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. 

Day 16: Meeting the three as one

Ok, this canto starts off pretty weird.  Dante and Virgil, still in the circle of sodomites, hear "a murmur, like a beehive's hum,"and are confronted by three characters.  They see the clothing style of Dante and recognize that he is from teh same land that they are; Florence.  Dante see the burn marks throughout their bodies and is racked with guilt, which is meant to convey to the reader that these unfortunate souls were on the losing end of the guelph ghebbiline struggle and were burnt alive like so many victims.  While Dante wishes to skirt past them as quickly as possible, Virgil insists that they be given a respectful audience.  The three figures then begin to perform what seems to me like a bizarre acrobatic feat.  In Dante's (translated) words, "They formed a wheel, all three of them together. As champions, naked oiled, will always do, each studying the grip that serves them best, beofre the blows and winds begin to fall, while wheeling so, each one made sure his face was turned to me, so that their necks opposed their feet in one uniterrupted flow." So basically, this apepars to me to be some kind of three man cartwheel, facing dante with all three heads.  The three are named, Guido Guerra, Tegghaio Aldobrandi and Jacopo Rusticucci.  Guerra and Aldobrandi advised the Florentine Guelphs against engaging in battle against the Sienese Ghibellines. They were also responsible for exiling the Ghibellines out of Florence.  Rusticucci, the lesser known of the three explains that it was his "shrewdish wife" which drove him to homosexuality and, consequently, the circle of sodomy.  Dante feels a certain sense of comradery with these "fine souls", as folks fighting on the same side as he was (obviously sodomy notwithstanding.  They are in inferno after all).  The souls are gratfeul for Dante's kind words and are curious about their shared hometown.  Dante laments that the newcomers have brought greed and sin to their Florence.  They sigh, but have a request for Dante.  They yearn for him to tell the living of the good deeds of them.  They only wish to have their name spoken in a positive light, and to be remembered.  This is certainly a request most people would want.  With these words, the three who had become one, broke back into three.  So what do we make of this very deliberate image.  After all, their dialog and request could have been done without the gymnastics. Was it supposed to be some sort of trinity image.  Numerology has significance throughout the Divine Comedy, and the number three has importance amongst mathmeticians (the triangle), masons, christians, etc.  And what to make of the fact that immediately after this encounter, Dante and Virgil descend down into a ravine using a rope that Dante assures is strong enough to catch a leopard.  They reach the bottom of the ravine and come to a sea, out of which a strange figure emerges like the creature formteh black lagoon.  And after hanging on a cliff, we are left on this literary cliffhanger.  I admit I am baffled by this canto.  There are some provocative lines and the image of the three as one is captivating.  I just don't get at what Mr. Alighieri is trying to accomplish with such vivid imagery.  We leave that to the "scholars."  

Day 15: Dante and Brunetto

There is a telling stanza in this canto that brings the reader back to the beginning.  Dante exclaims while walking through the realm of sodomites that he is quite removed from the forest of the suicides.  It was translated as "by now we were so distant from the wood that I should not have made it out where it was-not even if i turned around to look" This may just be Dante situating the reader geographically, but i think there may be more.  The language in Italian, while obviously different, still carries familiar echoes.  It also doesn't seem like much of a coincidence that this line is spoken at almost the exact center of Inferno.  So halfway through the 1st leg of a journey that he begins halfway through his life, Dante stops to inform his reader just how far he has come.  The obscurity of the dark forest of suicides stands merely as a metaphor for the larger distance both Dante and the readers have taken.  We are very, very far from Kansas at this point.  Maybe many less invested and adventurous readers have abandoned the journey.  But those of us who stuck around are given pause to possibly reflect before resuming the descent.
The picture above.  Well, it's one of the famous Dore illustrations he did for the longfellow translation of the Divine Comedy.  It shows the pivotal meeting between Dante and his guardian/teacher/mentor Brunetto Latini.  Despite his damnation, Dante speaks of him with great affection, praising him for his "kind paternital image" and speaks of his eternal gratitude to Latini for teaching him to be a better poet and man.  There is such tenderness in Dante's words that commentators have asked the obvious modern question of whether the relationship between Dante and Latini was deeper than a chaste mentor/protege relationship.  I am not one to speculate on these matters, although it does change the readers perception if one entertains this (and not just for this canto, but the epic in general, especially given the specificity of the dark forest motiff reoccurance in this specific canto).  But it is, regardless of the larger implications, a very sweet moment between teacher and student, and considering how deep into the torments of Inferno we are, I'll take it.

Day 14: The defiant ones

Well, as is evident, my frequency in updating this blog has lessened as of late.  This is an all too common occurance for me.  I begin with great gusto, only to peter out into obsolescence (i usually give up when I forget my password to access it). But I am trying to right the ship.  I choose to be defiant over my own waning creative impulses. 
This canto is another demonstration of Dante's masterful command of creating a terrifying visual enactment of sin.  We are still among the violent sinners.  We are, technically at the boundary between the second and third rings in the violent sphere.  The scenery is typically frightening.  Dante the poet surveys a land on the edge of the suicide forest, divided by the fiery river of blood.  Dante and Virgil descend into an open field.  The ground is composed of sand, populated by countless souls in a variety of poses of dispair.  They are a mishmash, some wallowing flat on the ground, others hunched in fetal positions.  Some were static, while others seemed to possessed to be in constant motion.  Interestingly, the largest group, the walkers, were silent, while those who stand or sit stationary chatter incessantly.  Oh, and by the way, is raining scorching embers, and these souls are unable to quench the burning.  This has to be one of the more striking visual representations of what modern day fundamentalist christians imagine when speaking of the hellfire of the eternally damned.  Dante, noticeably shaken by the wretched scene, sees one soul, a giant among men, defiant against the constant torment of the burning embers.  It is Capaneus, the giant wrrior king who was one of the Seven Against Thebes.  According to legend, Capaneus stood before the wall of Thebes and proclaimed that not even Zeus could stop him from ascending the wall.  Of course, as he is climbing the wall, Zeus strikes him dead with a thunderbolt. (on a side note, defiance was a trait in his household, as his wife Evadne threw herself on his funeral pyre, to demonstrate her love, rather than to live on without him)
Capaneus noticed that Dante had inquired about him to Virgil and spoke up, delviering a pretty badass little speech.  He haughtily proclaimed "That which I was in life, I am in death. Though Jove wear out the smith form whom he took, in wrath...and casts his shafts at me with all his force, not even then would he have happy vengeance."  This is one tough hombre.  He stands here, for all eternity, egging Lucifer and God on.  'Give me your best shot.  I can take it.'  While Virgil tries half heartedly to chastise Capaneus that because of this defiance he is punished all the more, there is almost a tone of respect about him.  Virgil says to Dante that Capaneus wears his defiance over God like a ornaments on his chest.
From here our guides carry on, seeing other characters throughout history that have committed violence against God.  But this image of Capanaeus strikes me as a poignant moment, much like one we will witness with Cato in Purgatory.  For Dante the former warrior, there is a hint of sympathy for people like Capaneus.  Even though he is in Inferno, he deals with his torment on his own terms.  Capaneus, like Dante, is defiant.   

Day 13: Harpies and Forests

So we are still amongst those who have sinned violently, but these are the sinners who defile themselves through suicide.  Dante and Virgil, with Nessus guiding them away from the blood river find themselves among a dark forest.  Sounds familiar doesn't it.  I was reading the notes from Hollander's Inferno translation, which has some very insightful analysis.  I'm not sure why it never occurred to me to connect the dark forest from Canto 1, with this dark forest.  Sometimes we need someone with much more knowlege than ourselves to see the forest through the trees (sorry, the bad joke was just screaming out).  Is Dante trying to tell us something about how bad his state of mind was when he began this journey?  Before we jump to that, let me explain a little about this particular dark forest. 
Perched throughout these trees are the harpies.  The harpies play a fairly memorable role in Virgil's Aenid. Aeneas and his crew land on the small island of Strophades.  Once landed they proceed to begin slaughtering the abundant livestock on the island, and prepare them for a feast.  These animals, however, have protectors on the island in the form of the harpies.  Virgil descibes them as having heads of women and bodies of birds, and twice while Aeneas and his crew are trying to eat do they swarm in and attack them and, in a move any city dwellar dealing with pigeons can relate to, defectate all over the feast.  The harpies in Canto 13 feed upon the leaves of the trees in the grove.  What is horrific, and what Dante finds out by accident when he breaks off a thorn of a tree, is that these trees actually entomb the souls of suicides. When the thorn breaks off, a rivulet of blood trickles down and Dante is forced into a conversation with the soul inhabitting that tree.  So then the harpies are actually consuming parts of the soul trees, which echoes the animalistic nature consuming the the human nature in Canto 12.
But back to Dante and the dark woods.  The question that Hollander poses is a fascinating one.  Is Dante suicidal when he is having his mid-life crises?  It would be hard to imagine that it is an act that he would pursue beyond having the impulse.  In fact, i'd argue it was pretty amazing that Dante would even admidt to having such thoughts.  In medieval Europe, suicide was considered one of the gravest sins.  Now this wasn't always the case.  In ancient greece and during Caesar's time in Rome, the act of defiant suicide was a form of heroism.  One would rather end one's life than be subserviant to a ruler or cause, and this would be a form of honor.  Dante knows this and holds Cato, the most famous of the Roman suicides, with respect and gives him an honored place in the afterlife (he acts as the guide to souls entering purgatorio.  kind of like Charon in Inferno).  But clearly during Dante's time, suicide is a one way ticket to hell, with no chance of escape.  Also interesting in his commentary, Hollander posits that trees hold a special place in the sacrificial imagery of Christianity.  After all, a cross is nothing but a tree.  So would Dante consider his own martyrdom the ultimate act of sacrifice?  It is a bit nebulous as far as what exactly Dante the poet's role is compared to Dante the protagonist.  It sure does seem to me that Dante's use of forests both in the beginning and here is not coincidence.      

Day 12: Examining the beast within

There is some pretty powerful imagery in Canto XXII.  The first lines talked about descending along an alpine bank and seeing "a toppled mass of rock that struck the Adige on its flank, this side of Trent," describing a real life Trent nestled in the Alps.  There are boulders everywhere styming passages.  All paths are redirected to a ravine where the most frightening of beasts, the infamous Minotaur of Crete awaits.  When he sees our travelers he is so inscensed that he begins biting himself, fully inhabiting the animal side of his dualistic self. Dante describes the biting like one whom fury devastates within, and it that terrific stanza fully encapsulates the fury of this circle.  Those confined here exhibits traits far closer to beast than man.  Their anger consumes them, and in this place of destruction and natural fury is the ideal backdrop for such sinners.  The river Flegetonte flows through it, spewing blood.  The minotaur rules here, as do the terrifying herds of Centaurs Dante and Virgil confront.  They manage to slip by teh minotaur because he becomes so inscenced, thinking that the living soul he sees is his vanquisher Theseus, that he cannot function and his fury blinds him.  It is here that Virgil informs Dante about his previous trip down through the circles of Inferno.  The last time he was here, as told in his Aenid, the fallen boulders were intact on the mountain.  In fact Virgil was here right before Christ came down to battle Satan, which is historically accurate (Virgil did live shortly before the historical Jesus of Nazareth).  The battle was so fierce that it changed the topography of the underworld.  Anger manifested in nature.
Virgil points out to Dante the river below, where "those injure others violently, boil."  It really doesn't get much more frightening than that. And yet, it is along these banks that they meet the Centaurs, who gallop around hunting with bows and arrows, consumed in their fury.  They immediately come upon Dante and Virgil, and were it not for Chiron, the most human of the Centaurs and also Achilles' tutor, out two travelers would be pincusions.  Chiron almost shoots them on sight, until he notices that Dante walks not as a soul, but of liveing flesh and blood.  For a brief moment, the beast subsides and reason and humanity bubble to the surface.  Virigl hastily explains that he has diplomatic immunity based on Beatrice's heavenly blessings to the quest.  Chiron offers his own guide through the Centaurs' turf, knowing quite well that the others' human sides are buried much deeper and will most likely shoot first and ask second.  Thus, Nessus, whose blood stained Hercules' cloak causing him to commit suicide, is their protector.  Hard to imagine a more intimidating guide than the one who bested humanity's most famous hero.
While walking through this hell, they meet observe a pretty impressive collection of characters.  Alexander the Great is here, as is Dionysius. Sesto, son of Pompey is mentioned as are several other ruthless tyrants and rulers, including Atila the Hun. 
The cacophany of rage, so exemplified by the raging river of blood, is deafening on these pages.  It almost hurts my ears to read this canto.  It is a sign of impressive poetic skill that Dante perfectly manifests the inner rage that blinds all other senses. I leave you with Dore's minotaur.
 
  

Day 11: Dante adjusts to the smell

I read a fair amount of television criticism.  Let me clarify.  I read a lot about the show Breaking Bad, what I consider to be one of the most breathtaking visual experiences I've ever encountered.  But this isn't going to be a long-winded essay comparing Walter White's descent into moral depravity to Dante's decent into the underworld.  That would be a false premise, in that Dante goes through a transformative journey from sin to virtue, whereas Walter just goes deeper and deeper into decay.  But this is more about a particular phenomena in long form storytelling that has been affectionately called table setting.  In serialized television and it's precursor the serialized novel, there are certain chapters in the story that no forward momentum, or minimal action to move the plot along, occurs.  This is slightly misleading, as the best shows or novels, disguise these very essential pieces of information within these chapters.  In essence, sometimes the most critical ideas or themes are introduced in what used to be called filler episodes. 
Canto 11 is a prototypical example of a chapter when there is no forward movement, and yet the entire Divine Comedy rests upon some of the concepts explained within.  Dante and Virgil have rested, and Dante wants to know what gives.  Virgil explains that here in the land of heretics the stench is overwhelming to the visitor.  One must adjust their olifactory organs in order to proceed.  He seems to be saying, if you are so focused on how bad it smells, you're going to miss a whole lot about what you are about to witness. It's at this moment that Dante introduces, rather sheepishly, a metatextual explanation.  Virgil is going to use this moment of rest to expound upon the architecture of the lowest circles of hell to Dante, and thus to the reader.  The remaining two circles are Violence and Fraud.  Each contain within them three smaller circles.  With violence, one can sin against their neighbor, themselves, and God, with violence against God being the gravest sin.  What is most interesting at least to me as a modern reader, is that Usuary is how Virgil describe violence against God.  It is, to a medieval mind lie Dante's, so grave because it runs contrary to nature.  He relates it to sodomy.  It's difficult to see the correlation between chargin interest for loans, and sodomy (which in modern terms doesn't seem quite the grave sin it was, but is still considered by many folks to be pretty bad)  So those who charge interest are committing violence against God, even if it is in metaphorical terms. 
Virgil also speaks at length about the sins of fraud, which are graver sins than those of violence.  Once again, this is a confusing thing to the modern mind, which seems to put acts of violence above all others when weighing the gravity of sins.  But to lie or steal or manipulate with deception can cause far more damage to humanity than one individual act of violence, at least according to Virgil, and thus to Dante the poet.  A lie can infect a whole generation, can alter history in ways that violence does not.  Whether you agree with this is beside the point.  The fact is, this is Dante's poem, and he is the god-head of this world.  I must say, it's a provocative position, one that I have spent a lot of time ruminating upon.  I dare say i've thought more on this canto than a majority of the action packed cantos.  It's when "nothing happens" that we are allowed to ask the bigger questions, not distracted by the vivid imagery or unforgettable characters.  It's kind of like Breaking Bad, where an episode puts the two main character in one room for an hour and produces a compelling chapter of ideas not action.  Nothing happens and yet everything changes from the perspective of the consumer.  Dante enriched and enlivened his epic by stopping and talking.  Remarkable.

Day 10: A Room with a View

Dante is nothing if not a fan of irnoic punishment.  In this Canto, he and Virgil are confronted with quite a striking scene.  They are amidst a vast graveyard of open sepulchers and graves filled with fire.  Dante, like the rest of us, wonders what to make of this scene.  It sounds like the perfect setting for a zombie movie, and that comparison might not be too far off.  Virgil explains that this is the territory of Epicureas and his devotees.  Now for those of you unfamiliar with this philosopher, he is carpe diem personified.  Epicureas believed that life truly ends at death, so enjoy it while you can!  Hedonism is an offshoot of Epicureanism.  He was Richard Dawkins and Christopher Hitchens millenia before there skepticism ignited modernity.  So Dante the poet thought the most deserving of punishments for these unfortunate souls was an eternity in open graves, fully aware of their grave (sorry for the pun; just couldn't help myself) but confined to their small plots of land.  It's some of the closest imagery to what we conceive of us ghosts today.  Lost souls, trapped in a blind prison, for their crime of heresy.
There is a wonderful exchange in this canto that illuminates more of Dante the man's personal philosphy.  Dante is confronted by a soul named Farinata.  Farinata is wonderfully described as rising out of his grave from the waist up, full of great contempt for hell.  This is one bitter man, having realized that he bet on the wrong horse.  The first words he speaks (or rather spits) to Dante are "Who are your ancestors." You see, Farinata was a Gheibelline, while Dante was a Guelph, in the war for political power of Florence.  He, like Dante, was outcast from Florence.  There is a bit of a verbal sparring between Dante and Farinata, with Dante seemingly grabbing the upper hand by proclaiming that while both he and Farinata's families were exiled, Farinata's clan never returned, while Dante's kept coming back. 
In another fascinating detail, Farinata explains to Dante that the heretics, and more broadly all souls in Inferno, have the ability to see events in the future, but as these events come closer to the present they become fuzzier.  Long term view is that this ability shows these souls that they are never getting out.  All they have is their suffering.  The future is bleak for them.  No end in sight.  And sight is a big theme here.  Their lack of vision beyond the mundane has been realized in their eternal tombs.  Each has his view only of their fiery grave.  Even temporal perspective is skewed so that all they know is suffering.  It's no wonder that Farinata is embittered.  

Day 9: The unseen

Today I would like to focus on a specific line from Canto 9.  Dante and Virgil have confronted the three Furies Megera, Aletto and Tesifone, who writhe in agony, eternally living in desparation that Theseus' assault upon them will be met with teh vengeance of Medussa the Gorgon.  She is there as well, still capable of turning men to stone (or in Dantean terms capturing the Dante the poet and keeping in Inferno for eternity).  Virgil physically grabs Dante to turn him away from Medussa, unconvinced that simply covering his eyes will protect Dante. It's then that Dante the poet unleashes the great line
"O you posessed of sturdy intellects, observe the teaching that is hidden here beneath the veil of verses so obscure"
This phrase has a whole lot of hidden meanings.  And it's conspicuous place in Inferno is not to be overlooked.  Dante the poet is nothing if not meticulous, and it's not coincidence that this particular stanza appears immediately after the mention of the Gorgon.  The veiled Medussa, whose look turns a human to stone.  There's a pretty obvious slew of metaphors.  To remove the veil is to unlock knowledge, which is a powerful tool and a dangerous one to anyone unprepared to understand that knowledge.  Dante has been privy to all manner of hidden knowledge on his journey.  The things he has seen are not for the living, and have ramifications.  Dante narrowly escapes peril after peril, being saved by his guides.  To be seduced by an idea is as dangerous is an action, and often it is anger that festers in the soul causing sinful actions.  This is a topic to be explored at greater length in the Purgatorio, which is meant to rid the psyche of the thought of sin.  But here is Dante at the edge of the river styx, being seduced to let the anger take over.  It's like when the Emperor in Star Wars senses Luke's anger and tries to enhance it, make it fester within him so he rots from within and is taken over by malicious thoughts and permanently turned to the dark side.  The emporer knows that anger is a seed, sometimes taking years to grow into hate which will inevitably drive out the joy and goodness inherent int he human soul.  It is a gnawing sensation, one that is echoed by the fallen angels Dante meets later in the canto.
Knowledge can be a dangerous thing.  The lifted veil can be illuminating, but it can be damning for the unprepared.  Milton explored this at length in his masterpiece Paradise Lost.  Lucifer gains knowledge he cannot understand which leads to rebellion and the creation of hell.  Adam and Eve eat from the tree of knowledge, unprepared for the epiphanies present in free will.  Knowledge can weigh on a soul, like the souls buried to their heads, unable to manage the weight of a knowledge obscured.  It morphs into an anger unchecked.  A knowledge unearned.  It's enough to turn one to stone.

Day 8: Things are getting angry

Well, this canto is full of some scary imagery.  We have a maniacal Phlegyas storming towards Dante and Virgil, assuming they are souls trying to escape this wrathful circle.  Phlegyas is the angry boatman on the river Styx (no relation to the prog-rock 70's band of Sail Away infamy).  With his entrance we have a lot of fire.  Phlegyas is in inferno because he set fire to one of Apollo's temples, and Apollo took offense to this act of pyromancy.  Never mind that Apollo raped one of Phlegyas' daughters.  However justified the act was, it was done in a frenzy of wrath.  Dante and Virgil get a terrifying glimpse of a tower with two flames flickering a signal to another flame far off.  Commentators have speculated that the two flames are lit as a signal announcing out unwanted guests, ala the flame network from the Lord of the Rings.  But since no other mention was given as to the nature of the flames, that is pure speculation.  Fire is an important symbol here.  The fire that burns within.  The wrath that can erupt in each of us. Dante seems to claim that we all have the capacity to lay a torch to our lives, or souls, just as Phlegyas did.  It's that fire that caused Filippo Argenti, a real life Florentine, to slap Dante in the face.  Ad it is also that fire that causes Dante to once again betray his own human sensibilities and place yet another historically inconsequential individual in his epic.  The short fuses that lead to fires show Phlegyas' instant overeaction when he believes Dante and Virgil are going defecting for nicer circles.  It is Dante's own distrust of Muslim religion that he places mosques among the burning muddy residue of the river Styx (a river, in Greek mythology, of fire).  We are getting all the signals that this Inferno is quite a different beast that we have previously encountered.  These are the major sins.  The flames are a deep red.  The fallen angels by the thousands gather, incensed by the sight of a mortal free to traverse the land they have been imprisoned in for millenia. 
And then Dante does something that for most of the history of literature has been considered a gimmick; poor writing.  He steps away fromt eh narrative to address the reader directly.  He actually does this several times throughout the Divine Comedy, and every time it is slightly jarring.  The angels are threatening Virgil, demanding Dante to stay here while he proceeds.  Dante is so nervous and fearful that he jumps out of the poem.  The situation seems so dire that Dante needs to stress his own lack of faith that this journey is by no means just a tourist jaunt.  The wrathful fire of these lost souls so overwhelms Dante that he needs to again be assured by Virgil that no one can stop them.  But the wrathful, their sin so viscerally embodied in the pervasive fire, go so far as to slam the gates to the city of Dite, denying their passageway.  This is a moment made for the modern adventure.  How will our venturers escape?  Who is the mysterious soul that Virgil insists will open the gates for them.  One thing is certain, we a reno longer in Kansas.

Day 7: Dante the Disrupter

No, the title of this post does not refer to the new brand of nerf weaponry (although I am going to patent the name).  Today we're going to talk about the ramifications of Dante's personal exploration fo the underworld, just as a fun little excercise.
I always keep in mind that this work is fiction first and foremost.  Dante did not take any journey, beyond the psychological exploration of himself.  However, let's pretend this is an actual account.  Dante did venture through Hell, Purgatory and Heaven.  Every person, angel, demon, and creature was there and very real.  What would be the impact of such a journey, then?  Certainly, it would be the talk of the underworld for years, if not centuries.  Almost every soul he meets is stunned by his appearance.  His very presence upsets the balance, causing disruption and doubt throughout.  Imagine yourself stuck in Inferno.  Everything that has occurred in the world of suffering has followed some pretty firm rules, foremost of them is that this is the realm of the dead.  When a living soul saunters through your misery, it messes with the order of things.  If Dante can just walk through here like it is a ride at Disneyland, who's to say I can't, eventually, escape this place.  Maybe eternity has exceptions.  Maybe it's all a big farce.  Maybe I'm not suffering, just dreaming.  And maybe, Lucifer, or even God, isn't as all powerful as previously thought.  Can you imagine what was going through the guardian of the terrace of Avarice, PLuto's, mind, when we meet him?  He is noticeably distraught, exclaiming "Pape Satan, Pape Satan alleppe!".  He clearly fears the reaction Dante and Virgil will receive from the underlord, as well as what punishment might be in store for himself for allowing them to traverse his territory.  Virgil casually dismisses him, stating that whatever power he may have, Lucifer's got no jurisdiction here. That's crazy.  You're on his turf.  Presumably, security has spotted Dante and Virgil.  And yet, his hands are tied.  They've got diplomatic immunity.  So what does Pluto tell his minions when they sit down for lunch.  They've all got the same question.  And what if Pluto relays the same message he received?  Lucifer can't stop this human and oh yeah, he's being led by one who was supposed to be trapped in Limbo for eternity. Think of the dissent among the staff.  In one fell swoop, the entire system will be questioned.  Lucifer's absolute authority will never recover it's complete autonomy.  And I know, many folks will say, God is the ultimate authority, but it is a unisvers built upon very precise rules, ones stating that once you are in one place in Inferno, you aren't going anywhere.  Christ did save Moses and Abraham and those folks, but they were given and express ticket to Heaven.  There was no tour of the rest of Inferno and Purgatory.  And how is Virigl going to feel after this?  He gets to have a little vacation, acting as tour guide for Dante.  When he returns, he will have knowledge of a variety of terraces and will actually get a glimpse of Heaven.  Inferno will be much, much worse for him.  And the jealousy will be profound.  Homer and Ovid won't let you sit at their table anymore. 
Joking aside, it does create chaos where order presided.  It creates hope where dispair was pervasive.  It might be the most interesting thing to happen in the underworld since Orpheus went to find Eurydice.  I can't imagine the staff meeting afterwards.

Day 6: Dante gets personal

When we think of the luminary figures in history, it is difficult to separate the work from the man.  We like to pretend that the work, so enlightening, so inspiring, so perfect, reflects the individual responsible for it.  But it is never that simple.  I can't tell you how many times i've had to reconcile my own need to elevate those who create the things that inspire me so, only to realize just how despicable, how flawed, how perfectly human are those authors.  I would have hated to be around Miles Davis, a prickly bitter human being whose music aches with beauty.  Michaelangleo's sculptures and paintings move me to tears, and yet I don't imagine I would enjoy being around him for more than an hour.  And here we have Dante, a notorious jerk even among irrascable artists, showing his all too human side in Canto 6.
Canto 6 demonstrates why Dante is going on this journey.  He has been exiled from his hometown of Florence, and is quite bitter about it.  He is wandering in the dark forest because he put his allegiance behind the losing side of a power struggle for the control of Florence, and he is not happy about the results.  So he attempts to castigate those who wronged him, even damning the city itself to hell, as some form of cathartis for his own misfortune.  It is a very human impulse, but wow does Dante come across as bitter and damaged. 
First a bit of backstory.  Florence in the 13th century was really coming into its own as a powerful city-state.  It was an economic center, much like New York is today.  The currency for commerce was the Florin.  The textile industry was about to take off.  The pope, Boniface VIII, was in bed with the bankers of Florence, pushing his own agenda with some pretty spectacular power grabs to consolidate all political, economic, and spiritual decsions to be held under the papal jurisdaiction.  The pope, like many of the industry leaders in Florence, recognized the prosperity of the city as an opportunity for power grabs.  And Dante judges them all for it, castigating all involved to the circle of Inferno where simony and greed are punished.  Now none of this would have made it into the Commedia were it not for the fact that Dante, in the power struggle between the White Guelphs, which Dante alligned himself, and the Black Guelphs, who were supported by the Pope (mostly because they wanted more direction from Rome than the white side who yearned for greater autonomy).  When the Black side eventually triumphed, Dante was exiled, never to step on Florentine soil again. 
Obviously, this traumatic experience scarred Dante, and he really had no course of action beyond protest and revenge through art.  But one has to approach this canto with a certain sense of irony.  Here's a poet, a very human man, writing a treatise on the fallible nature of man. This man devotes an entire section of Inferno to those who wronged him.  The characters here are mostly ancillary and personal, with the exception of Pope Boniface VIII.  The first soul he interacts with is a man named Ciacco, lost to history as merely an acqaintance of Dante's who wronged him.  Gone are Homer, Aristotle and Aenas.  Here comes Arrigo, Rusticucci, and Lamberti. 
The imagery here is again quite striking.  It is a bog, unceasing rain, hail and snow.  It stinks.  Cerebus, the three headed dog who guards the entrance to hell in greek mythology wanders around snarling, indiscriminitely clawing at greedy souls.  But if I may allow a small chuckle, the great beast is pretty easily tamed.  When he notices Dante and Virgil, he approaches them and roars.  Virgil proceeds to almost casually throw a clod of dirt into his mouth.  Immediately, Cerebus is satiated.  Like a Doberman with a juicy raw steak, he pays no more mind to Dante and Virgil.  This echoes Dante's own personal distaste for those who inhabit this greedy place.  They are so easily swayed by the almighty florin.  It didn't take much to placate those souls who removed the foundation from under Dante's feet.  He is disgusted and shows his disgust through the pitiful place he has castigated those who wronged him to. 
Beware the power of the poet.  Long after you've been relegated to the footnotes of history, he will, again and again through each generation of readers, subject you to the filth and squallor of his vengeance.

Day 5: MInos and the lover's swoon

Well now we are getting somewhere!  Canto 5 is where the action begins.  It is the beginning of what most people think of when you say Inferno, and the Divine Comedy.  It is technically the second tier, but as we discussed last time, the 1st tier is a state of Limbo, neither here nor there.  Now Dante and Virgil come face to face Minos who presides over the gates of of Hell, assigning souls to their respective stations of eternal damnation.  For those unaware, in Greek mythology Minos is King Minos of Crete.  He was quite a nasty fellow, responsible for the Cretan tradition of every nine years selecting seven young boys and girls to be eaten by the Minotaur in Daedalus' labyrinth.  Because of this, when he died he became judge of the underworld.  In Dante's Inferno when a soul is judged, Minos' tail (he is in, presumably demon form) wraps around himself.  The number of times it wraps indicates the tier of Inferno.  The souls in this tier, having seen Minos' tail wrap twice, are those who committed the sin of lust.
This canto, save the famous Canto 32 and Ugolino, has more commentary than any other.  Most of this is concerned with the star cross lovers Paolo and Francesca.  I won't say much about this couple, but I do love the imagery of two youngsters succumbing to passions after reading the stories of Lancelot.  It is a very human moment, one most of us can relate to.  One can easily imagine being swept away by a romantic story, only to come face to face with the tragic consequences later.  Francesca comes to Dante with gentle sighs, tugging the heart strings, knowing that she is interlocked forever in a forced embraced.  Pure shakespeare.  What impresses me most about this tier is that great imagery that Dante creates.  The souls of the lustful swirl like tempests, creating a hurricane of emotion.  There goes Tristan, Paris, Aeneas' Dido, all lost in the lover's twirl.  I have to leave this one with Dante's own magnificent words.
"Even as doves when summoned by desire, borne forward by their will, move through the air with wings uplifted, still, to their sweet nest, those spirits left the ranks where Dido suffers, approaching us through the malignant air, so powerful had been my loving cry."
    

Day 4: Limbo; How low can you go?

I have often thought about placing myself within Dante's conception of the underworld.  Specifically, what would be the most interesting section to reside for eternity.  I would make a strong case that no other part of the Divine Comedy contains such an impressive collection of fascinating souls as does Limbo.  Limbo, for those not aware of the Catholic or Dantean view of the afterlife, is the placed reserved for those souls that have not been baptised.  The souls inhabiting this space are an amalgamation of folks.  Unlike the rest of the afterlife, there is no commonality between these souls in Limbo other than their lack of baptism.  There are great men and women, as well as despicable ones.  It is everlasting and inescapable (save several notable exceptions), but not altogher unpleasant.  Dante makes a note that "there was no outcry louder than the sighs that caused the everlasting air to tremble. The sighs arose from sorrows without torment."  All the souls have a very pale pallor, and Dante noticed that upon entering Limbo, Virgil's complexion morphed to a similar shade.  Virgil explained that this he shares the fate of those unfortunates who were born before Christ, thus unable to receive the soul cleansing of a baptism.  The only souls that escaped are the notable, virtuous characters occupying the New Testament.  Moses, Adam, Abel, Abraham, David, Rachel and "many others" (who these others are is something not explained, but let's assume there's a Solomon or a Saul in the mix).  These lucky folks were only rescued by Christ literally descending and ushering them out.  But everyone else is stuck.
What interests me, though, is the all-star collection of brilliant minds left behind.  The foundations of western philosophy are all present.  Socrates, Aristotle, Plato, Democritus, and Heraclitus, to name a few.  Euclid, Ptolemy, and Galen are there, as are some really interesting historical figures, such as Electra, Hector, Ceasar and Aenas.  Saladin is there, but is "standing apart." Dante's literary predecessors are all gathered as well.  Homer, Ovid, Lucan, Horace and Virgil (obviously) are present.  In a very interesting meta-textual moment, the poets invite Dante to join their ranks, being "sixth among such intellectuals."  As I mentioned in an earlier post, Dante is really showing some hubris and arrogance here, placing his work and himself among the great epic composers of antiquity.
What a collection of souls!  Can you imagine the conversations? To be a fly on the wall while Ceasar and Socrates chat.  Or Saladin and Aristotle?  Ovid and Homer engaging in poetry slams!  I have to say, other than one or two spheres in paradise, no other area comes close to this.  And Limbo bests them all for sheer variety.  It reminds me of a Simpsons episode where Homer goes to heaven and watches a game of ping pong between Benjamin Franklin and Jimi Hendrix.  A part of me wonders if Dante the poet, by inviting himself to be part of the gang of five, somehow thought that this was the place to be as well.  Food for thought, as I imagine the epic ping pong game between Hector and Aenas, or the all-night limbo party.  How low can you go, Ptolemy?