The Inferno

1
The Inferno

• CNE/ENG 120
• 11/12/04

2
Canto 1, lines 1-9

• Nel mezzo del cammin di nostra vita mi
  ritrovai per una selva oscura,
• chè la diritta via era smarrita.
• Ahi quanto a dir qual era è cosa dura
  esta selva selvaggia e aspra e forte
• che nel pensier rinova la paura!
• Tant' è amara che poco è più morte
• ma per trattar del ben ch'i' vi trovai,
• dirò de l'altre cose ch'i' v'ho scorte.

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Canto 13 Violent Against Themselves

• The poisonous forest no greenery, no fruits -
  but gnarled branches and poison briers.
• The mythological monsters the Harpies (the
  Snatchers) utter laments on the strange trees.
• Dante hears cries but sees no people Vergil
  tells him to snap off a tree branch
• Why do you tear me? The tree bleeds.

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Dore Harpies the Suicides
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Modern Representation of the Wood
6
Pier della Vigna

• A poet and accomplished letter-writer, he was
  minister and councilor to Emperor Frederick II.
  Accused of plotting with the pope to poison the
  emperor, he was imprisoned and blinded.
• Said to have commited suicide by dashing his head
  against a wall.
• Once made into a tree, suicides are injured by
  the Harpies, making wounds in them through which
  they can vent their (emotional) pain.

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Canto 15 Violent Against Nature (punishment hot
sands, rain of fire)

• Brunetto Latini grabs Dante they talk. A famous
  writer, he had been an influence on Dante. His
  sin homosexuality. Whether or not he sinned in
  reality or metaphorically is unsure - this was a
  term also for sterile or non-productive use of
  language and education.

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Cantos 16-18

• Canto 16 Circle 7, round 3, the violent against
  nature and art seated under rain of fire with
  purses around their necks (heraldic crests)
• Canto 17 Circle 7, round 3 the violent against
  art.
• The travelers are carried on Geryons back down
  the deep drop to the 8th Circle.

• Geryon symbolizes Fraud.
• 8th Circle Malebolge (Evil pouches), which is
  subdivided into 10 trenches.
• Canto 18 Circle 8. The fraudulent malicious.
  Bolgia 1 panderers seducers, whipped by demons.

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Botticelli Panderers Seducers
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Cantos 18-23

• Bolgia 2 the flatterers, sunk in excrement.
  Sinner Alessio Interminei, of a prominent family
  in Tuscany.
• Canto 19 Circle 8, Bolgia 3 the Simoniacs
  (sellers of church offices favors). Punishment
  set heads down into rock holes, feet in flames.
  Pope Nicholas III, who awaits Pope Boniface VIII
  to replace him.

• Canto 20 Circle 8, Bolgia 4 the fortune tellers
  diviners punishment - heads turned backwards.
  Example Teiresias.
• Cantos 21-22 Circle 8, Bolgia 5, probably has
  biographical relevance to Dante - the grafters,
  in boiling pitch.
• Canto 23 Circle 8, Bolgia 6, the hypocrites,
  lead-caped (deceptive).

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Botticelli Canto 19
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Botticelli Canto 23
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Cantos 24-26

• Canto 24 Still in the 6th pouch, the Hypocrites,
  then a journey to the 8th Circle, 7th pouch
  Thieves. Bitten by snakes, turned to ash, then
  restored (Canto 25).
• Canto 26 view of the 8th pouch, the Fraudulent
  Counselors, clothed in burning flames. Examples
  Odysseus and Diomedes. Odysseus gives an account
  of his death, shipwrecked before Mt. Purgatory.

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Cantos 27-28

• Canto 27 more of the 8th circle, 8th pouch,
  Fraudulent Counselors.
• Canto 28 8th circle, 9th pouch sowers of
  scandal and schism, eternally circling. They are
  wounded, healed, wounded again by a
  sword-wielding demon. Examples Mohammed and
  Bertran de Born.

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Cantos 29-31

• Canto 29 8th circle, 9th pouch first, then 10th
  pouch the Falsifiers (of metal alchemists -
  plagued by itchy scabs, lying on earth).
• Canto 30 8th circle, 10th pouch. The
  Counterfeiters of Others Persons, Coins, Words
  (Liars).
• Canto 31 Passage to the 9th circle. The central
  pit of Hell. Cocytus, the frozen river the
  Giants. Vergil and Dante are lowered into the pit.

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Cantos 32-34

• 32 Traitors to their Kin immersed in ice, heads
  bent down.
• Traitors to their Homeland or Party (we see 2
  traitors gnawing on each others heads).
• 33 Traitors against their Guests, eyes sealed by
  frozen tears. Here Dante puts those still living
  but already in Hell (Fra Alberigo, who invited
  relatives to a feast, then had 2 of them killed)
• 34 Traitors against their Benefactors covered
  in ice. Satan holds Judas, Brutus, Cassius in his
  mouth.

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Emergence

• Dante and Virgil climb down Satans body to the
  southern hemisphere - see the stars (stelle, the
  word which ends the Inferno, Purgatorio, and
  Paradiso).
• Dante doesnt want to focus on divine sin
  (Satans fall) but on human - so Satan here is
  mechanized, almost - he is part of the mechanics
  of Hell. Compare with Miltons wonderfully
  developed Satan in Paradise Lost.

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Dante Emerges from Hell