Dante’s Inferno – Third Level Inquiry

Following my second level inquiry, here are tasks of the third and final level inquiry, still for my WEM Self-Project.

Is there a moment of choice or of change in the poem?

Before entering the Hell, Dante seems to be in a comfort of his life. It is Beatrice (the woman he loves) who sends Virgil to guide Dante to the path of salvation. So, if there is a change, it would be in Dante himself, before and after he witnesses punishments and hopelessness provided for sinners, and in that he warns us to not fall into the same hole.

Is there cause and effect?

Dante must have related his own life and experiences in this poem, as most of the time he would speak about Florence and the city’s political movements. Besides historical and mythical characters, Dante also puts numbers of Florence people onto the circles of Hell. It seems that Dante wants to punish them for their failures (according to him). So, yes, I think there is cause and effect in Dante’s mind, and he might have reflected very hard to set those sinners and the level of their punishments.

What is the tension between the physical and psychological, the earthly and the spiritual, the mind and the body?

In writing those punishments in amazing details, Dante has tried to transform the physical experience he brought us to imagine, to a spiritual enlightenment. Whatever the sin, the punishments will take much longer and severe than the deeds; it makes us think how unworthy it is to ever do those sins!

What is the poem’s subject?

A warning to Florence people and to all human kind, that each sin must lead to a just punishment.

Do you feel sympathy?

I sympathize with all human kind who is at present still in their path of life. Many of us take it for granted in living our daily lives, making our worldly business the most real thing and treating religion as an abstract thing to do.

As for the characters in the Hell circles, maybe my sympathy goes to them who are in Limbo. Some of them might have lived a good life without sins, but because they were born before Christ or have not been introduced to Him, they must linger within the Limbo. It’s really not their choices, and in a way it’s almost unfair for them. But anyway, it reminds me too of how much I must be grateful that God had put me to be Christian.

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Dante’s Inferno – Second Level Inquiry

I was reading Dante’s first part of The Divine Comedy: Inferno, for my Well-Educated Mind Self-Project. I have worked out the first level inquiry by summarizing the cantos the last two weeks:

Canto I – X

Canto XI – XVIII

Canto IX – XXVI

Canto XXVII – XXXIV

And now, here’s the task of second level inquiry, which requires us to analyze the technical construction of the poem. I’m really a newbie in poems (and narrative poems), but despite of the unfamiliarity, I’m glad to have picked Inferno as one of my WEM project; it has widen my knowledge about poems.

The basic narrative strategy

Dante’s Inferno tells a story, with a beginning, middle and end; it might be said to chronologically tell the poet’s journey to Hell and to witness how human being punished for his deeds while they were alive. Inferno describes Dante’s experiences both physically and mentally; it describes in detail physical places, objects, also sensations to represent how human’s sins were weighed.

The poem’s basic form

Inferno is definitely an epic poem; a long tale of Dante’s journey to Hell. And although there are not quite many heroic deeds in it, Virgil’s bravery to guide and protect Dante through dangerous obstacles from one circle to another is enough to make it epic.

The poem’s syntax

Dante uses quite a lot of poetic dictions to form his poem, although not entirely. For example:

When him I heard in anger speak to me

I turned me round towards him with such same

That still it eddies through my memory.

The lines

Inferno’s lines are often naturally divided into halves (hemistich), here’s one example from Canto I:

Then was the fear a little quieted

That in my heart’s lake had endured throughout

The night, which I had passed so piteously.

Here the second line is broken awkwardly, it is normally supposed to be ‘that in my heart’s lake had endured throughout the night’, then followed in the third line: ‘which I had passed so piteously’. But Dante purposely breaks it after ‘throughout’, why? I can only assume that Dante wants to emphasize ‘the night’, because Dante’s journey to hell represents the darkness in human’s soul. Everything seems dark, as dark as ‘night’.

The rhyme pattern

I think Dante uses both masculine rhyme and slant rhyme pattern here. Most of the last syllables are either accented or one-word syllables, and there are similar syllables in a stanza which are not really identical. One example, from the very first stanza of Canto I:

Midway UPON the journey of our LIFE

I FOUND myself within a forest DARK,

For the straightforward pathway had been LOST.

I’m not very good in English poems (as English is not my mother language), but I think ‘life’, ‘dark’ and ‘lost’ are all accented as well as one-word syllables. While ‘upon’ and ‘found’ are not identical, they have a similarity in the pronunciation.

Monologue or dialogue

In Inferno, the dialogue Dante has most often is with Virgil—the Roman poet—who becomes his guide (he has been staying at the Hell, and has been particularly instructed by Beatrice to guide Dante). Dante’s dialogue addressed to Virgil seems to be polite and kind, while Virgil’s is more critical but kind. Dante also carries on dialogue with souls who occupy each circle in Hell. Sometimes he pities them and is quite touched with their suffering, but quite often he is either angry or disgusted with what they have sinned. Sometimes Dante also has a monologue he addresses to his reader, expressing his feeling: fear or angry.

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Dante’s Inferno – Canto XXVII - XXXIV Summaries

Here is the last eight cantos of Dante’s Inferno, you can read the previous ones here: CantoI – X, Canto XI – XVIII, Canto XIX – XXVI.

Lucifer, Dante & Virgil

Canto XXVII: From another flame came another voice, this time a soul from Romagna. Dante told him that Romagna wasn’t at war, but has been under tyranny’s power. As he’s sure that Dante will never leave the Hell to share his secret, the soul confided about himself to Dante. He was Guido da Montefeltro, formerly lived a tricky life, before he repented and became a Franciscan priest. But Pope Boniface intrigued him to fight Christians by promising him an advanced absolution before he committed sin, which Guido accepted. When he died, the devils took him of thievery, as absolution could not be received before committing a sin.

Canto XXVIII: Dante described terrible wounds suffered by souls in the ninth pouch which surpassed any other wounds from great wars. Their bodies were split open by the devil’s sword from chin to lower abdomen that their entrails hung between their legs; and when their bodies were closed again, they would be ripped open again and again. One of the souls was Mahomet who had been sowers of scandal and schism; and because of the division they had caused, their bodies were thus split as a punishment. Mahomet and other souls also sent their warning to them who still lived on earth.

Canto XXIX: Virgil reprimanded Dante as he was so absorbed to what he was watching that he didn’t notice a soul (his cousin) who had died unavenged, called on him. And so Virgil and Dante have reached the bottom of the eight circle: the tenth pouch, where Dante heard piercing groans, a place to punish forgers. The souls here were very sick; and they were languishing in scattered heaps, lying or crawling. Two of them had their bodies full of itchy scabs which they scratched incessantly without end. One of them had deceived someone by gaining money for teaching the other to fly, and thus he was condemned by practicing alchemy. This was the first of four zones in the tenth pouch: the punishment for falsifiers of metals.

Canto XXX: Entering the second zone of ten pouch, Dante recalled Greek myth stories of how men could treat each others like animals. One soul, Myrrah, disguised as another person to be able to commit incest with her father. These people had sinned of falsifier of other’s person. Some from third zone also mingled here; the sinners of falsifier of coin, represented by Master Adam—a Florentine money counterfeiter who produced coins with St. John Baptist’s stamp—whose punishment was being eternally thirsty. A woman, who falsely accused a man of seducing her, was placed in the fourth zone for falsifier of words (liars). The souls here were punished with burning fever. Dante was spellbound by the scenes and was eager to listen to them, which Virgil reprimanded as a vulgar desire.

Canto XXXI: Dante and Virgil were on the bank of the eighth circle. Dante saw high towers through the thick mist, which turned out to be Giants who stood on the pit. Their navels were on the same level as the eight circle, while their lower bodies were on the ninth circle, at the bottom of the Hell. One of them, Nimrod, had helped building the Tower of Babel and spread confusion of different language throughout the world. Then they met Antaeus, whom Virgil persuaded to carry them in the Giant’s hands to be lowered to the ninth circle, where traitors were punished.

Canto XXXII: Dante tried to describe the horror of the lowest part of the pit in the ninth circle. It was a frozen lake—Cocytus—whose surface was like thick glass because of the terrible coldness. The sinners sat in the ice, frozen, with their teeth chattering. On the first ring, Caina (from Cain), Dante met two souls compressed together head to head in the frozen ice, butting their heads in rage; they were traitors to their kin. In the second ring (Antenora), Dante accidentally kicked the head of a soul which turned out to be Bocca’s, who was punished as traitors to their homeland or party. Then Dante saw two souls, savagely gnawing each other’s head in hatred, and Dante interrogated them.

Canto XXXIII: The two souls were Count Ugolino who was imprisoned without food by Archbishop Ruggieri. Ugolino was imprisoned with his sons, so when the sons died, he ate their fleshes out of hunger. Dante and Virgil forwarded to the third ring (Ptolomaea) where Dante felt a cold breeze, and Virgil said they were about to find the source. Here souls were lying in the ice, only their heads protruded from it; the punishment for traitors to their guests. They still lived on earth, but so great their sins were, that their soul must suffer in Hell before they died, while their bodies on earth were taken over by demons.

Canto XXXIV: Now Dante and Virgil arrived at the lowest bottom of the Hell, the fourth ring of the ninth circle (Juddeca). Through the thick mist Dante saw a tall figure such as a mill which breathed cold wind which he could not figured out the source. Under his feet, souls were completely buried in the ice in various positions. Then Dante saw Lucifer the Satan, a three headed enormous giant with three mouths and three enormous wings, from which came the icy cold winds that freeze Cocytus. Each mouth held a sinner; they were the traitors to their Benefactor, the greatest sin of all. The teeth chewed their bodies ceaselessly without ever killing them. In the first one was Judas Iscariot who betrayed Jesus Christ; he was chewed head first while his legs protruded from the mouth. In the second and third ones were Brutus and Cassius, both murdered Julius Caesar; their heads hanging downwards. After these scenes, Virgil told Dante that he had seen all in Hell, and must leave soon.

With efforts Virgil climbed through Lucifer’s giant body to bring Dante and himself climbing from the center of the earth. Dante was amazed to see Lucifer’s body now turned upside down, and Virgil explained that they have passed the center of the earth, and now they were on the ground again, where life was. When Lucifer fell from Heaven, he thrust down into earth head first and stuck in the center; that has made some changes even on the hemisphere too. But now, through hidden path Virgil guided Dante to emerge to clear world where they saw stars glittering in the sky again.

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Dante’s Inferno – Canto XIX – XXVI Summaries

You can read the previous summaries here: Canto I – X ; Canto XIX – XXVIII  

(Lawrence Edward – 1992)

Canto XIX: The third pouch of eighth circle contained the sinners of Simony, people who buy or sell sacraments or positions in church. They were punished in a narrow round pit in an upside down position: head inside and feet protruded in the air, while the soles were endlessly on fire. Dante saw that one soul was burnt in redder flame than the others; who turned out to be Pope Nicholas III. Dante thought the punishment befitted him, but the pope foresaw that there would be many of corrupt popes would suffer the same or even more.

Canto XX: In the fourth pouch Dante saw a train of people walked endlessly in procession with their head twisted backward. They were punished from using unholy power to foretell the future. Magicians such as Michael Scott were included here, as well as Diviners.

Canto XXI: It was extremely dark in the fifth pouch, a pit with boiling substance usually used for repairing ships in Venetia. Then suddenly a black devil appeared, it grabbed a soul and plunged it to the pit. It was a punishment for barrators. Every time the souls rose to the surface to breath, the Malebranche (the devil) would seize them downward again. Virgil negotiated with the devils to be let pass and to guide them because one of the bridges had been broken, although Dante was terrified of their escort.

Canto XXII: Although the souls only appeared in short moment, Virgil was able to ask one of them, a domestic servant of King Thibault who received bribe. Then there’s a small chaos, and when the devils left them, Dante and Virgil could continue their journey.

Canto XXIII: Dante began to fear of what the devils would do as they had made them angry. Suddenly they heard the devils came, Virgil grabbed Dante and carried him in his breast while ran to the sixth pouch where the devils could not go without leaving their post. Then they saw group of people wore mantles with hoods, lined with lead, which created heavy burdens for them. They were punished for hypocrisy. One of them was crucified—he was Caiphus (Caiaphas), a Jewish high priest who had provoked the Pharisees to kill Jesus. His father in law—Annas—and the others of the council were also punished in the same way. One of the sinners then showed the way to proceed to next pouch.

Canto XXIV: The journey to the seventh pouch was very challenging. Dante was once so weary, but Virgil kept encouraging him to move on. They came on the bank full of monstrous serpents biting naked souls who were running ceaselessly full of fright. A man named Vanni Fucci got bitten on the neck, then caught fire and burnt to ashes; he was reborn from the ashes (like phoenix), only to be chased again by the serpents. He was being punished for thieving; he robbed a sacristy. In anger that Dante witnessed him, the sinner foretold a political fall in Florence.

Canto XXV: Fucci accursed God, and being entangled by the serpents. Then three spirits appeared, and suddenly a six feet long serpent attacked and bit one of the souls until the soul and the serpent merged into one creature. While the two other souls were watching this, a serpent came and bit one of them. The soul and the serpent were transfixed at one another, then they interchanged each other’s form; the soul became serpent and the serpent transformed into the soul.

Canto XXVI: Dante and Virgil reached the eight pouch, an area where there were only flames, and with each flame the fire carried a soul. Ulysses and Diomed from Trojan War were among the souls in the fire. Ulysses finally confided to Virgil how he had overcome his desire to sail to the western countries and how the ship had finally sank by a great storm.

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Dante’s Inferno – Canto XI – XVIII Summaries

Following Canto I to X, these are the summaries of eight more cantos of Dante’s Inferno.

Canto XVIII - The Eight Circle

Canto XI: The seventh circle of Hell was divided to three parts, each was smaller than the previous one, and they were dedicated for violence sin: violence against neighbors, against oneself, and against God. The next circle would be for fraudulent (hypocrisy, flattery) sin, while the ninth circle punished people with betrayal sin. When Dante asked why people within Dis were punished more severe than them outside, Virgil explained that incontinence offended God least than malice and bestiality. He explained too how usury was also a sin because it’s when people made money unnaturally. With that, Dante and Virgil descend the crag deeper.

Canto XII: They arrived at the first ring of seventh circle which contained a river of boiling blood. The sinners of violence against neighbors were boiled there and every time a soul wanted to rise from the river more than it was allowed—according to his sin—a group of Centaurs on guard will shoot them with arrows. A Centaur called Nessus guided Dante around, and he showed some great souls like Alexander (the Great?), Dionysius, and Attila (the Hun?) who lived in the deepest part of the river because of they were tyrant.

Canto XIII: Dante arrived at the second ring, in a dusky wood with gnarled trees; he heard cries but did not see a single soul. When Dante plugged a twig from a trunk he heard cry of pain and blood trickled from it. The trunks were actually souls who had committed violence against themselves (suicide). The soul was a loyal advisor to Frederick, who committed suicide because his envious colleagues slandered him. The soul told Dante that when a soul left its body, it was thrown into the forest and germinated as a sapling. When it’s time for them to reunite with their bodies, they could never reunite completely because they had discarded it willingly. A bush near there which was ‘attacked’ by a man and a dog cried in pain. It appeared to be another soul who had been a Florentine and witnessed the making of St, John the Baptist to be Florence’s patron replacing Mars (Roman god).

Canto XIV: Dante gently gathered the scattered leaves back to the bush; then with Virgil he proceeded to the third ring, the place for souls with violence against God sin. Rain of fire flakes poured ceaselessly onto the sands burning it, while the souls lied or sat or went about continually. The soul of Capaneus was there because he had besieged Thebes and held God in disdain. Then they reached a red river and Virgil told Dante how all the boiling red river and water on Hell was once formed.

Canto XV: Now they were at the second zone of the third ring, which was for sodomites (violence against nature). A soul, Brunetto Latini, recognized Dante and conversed with him. He cursed the avaricious people of Fiesole and foretold that Dante would receive Fortune, but Dante said let the Fortune do as she pleased.

Canto XVI:  Three souls recognized Dante as their countrymen, their whole bodies were burnt by flames. Florence they had lived once was now become arrogant. Dante departed with the three souls, and came near the dark water. Virgil Dante to take off his cord belt and he lowered one end down to the dark water; then a monster appeared and climbed the cord up to them.

Canto XVII: The monster had human head but serpent trunk. While Virgil was persuading the monster to take them down, Dante proceeded to see people sit under rain of fire with emblazoned purse hung on their neck who refused to talk. The monster flied them down and disembarked them at the bottom of the abyss.

Canto XVIII: Dante and Virgil eventually arrived at the eight circle of Hell called Malebolge. The circle had outside wall that shaped a round pit at the center, with ten ridges between the wall and the pit, forming ten pouches where naked soul were punished for their fraudulent sin. They ran to one side to another of the pouches while the demons beat them with scourges every time they nearly reached any side. This first pouch was for Panders and Seducers. Among the sinners was Jason who abandoned Medea in Greek mythology. Dante and Virgil then crossed to second pouch where they found people plunged in human excrement. It appeared that the pouch was for punishing flatterers.

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Dante’s Inferno – Canto I – X Summaries

Inferno—the first part of The Divine Comedy by Dante Alighieri—is in my list of Well-Educated Mind Self-Project, and the only book in the Poem section I picked for this project. As usual, I will do several summary posts (3 or 4 posts, depends on the length of each canto), so you might see a lot of ‘Hell’ in the next several days…. :)

Here is my first post, the summary of Canto I – X (of total XXXIV cantos). Although it's not mandatory, but making this summary helps me to highlight Dante's various adventures and encounters.

Canto I: Dante arrived at a valley in dark forest but didn’t know how he ended there. He met a panther, a lion and a she-wolf, and in despair, met a shade of Virgil the Roman poet who agreed to guide him to ascend the hill.

Canto II: Dante plead to the Muses (goddesses) as fear came to him, but Virgil scolded him of being coward. He then told him that a woman in Heaven (Beatrice—Dante’s lover) had told Virgil to guide Dante. Beatrice was told by Saint Lucia, who had been acknowledged by another Lady in Heaven (Mother Mary?) who grieved at Dante’s condition.

Canto III: Dante arrived at the gate of Hell where he saw people suffered continuously from flies and wasps stung and worms—people who were neither good nor evil but just ignorant, and thus were rejected by Heaven and Hell. Dante arrived in a river bank (Ancheron) where dead people’s souls waited to be brought across to Hell by a boat—people who never feared of God.

Canto IV: Dante arrived on the verge of a deep valley. The foremost abyss (Limbo) was for people who were not sinned but had not been baptized, or who were born before Christianity (like Virgil), with the exception of some figures from Old Testament: Noah, Moses, Abraham, David, etc who had been out of Hell. Resided here also, famous poets: Homer, Horace, Ovid and Lucan. They came next to a castle with seven walls encircled by a creek, where Dante saw some great heroes from Greek and Ancient Rome: Aeneas, Hector, Caesar, Brutus, etc. and great philosophers: Socrates, Plato, Seneca, etc.

Canto V: Dante and Virgil descended to second circle of Hell where a monster called Minos judged the sinners according to their confessions to thrust them down in appropriate grades. These people were whirled round continuously by a great storm in black sea which never rested. They were lustful people such as Cleopatra, Helen, Paris, Dido and even Achilles; all were damned because of love and desire.

Canto VI: People in the third circle of Hell were tortured by eternal heavy rain, where Dante met Cerberus as the guard and whom Virgil satisfied with a handful of earth so that they could advance. It is for gluttonous people who must lie on the ground. One of them, Ciacco, foretold the political situation in Florence, and told Dante that politicians involved were in the deeper level of Hell.

Canto VII: Descending to fourth circle, Dante saw two semi circle groups of people crying in anger and pain, wheeled to the other’s end then wheeled back to another after colliding in the middle. They conducted avaricious sin by not distributing Fortune fairly, and so now must keep battling without end (corrupt clergymen were included). Dante then headed to fifth circle of Hell: a marsh called Styx where naked people covered with mud striking each other; they who were always consumed with anger. There were also the Sullen who now gurgled in the mud because they kept sighing under the sun. Finally Dante arrived on the foot of a tower.

Canto VIII: Dante and Virgil took a boat across the Styx and met Philippo Argenti—Dante’s adversary?—whom Dante was pleased to hear being attacked by people in the mire. Dante then arrived at Dis—a city in Hell—where eternal fire kindled from within. The Gates’ guards refused them to enter despite of Virgil’s plead.

Canto IX: Dante was afraid seeing that Virgil has failed. They were at the low part of Hell, far from Heaven, the sixth circle. He saw three Furies who called for Medusa to change Dante into stone. A messenger from Heaven appeared and instructed the guards to open the gate for Dante and Virgil, and he was obeyed. They entered finally a land full of tombs heated with flames within, where the heretics were.

Canto X: Among the heretics tombs was Epicurus and his followers. The soul of Farinata—political leader of Dante’s era—suddenly talked to Dante. He could see the future but not the present, and it was the Heretics’ punishment. With Farinata, Frederick the 2^nd and the Cardinal stayed also there. Then Virgil brought Dante to a valley where he would meet a soul from whom Dante would learn about his future.

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