The Thieves, the Deceivers and the Sowers of Discord

Thwarted by the trickery at which Hell's minions are so adept, Virgil and Dante struggle up the vast escarpment which leads forth to the seventh of the Rotten Pockets of the penultimate Circle of Hell (for the previous instalment in this saga, please click here). Drained to exhaustion by the journey, it is with tremendous effort that the two poets drag themselves to the towering crest. After a few words of encouragement from Virgil, with one last heave, Dante clears the summit and finds himself on a slender bridge over a vast gorge, its inky blackness hiding all but faint cries emanating from the blackened depths.

The Thieves
Engraving by Gustave Doré

Overcome with curiosity, Dante stoops, desperate to catch word of the voices far below. But it is in vain, all he can discern is that whoever it is that speaks must be running swiftly. Turning to his master, he begs to know, and the two descend into the murky pit. Coming to the edge of a steep bank, a hideous sight greets their eyes. The souls of sinners, naked and terrified, run across the valley floor, desperate to seek cover which is not there. For the ground is coated in the writhing coils of countless serpents, some far mightier in size than any snake which makes the Earth above its home. The hands of many are bound in the serpentine coils, and yet more are wrapped around their limbs. Just then, the figure of a man sprints past our poets in fear, as a snake rears its great head, its eyes fixed upon him. In a flash as though of lightning, the serpent lunges, its aim true as it strikes the man, murderous fangs piercing his neck. Another flash, and the sinner erupts in flames, a heap of crumbling ash left in his wake. As though a phoenix, soon the man rises anew from the ashes. Sensing Dante's bewilderment, Virgil calls out to the soul, questioning him as to his presence here. "Not too long ago I rained from Tuscany", the man replies, a man named Vanni Fucci, who once stole from the sacristy of Pistoia. Bitter and angry at his fate, Fucci rises up and curses God, but briefly, as a swarm of spitting snakes descends upon him, binding him so tightly that not a muscle can move. Alerted to the blasphemy within his domain, a fierce monster gallops towards them, a raging centaur, his back alive with serpents. Virgil turns to Dante and declares the creature to be Cacus, the famous giant who in the most ancient times once prowled the Aventine Hill, one of the Seven great Hills of that would one day give birth to Rome. Having once stolen a herd of precious cattle, Cacus was slain by Heracles, another foul beast conquered underneath that club. Now he rules over the thieves in Hell.


Three tortured souls suddenly see our two poets looking down upon them. "Who are you two?" one calls out to them. But the spirit pays dearly for his moment's distraction. A colossal snake pounces upon him, binding him in six coils. With a pitiful whimper, the sinner's flesh begins to melt, and the serpent and the man soon become as one, fused into a hideous chimaera. Moaning softly, the soul ambles off into the blackness. The second accursed man is soon seized by another creature, and the man transforms into the snake, and the snake to he. Wisely, the third man flees in fear, destined to continue this deadly game for eternity. For herein lies the true horror of the plight of thieves in Hell. Just as they stole the material things of men in life, now their very identity is taken from them in Hell.

The Deceivers
Engraving by Gustave Doré

Hurrying along the Rotten Pocket, Dante bemoans the sheer number of Florentines he has seen here in Hell. Arriving at the crest of a new valley, our pilgrims look down into the eighth of the Rotten Pockets of the Eighth Circle of Hell. Suddenly reminded of the fireflies rising to the night sky, Dante looks down into the abyss. For this valley is not shrouded in blackness, but shimmers brightly with many brilliant flames. Each flame blusters about the pit, blazing brightly, too brightly to reveal what each holds inside. Virgil turns to his protégé and explains the sorry fortunes of this place, for within each burning conflagration is bound a soul, each swathed in fiery doom. Suddenly spotting a flame with two heads, our inquisitive poet asks what is behind this peculiar fate. Within this flame, Virgil explains, are bound Ulysses (Odysseus) and Diomedes, two great heroes from ancient times, who now suffer jointly in Hell (for the feats of Diomedes, please click here). Both men conceived the trick that spelled the doom for proud Troy. Spurning the valour of arms on the open field, cunning Ulysses and powerful Diomedes turned to malicious fraud to achieve their victory, a sin for which they now burn in Hell. Dante yearns to speak to the heroes of yore, but Virgil intercedes. These men hail from an era long gone, an era which Virgil himself once saw in life, and only he may commune with them. The blazing flame approaches, and the higher of its two peaks flickers, and begins to speak. The voice is that of Ulysses, and the hero tells the tale of his last great voyage over the sea, far beyond the boundaries of the known world. Eager to seek what lay beyond the Western Ocean, his crew rowed for five days and nights, until a fell tempest blasted their ship upon the slopes of Mount Purgatory. Ulysses is overcome by grief at his memories, as another flame approaches.


Recognising the accent of Lombardy which Virgil speaks so well, the flame begs to know of the plight of Romagna, is it in peace or war?  This time, Virgil encourages Dante to speak, proficient in the Italian tongue as he is. For the flame chains within the soul of Guido da Montefeltro, once a great Lord of Urbino and warrior to the Pope. Romagna is still the prey to the savages of war, Dante sadly informs him, as Ravenna's land still seeks peace. Dante asks Guido if he will tell him his story in return. The soul mournfully declares that if he thought Dante had any chance of returning to the land of the living, he would not, but since all who enter Hell never leave, he will do so this once. With bitter fury, Guido reveals that he would have joined the heavenly host, pious friar and loyal defender as he was, but for the machinations of Pope Boniface VIII, whose name he curses in Hell. As the Pope once warred with Palestrina seemingly without end, Guido had advised him to offer amnesty, and then renege upon it after the surrender. The stratagem worked, and the fortress fell, as the papal troops razed it to the ground. Horrified at the slaughter, Guido entered the order of St Francis of Assisi, becoming a devout Franciscan. As the years took their toll, and the spirit of Guido left his body, St Francis came for him, but woe! A cruel cherub of Hell got there first, and dragged him to the fiery depths. For here are punished those who received the gifts of wisdom, but use them for malicious ends, a fate Dante feels great sorrow for. But the hour grows late once more, and our two poets make for the penultimate Rotten pocket of the Eighth Circle of Hell:


                         " Who could, even in the simplest kind of prose
                                   describe in full the scene of blood and wounds
                                   that I saw now - no matter how he tried!
             
                           Certainly any tongue would have to fail:
                                   man's memory and man's vocabulary
                                   are not enough to comprehend such pain. "
                                                        - THE SOWERS OF DISCORD

The Sowers of Discord
Engraving by Gustave Doré

With a shudder of nausea at the grotesque sight before him, Dante reasons that if all the slain from battles past, from wars waged on Italy's fertile plains, were piled high, the sight would be nothing compared with this. For the souls of the damned here have a terrible fate, as their corporeal forms are ripped asunder. As the souls run in chaos and agony, there stand above them horned daemons, each rending flesh with a violent swipe of their cruel blades. Before Dante's very eyes, one soul desperately sprints past, fleeing a daemon behind. But alas, another in front slices him open, spilling his guts onto the filthy floor. As Dante looks upon the man in pity, the soul looks up and the two gaze upon each other. He reveals himself to be Muhammed, the prophet of Islam, deformed and torn in this cruel land. Before him flees Ali, his son-in-law, fleeing the murderous blades. Muhammed explains that all here were condemned to this realm for spreading discord and schism in life (Dante viewed Islam as itself a breakaway faith of Christianity, and condemns Ali for his division of Islam into the Sunni and Shi'a sects). Just as they tore apart societies in life, now they are themselves torn asunder in Hell. Each soul runs a deadly circuit through the Pocket, their wounds slowly healing, only for them to be ripped open once again when they reach the beginning. Muhammed warns Dante of the others still alive on Earth that they are heading for a similar fate, the heretical preacher Fra Dolcino being one of them. The deadly guardians closing in, Muhammed takes flight once again. More shouts, and more souls thunder by, many of them Italians. Gaius Scribonius Curio, the man who advised Julius Caesar to cross the Rubicon and make war on Rome, approaches, though he is mute, for a vengeful daemon has severed his tongue. Another soul, headless, bearing its severed head as though a lantern, calls out to them, daring them to look on at his "monstrous punishment". The decapitated man reveals that he was once Bertran de Born, the man who encouraged the young Prince Henry to raise arms against his own father, King Henry II of England.

Despairing, Dante wonders how many more people he will see in Hell that he recognises. As the two poets begin their journey to the final Rotten Pocket, Dante is left pondering, what dread fate awaits those condemned to the very bottom of Hell, and what manner of crime will earn a being a place there?

United Kingdom

Penguin Classics:
Dante: Inferno (Penguin Classics)
(A nice version which has both the Italian and English text)

Oxford World's Classics:
The Divine Comedy (Oxford World's Classics)
(Well annotated and readily accessible, including the entire Divine Comedy)

United States

Penguin Classics:
The Divine Comedy: Volume 1: Inferno (Penguin Classics) (Pt. 1)
(A nice version which has both the Italian and English text)

Oxford World's Classics:
The Divine Comedy (Oxford World's Classics)
(Well annotated and readily accessible, including the entire Divine Comedy)

The Violent and the Frauds

Filled with grief at the plight of those who took their own life, Dante and Virgil come to the edge of the grand forest of sorrow (for the previous episode in this saga, please click here). The arboreal spirits thin out, and a vast plain emerges before them, a place "whose soil refused any plant". A river of boiling blood separates the second ring from the third, a ring where the violent meet their judgement.

The Violent
Engraving by Gustave Doré.

Beyond the grisly river, our pilgrim enters the third and final ring of the Seventh Circle of Hell. A vast wasteland stretches before him, a blasted land, where no plants grow, only great shifting sands cover the ground. From the skies comes a rain of fire, kindling the sands underfoot. The souls damned to this place scream in agony, as the boiling rain sears their flesh, and the burning sands scorch their soles. Shades try desperately to brush off the fire, but to no avail, the weather is relentless, endlessly spewing its conflagration on the damned of Hell. Dante notices three groups of souls condemned to this place, and enquires of his teacher Virgil of their crime. His master replies, the souls lying down upon the fiery floor are those whose violence was unto God, those who took the Lord's name in vain and blasphemed against his will. Dante spots among them Capaneus, a man who in ancient times, during the siege of the city of Thebes, cursed the name of Zeus. The Thunderer blasted Capaneus with a thunderbolt in retribution, and now he finds himself damned in Hell. Others here crouch upon the sand. These men were usurers in life, Virgil explains. They preyed on the needy, offering money to the poor, then ruthlessly charging extortionate levels of interest. They were violent against nature, betraying the compassion man should feel for his kin. For this they now burn in Hell. There is another group too, one who wander aimlessly through the cruel desert. These are the sodomites, those who needlessly scorned 'Christian nature', now wander without purpose in Hell. Dante spots many men he knew in life, illustrious men of Florence that they were. He is grieved to see that his old mentor, Brunetto Latini, now walks among these shades. Not for the first time our pilgrim sheds a tear for the damned. The two men speak of Dante's future, and Dante remembers the kindness Latini showed him in life, thanking him for showing the true path to immortality. Many more Florentines now approach, rapacious in their extortion of gold, and all revel in the glory of their great city. But time grows short, and a huge form rises out of the abyss, as the two poets continue into Hell.

The Panderers and Seducers
Engraving by Gustave Doré.

A vast monster rises before them, a fearsome Chimaera of three forms. Bearing the head of an honest man, his docile face belies his monstrous form, the body of a dragon, with a tail crowned with a lethal sting. The monster Geryon is a fitting personification of the crimes of fraud, as souls are deceived by the creature's soft face. Tricking Geryon with his words, Virgil order the beast to bear them down to the Eighth and penultimate Circle of Hell. Deep into the bowels of Hell the monster descends, Dante clinging to his mane. Soon, our two poets make landfall in the Eighth Circle, the infernal prison of the Frauds in Hell. Ten ravines divide this Circle, called the Malebolge ("The Rotten Pockets"), where those who knowingly sowed discord and deception in life are banished. In the first of the Rotten pockets, our pilgrim spies a cruel sight. Two files of naked souls stride alongside each other, one to the fore, the other behind. Bent over with weight of sin, horned demons look on armed with whips. Revelling in cruel pleasure, the demons lash with all their might upon the backs of the souls, the crack of the whip ringing through the air, accompanied by the shout of anguish of the scourged shade. These souls were panderers and seducers in life, using the passion of others to manipulate their path in life, now they are driven through this rotten pocket by these demons on Hell. Dante spots among them a man of Bologna, Venedico Caccianemico, a man he knew in life. But fearing the sting of the lash, the man dares not speak long. Virgil too, points out the hero Jason, who in his quest for the Golden Fleece seduced the sorceress Medea, abandoning her when her use was past.

The Flatterers
Engraving by Gustave Doré.

" Now we could hear the shades in the next pouch
    whimpering, making snorting grunting sounds
    and those of blows, slapping with open palms.

  From a steaming stench below, banks abound
     with a slimy mold that stuck to them as glue,
     disgusting to behold and worse to smell... "
                  - THE TORMENT OF THE FLATTERERS


Crossing into another of the Rotten Pockets, a ghastly stench befouls our pilgrim's nose. Coming to the edge of a huge ridge, Dante and Virgil look down the gorge at a grotesque sight. An ocean of human excrement fills the valley floor, smothering and drowning many unfortunate souls cast within. Dante eyes find the head of a man, so besmirched with faeces he cannot make out his features. The man shouts up, begging why the poet stares at his indignity. Dante knows his voice, it is Alessio Intermenei, a man of Lucca, a man from whose tongue fell unceasingly obscene flatteries in life. Just as these souls spewed vile words in life, so now they wallow in this putrid filth in death. Eyes watering with the evil odour, and his nausea growing, Dante continues on his baleful journey.

The Simonists
Engraving by Gustave Doré.

The Third Rotten Pocket is one Dante takes the utmost pleasure in experiencing. For here are condemned those who committed the sin of simony, corrupt men of the church who gave money for influence, exchanging gold for a position in Saint Peter's Church. This sin takes its name from a soul who is damned here, that of Simon Magus, the man who tried to bribe Saint Peter himself to grant him the power to conjure miracles. A vast expanse of bare rock stretches before the two poets, marked by a series of holes, each no wider than the sinner thrust inside it. To our pilgrim's eyes, they remind him of those pulpits from which his priest would stand and baptise from, now in twisted perversion, those men who corrupted the hierarchy of the church lie upside down within them. From each hole emerges the feet of a sinner, and from each sole bursts purging fire, as the simonist within twitches violently in agony. Our pilgrim hears the shouts of one buried nearby, a man who mistakes Dante for his own successor. The sinner buried within is Pope Nicholas III, a man who gained the Papal throne through gold and nepotism, who lavished positions in the Roman Church upon his own kin above other men. In his infernal jabberings, Nicholas names two of his successors to Saint Peter's throne, destined to be condemned to Hell for their crimes, Pope Boniface VIII and Pope Clement V, both deeply corrupt men, disgraces to the Roman Church. On realising his mistaken assumptions, Nicholas addresses Dante with a haughty speech, showing no remorse for his crimes, condemning others in his stead. Disgusted, Dante reminds the tainted Pope that Peter offered no sum for the keys of Heaven, the price that Christ asked of him was "Follow me" and no more. Berating the corrupt Pope, Dante works up a fury. "You have built yourself a God of gold and silver! How differ you from the idolator?" Dante shouts at him. Mourning the day when the Church first acquired wealth, Dante notices Virgil eyeing him, smiling, admiring his virtue. Seeing his pupil learning from his path, Virgil embraces Dante as a noble man, denouncing the evil within God's representatives on Earth...

United Kingdom

Penguin Classics:
Dante: Inferno (Penguin Classics)
(A nice edition which also has the original Italian on the left hand page opposite the English)

Oxford World's Classics:
The Divine Comedy (Oxford World's Classics)
(Accessible and well annotated, also includes Purgatorio and Paradisio)

United States

Penguin Classics:
The Divine Comedy: Volume 1: Inferno (Penguin Classics) (Pt. 1)
(A nice edition which also has the original Italian on the left hand page opposite the English)

Oxford World's Classics:
The Divine Comedy (Oxford World's Classics)
(Accessible and well annotated, also includes Purgatorio and Paradisio)