De Profundis Audeamus. From the Depths let us dare.

 Part 2 of The Inferno book review. Originally posted Oct 26, 2021 at 10:28 PM

     I hold emphasis on, rather urge, you to read the blog post previous to this. 

Hold your breath and onto your butts, we're marking off Cantos III - IX as Dante conquers the upper levels of Hell and Damnation itself! 

CANTO VI Circle 3, The Gluttons

     Here, the weather is a sleet type mixture, making for really nasty and foul-smelling mud. The three-headed dog, Cerberus lives here, forever weighing which sinner to devote his gnashing jaws and energies. Dante wasn't supposed to necessarily conversate with the wraiths he observed here. Yet he seemed to catch the attention of one anyway who called from the slush underfoot.  He tells the soul: "Perhaps the pain you suffer here distorts your image from my recollection. I do not know you as you now appear." `Lines 43-45 in Ciardi.`

     As the poet struggles to recall some cryptic remarks from the sinner's spewed attempts, it instead gives Dante a hard, deadpan look and falls face first back into the mud. In Ciardi's notes he explains that {save for the souls in the lowest depths of Hell whose sins are so shameful that they only wish to be forgotten, all of the damned are eager to be remembered.} In view of that fact, there's a possibility the sinner had meant to give account of who he was when alive?

CANTO VII, Circle 4, The Hoarders.

     Here, sinners are forced to carry weights with limited sight. They never knew how to apply meaning to their lives and sought only the decision of mankind while obsessing of monetary wealth and gain. 

• Line 53 `Ciardi` In their sordid lives they labored to be blind, and now their souls have dimmed past recognition.

     Naked and carrying their weights through a slimy bog line 121 in Ciardi, `Sullen we were in the air made sweet by the Sun; line 124, `sullen we lie forever in this ditch.` Moreover, in Sanders' translative view, these souls are furious and rabid, throwing punches and their weights at one another, kicking or pulling out their own hair or of anyone's within reach.

CANTO VIII, Circle 5, the Upper Level of Hell. 

     The Charybdis, a famous whirlpool in the straits of Sicily, marks the backside of where Dante and Virgil had found themselves at the swamp. The former poet is appalled by the polluted black spring boiling out of some subterranean passage. As his wisdom grows about Hell, his heart grows hardened as well. The lower into Damnation he descends there's noticeable development with the many themes he carries and builds upon.  Even beyond the descriptive and gory details, Dante's power is structural: everything relates to everything else. 

"We have to get disturbed for change to happen." - Annalynne McCord, actress, podcaster, Unzipped

     The first major "geological" division separating a third of Hell from the lower levels is the river Styx. The poets duo wait at the shoreline for Phlegyas, the ferryman, who takes the dead down into the darker spirit realms. Reluctantly, he gives them passage. 

• Line 32 `Sanders` [Phlegyas] "Who the fuck do you think you are that you can come down here while you're still living?"
• Line 34 `Sanders`, and Virgil said, "Don't worry, we're not staying long in this pit."
• Dante in lines 35 & 36 `Ciardi`, "But you, who are you, so fallen and so foul?" And he: "I am one who weeps: I lost hope of returning to the world."
• Further in line 114, {his pain showed in his face.}

     The end of this Canto finds Dante and Virgil at the underworld of Dis, the metropolis of Satan. 

CANTO IX, Dis

     Within the city walls of Satan's architecture lies all the Lower Hell; it's here that fire is used for the first time as a torment and punishment. The city is made of iron and heated red hot by great fires within. Dante starts to experience some anxiety again, in line 1 `Ciardi`, "My face had paled to a mask of cowardice."  

     I imagine his inner dialogue would be similar to this.

     Virgil reassures him with generalizations of faith, reinforces the limits of Human Reason. 

• Line 25 `Sanders`, "I know the way from here - don't fret, dear pilgrim."
• Line 28 `Sanders`, "When we go in there, prepare yourself for the worst."

• Line 116, `Sanders` Calmly, he turned to the right, and I stumbled along after him between the flaming pits and the walls of Dis.

     That completes Part 2 of my The Inferno, book review. Stay tuned for Part 3 in a few days as we'll explore Cantos 10-15, the middle regions of Hell, you don't wanna miss it!

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