Tag Archives: canto 33

Justified Punishment

Dante at this point, now fully understands why these sins are punished and how essential it is for the punishment to match the severity of their sins. What I want to find out is why is Lucifer isn’t active throughout Inferno? It would make sense for the king of Hell to apply his might against the dammed throughout Dante and Virgil’s pilgrimage. To help us understand the very nature around Hell and Lucifer let us examine Canto 33 . Here in this Canto, Dante and Virgil are in the ninth circle and they come across a sinner named Count Ugonilo who chews the neck of his killer and betrayer, Archbishop Ruggieri. Both of these men are betrayers, but what’s important to note is how Ugonilo acts for his sins: “That sinner raised his mouth from his fierce meal, / then used the head that he had ripped apart / in back; he wiped his lips upon it’s hair.” (Alighieri 1-3).  Ugonilo attacks the man who betrayed with anger and disgust. There is hate in those bites. It’s evident here that wrath has made Ugonilo go insane with rage.

Examining Canto 34, Virgil and Dante are in the City of Dis. They meet the king of Hell who stands in the middle showing no emotions(I will discuss about Lucifer nature later). Lucifer has three heads to which each mouth contains a sinner: Judas, who betrayed Jesus Christ, Brutus and Cassius both of whom betrayed Julius Caesar.  All three men are chewed and shredded, never dying: “Within each mouth he used it like a grinder/ with gnashing teeth he tore to bits a sinner, / so that he bought much pain to three at once.(Alighieri 55-57).  According to this, these sinners are forever in a state of perpetual agony. Notice that these sinners are expressing emotion unlike Lucifer himself. With these examples in mind, I believe Dante meant to show the readers that although the sinners are touched by evil. They still remain human. Pure evil has no traces of humanity, which would make sense since Lucifer is evil incarnate.

There is an interesting note about Purgatory that further explains the presence of sins around humans and perhaps Dante’s intentions about the sinner’s circumstances. In Canto 1 of Purgatory, Dante and Virgil meet Cato, a Roman Politician who is famous for his defiance of Julius Caesar.  What fascinating about this sinner Cato is the fact he killed himself as a form of freedom from Julius Caesar as explain by Virgil, “You know it who, in Utica, found death/ for freedom was not bitter, when you left/ the garb that will be bright on the great day.”(Alighieri 73-75). Since we’ve come to know that suicide is a crime against God, it’s problematic to see Cato’s role in this realm. To understand why Cato is in Purgatory instead of Hell we must remember that Dante based his morality on Aristotle’s schema. According to Aristotle, death by suicide is a crime against one’s society, but in Cato’s case his society was conquer by Julius Caesar. Rather than being in part of the new society by the conqueror, he decided to free himself by suicide. This is why there is a special case for Cato Presence, for his actions is proof his incorruptible nature.

 

The Nature of Weeping

     Unlike the previous sinners, in the 9th circle of hell, the sinners are punished with ice. The coldness pervades their bodies making them unable to express their emotions. In its very nature, the cold strips the sinners of an essential characteristic that makes them human – their ability to cry. The act of crying itself can be seen as a form of self-reflection and a way to unburden the emotional turmoil that exists inside. By taking away the sinners ability to cry, the cold renders them less human than they originally were. The nature of the punishment corresponds with the nature of their crime; the cold weather parallels their cold-hearted crime which essentially degraded them from a human to an animal (less than human). In canto 33, the sinner’s inability to cry parallels their transformation from civilized beings to animalistic primitives devoid of all virtue.

     Count Ugolino’s inability to cry mirrors the loss of his humanity as he succumbs to the temptations of cannibalism. When Count Ugolino is imprisoned with his sons in a tower and it’s door is being nailed shut, Count Ugolino says “I was not weeping, I so turned to stone within: they were weeping; and my Anselmuccio said ‘you have such a look father! What is it?’ (Canto 33, lines 48-50). Count Ugolino marks his transformation from a father to “stone” when he stops crying. The “stone” represents his loss of humanity because he begins to perceive his sons as food. Even though he initially denies it, his son observes that he has “such a look”. The sons notice that their father is looking at them differently, the “look” is synonymous with the way a predator eyes its prey before it consumed them for its means of survival. The ability to cry represents the idea that the individual is still human and tethered to a moral compass. Count Ugolino can’t cry because he is selfish and deceptive by nature. He betrays Archbishop Ruggieri and he’s imprisoned for his treason. When he is imprisoned with his sons, his selfish nature prioritizes his needs over his sons even though his fatherly affections attempts to hold off the temptation to consume them for as long as possible. However, his selfish nature and starvation prevails over his fatherly affection as he succumbs to cannibalism. Hence, he cannot cry because his intentions are already corrupted and he is spiraling towards cannibalism.On the contrary, his sons are “weeping” because they’re innocent. They have the ability to cry because their humanity and moral compass remains intact. In fact, they say “Father, it will be much less pain for us if you eat of us:” (Canto 33, line 60). They offer themselves up to the father because their moral integrity and affection for their father exceeds their own materialistic capacity for starvation. Their intentions and inherently their souls are much more purer than their father which permits them to cry.

     Count Ugolino and Brother Alberigo define crying as the ultimate desire of the sinners in the 9th circle of hell. Both Count Ugolino and Alberigo’s crimes consume their insides and prevent them from feeling anything but the nature and remorse of their crimes.For example, Count Ugolino says “You wish me to renew desperate grief that already possesses my heart merely thinking,” (Canto 33, lines 3-4). Count Ugolino uses the adjective “desperate” to characterize his grief because it reflects his desperate need to express that grief in some physical form. He wants to “speak and weep together” (Canto 33, line 8), the association of voicing his grief and crying further reiterates the idea that their grief can only be lessened through crying. Alberigo claims “And that you may more willingly shave the glassy tears from my eyes, know that, as soon as the soul betrays as I did, its body is taken over by a demon” (Canto 33, lines 126-129). While Alberigo doesn’t explicitly refer to the heart, he loses autonomy because his body is no longer his own; his corrupted soul is weighing his body down to hell. Alberigo uses the word “betray” because he betrays his brother when he kills them over a presumed dinner thus, his soul betrays him by sending him to hell before he has even died.

     Alberigo describes his soul as possessed by a “demon” that is holding his body body hostage till the end of time. Since the moment he committed murder and the demon took over his body, all of his humanity left him. He asks Dante and Virgil to “lift from my [his] eyes the hard veils, so that I may give vent a little to the anguish that gathers in my heart, before my tears freeze up again.” (Canto 33, lines 111-113). The “hard veil” has a dual meaning, the “hard veil” refers to Alberigo’s tears frozen over his face, but the “hard veil” can also mean that the nature of his crime is so diresome that it prevents him from ever being empathetic and humane again. Alberigo could’ve asked Dante and Virgil for anything but all he asks for is the opportunity to cry one more time. Both characters claim that their soul or heart is heavy inside of them because it’s carrying the guilt of their inhumane crimes that they can no longer express through humane means.

     Dante personifies “weeping” as a humane quality that is acting inhumanely to the sinners. For example, Dante narrates that “Weeping itself prevents weeping here, and the sorrow that finds a block over the eyes turn back within to increase the pain;” (Canto 33, lines 93-95). The phrase “weeping itself prevents weeping here” refers to the notion that if a person weeps, their tears freeze over their eyes and face preventing them from weeping more. It’s ironic that is a mechanism that reduces the human’s pain causes more pain to the human. The personification of weeping shows its dual nature of being a relief and punishment to the humans just like the sinners had the capacity to be benevolent and harmful and they chose to be harmful to their relations. Dante describes the act of crying as “for the first tears make a knot and, like crystal visors, fill all the cup below the brow.” (Canto 33, lines 96-99).  Dante uses a simile to describe the frozen tears as “crystal visors” that fill the “cup” or the “eye”. He uses the word “visor” which blocks the flow of tears from the inside and sunlight from penetrating the visor from outside. This reiterates that the sinners will never find comfort inside themselves or from their surroundings because their sin is so grave. Hence, they will be stuck in this stage of constant pain and turmoil where they lose all feelings that make them human except grief.

     Canto 33 focuses on the nature of weeping among the sinners. Dante alters the meaning of weeping for each soul. Count Ugolino wants to cry because he wants to express his grief for eating his own sons however, Alberigo wants to cry in order to obtain some for of autonomy over his own sins. Both want to express their grief for their fate however, neither can express it because crying is a humane characteristic that doesn’t fit their inhumane crimes.

 

Elements of the Inferno in As Above So Below

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M8xPTba541s&t=605s

^youtube video analyzing the movie in relation to Dante’s Inferno

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WLq3zSm5SkQ

^clip from the final scene of the the movie, emerging from the catacombs/Hell

Part of what makes Dante’s Inferno such an important text is that it is still very relevant today.  One example of this is the movie As Above So Below, which adapts some important concepts from the Inferno into its structure.  Throughout reading the Inferno, various references the movie had made became clear and the youtube video provided highlights many of those examples as well as a more in depth look at how the entire movie follows some of the themes from the Inferno.  Rather than repeating the things mentioned in the video, there are some very important ideas in the movie that have clearly been taken from Dante’s work which were not mentioned or not adequately discussed in the video.

One of the most unmistakeable references to the Inferno comes at the end of the movie, where they exit “Hell” or the catacombs.  This scene directly correlates to the scene in the Inferno where Dante and Virgil leave Hell.  Throughout their journey through the catacombs, the characters were told that the only way out is down–just like Dante and Virgil, they must travel through all of Hell before they can leave.  The most striking similarity comes when the group jumps down a deep well with a sewer grate at the bottom; believing in gravity and the downward direction they have been headed in this whole time, they try to lift up the grate but find that to get out they must push it down.  This is the same as the Pilgrim’s realization that he is climbing down Lucifer and not up as he had thought: “I raised my eyes, thinking to see Lucifer as I had left him, and I saw that his legs were extended upward” (canto 34, lines88-89).  This similarity continues after the emergence from Hell.  Dante describes the Pilgrim’s emergence out of Hell as the moment “I saw the beautiful things the heavens carry, through a round opening” (canto 34, lines136-138).  Dante is describing the stars and showing the reader that he comes out of Hell back to earth, not directly to purgatory.  This image Dante gives us is almost exactly the same as the image in As Above So Below, since the group is upside down, when they push the sewer grate they are looking up at the earth–through a round opening–and see nothing but the night sky, a tree, and a street light.  This image is taken directly out of Dante’s writing.

One other similarity between the movie and the Inferno that is not discussed much in the video is the saying “as above so below” itself.  This saying comes from alchemy and is explained in the movie with an image on the wall in the catacombs, shown in the youtube video at 9:08, this part in the movie explains that it is a symbol meant to show the connection between heaven and earth in alchemy–“as it is on earth so it will be in heaven”.  However, this movie has nothing to do with heaven, since the catacombs are a metaphor for Hell, so it is clear that this image (which is upside down) is inverted to mean “as it is on earth so it will be in hell” in relation to the characters in the movie.  This theory (although here cited as from alchemy–a practice damnable in Hell by Dante’s standards) bears a striking similarity to the theory of the contrapasso in the Inferno.  The contrapasso is essentially a punishment which fits the crime and the word itself is specifically associated with the Inferno.  Using the structure of the words in the movie, one could use “as one was on earth, so they will be in hell” or “as one is in life, so they will be in death” as a synonym or explanation of Dante’s contrapasso.  Dante’s use of the contrapasso creates some of the most striking images in the Inferno.  For example, Ugolino and Ruggieri in canto 33: as Ugonlino was starved to death by Ruggieri in life, so Ruggieri is eaten by the one he starved in death.

The transition from torment, sin & evilness to spiritual cleansing, unification & praise

In canto 33, the sinner who is chewing on his neighbor raises his head and tells Dante that he is Count Ugolino from Pisa and he eats the head of Archbishop Ruggieri (who imprisoned Ugolino and his sons in a tower, where they starved to death). Ugolino re-tells his story to Dante, by saying that starvation led Ugolino to gnaw at his own hands and his sons mistook this for hunger and offered their bodies as food, willingly sacrificing their own bodies. Ugolino states, “There he died; and as you see me, I saw the three fall one by one between the fifth day and the sixth; and I, already blind, took to groping over each of them, and for two days I called them, after they were dead. Then fasting had more power than grief” (Canto 33, lines 70-75). Dante cries out against Pisa because Ugolino was a traitor, but his sons were starved to death as a punishment for Ugolino’s betrayal in which Dante the author accuses the Pisan government of unjustly punishing Ugolino’s sons. Dante uses this individual’s story (Ugolino) as a way to criticize an Italian town; unlike Dante the pilgrim’s previous journey where he faints from the pity from Francesca and Paolo’s story, Dante is learning to moderate his responses in regard to the suffering souls of the sinners. But for Dante the author, Ugolino’s betrayal of his city does not negate or make invalid the fact that Ugolino loves his sons and the grief Ugolino felt for his sons was genuine. Moving on to the next ring, one suffering soul begs Dante to pull the layer of frozen tears from his face, so that he can cry once more (even though these tears will freeze over his face again and again). Dante agrees as long as the spirit tells him his name, which is Fra Alberigo. Friar Alberigo killed his own brother after inviting him to a dinner. Dante learns Alberigo is not dead, but that this region of Hell called Ptolomaea (which reserves souls for those who betray guests; the demon in this circle holds the souls even before they have died). The bodies of these people are then possessed by demons on earth. He points out another suffering soul to Dante whom is Branca d’Oria, who Dante knows to be alive. Dante’s sense of God’s justice is evident as Fra Alberigo asks Dante to scrape the ice from his eyes but Dante refuses, saying “I did not open them for him; and it was courtesy to treat him boorishly” (Canto 33, lines 149-150). This canto draws a contrast between Dante’s criticism of the Pisan government, which demonstrates the imperfection of human beings and God, whose punishments may seem pitiless but are always just.

 

In canto 34, Virgil and Dante are approaching Hell and the king of Hell –Satan. Satan has three faces: one red, one yellow, and one black. Satan also has three pairs of wings that beat which causes the great wind and freezes the river. In each mouth he chews a sinner—Judas Iscariot, who betrayed Jesus, and Brutus and Cassius, who betrayed Julius Caesar. Virgil and Dante then climb up onto Satan’s monstrous body. Dante holds tight to Virgil as they make the perilous climb up Satan’s body (which isn’t the first time they climb up something steep; which occurs in Canto 24-25 — when they cross the bridge). Dante and Virgil finally reach an area in which they can rest. Dante looks out from it, expecting to see Lucifer’s head, but instead Dante the pilgrim sees his legs stretching up before him, as if everything is upside down. Also, instead of night, its now morning. Virgil says they have passed through Earth into the Southern Hemisphere, and because Satan fell to Earth from Heaven in this hemisphere, there is no land, just ocean. As a transitional segue, Virgil gives more information about the structure of the world as he and Dante move towards Purgatorio. When Satan fell from Heaven, Virgil says, his impact caused a pit to form on Earth which became Hell. Dante looks up and is able to see the bright stars in the sky, which he hasn’t seen since entering hell. The symbolism of the three heads represents Dante’s tendency to mix Christian figures (the holy trinity) with those from Greek and Roman history and mythology. The other demons of Hell express emotion(s), however, Satan, as the manifestation of damnation doesn’t explain his circumstances or express any emotion; instead Satan seems automatic in a mechanical way – hence his tears and his violent, chewing of the sinners. Perhaps Dante the writer does this as way to show that while many of the other sinners are affected by evilness, they still remain fundamentally human; which is something readers are able to see in Virgil and Dante as well. However, pure evil (like Satan) contains no traces of humanity. The imagery in the ending of this canto is visually appealing when Dante writes, “My leader and I entered on that hidden path to return to the bright world; and, without taking care for rest at all, up we climbed, he first and I second, until I saw the beautiful things the heavens carry, through a round opening. And thence we came forth to look again at the stars” (canto 34, lines 133-139).  Dante the pilgrim is no longer in a dark wood: but instead is exiting from the world of torment, suffering and sin and heading towards a world signaling God’s presence: emerging into the light of God’s love. He has to more to learn on his journey and has to move forward, but at the end of Inferno, the cantica suggests that Dante the pilgrim is no longer lost.

 

Canto 1 in Purgatorio an important soul appears which is Cato — Cato who was a Roman politician and known for his defiance of Julius Caesar. Cato questions Dante and Virgil asking Virgil why he is in Purgatory, since Virgil’s soul is designated to Limbo and Dante is not yet dead. Virgil explains to Cato that their journey is permissioned by the heavenly figure Beatrice whom asked Virgil to lead Dante through the afterlife. Cato orders Virgil to prepare Dante by binding his waist with a reed and washing him clean of the filth of Hell. Because Cato is a non-Christian, it seems strange he welcomes souls entering into Purgatory. Therefore, Cato would seem to belong with Virgil in Limbo. In addition, another, more perceptible problem is Cato’s death is suicide, which he chose rather than surrender to his enemy Julius Caesar. Traditionally, Catholic religion held suicide to be among the greatest of mortal sins, and Dante puts those who died by suicide their own special place in Hell (canto 13 with Pier Della Vigna). However, Dante the poet, makes an exception for Cato, whose suicide is excused and even proves the politician’s righteous nature. Canto 2 in Purgatorio, there is a flash of light from across the sea which signals the approach of an angel coming towards Dante and Virgil, a sight that overpowers Dante when he states, “When, for a moment, I’d withdrawn my eyes that I might ask a question of my guide, I saw that light again, larger, more bright. Then, to each side of it, I saw a whiteness, though I did not know what that whiteness was; below, another whiteness slowly showed” (canto 2, lines 19-24). This angel is guiding a boat which contains departed souls heading towards Mount Purgatory. The souls ask Virgil and Dante for directions, but Virgil admits he knows nothing of the geography when he states, “but we are strangers here, just as you are” (canto 2, line 63). Dante recognizes a friend, a musician named Casella (who is also a passenger of the boat). As Dante moves to embrace Casella, he is surprised because he grasps only air. Casella talks with Dante about life back in Italy then sings a song — Dante pleasantly listens to the soul when he says, “he then began to sing—and sang so sweetly that I still hear that sweetness sound in me” (canto 2, 113-114). Other souls join Dante in listening to the song but Casella leaves in a hasty departure. Although Dante is not dead yet, he is welcomed by the penitents with curiosity and politeness. This is one difference noted between Purgatory and Hell is that Purgatory is structured around this idea of fellowship with others, whereas the souls in Hell are cut off from God and from one another (like Farinata and Cavalcanti are in the same tombstone but don’t communicate and acknowledge each other). The damned are physically near one another, their sinful behavior causes them to be in a terrible form of solitary confinement. The singing from Cato and the souls listening also displays a type of form such as reciting psalms and singing hymns. Therefore, Purgatory consists of souls who come together in divine praise.