judas is placed head-first inside Lucifer's central mouth, with his back skinned by the devil's claws (Inf. 34.58-63).
back to top
More Giants (Briareus, Tityus, Typhon) (31)
Although Dante and Virgil do not visit them, three more towering Giants are named in Inferno 31. Briareus, whom Virgil describes as equal in size to--but even more terrifying than--Ephialtes (Inf. 31.103-5), appears in Virgil's epic as a monster said to have one hundred arms and hands, with fire burning in his fifty mouths and chests; he thus wielded fifty shields and swords to defend himself against Jove's thunderbolts (Aen. 6.287; 10.565-8). Statius merely describes Briareus as immense (Thebaid 2.596). Repeating Lucan's coupling of Tityus and Typhon as Giants inferior to Antaeus (Pharsalia 4.595-6), Virgil appeals to Antaeus' pride by "threatening" to go to them if Antaeus will not provide a lift down to circle 9 (Inf. 31.124-6). Tityus is well represented in classical literature as a Giant whose attempted rape of Latona (mother of Apollo and Diana) earns him a gruesome fate in the underworld: a vulture continuously feeds on Tityus' immortal liver (Aen. 6.595-600; Met. 4.457-8). Typhon was struck down by Jove's lightning bolts and, depending on the version, buried under Mount Etna in Sicily (and thus causing occasional volcanic eruptions: Met. 5.318-58) or under the Island of Ischia in the Bay of Naples (Aen. 9.715-6).
back to top
Cocytus (32-4)
Dante calls circle 9, a frozen lake, Cocytus (from Greek, meaning "to lament"). One of the rivers in the classical underworld, Cocytus is described by Virgil as a dark, deep pool of water that encircles a forest and into which pours sand spewed from a torrid whirlpool (Aen. 6.131-2; 6.296-7; 6.323). In the Vulgate (the Latin Bible), Cocytus designates the valley (or torrent) of death that receives the wicked, even--and especially--those who have prospered in the world (Job 21:33).
back to top
Romanian artist Mihai Marius Mihu spent seven months recreating the hellish visions of the nine circles of hell from Dante's Divine Comedy using almost 40,000 Lego bricks.
I. LIMBO: "A place of monotony, here the souls are punished to wander in restless existence while they moan helplessly in echoes between the ruins of a temple."
II. LUST: 'Surrounded by erotic representations, those overcome by lust are forced to watch and experience disgusting things, ultimately being condemned to drown in the menstrual river
III. GLUTTONY: 'The circle itself is a living abomination, a hellish digestive system revealing horrific faces with mouths ready to devour the gluttons over and over for eternity.'
IV. GREED: 'This pompous place is reserved for the punishment of the greedy ones
V. ANGER: 'In this depressing place the souls are trapped in the swamp, they can’t move and they cannot manifest their frustration which is making them even more angry.
VI. HERESY: 'The giant demon watches closely over his fire pit, dwarfing the damned that are dragging the new arrivals in the boiling lava. Those who committed the greatest sins against God are getting a special treatment inside the temple where they are doomed to burn for eternity in the scorching flames
VII. VIOLENCE: 'A place of intense torture where the horrific screams of the damned are eternally accompanied by the hellish beats of drums.'
VIII. FRAUD: 'In Fraud the Demons enjoy altering the shape of souls, this is how they feed.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/culturepicturegalleries/9267162/The-nine-circles-of-hell-from-Dantes-Inferno-recreated-in-Lego-by-Mihai-Mihu.html?frame=2219928
IX. TREACHERY: 'Lucifer lies here chained by the Angelic Seal which keeps him captive in the frozen environment.
Lego artist Mihai Marius Mihu says: 'I didn't read the Divine Comedy, only the small descriptions of the circles I found on the websites. I didn't want to be much influenced by the original descriptions because I wanted to give a whole new fresh approach for each circle. I thought more about the significance of titles and from then on it was only my imagination
