corpadverticus
https://www.theonion.com/tenth-circle-added-to-rapidly-growing-hell-1819564878
Tenth Circle Added To Rapidly Growing Hell
CITY OF DIS, NETHER HELLāAfter nearly four years of construction at an estimated cost of 750 million souls, Corpadverticus, the new 10th circle of Hell, finally opened its doors Monday.
Tenth Circle Added To Rapidly Growing Hell
Tenth Circle Added To Rapidly Growing Hell
The Blockbuster Video-sponsored circle, located in Nether Hell between the former eighth and ninth levels of Malebolge and Cocytus, is expected to greatly alleviate the overcrowding problems that have plagued the infernal underworld in recent years. The circle is the first added to Hell in its countless-millennia history.
"A nightmarishly large glut of condemned spirits in recent years necessitated the expansion of Hell," inferno spokesperson Antedeus said. "The traditional nine-tiered system had grown insufficient to accommodate the exponentially rising numbers of Hellbound."
Adding to the need for expansion, Antedeus said, was the fact that a majority of the new arrivals possessed souls far more evil than the original nine circles were equipped to handle. "Demographers, advertising executives, tobacco lobbyists, monopoly-law experts retained by major corporations, and creators of office-based sitcomsāthese new arrivals represent a wave of spiritual decay and horror the likes of which Hell has never before seen," Antedeus said.
Despite the need for expansion, the plan faced considerable resistance, largely due to the considerable costs of insuring construction projects within the Kingdom Of Lies. Opposition also came from Hell purists concerned about the detrimental effect a tenth level would have on the intricate numerology of Hell's meticulously arranged allegorical structure. In 1994, however, funding was finally secured in a deal brokered between Blockbuster CEO Wayne Huizenga and Satan himself.
Prior to the construction of the tenth circle, many among the new wave of sinners had been placed in such circles as Hoarders and Squanderers, Sowers of Discord, Flatterers and Seducers, Violent Against Art, and Hypocrites. Hell authorities, however, say that the new level, the Circle of Total Bastards, located at the site of the former Well of Giants just above the Frozen Lake at Hell's center, better suits their insidious brand of evil.
Frigax The Vile, a leading demonic presence, is one of the most vocal supporters of the new circle.
"In the past, the underworld was ill-equipped to handle the new breed of sinners flooding our gatesādownsizing CEOs, focus-group coordinators, telemarketing sales representatives, and vast hordes of pony-tailed entertainment-industry executives rollerblading and talking on miniaturized cell-phones at the same time. But now, we've finally got the sort of top-notch Pits of Doom necessary to give such repellent abominations the quality boilings they deserve."
Pausing to tear off the limbs of an Access Hollywood host, Frigax added, "We're all tremendously excited about the many brand-new forms of torture and eternal pain this new level's state-of-the-art facilities will make possible."
Among the tortures the Corpadverticus Circle of Total Bastards boasts: the Never-Ending Drive-Thru Bank, the Bottomless Pit of Promotional Tie-In Keychains, and the dreaded Chamber of Emotionally Manipulative Home Shopping Network Products.
The Circle also features a Hall of Aerobics, where condemned TV-exercise-show personalities, clad in skin-tight Spandex outfits soaked in flesh-dissolving acid, are forced to exercise for centuries on end, covered in vomit and prodded with the distended ribs of skeletal, anorexic demons, accompanied by an unending, ear-splittingly loud dance-remix version of the 1988 Rick Astley hit "Together Forever."
In a nearby area, corporate raiders are forced to carry the golf clubs of uneducated Hispanic migrant workers from hole to hole for eternity, withering under a constant barrage of verbal abuse from their former subservients as crows descend from trees to peck at their eyes. In one of the deepest and most profane portions of the circle, unspeakable acts are said to be committed with a mail-order Roly-Kit.
"In life, I was a Salomon Brothers investment banker," one flame-blackened shade told reporters. "When I arrived here, they didn't know what to do with me. They put me in with those condemned to walk backwards with their heads turned all the way around on their necks, for the crime of attempting to see the future. But then I sent a couple of fruit baskets to the right people, and in no time flat, I secured a cushy spot for myself in the first circle of the Virtuous Unbaptized. Now that was a sweet deal. But before long, they caught on to my game and transferred me here to the realm of Total Bastards. I've been shrieking for mercy like a goddamn woman ever since."
His face contorted in the Misery of the Damned, a Disney lawyer said: "It's hell hereāthere are no executive lounges, I can't get any decent risotto, and the suit I have to wear is a cheap Brooks Brothers knock-off. I'm beeped every 30 seconds, and there's no way to return the calls. Plus, I'm being boiled upside down in lard while jackals gnaw at the soles of my feet. If I could just reach the fax machine on that nearby rock, I could contact some well-placed associates and work something out, but it's just out of my grasp, and it's out of ink and constantly blinking the message, 'Replace Toner Cartridge, Replace Toner Cartridge, Replace Toner Cartridge.'"
He then resumed screaming in agony.
Grogar The Malefic, a Captain in Hell's elite Demon Corps and supervisor in charge of admissions for the new circle, said Hell's future looks bright, thanks to the new circle.
"Things are definitely looking up," Grogar said. "We're now far better equipped, and we're ready to take on the most Unholy Atrocities humanity has to offer."
"We're really on the grow down here," Grogar added. "This is an exciting time to be in Hell."
>The circle is the first added to Hell in its countless-millennia history.
>
> "The traditional nine-tiered system had grown insufficient to accommodate the exponentially rising numbers of Hellbound."
>these new arrivals represent a wave of spiritual decay and horror the likes of which Hell has never before seen," Antedeus said.
> the plan faced considerable resistance, largely due to the considerable costs of insuring construction projects within the Kingdom Of Lies
> Hell purists concerned about the detrimental effect a tenth level would have on the intricate numerology of Hell's meticulously arranged allegorical structure.
> Hell authorities, however, say that the new level, the Circle of Total Bastards,
> "We're all tremendously excited about the many brand-new forms of torture and eternal pain this new level's state-of-the-art facilities will make possible."
>
>Corpadverticus Circle of Total Bastards boasts
>a Disney lawyer said: "It's hell hereāthere are no executive lounges, I can't get any decent risotto, and the suit I have to wear is a cheap Brooks Brothers knock-off. I'm beeped every 30 seconds, and there's no way to return the calls.
>Grogar The Malefic, a Captain in Hell's elite Demon Corps and supervisor in charge of admissions for the new circle, said Hell's future looks bright, thanks to the new circle.
In Ravenna, Italy, archivists recently discovered a lost canto of Danteās Inferno ā what appears to be the tenth circle of Hell. The ninth circle was previously understood to be the lowest point of Hell reached by Dante and his guide Virgil before ascending on their journey toward Paradise. A portion of the 14th-century manuscript, translated into English prose, is reproduced below.
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āVirgil,ā I cried, āThose shadesāburning, immersed in human excrement, trapped in icy waters. I thought I had witnessed the basest of all sinners. So who are these figures I now see? Do my eyes betray me, or are their heads fully absorbed in the derriĆØres of others? And who are these individuals whose bottoms are swollen due to the immense size of the heads there immersed?ā
āYour reaction is sound,ā he replied, āfor it is an atrocious sin these shades have committed. Those whose enlarged heads are occupying the derriĆØres of others were graduate students while they lived. As you well know, sinners must eternally suffer the wrong they committed in life; and thus their heads are swollen from illusions of grandeur. As for the position of these heads, I need only reveal the identity of second group: tenured professors. While alive, these elders allowed many heads to be consumed in their rear ends, and they now endure this punishment eternally.ā
I wished to flee from the sight, but many questions still burned within me. Virgil sensed my desire to understand. āGo on,ā he urged, āyou may speak directly to the shades. But make haste, as I fear that you will contract that wretched condition of pretentiousness by proxy.ā
I cautiously approached the shade closest to me, standing tense so as not to tremble: āWhat was your discipline?ā I asked. āWhat brought you to this place?ā The shadeās head was fully obscured, so his professor spoke for him as he had done, too, in life: āThis student occupied himself with the implications of Heideggerian philosophy in contemporary humanistic discourse,ā he responded.
There ended that interaction as I could not have cared any less than I did in that moment.
"It's going to take lots of energy for us to grapple with the challenge we're facing, and some of it is on vivid display in these pages." āBill McKibben
I stopped then at an elderly derriĆØre, wrinkled from its years of experience yet swollen more than any other I had yet seen. āAnd why is it that your behind is inflated more than all the others?ā I inquired. The professor responded: āthis shade was my pupil, studying toward a PhD in postmodern reinterpretations of 11th-century lyric poetry.ā
I was slowly beginning to comprehend. The more inconsequential a field of study, the more swollen the head, and in turn, the derriĆØre.
Sensing that I understood, my guide urged me to join him and leave this terrible circle. But there remained one shade I could not ignore. A unique sight, her head was not in the rear end of another shade. Instead, she was contorted in a way I did not think feasibleāher head was inserted into her very own posterior. I briefly paused, turning toward Virgil, but his back was to me; he did not dare look.
āWhy is your body distorted so,ā I asked, āwith your head in your own rear end?ā I could barely make out the response, for the sound was muffled as it passed through the derriĆØre. As I recall, I heard but three letters: MFA.
A special edition of Unnecessarily Beautiful Spaces for Young Minds on Fire, packaged in a limited, corrugated-cardboard slipcase. Every kid in the world needs a safe, welcoming, and even weirdā¦
After witnessing this horrific spectacle, I resolved to rejoin to my guide. āVirgil,ā I wept, āLet us return to the circles we have already passed. I would sooner burn in fire, rot in excrement, or freeze in an icy lake than spend another second with these miserable, putrid shades.ā
On the evening of March 25 in the year 1300, Italian poet Dante Alighieri stepped through the gates of Hell, passing beneath an overhead inscription that read āAbandon all hope, ye who enter here.ā
Dante summoned all of his courage and proceeded, plunging deeper into the despair of hell.
This is the āInfernoā tale of Danteās Divina Commedia, an epic poem completed just before his death in 1321.
Danteās version of hell is divided into nine concentric circles, each representing a different category of evil. The deeper they go, the worse the evilā¦ and the worse the torment.
The Second Circle, for example, is for adulterers, who now spend eternity being rocked back and forth by strong winds.
The Seventh Circle is for violent murderers and tyrants, who are condemned to eternally drown in a river of boiling blood and fire.
Worse than murderers and tyrants, however, are the fraudsters and impostors who spend eternity in Circle Eight.
Dante views these white-collar criminals as a disease on society, and condemns them to spend eternity suffering from their own debilitating, painful diseases.
But he saves the worst for last: treacherous liars.
Standing near the center of hell, Dante comes across the Ninth Circle. Itās a frozen lake, where, trapped inside the ice itself, are those guilty of betrayal, violating the trust that had been placed in them.
Dante views this as the worst form of evil and invokes Biblical figures like Cain (who killed his brother Abel) and Judas Iscariot who are infamous for their betrayal.
Itās unfortunate that Dante stopped at nine. Because if there were a 10th Circle of Hell, I could nominate a few candidates.
I say that because I have unfortunately made a terrible mistake.
Off and on for the past few years, I was an investor in an arrangement that turned out to be a complete fraud. And a number of other people invested in this as well because of me.
The two people who ran the scheme spent years building a sterling reputation, all the while manufacturing phony documents, fake IDs, and mountains of evidence to prove that their operation was completely legitimate.
And they fooled a lot of very sophisticated people, including some of the most prominent investment banks and financial media in the world, in addition to external auditors, lawyers, etc.
Just like serial killers who go on a violent rampage, Iām not going to dignify these scumbags by mentioning their names. At least, not yet.
Still in the Sixth Circle of Hell, Dante and Virgil wander among the fiery tombs of the Heretics. Virgil describes the particular heresy of one of the groups, the Epicureans, who pursued pleasure in life because they believed that the soul died with the body. Suddenly, a voice from one of the tombs interrupts them and addresses Dante as a Tuscan (Tuscany is the region of Italy in which Florence is located). The voice belongs to a soul whom Virgil identifies as Farinata, a political leader of Danteās era. Virgil encourages Dante to speak with him.
Dante and Farinata have hardly begun their conversation when another soul, that of Cavalcante deā Cavalcanti, the father of Danteās intimate friend Guido, rises up and interrupts them, wondering why his son has not accompanied Dante here. Dante replies that perhaps Guido held Virgil in disdain. (According to some translations of Inferno, Dante says that Guido held God, or Beatrice, in disdain. The point is a matter of considerable debate among scholars.) Frantic, the shade reads too much into Danteās words and assumes that his son is dead. In despair, he sinks back down in his grave.
Farinata continues discussing Florentine politics. He and Dante clearly represent opposing parties (though these parties are not named), yet they treat each other politely. From Farinataās words and those of the nearby soul, Dante realizes that the shades in Hell can see future events but not present ones. Farinata can prophesy the futureāhe predicts Danteās exile from Florenceābut remains ignorant of current events. Farinata confirms that, as part of their punishment, the Heretics can see only distant things.
Virgil calls Dante back, and they proceed through the rest of the Sixth Circle. Farinataās words have made Dante apprehensive about the length of time remaining for his exile, but Virgil assures him that he will hear a fuller account when they come to a better place.
At the edge of the Seventh Circle of Hell rises a stench so overpowering that Virgil and Dante must sit down at the tomb of Pope Anastasius in order to adjust to it. Virgil takes the opportunity to explain the last three circles of Hell and their respective subdivisions. The Seventh Circle of Hell, which contains those who are violent, is subdivided into three smaller circles: they punish the sins of violence against oneās neighbor, against oneself, and against God. Worse than any violence, however, is the sin of fraud, which breaks the trust of a man and therefore most directly opposes the great virtue of love. The last two circles of Hell thus punish the Fraudulent. The Eighth Circle punishes ānormal fraudāāsins that violate the natural trust between people. Such fraud includes acts of hypocrisy and underhanded flattery. The Ninth Circle, the seat of Dis, punishes betrayalāsins that violate a relationship of particularly special trust. These are the loyalties to kin, to country and party, to guests, and to benefactors.
Dante asks Virgil why these divisions of Hell exist, wondering why the sinners they have seen previously do not receive this same degree of punishment, as they too have acted contrary to divine will. In response, Virgil reminds Dante of the philosophy set forth in Aristotleās Nicomachean Ethics, which posits the existence of ā[t]hree dispositions counter to Heavenās will: / Incontinence, malice, insane brutalityā (XI.79ā80). The disposition of incontinence offends God least, says Virgil, and thus receives a more lenient punishment, outside of the city of Dis.
Dante then asks for clarification of one more theological issue: why is usury a sin? Virgil explains to Dante that usury goes against Godās will because a usurer makes his money not from industry or skill (āartā)āas Genesis stipulates that human beings shouldābut rather from money itself (in the form of interest). Thus, usurers also go against Godās āart,ā or His design for the world. The two poets now progress toward the First Ring of the Seventh Circle of Hell.
Of all the cantos, Canto X may narrate the most action at the fastest pace; it also contains a remarkable amount of lyricism. Indeed, Danteās adroit leaps between topics and moods play an important role in creating the poetic force of the canto. Farinata interrupts Virgil and Dante without a word of prelude from Dante the poet. The sharp, seemingly transitionless movement between one speech and another had almost no precedent in vernacular literature of the time. A second interruption occurs when Cavalcanti, the other soul, breaks in. Yet this intrusion does not faze Farinata, who continues in his slow, dignified manner despite the otherās anxious exclamations; Dante maintains the two distinct tones simultaneously. This scene possesses a less uniform voice than the rest of the poem; it achieves its force through its contrasts. Dante juxtaposes Farinataās piercing gaze, for instance, with the darting, anxious eyes of Cavalcanti, and implicitly compares Farinataās impassioned love for Florence and his people with Cavalcantiās poignant love for his son Guido. Dante thus brings out the intimately emotional side of political loyalty while showing the nobility in the seemingly humble love between father and son.
The conversation between Farinata and Dante also contributes to Infernoās exploration of politics and history. Historically, Farinata served as a leader of the Ghibellines, the party that opposed Danteās Guelphs, and was banished from Florence with the rest of his party, never to return. By the time of Danteās writing, however, the Guelphs had split into two factions, occasioning a second set of banishments: the Black Guelphs had gained control and exiled the White Guelphs, including Dante. As a result, Dante the poet felt a connection to the Ghibellines; hence his peaceable conversation here with Farinata.
The passage to the First Ring of the Seventh Circle of Hell takes Virgil and Dante through a ravine of broken rock. At the edge, the monstrous Minotaur threatens them, and they must slip past him while he rages to distraction. As they descend, Virgil notes that this rock had not yet fallen at the time of his previous journey into the depths of Hell. Coming into the ring, they see a river of blood: here boil the sinners who were violent against their neighbors. A group of Centaursācreatures that are half man, half horseāstand on the bank of the river with bows and arrows. They shoot at any soul that tries to raise itself out of the river to a height too pleasant for the magnitude of his or her sin.
The head Centaur, Chiron, notices that Dante moves the rocks that he walks on as only a living soul would. He draws an arrow, but Virgil commands him to stand back, and he obeys. Because the broken rocks make the ring treacherous to navigate, Virgil also asks that a Centaur be provided to guide them through the ring around the boiling blood. Chiron provides one named Nessus, on whose back Dante climbs.
maybe if you throw more poop at a fan
something might stick
Leading Virgil and Dante through the ring, Nessus names some of the more notable souls punished here, including one called Alexander (probably Alexander the Great), Dionysius, and Atilla the Hun. Those who lived as tyrants, and thus perpetrated violence on whole populations, lie in the deepest parts of the river. After fording the river at a shallow stretch, Nessus leaves the travelers, who continue on into the Second Ring.
In the Second Ring of the Seventh Circle of Hell, Virgil and Dante enter a strange wood filled with black and gnarled trees. Dante hears many cries of suffering but cannot see the souls that utter them. Virgil cryptically advises him to snap a twig off of one of the trees. He does so, and the tree cries out in pain, to Danteās amazement. Blood begins to trickle down its bark. The souls in this ringāthose who were violent against themselves or their possessions (Suicides and Squanderers, respectively)āhave been transformed into trees.
Virgil tells the damaged tree-soul to tell his story to Dante so that Dante may spread the story on Earth. The tree-soul informs them that in life he was Pier della Vigna, an advisor to Emperor Frederick, and that he was a moral and admirable man. But when an envious group of scheming courtiers blackened his name with lies, he felt such shame that he took his own life.
Dante then asks how the souls here came to be in their current state. The tree-soul explains that when Minos first casts souls here, they take root and grow as saplings. They then are wounded and pecked by Harpiesāfoul creatures that are half woman, half bird. When a tree-soulās branch is broken, it causes the soul the same pain as dismemberment. When the time comes for all souls to retrieve their bodies, these souls will not reunite fully with theirs, because they discarded them willingly. Instead, the returned bodies will be hung on the soul-treesā branches, forcing each soul to see and feel constantly the human form that it rejected in life.
At this point, two young men run crashing through the wood, interrupting Danteās conversation with the tree-soul. One of the men, Jacomo da SantāAndrea, falls behind and leaps into a bush; vicious dogs have been pursuing him, and now they rend him to pieces. Virgil and Dante then speak to the bush, which is also a soul: it speaks of the suffering that has plagued Florence ever since it decided to make St. John the Baptist its patron, replacing its old patron, Mars (a Roman god). The bush-soul adds that he was a Florentine man in life who hanged himself.
When Virgil comments in Canto XII about the broken rocks he and Dante must navigate, he alludes to the earthquake that, according to the Gospels, occurred upon Christās crucifixion. Noting that the rocks had not yet fallen when he first descended into Hell, in the late first century b.c., Virgil reasons that they must have broken during the abovementioned earthquake, after which Christ came down to Hell to free a number of souls, including the Old Testament prophets (āThe great spoil of the upper circleā [XII.33]). Virgil thus reasons that the earthquake seen by evangelists on Earth in fact penetrated to the underworld as well. Dante implies that Christās death shook Hell to its very roots, both literally and figuratively.
Virgilās comment also seems to suggest that Hell experiences the effects of the passage of time: Virgil can remember a physically different Hell, and the souls can anticipate the return of their bodies. This notion of Hell possessing a past, present, and future would seem to contradict the eternal nature of the place. However, Hell does not seem vulnerable to the force of time per se, but rather to the force of Godās will over time. The changes in Hell mentioned here correspond to two divine events: the Harrowing and the Last Judgment. After this second event, time will disappear altogether.
The pool of boiling blood serves as an allegorically apt punishment for those who were violent toward others: they sit eternally submerged in the blood after which they lusted in life. This punishment, like so many in Danteās Hell, proves impeccably flexible according to the sinnersā degrees of sin, allowing for individualized penalties of excruciating exactitude. The soul of an individual who killed only one person, for example, stands with his legs in the burning blood, while the soul of a tyrant such as Alexander stands with his entire head covered. The scene also provides Dante with an opportunity to voice his politics: while a more objective view of history might rank many other leaders among these tyrants, Dante exempts them from punishment here. The conspicuous absence of Roman leaders in particular testifies to Danteās great reverence for Rome.
It seems odd at first that the Suicidesā punishment is to be turned into trees; the reader does not see how this punishment fits into Danteās usual pattern until one of the trees begins his speech about the Last Judgment. Then we see how the punishment fits the crime: having discarded their bodies on Earth, these souls are rendered unable to assume human form for the rest of eternity. In committing suicide, these souls denied their God-given immortality and declared that they did not want their bodies; their punishment is to get their wish only after they have recognized the error in it.
Finally, at the end of Canto XIII, the bush-soul gives us some interesting information about the history of Florence. When Florence was Christianized, it abandoned the god Mars as its patron and turned its allegiance toward John the Baptist. The āartā of Mars is war; his resentment at being replaced, the bush asserts, causes Florence to be plagued by infighting. Dante here employs the common classical device of using mythological legend to account for earthly events, a device found frequently in ancient Greek and Roman literature. Yet he is only half-serious about this explanation: Infernoās frequent political jabs make it clear that Dante has plenty of flesh-and-blood enemies on whom to blame Florenceās civil strife.
Dante gathers the bushās scattered leaves and gives them to the bush. He and Virgil then proceed through the forest of tree-souls to the edge of the Third Ring of the Seventh Circle of Hell. Here they find a desert of red-hot sand, upon which flakes of fire drift down slowly but ceaselessly. As Virgil expounded in Canto XI, this ring, reserved for those who were violent against God, is divided into three zones. The rain of fire falls throughout all three. The First Zone is for the Blasphemers, who must lie prone on a bank of sand. The falling flakes of fire keep the sand perpetually hot, ensuring that the souls burn from above and below. Among these sinners Dante sees a giant, whom Virgil identifies as Capaneus, one of the kings who besieged Thebes. Capaneus rages relentlessly, insisting that the tortures of Hell shall never break his defiance.
The poets reach another river, which runs red, and Virgil speaks to Dante about the source of Hellās waters. Underneath a mountain on the island of Crete sits the broken statue of an Old Man. Tears flow through the cracks in the statue, gathering at his feet. As they stream away, they form the Acheron, the Styx, the Phlegethon, and finally Cocytus, the pool at the bottom of Hell.
>Underneath a mountain on the island of Crete sits the broken statue of an Old Man. Tears flow through the cracks in the statue, gathering at his feet. As they stream away, they form the Acheron, the Styx, the Phlegethon, and finally Cocytus, the pool at the bottom of Hell.
Still in the Second Zone among the Sodomites, Dante is approached by another group of souls, three of whom claim to recognize Dante as their countryman. The flames have charred their features beyond recognition, so they tell Dante their names. Dante recalls their names from his time in Florence and feels great pity for them. They ask if courtesy and valor still characterize their city, but Dante sadly replies that acts of excess and arrogance now reign.
Before leaving the Second Zone, Virgil makes a strange request. He asks for the cord that Dante wears as a belt, then throws one end of it into a ravine filled with dark water. Dante watches incredulously as a horrible creature rises up before them.
Dante now sees that the creature has the face of a man, the body of a serpent, and two hairy paws. Approaching it, he and Virgil descend into the Third Zone of this circleās Third Ring. Virgil stays to speak with the beast, sending Dante ahead to explore the zone, inhabited by those who were violent against art (Virgil has earlier denoted them as the Usurers). Dante sees that these souls must sit beneath the rain of fire with purses around their necks; these bear the sinnersā respective family emblems, which each āwith hungry eyes consumedā (XVII.51). As they appear unwilling to talk, Dante returns to Virgil.
In the meantime, Virgil has talked the human-headed monster into transporting them down to the Eighth Circle of Hell. Fearful but trusting of his guide, Dante climbs onto the beastās serpentine back; Virgil addresses their mount as āGeryon.ā To Danteās terror and amazement, Geryon rears back and suddenly takes off into the air, circling slowly downward. After setting them down safely among the rocks at the edge of the Eighth Circle of Hell, Geryon returns to his domain.
Throughout Inferno, Dante the poet explains and clarifies the geography of his Hell in the form of periodic lectures given by Virgil to Dante the character. Canto XIV instances one such explanation. The āOld Manāāthe statue from which the four rivers of Hell flowāderives in part from the poetry of Ovid and in part from the Bibleās Book of Daniel. Many critics interpret the crumbling statue as representing the decline of mankind. Virgil describes it as comprising four materials: gold, silver, brass, and iron. Understood as a series, these metals correspond to the four ages of human history that Ovid delineates in his Metamorphoses: the Golden Age, Silver Age, Bronze (or Brass) Age, and Iron Age. The left leg of the statue, made of iron, can be seen to represent the Roman Empire, strong and willfully led, while the right leg, made of clay, could be the Catholic Churchācracked by its corruption. Additionally, the statue looks west, toward Rome, in hope of renewal. This statue, along with the beasts at the beginning of the poem and Danteās cord in Canto XVI, belongs to a group of apparently allegorical objects in Inferno whose symbolic meaning remains ambiguous. Dante may intend them simply to stimulate the imagination, and to add a sense of mystique to the world of his poem.
Brunetto Latini was a Florentine Guelph, renowned for both his writing and his politics; he taught at the university where Dante studied and helped foster Danteās career. Although Latini provided him in life with kindness and counsel, the poet Dante rather ungratefully places him in Hell, and implicitly accuses his teacher of homosexuality or pedophilia, situating him among the Sodomites.
Perhaps the negative treatment received by Latini at the hands of Dante testifies to a positive aspect of the poem itself. Although Dante often uses Inferno to make jabs at his political enemies and ārewardā his allies, this scene suggests that the work transcends mere political propaganda. Thus, although he places many Black Guelphs and Ghibellines in Hell, along with a number of popes, Dante also sees the flaws among his own White Guelphs, declaring, āso long as conscience is not betrayed, / I am prepared for Fortune to do her willā (XV.89ā90). Thus while he may promote particular emperors, and while he certainly doesnāt repress his anger at the papists, he puts forth the following of oneās conscience as the most important rule to follow, regardless of party. This attempt to shift his judgments out of partisan territory also points out religion as Danteās underlying priority: regardless of oneās political beliefs, sin against God still merits full punishment.
Yet while Dante may maintain religion as the guiding force behind his work, he forgoes few opportunities to make political asides. In Canto XVI, as he talks with the three Florentine souls, Dante continues to reveal his pessimism about the political state of affairs in Florence. His description of the city reflects his state of exileāit is clearly a view from the outside. Moreover, the kinship he feels toward these souls stems from more than his sense of their common geographical origins; it comes from his sense of their common fate. For these three damned sinners are also exiles in their way. Thus, like Dante, they stand in this scene with their eyes turned back toward home, bemoaning the evil that is overrunning Florence but unable to do anything about it.
Dante draws the strange beast Geryon, the guardian of the Eighth Circle of Hell, from classical mythology, changing his form and reducing his number of heads but preserving his status as a symbol of fraud. Having left behind the circles punishing various types of violence, Virgil and Dante now enter the final two circles. While these circles contain many subdivisions of their own, they are both devoted to punishing the greatest sin of allāmalice, or fraud. As a symbol of fraud, Geryon signifies this transition.
Virgil and Dante find themselves outside the Eighth Circle of Hell, known as Malebolge (āEvil Pouchesā). Dante describes the relationship between the circleās structure and its name: the circle has a wall running along the outside and features a great circular pit at its center; ten evenly spaced ridges run between the wall and the pit. These ridges create ten separate pits, or pouches, in which the perpetrators of the various forms of āordinary fraudā receive their punishments. Virgil leads Dante around the left side of the circle, where they come upon the First Pouch.
Here, Virgil and Dante see a group of souls running constantly from one side of the pouch to the other. On both of the pouchās containing ridges, demons with great whips scourge the souls as soon as they come within reach, forcing them back to the opposite ridge. Dante recognizes an Italian there and speaks to him; the soul informs Dante that he lived in Bologna and now dwells here because he sold his sister to a noble. This pouch is for the Panders (pimps) and the Seducersāthose who deceive women for their own advantage. Moving on, Virgil and Dante also see the famous Jason of mythology, who abandoned Medea after she helped him find the Golden Fleece.
As Virgil and Dante cross the ridge to the Second Pouch, a horrible stench besieges them, and they hear mournful cries. Dante beholds a ditch full of human excrement, into which many sinners have been plunged. From one of these souls, he learns that this pouch contains the Flatterers. After a few seconds, Virgil says that they have seen enough of this foul sight. They progress toward the Third Pouch.
Dante already knows that the Third Pouch punishes the Simoniacs, those who bought or sold ecclesiastical pardons or offices. He decries the evil of simony before he and Virgil even view the pouch. Within, they see the sinners stuck headfirst in pits with only their feet protruding. As these souls writhe and flail in the pits, flames lap endlessly at their feet.
Dante notes one soul burning among flames redder than any others, and he goes to speak with him. The soul, that of Pope Nicholas III, first mistakes Dante for Boniface. After Dante corrects him, the soul tells Dante that he was a pope guilty of simony. He mourns his own position but adds that worse sinners than he still remain on Earth and await an even worse fate. Dante asserts that St. Peter did not pay Christ to receive the Keys of Heaven and Earth (which symbolize the papacy). He shows Nicholas no pity, saying that his punishment befits his grave sin. He then speaks out against all corrupt churchmen, calling them idolaters and an affliction on the world. Virgil approves of Danteās sentiments and helps Dante up over the ridge to the Fourth Pouch.