Dante refers to the entrance to the Eighth Circle of hell as “Evil Pouches,” otherwise known as Malebolge. Dante describes he and Virgil’s surroundings, Dante says; “so here, across the banks and ditches, ridges ran from the base of that rock wall until the pit that cuts them short and joins them all.” The ridges Dante describes are creating pits or “pouches” where people receive punishments for their sins. The ridges were too crowded so they were separated into two groups of bolgia, the sinners who sexualized and trafficked women committing a sexual sin, and the flatterers. These pits were not pleasant. Dante describes them in great detail; “And while my eyes searched that abysmal sight, I saw one with a head so smeared with shit, one could not see if he were lay or cleric.” Dante recognizes another Italian. I think what Dante realizes here is that he has seen others outside of these circles descending into hell. He might be in the process of realizing that everybody sins, including himself. In class today we talked about being honest, and how even though sometimes the truth can be shameful. Dante can no longer be silent and must tell the truth even if it hard or obscene.
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To add on to this post on Canto 18, it is important to acknowledge how Donte (the writer) formulates crime and punishment. In Canto 13, Dante presents the punishment of those whom commit suicide by lessening them as souls embodying trees. People who commit suicide discard their bodies on earth, and therefore are not allowed to assume their human form in hell. Similarly, in Canto 18 one can understand that the Panderers and the Seducers in the first pouch acted as slave drivers or “pimps”, moving women as merchandise from one buyer to the next. Now they flee from one demon’s whip to another’s. In the next pocket, one can read an even more befitting punishment for flatterers. Dante the pilgrim recounts seeing “one with his head so filthy with shit that he was lay or clerk did not show.” In this pocket flatterers are punished by being immersed in “shit” (perhaps their own) just as they were full of shit in their earthly lives. This Canto is comedy.
I think Angel’s reply complement the original post, which is descriptive, with good comments.
You have to work on form a little more.