![]() ![]() This section works through cantos XVIII to XXX of Inferno. Please use the links at the bottom of the page to move from canto to canto.Ĭanto XVIII is the first of thirteen cantos dedicated to the eighth circle of Hell. In this circle are punished people who used fraud against those with whom they had no special bond of trust (simple fraud). Dante names the eighth circle of Hell 'Malebolge', which could roughly be translated as 'evil-sacks'. This name reflects the structure of the circle, which is made up of ten concentric ditches ('bolge'). Each ditch is lower than the previous one, and all the ditches are linked to each other by a number of bridges. Each ditch contains a different group (or groups) of sinners. The first ditch, or 'bolgia', contains the panders and seducers. The two groups of sinners walk round the circle in opposite directions. They are naked and punished by being whipped violently by demons. Amongst the seducers Virgil points out Jason, leader of the Argonauts, who on the island of Lemnos tricked Hypsipyle - seducing her, making her pregnant and then abandoning her - and who later also seduced Medea, daughter of the king of Colchis.Īmongst the panders Dante recognises and speaks to Venedico Caccianemico, member of a powerful Guelph family of Bologna, who was said to have talked his sister Ghisolabella into satisfying the sexual desires of the 'Marchese'. the 'bolgia' of the flatterers - Alessio Interminelli and Thais (100-136).description of the punishment of the panders and seducers (22-39).Amongst the flatterers Dante recognises Alessio Interminelli of Lucca (of whom very little is known), and Virgil then points out the prostitute Thais, whose flattering exaggerations are made to end the canto.Ĭanto XVIII can be divided into five sections: The second bolgia contains the flatterers, who are punished by being suffocated in a ditch which is covered in, and stinking of, excrement. The figure of Jason is a very significant one in the Commedia. Jason, according to Classical myth, led the Argonauts on an expedition to the island of Colchis to retrieve the Golden Fleece, which they succeed in doing after Jason was able to complete a number of incredible tasks. The Argonauts' expedition was believed in the Middle Ages to be man's first journey by sea. Dante importantly refers again to Jason and the Argonauts in Paradiso II and XXXIII, drawing a parallel between the incredible and novel nature of the journey represented by the Commedia and the incredible and novel nature of Jason's tasks and expedition. Consider also the way line 91 strongly recalls Inferno II, 67. In Inferno II, 'parola ornata' was associated with Virgil and his poetry, and had been presented as something that may rescue Dante from the dark wood here in Inferno XVIII, Jason's 'parole ornate' are emblematic of a treacherous misuse of language. Inferno XIX is an extremely striking canto, both in terms of the ideas expressed and of the language and images used to express them. This canto deals with the punishment of simony - the buying or selling of church privileges, benefices or authority. Each sinner is punished by being stuck head down on top of other sinners in one of the many holes found on the ground of the bolgia. The feet of the sinner stick out of the hole, their soles on fire. The sinner will remain in this position until he is pushed fully into the hole by the next soul assigned to it. The soul Dante speaks to is that of Pope Nicholas III, of the Orsinis, who during his papacy (1277-1280) used simony to increase the power and riches of his family. When addressed by Dante, Nicholas mistakes him for Pope Boniface VIII (1294-1303) (this implies that Dante believed that Boniface too was destined to be punished in the third bolgia). Nicholas tells Dante that Pope Clement V (1305-1314) will also be punished in the third bolgia. ![]()
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