Day 23: The dark hands closing in fast

Canto 23 begins like a horror movie, the action moving our protagonist and his guide in a breathless escape from the evil that encloses them. The Malebranche, aka the demons that control the fifth ditch, are getting restless.  Dante's spidey sense leads him to feel as if the very world surrounding him was collapsing in.  There are unseen claws grasping at him, moving closer and closer to capturing him and Virigl for an eternity in this truly terrifying part of Inferno.  Dante voices his fear about the increasing malice to Virgil.  Virgil tells Dante that they are of like mind.  Immediately Virgil snatches up Dante and they burst away in a mad dash from the demons.
It turns out they weren't in a any true danger.  Once they left the fifth ditch, the demons could advance no further, as per dictated by the alimighty (or as Dante calls him/her/it, the High Providence).  Where they descended towards was a scene much sadder, but obviously filled Dante and Virgil with some sort of relief.  They were confronted with a scene filled with sinners "with painted face, who moved about with lagging steps, in circles, weeping, with features tired and defeated." Dante wishes to find someone he might be familiar with here, and as he speaks, one of the souls recognizes his "tuscan speech".  It is Catalano and Loderingo, who shared the title of political chief during the Guelf Ghebbeline war that Dante engaged in. They ask who is this living man that has come to this place of sad hypocrites. Dante responds with the  poetic line "Where the lovely Arno flows, there I was born and raised, in the great city." He asks of them.  They say that they are weighed down by cloaks of lead and were once jovial friars. Dante then recognizes one of them from his crucifiction. He explains that the reason for his death was that he counseled the Pharisees that is was prudent to let one man-and not one nation-suffer. They ask how to get out of the land of hypocrites and are given directions to a ridge that crosses the savage valleys. The canto ends with one of the jovial friars saying "i once heard about the dveils many vices-they said he was a liar and a father of lies." A forboding stating, knowing full well that our travelers are inching closer and closer to the ruler of this inferno, the father of lies.   

Day 22 - Dante and Virgil are breaking the rules, just for your soul

Do you remember the song in Dumbo, about seeing an elephant fly? It starts with the crow saying, "I seen a peanut stand, And I heard a rubber band, I seen a needle that winked it's eye, But i've been done seen about everyting, when I've seen an elephant fly."
Well who'd have known that Disney took a page from Dante with that song.  Canto 22 begins where Canto 21 left off, with the weird entourage of Dante, Virgil and their demon guides.  Dante begins by saying, "I've horsemen start to march and open the assault and muster ranks and seen them too, at times beat their retreat. And on your land, o Aretines, I've seen rangers and raiding parties galloping the clash of tournaments, the rush of jousts,now done with trumpets, now with bells, and now with drums, and now with the signs from castle walls, with native things and imported ware. But never yet have i seen horsemen or seen infantry or ship that sails by signal of land or star move to so strange a bugle."
Ok, I'll admit it's not nearly as catchy as the Disney version (say what you want about Disney, they know how to make a catchy song!), but the intent is strikingly similar.  Even in a place that is removed from reality, at least reality of the living, this fellowship is a few degrees off kilter.  It underscores just how unusual Dante's journey is, giving it extra gravity.  By breaking these rules and creating these incompatible unions (the most egregious and yet rarely commented on being the impossible union of the the author and his guide), we as readers are meant to understand just how important this quest is, not just for Dante, but for all souls you feel at some point unmoored.  Basically, all of humanity.  That, I believe is what Dante intended when he proclaimed that his Divine Comedy should considered scripture. It is not his hubris guiding that statement, although a humbler man would think it and not say it.  I think it can be read as Dante truly showing grave concern for his comrades in the mortal world.  We are all in a sorry state and it will take something impossible (a miracle, even) to shake us loose of our sins and begin to atone towards a more godly existence.
Is it any wonder that Vellutello's wood engraving, shown above, is eerily reminiscent of the wheel of fortune, one of the most poignant symbols of the Middle Ages, and is the choice of images for this particular Canto.  We see the travelers and their demon guides climbing out of the wheel. It's a visual emobdiment of escaping the familiar rules that guide us.  Instead of zigging, they are zagging.  The travelers are breaking the rules, but their journey is given a free pass, because it is so vital that it needs to stand out.  Humanity needs to see an elephant fly.

Day 21 - Stuck in the pitch

The canto begins with an interesting sentence, stating that Dante and Virgil traverse from one bridge to another, "talking of things my Comedy is not concerned to sing." What an interesting way to start things out.  I really wonder what they were discussing, and why Dante felt compelled to tell his readers they were speaking of things that don't concern his work.  Why even bring it up? My old professor, Dr. Antonio Rutigliano, who inspired a love of Dante would often talk about the myriad of ways in which Dante wrote this poem and it could be looked at.  You could look poetically, metaphorically, spiritually, philosophically, and his favorite, mystically.  It is in the mysticism that Dante reveals the many things he hides (thought various acrostics and alliterations and with the sounds of  certain words mimicking phenomenae).  But i we never discussed this particular phrase.  When Dante hides the action from the reader but also tells the reader he is hiding it, it creates a certain intrigue.  Were they discussing poetic techniques, food differences in italy in the centuries gap between them? It makes the imagination run.
Beyond this curious first sentence, Canto 21 begins with oozing sludge and pitch. They are in some sort of ship bay, an inferno version os the venetian port.  Ships are permanently stuck in the goop that, instead of water, is tar and pitch, rendering them all immovable.  The souls aboard work tirelessly replacing keels, hammering at the prow and the stern, and bulding sails, all for ships that certainly couldn't cast off in this muck.
A demon almost runs Dante over, barking orders about another sinner he needs to cast down.  It's almost humorous in description.  The demon proclaims to another demon he's got another one for him and tosses him into the pitch, like a shipbuilder would toss a hammer to another working on repairs. Or maybe a sous chef going into the wlk in fridge, as the sinner is tossed into a gigantic cauldron; just another ingredient in the hell-stew. The demons shoot Dante and Virgil nast looks, and Virgil urges Dante to not make too big of a scene in witnessing this busy-body scene. But for the most part, they are left unnoticed, just a bit light ribbing to terrify Dante. One of the demons actually gives our protagonists some advice, saying the bridge ahead is out and there best method forward is to walk along the mountain ridge. It's just a weird scene that tempts comedy until then last line, when one of the few laugh out loud moments occur in this tale.  As Dante and Virgil are exiting this damned shipyard along the ridge, a Demon,the leader named Barbariccia (whose name means curling beard), bids them adeiu in the most memorable fashion.  He makes a trumpet of his ass.  Let me just repeat that line.  He makes a trumpet of his ass, giving our heroes the salute of breaking wind. 
One wonders what the next conversation, one not concerned to sing about in this Comedy, was like. 

Day 20: Dante steps out of the poem

What a truly fascinating way to begin Canto. "I must make verses of new punishment and offer matter now for Canto Twenty of this first canticle of the submerged."
It as though the unrelenting grimness and gloom forced our author out of the poem, and perhaps with a tinge of irony, to come up for air as he submerges. Further into the canto, after he described the sinners being submerged and contorted to the point where they must "walk backward because they could not see ahead of them", Dante again directly addresses the reader, saying "May God so let you, reader gather fruit form what you have read, and now think for yourself how could i ever keep my own face dry." Remarkable, in that in engages the real struggle that Dante demonstrates in contain his own emotion and pity for hte unfortunates.  But also, the sympathy is immediately tossed aside by his guide virgil, reminding Dante and thus the reader that hey, these folks here have lived truly terrible lives and their suffering is a deserved punishment for their crimes. The unceasing barrage of images is enough to make even the most rigid of readers feel a tinge of sympathy, especially this far into the narrative.  It's like some version of the stockholm syndrome, and Virgil acts as an important clarifier that this journey is meant to humanize those already lost, but to serve as a stern warning to the living that one must live a better life, lest you end up suffering as these souls suffer. Each soul had their chance while living to act on God's grace, and each in their own way rejected his love.  God is not a passive presence in our lives, Virgil reminds.  He exerts his love to anyone willing to listen.  That voice in the back of your head telling you that what you are about to do is wrong? That's God.  The guidebook clearly stating what is right and what is sin? The Bible. Virgil reminds Dante of this by listing men who actively turned away from God. Amphiarius, who foresaw in own death by jumping into an abyss, and yet retreated in battle anyway.  Mantos the soothsayer who saw his own father's death and did nothign about it.  These acts of hubris illuminate to Dante and the reader that to sin is to choose to sin.  Free will is a gift, not one to be taken lightly.

Day 19: Simony, or I'll sell you an indulge today for a sin tomorrow

Simony is one of those medieval sins that has lost favor in modernity, even though anyone who has turned on the 700 club late at night could bear witness to exactly the sort of religious swindling and snake oil salesmen Dante castigates in this circle.  The term derives from Simon of Magus, who not so coincidently is introduced in the first lines of Canto 19.  Simon was mentioned in Acts as the man who approached the disciples Peter and John and offered them money in exchange for giving him the power to impart the Holy Spirit in anyone he touched.  In medieval times, this process was practiced in the infamous practice of indulgences (i.e. corrupt clergymen offering to erase sins from the soul for a not so modest fee).  You see examples of this in the never ending slew of religious informercials promising a vial of "blessed" water from the river jordan or a jar of earth from Jerusalem to help purge the sinner of his transgressions, all for the low low price of what$v$r.  In fact, most of the shtick that the televanglists perform could be contrued as an act of simony. 
Dante, in all his poetic irony, has crafted a devious punishment for Simon and his like minded crew.  He and Virgil come across a series of small pools, made to look like baptismal basins popular in San Giovanni at the time.  The sinners, though, are immersed upside down.  Their feet are afire, and they are writhing in agony so much that "they would have severed withes and ropes of grass".  The sinner writhing with the most vigor is Pope NIcholas III, whom Dante obviously believed to be guilty of simony, but who in actuality wasn't the worst guy, having settled a division between more moderate and extreme branches of the Franciscan order and worked tirelessly to help the poor.  When Dante approaches him Nicholas actually mistakes him for the contemporary pope of Dante's time, Boniface.  He says something interesting, proclaiming that the book has lied to him by several years, revealing that at least some of these sinners have been privvy to the fates of those not passed on to the afterlife yet.  It is safe to assume that Dante believes Boniface is headed towards this particular circle of Inferno.  But it does lead to an interesting rumination.  By this reading, Dante believes that people's fates are fixed.  There is no free will.  But if that were true, why exactly is he going on the journey.  He is lost, he knows he needs to transform his desire.  But if its already been written in "the book". isn't it a pointless endeavor (unless, of course, the fates have already preordained his transformation of desire, placing him in whatever circle of inferno purgatorio or paradiso he is destined for and this journey is part of him fulfilling his destiny.) 
So where does Dante land in the afterlife.  There's a whole doctoral thesis for you, one that cannot really be answered (as if most of them can be).
All of this talk of simony reminds me of the pardoner's tale from Chaucer's Cantebury Tales.  Chaucer was a huge Dante fan and there are certainly echoes of his masterpiece in Chaucer's own masterpiece.  It is such a saucy read, especially in the prologue, where the pardoner boasts repeatedly of swindling poor souls he believes are undeserving of salvation, and thus his stealing money from them is quite justified.  He repeatedly makes use of the biblical phrase "money is the root of all evil", al the while continuing to amass more and more money from these unfortunate and gullible souls.  He is devilish in his doings, and yet he is a fairly interesting and complex character, knowing full well the dastardly nature of his trade.  If you haven't read the Cantebury Tales, i would highly recommend it, especially if you have digested the Divine Comedy and are yearning for more.  It is also extremley funny at times, which is a welcome break from Dante's unrelenting seriousness.     

Day 18: we venture away from the text

There are plenty of things to say about Canto 18. It's been nicknamed the Maleboge, which deliciously translates as "Evil Pouches".  Dante describes the architecture of this circle as concentric circles that naked sinners are marching, and it harkens to moats of castles. The sinners march is in direct response to the jubilee that Dante witnessed wherein Pope Boniface VIII introduced that oh so heretical trend from medieval times called "indulgences" (i.e. the church enabling sinners to purchase an indulgence, which would remove a sin from their soul). Jason, from the famed Jason and the Argonauts fable, is present.  Yes there are some wonderfully interesting things here.  But I wanted to veer from my own proverbial rut to examine a painting of ruts.
The picture above was created by the renaissance master, Sandro Botticelli.  He is best known for his masterpiece "Venus in a Clamshell", but his illustrations for the divine comedy are a remarkable achievement.  What strikes me, and I am no art critic, is the use of color in the composition.  There is a striking dispersement of vibrant reds and blues amongst the flat pallatte of browns and yellows which represent the sinners and their prison.  The demons harassing the sinners in the trench are terrifying in their uniqueness.  They range from a minotaur, to a kind of reverse centaur with the head of a horse on the winged body of a man, to the most detailed of the demons looking very much like I would imagine the harpies from the suicide forest.  We the viewers are looking at a static painting that Boticelli clearly wanted to portray a moving image.  The figures of Dante and Virgil are represented in 6 distinct locations.  Most interestly of these representations is the one closest to the vantage point.  It is the only place in the painting where there is noticable space separating Dante and his guide.  Dante looks transfixed on the horrors below him, while virgil appears to be pensively praying, perhaps futiley hoping for the end of the eternal torment on display below him.  It is also the only representation of Dante where he doesn't seem to visibly recoil.  His expression is one of fascination, not fear.  And what to make of the ghostly apperation in the top left corner.  It looks like a manticore, or some variation on another mythical beast.  The figure has certainly spooked Dante, whose stance is clearly one of terror.
This painting has a glorious depth and motion to it.  There is a gripping sense of fear, perpetual agony, and a vibrant separation between those receiving, inflicting and observing torture.  Boticelli has captured the essence of Inferno like few others, regardless of the medium, have.

Day 17: At the halfway point of Inferno, Dante unleashes a torrent of similes and turns right

Not to get too grammatically geeky, but one could spend a lifetime scouring, analyzing a debating the metaphors that are omnipresent in the Divine Comedy.  In each circle, terrace or sphere, Dante is confronted with the metaphoric representation of a particular virtue or vice.  The whole epic could be described as a metaphor for the transformation of desire.  It is quite interesting, then, that as we are in the center of the first book, Dante unleashing a string of similes, perhaps totally all the similes we have seen so far.  That, and the quite uncharacteristically melodramatic episode that overwhelms Dante at the end of the canto, make this a memorable, unique read. 
We begin right where we left off with the cliffhanger from last canto.  Virgil and Dante are confronted with a beast that emerges from the fiery river.  And here come the similes.  The creature had a face of a man, but his trunk was as a serpent.  His arms were hairy as a wolf or bear.  And his flanks were adorned with knots and circles as elaborate as any turkish tapestry or any web Arachne wove.  The beast arose from the liquid as a boat half submerged.  The beast positioned himself with his tail, which was as a scorpion's, like a beaver defending it's damn.  Dante is descrbing the mythical three faced Geryon, but it has also been speculated that this beast is the fabled Manticore. But what a string of similes! 
There is also another interesting tidbit to do with the trajectory of Dante's quest.  Up until this moment, Dante and Virgil have descended only by turning left.  But here in Canto 17, they turn right.  Virgil even makes a point to say "now we'd better bend our path a little, till we reach as far as that malicious beast which crouches over there."  I have a little theory about this, and am probably way off base.  Their journey is one of descension through hell towards righteousness.  But at this moment, they need the aid of a damned soul in order to traverse the fiery river.  So consequently, in a very brief sidestep, they divert from their path to utilize this damned beast.  It is a moment of using evil for the purpose of good. 
But look at the consequences for this action.  We are privy to Dante the poet unleashing a brief melodramatic exposition, as he observes from the back of the Geryon the scene further down in Inferno.  Dante is overwhelmed by fear and dread, "There i was more afraid of falling off, for i saw fires and I heard laments at which I tremble, crouching and hold fast."  He describes his fear as Icarus making his fateful voyage, as well as Phaethron losing control of the chariot which guides the son on its orbit (again with the similes).  But it is curious, because Dante has been in hell for while now, and seem some pretty horific stuff up to this point.  Does this moment when fear immobilizes him have something to do with the clear departure from their movement left?  It certainly seems to be connected somehow. 
The canto ends with finally another simile.  While Dante was so dsitracted by fear, the Geryon has set him and virgil down, like a falcoln who's flight was unseen by its falconer, returns to his arm.  Once again, Dante and Virgil continue their journey downward to the left.  The paralysis is gone and the similes become metaphors.