Canto VII

1
Canto VII

• Circle Four The Hoarders the Wasters
• Circle Five The Wrathful The Sullen

2
Plutus

• God of the Underworld
• Guardian/ symbol of 4th Circle
• Avarice (greed) and Prodigality (spending freely)
• Also known as God of Wealth in some cases

3
Hoarders and Wasters

• so these shades dance and crash eternallya
  nation of lost soulsthey strained their chests/
  against enormous weights and with mad howls/
  rolled them at one another. (23-27)
• Lie in ditches, weighted down and continually
  hit each other with their weights.

4
Hoarders and Wasters

• what people can these be?/ And all those
  tonsured ones there on our left-/ is it possible
  they all were of the clergy? (37-39).
• Signifies corruption in the church
• Corresponds with political fight as well

5
Hoarders and Wasters

• This is lost ambition./ In their sordid lives
  they labored to be blind,/ and now their souls
  have dimmed past recognitionHoarding and
  squandering wasted all their light/ and brought
  them screaming to this brawl of wraiths
  (51-59).
• Destroyed the light of God within themselves by
  thinking of nothing but money.

6
Dame Fortune

• That king whose perfect wisdom transcends all,/
  made the heavens and posted angles on them/ to
  guide the eternal light that may fall/he made
  earths splendors by a like decree/ and posted as
  their minister this high Dame/All earths gear/
  she changes from nation to nation, from house to
  house/.no mortal power may stay her spinning
  wheel/ mans mortal reason cannot compass
  her/And this she so railed at and reviled/ that
  even her debtors in the joys of time/ blaspheme
  her name (73-93).

7
Dame Fortune

• Fortune received orders from God to transfer
  worldly goods between people and nations.
• She moves quickly and humans cannot understand
  this so we should not curse her when we lose
  something- it is Gods will.

8
The Sullen

• a swarm of spirits in that bog, savage, with
  anger,they thumped at one another in that slime
  with their hands and feet they butted and they
  bit as if each would tear the other limb from
  limbthere are souls beneath that waterFixed in
  slime (110-120)
• Souls attack each other in gross slime
• Lie entombed in the bubbles from the sludge,
  singing a hymn that mocks them.
• Sunk under slime- refused the light of God
  (116-126)

9
Canto VIII

• Circle Five Styx- The Wrathful, Phlegyas
• Circle Six Dis- The Fallen Angels

10
Phlegyas

• Ferryman to River Styx
• Mythological King of Boeotia
• Son of Ares (Mars) and human mother
• Sent soul to hell for burning Apollos temple at
  Delphi
• Symbolic of Wrath

11
Dante

• and not till I stepped aboard did it seem to
  settle
• Into the water. At once we left the shore,
• that ancient hull riding more heavily
• than it had ridden in all of time before.
  (27-30)

12
Emotional Reaction

• May you weep and wail to all eternity,
• for I know you, hell-dog, filthy as you are.
• Then he stretched both hands to the boat, but
  warily
• The Master shoved him back, crying Down! Down!
• with the other dogs! The he embraced me saying
• Indignant spirit, I kiss you as you frown.
• Blessed be she who bores you. (37-43)
• First time Dante chastises the sinners
• Virgil approves and commends Dante
• Dante purges himself of anger by showing it to
  sinners
• He is learning and gaining the morals necessary
• Contempt for evil will enable truer perfection
  for Dante

13
Filippo Argenti

• Master, it would suit my whim/ to see the
  wretch scrubbed down into the swill/ before we
  leave this stinking sink and him. (49-51)

14
Filippo Argenti

• Black Guelph member of Adimari family (enemy of
  Dante)
• Said that his brother took Dantes property after
  his exile
• Insults family
• Character development

15
Rebellious Angels

• You need not be cast down
• by my vexation, for whatever plot
• these fiends may lay against us, we will go on.
• This insolence of theirs is nothing new
• they showed it once at a less secret gate
• And through it at this moment a Great One comes
  (118-125)
• Took Lucifers side in rebellion against God
• Defend the city of Dis (lower hell) just as they
  once resisted Christ's arrival at the gate of
  hell.