Ring 2: Against Self

The second round of the seventh circle is the Wood of the Suicides, in which the souls of the people who attempted or died by suicide are transformed into gnarled, thorny trees and then fed upon by Harpies, hideous clawed birds with the faces of women; the trees are only permitted to speak when broken and bleeding. Dante breaks a twig off one of the trees and from the bleeding trunk hears the tale of Pietro della Vigna, a powerful minister of Emperor Frederick II until he fell out of favor and was imprisoned and blinded. He subsequently committed suicide; his presence here, rather than in the Ninth Circle, indicates that Dante believes that the accusations made against him were false.[72] The Harpies and the characteristics of the bleeding bushes are based on Book 3 of the Aeneid. According to Dorothy L. Sayers, Dante presents the sin of suicide as an "insult to the body; so, here, the shades are deprived of even the semblance of the human form. As they refused life, they remain fixed in a dead and withered sterility. They are the image of the self-hatred which dries up the very sap of energy and makes all life infertile."[72] The trees have also been interpreted as a metaphor for the state of mind in which suicide is committed.[73]

Dante learns that these suicides, unique among the dead, will not be corporally resurrected after the Final Judgement since they threw their bodies away; instead, they will maintain their bushy form, with their own corpses hanging from the thorny limbs. After Pietro della Vigna finishes his story, Dante notices two shades (Lano da Siena and Jacopo Sant' Andrea) race through the wood, chased and savagely mauled by ferocious bitches – this is the punishment of the violently profligate who, "possessed by a depraved passion […] dissipated their goods for the sheer wanton lust of wreckage and disorder".[72] The destruction wrought upon the wood by the profligates' flight and punishment as they crash through the undergrowth causes further suffering to the suicides, who cannot move out of the way.

>>21817528

>The second round of the seventh circle is the Wood of the Suicides, in which the souls of the people who attempted or died by suicide are transformed into gnarled, thorny trees and then fed upon by Harpies, hideous clawed birds with the faces of women; the trees are only permitted to speak when broken and bleeding.

>>21817584

>>21817524

> Dante presents the sin of suicide as an "insult to the body; so, here, the shades are deprived of even the semblance of the human form. As they refused life, they remain fixed in a dead and withered sterility. They are the image of the self-hatred which dries up the very sap of energy and makes all life infertile."[72] The trees have also been interpreted as a metaphor for the state of mind in which suicide is committed.[73]

>>21817642

> Dante learns that these suicides, unique among the dead, will not be corporally resurrected after the Final Judgement since they threw their bodies away; instead, they will maintain their bushy form, with their own corpses hanging from the thorny limbs. After Pietro della Vigna finishes his story, Dante notices two shades (Lano da Siena and Jacopo Sant' Andrea) race through the wood, chased and savagely mauled by ferocious bitches – this is the punishment of the violently profligate who, "possessed by a depraved passion […] dissipated their goods for the sheer wanton lust of wreckage and disorder".[72] The destruction wrought upon the wood by the profligates' flight and punishment as they crash through the undergrowth causes further suffering to the suicides, who cannot move out of the way.

Ring 3: Against God, Art, and Nature

The third round of the seventh circle is a great Plain of Burning Sand scorched by great flakes of flame falling slowly down from the sky, an image derived from the fate of Sodom and Gomorrah (Genesis 19:24).[74] The Blasphemers (the Violent against God) are stretched supine upon the burning sand, the Sodomites (the Violent against Nature) run in circles, while the Usurers (the Violent against Art, which is the Grandchild of God, as explained in Canto XI) crouch huddled and weeping. Ciardi writes, "Blasphemy, sodomy, and usury are all unnatural and sterile actions: thus the unbearing desert is the eternity of these sinners; and thus the rain, which in nature should be fertile and cool, descends as fire".[75] Dante finds Capaneus stretched out on the sands; for blasphemy against Jove, he was struck down with a thunderbolt during the war of the Seven against Thebes and is still scorning Jove in the afterlife. The overflow of Phlegethon, the river of blood from the first ring, flows boiling through the Wood of the Suicides (the second ring) and crosses the Burning Plain. Virgil explains the origin of the rivers of Hell, which includes references to the Old Man of Crete.

Canto XI

Dante reads an inscription on one of the tombs indicating it belongs to Pope Anastasius II – although some modern scholars hold that Dante erred in the verse mentioning Anastasius ("Anastasio papa guardo, / lo qual trasse Fotin de la via dritta", lines 8–9), confusing the pope with the Byzantine emperor of the time, Anastasius I.[63][64][65][66] Pausing for a moment before the steep descent to the foul-smelling seventh circle, Virgil explains the geography and rationale of Lower Hell, in which the sins of violence (or bestiality) and fraud (or malice) are punished. In his explanation, Virgil refers to the Nicomachean Ethics and the Physics of Aristotle, with medieval interpretations. Virgil asserts that there are only two legitimate sources of wealth: natural resources ("Nature") and human labor and activity ("Art"). Usury, to be punished in the next circle, is therefore an offence against both; it is a kind of blasphemy, since it is an act of violence against Art, which is the child of Nature, and Nature derives from God.[67]

Virgil then indicates the time through his unexplained awareness of the stars' positions. The "Wain", the Great Bear, now lies in the northwest over Caurus (the northwest wind). The constellation Pisces (the Fish) is just appearing over the horizon: it is the zodiacal sign preceding Aries (the Ram). Canto I notes that the sun is in Aries, and since the twelve zodiac signs rise at two-hour intervals, it must now be about two hours prior to sunrise: 4:00 a.m. on Holy Saturday, April 9.[67][68]

Sixth Circle (Heresy)Canto XIn the sixth circle, heretics, such as Epicurus and his followers (who say "the soul dies with the body")[61] are trapped in flaming tombs. Dante holds discourse with a pair of Epicurian Florentines in one of the tombs: Farinata degli Uberti, a famous Ghibelline leader (following the Battle of Montaperti in September 1260, Farinata strongly protested the proposed destruction of Florence at the meeting of the victorious Ghibellines; he died in 1264 and was posthumously condemned for heresy in 1283); and Cavalcante de' Cavalcanti, a Guelph who was the father of Dante's friend and fellow poet, Guido Cavalcanti. The political affiliation of these two men allows for a further discussion of Florentine politics. In response to a question from Dante about the "prophecy" he has received, Farinata explains that what the souls in Hell know of life on earth comes from seeing the future, not from any observation of the present. Consequently, when "the portal of the future has been shut",[62] it will no longer be possible for them to know anything. Farinata explains that also crammed within the tomb are Emperor Frederick II, commonly reputed to be an Epicurean, and Ottaviano degli Ubaldini, whom Dante refers to as il Cardinale.

Canto IX

Dante is threatened by the Furies (consisting of Alecto, Megaera, and Tisiphone) and Medusa. An angel sent from Heaven secures entry for the poets, opening the gate by touching it with a wand, and rebukes those who opposed Dante. Allegorically, this reveals the fact that the poem is beginning to deal with sins that philosophy and humanism cannot fully understand. Virgil also mentions to Dante how Erichtho sent him to the lowest circle of Hell to bring back a spirit from there.[59]

Entrance to DisIn the distance, Dante perceives high towers that resemble fiery red mosques. Virgil informs him that they are approaching the City of Dis. Dis, itself surrounded by the Stygian marsh, contains Lower Hell within its walls.[60] Dis is one of the names of Pluto, the classical king of the underworld, in addition to being the name of the realm. The walls of Dis are guarded by fallen angels. Virgil is unable to convince them to let Dante and him enter.

Canto VIII

Phlegyas reluctantly transports Dante and Virgil across the Styx in his skiff. On the way they are accosted by Filippo Argenti, a Black Guelph from the prominent Adimari family. Little is known about Argenti, although Giovanni Boccaccio describes an incident in which he lost his temper; early commentators state that Argenti's brother seized some of Dante's property after his exile from Florence.[56] Just as Argenti enabled the seizing of Dante's property, he himself is "seized" by all the other wrathful souls.

When Dante responds "In weeping and in grieving, accursed spirit, may you long remain,"[57] Virgil blesses him with words used to describe Christ himself (Luke 11:27).[58] In a literal sense, this reflects the fact that souls in Hell are eternally fixed in the state they have chosen, but allegorically, it reflects Dante's beginning awareness of his own sin.[59]

Fifth Circle (Wrath)

The fifth circle, illustrated by Stradanus

The Barque of Dante by Eugène Delacroix

In the swampy, stinking waters of the river Styx – the Fifth Circle – the actively wrathful fight each other viciously on the surface of the slime, while the sullen (the passively wrathful) lie beneath the water, withdrawn, "into a black sulkiness which can find no joy in God or man or the universe".[53] At the surface of the foul Stygian marsh, Dorothy L. Sayers writes, "the active hatreds rend and snarl at one another; at the bottom, the sullen hatreds lie gurgling, unable even to express themselves for the rage that chokes them".[53] As the last circle of Incontinence, the "savage self-frustration" of the Fifth Circle marks the end of "that which had its tender and romantic beginnings in the dalliance of indulged passion".[53]

Fourth Circle (Greed)

In Gustave Doré's illustrations for the fourth circle, the weights are huge money bags

Canto VII

The Fourth Circle is guarded by a figure Dante names as Pluto: this is Plutus, the deity of wealth in classical mythology. Although the two are often conflated, he is a distinct figure from Pluto (Dis), the classical ruler of the underworld.[nb 2] At the start of Canto VII, he menaces Virgil and Dante with the cryptic phrase Pape Satàn, pape Satàn aleppe, but Virgil protects Dante from him.

Those whose attitude toward material goods deviated from the appropriate mean are punished in the fourth circle. They include the avaricious or miserly (including many "clergymen, and popes and cardinals"),[51] who hoarded possessions, and the prodigal, who squandered them. The hoarders and spendthrifts joust, using great weights as weapons that they push with their chests:

Here, too, I saw a nation of lost souls,

far more than were above: they strained their chests

against enormous weights, and with mad howls

rolled them at one another. Then in haste

they rolled them back, one party shouting out:

"Why do you hoard?" and the other: "Why do you waste?"[52]

Relating this sin of incontinence to the two that preceded it (lust and gluttony), Dorothy L. Sayers writes, "Mutual indulgence has already declined into selfish appetite; now, that appetite becomes aware of the incompatible and equally selfish appetites of other people. Indifference becomes mutual antagonism, imaged here by the antagonism between hoarding and squandering."[53] The contrast between these two groups leads Virgil to discourse on the nature of Fortune, who raises nations to greatness and later plunges them into poverty, as she shifts, "those empty goods from nation unto nation, clan to clan".[54] This speech fills what would otherwise be a gap in the poem, since both groups are so absorbed in their activity that Virgil tells Dante that it would be pointless to try to speak to them – indeed, they have lost their individuality and been rendered "unrecognizable".[55]

Third Circle (Gluttony)

Main article: Third circle of hell

Cerberus as illustrated by Gustave Doré

Canto VI

In the third circle, the gluttonous wallow in a vile, putrid slush produced by a ceaseless, foul, icy rain – "a great storm of putrefaction"[46] – as punishment for subjecting their reason to a voracious appetite. Cerberus (described as il gran vermo, literally 'the great worm', line 22), the monstrous three-headed beast of Hell, ravenously guards the gluttons lying in the freezing mire, mauling and flaying them with his claws as they howl like dogs. Virgil obtains safe passage past the monster by filling its three mouths with mud.

Dorothy L. Sayers writes that "the surrender to sin which began with mutual indulgence leads by an imperceptible degradation to solitary self-indulgence".[47] The gluttons grovel in the mud by themselves, sightless and heedless of their neighbors, symbolizing the cold, selfish, and empty sensuality of their lives.[47] Just as lust has revealed its true nature in the winds of the previous circle, here the slush reveals the true nature of sensuality – which includes not only overindulgence in food and drink, but also other kinds of addiction.[48]

In this circle, Dante converses with a Florentine contemporary identified as Ciacco, which means 'hog'.[49] A character with the same nickname later appears in The Decameron of Giovanni Boccaccio, where his gluttonous behaviour is clearly portrayed.[50] Ciacco speaks to Dante regarding strife in Florence between the "White" and "Black" Guelphs, which developed after the Guelph/Ghibelline strife ended with the complete defeat of the Ghibellines. In the first of several political prophecies in the Inferno, Ciacco "predicts" the expulsion of the White Guelphs (Dante's party) from Florence by the Black Guelphs, aided by Pope Boniface VIII, which marked the start of Dante's long exile from the city. These events occurred in 1302, prior to when the poem was written but in the future at Easter time of 1300, the time in which the poem is set.[49]