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 accompany / that went its way to torture in that rain" (1-6).
How does Virgil tell Dante to treat these sinners?
Note the following description and the simile.
"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 signaled 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 One: The Panderers and Seducers
Bolgia Two: The Flatterers
Know what Malebolge means.
Know how the various sinners are punished in this realm.
Know the difference between panderers and seducers.
“Just so the Romans, because of the great throng / in the year of the Jubilee, divide 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” (29-33). Your textbooks mention that Dante’s arch-enemy, Boniface VIII had declared 1300 a Jubilee year. Thousands of pilgrims had come to Rome.
Who is Venedico Caccianemico and why is he there?
Why is Jason there? Know these stories. See the footnotes.
Note the characterization through movement and dialogue:
"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! / Certainly no one waited a second, or third! / As we went on, one face in that procession / caught my eye and I said: 'That sinner there: / It is certainly not the first time I've seen that one.' / I stopped, therefore, to study him, and my Guide / out of his kindness waited, and even allowed me / to walk back a few steps at the sinner's side. / And that flayed spirit, seeing me turn around / thought to hide his face, but I called to him: / 'You there, that walk along with your eyes on the ground--/ if those are not false features, then I know you / as Venedico Caccianemico of Bologna: / what brings you here among this pretty crew?'" (34-51).
"And he replied: 'I speak unwillingly, / but something in your living voice, in which / I hear the world again, stirs and compels me'" (52-54).
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.
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. Stealing violates one of the Ten Commandments—“Thou Shall 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.
Not only that, but in this case, we have the Church, the symbol of moral righteousness or rectitude, and it is 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).
Dialogue:
"'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 dialogue:
"'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 about 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).
“Nor did Peter, nor the others, ask silver or gold / of Matthew when they chose him for the place / the despicable and damned apostle sold” (88-90).
This, of course, is a reference to Judas, the apostle who betrayed Jesus by selling him to the Romans for thirty pieces of silver. Judas subsequently hanged himself.
Peter was the first pope. And any reference to “Great Keys” is a reference to the papacy.
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.
Canto XXIII
Everyone hates a hypocrite. They loudly proclaim the immoral indiscretions of others while doing it themselves--secretly. Do as I say, not as I do, makes no sense.
Know how these hypocrites are punished. It's quite wonderful.
Know who Caiaphas was.
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