What Evil Marked the Hour
Feraco
Myth to Science Fiction
3 December 2009
Circle Eight
• There are two types of fraud, with
many other sub-types: Simple
Fraud (Circle 8) and Compound
Fraud (Circle 9)
• The two types are separated by the
sinner’s relation to his victim,
with Compound Fraud referring to
betrayal, i.e. Fraud that violates
those with special ties to the
sinner, and works particularly well
thanks to those ties (the victim
lowers their guard)
Circle Eight
• Special ties include relatives,
political/civic comrades,
trusted friends, guests, and
masters/benefactors
• While Dante believes we all
share a bond given to us by
God – human being to human
being – none of the other
victim/sinner relationships
are strong enough to count as
Compound Fraud
Circle Eight
• Remember Dante’s reason for
viewing fraud as the worst of
the Three-Beast Sins: only
humans commit it
• Moreover, Dante was not
merely a religious man; he
was also a creature of human
reason
Circle Eight
• Fraud is always the corruption
of reason, both on the part of
the victim (believing
something he shouldn’t) and
the liar (using their
knowledge to their perverse
advantage)
• Therefore, fraud results in
the combined corruption of
God, reason, and the human
spirit
Malebolge
• Malebolge retains the circular
structure of the other circles, but
it’s a multi-level realm – think
movie theatre seating, which
slopes downward fairly
dramatically
• The series of stone ditches (ten in
all) are connected along the slope
by a series of stone bridges
• Male = bad; bolge = series of bolgia
= pouch and ditch
Malebolge
• The Bolgia were ditches full of
bad people, to the point that
they’re almost swollen with
sinners – hence the
ditch/pouch dual meaning
• The poets will use the bridges
to descend to the Central Pit
of Malebolge, where they’ll
encounter the Giants
Degradation
• The first two ditches present the poets
with images of degraded sexuality, but
degradation in particular links the
Bolgia as we move down the bridges
• The degradation results not just from
presenting a false face to a trusting
world (thus violating the divine
connection between individuals), but
from essentially trying to upset the
natural balance of power by trading
what shouldn’t be traded – sex, honor,
God, power – in order to garner more
influence over their world
• Remember the Usurers? They made
“bad trades as well” – thus linking
Circle Seven with Circle Eight
Bolgia One
• In Bolgia One, Panderers were pimps,
many of whom pitched their family
members to powerful figures in order to
curry influence, while Seducers used
others for sexual purposes with no real
intention of committing to their
partners
– The two groups walk on either side of the
ditch in opposite directions, while horned
demons lash at them to keep them walking
– The lashing fits because both groups goaded
others in order to benefit themselves, driving
others in life as they are now driven in death
(with the demons representing the sinners’
guilty consciences)
Bolgia Two
• In Bolgia Two, Flatters merely
spouted worthless words – the
equivalent of the excrement they
wallow in – but one figure, Thais,
links back to the sex-based
debasement of Bolgia One
• She was a prostitute who
supposedly used flattery to
maintain a relationship with one
member of her clientele (Thais
actually didn’t do so; Dante just
misread a passage from Cicero)
Bolgia Three
• Even the Simoniacs in Bolgia Three – corrupt
religious officials who sold ecclesiastic favors
and offices in order to enhance their material
wealth and earthly influence – serve as pimps,
albeit of a spiritual sort, prostituting the church
while pretending to act in the name of divine
love
• Here, the sinners are placed upside down in
tubes, round holes meant to recall baptismal
fonts
• Their feet are coated in oil and set on fire, with
the temperature of the flame corresponding to
the gravity of their sins
• None of the sinners get to stay in the tubes; as
new sinners arrive, the old sinners are shunted
into crevices in the rock below, where they’ll be
sealed in, upside down, forever
Bolgia Three
• They’re upside down because they reversed the
duties of the office (always be good and
honorable), and set on fire in order to draw a
cruel distinction between a sinner’s baptism in
life (water) and in death (fire)
• The oil on their feet mocks the oil used while
performing the Last Rites for the Dying; this is
the last experience (outside of their eternal
imprisonment in the rock) that these souls will
ever have
• As for that imprisonment, instead of emerging
into the world (birth), they’re being forced back
into the darkness from whence their souls once
issued (into the earth-womb)
Bolgia Four
• The Fortune-Tellers in Bolgia Four
further degrade spirituality by
attempting to use dark arts in
order to gain more power (seeing
the future and benefitting from
it) than God meant for any human
to possess; Simon Magus (the
original Simoniac) betrayed God
by turning to sorcery in order to
gain more control over his world
• Thus Bolgia Four’s corruption
links spirituality (Bolgia Three)
and responsible use of power
(Bolgia Five)
Bolgia Four
• Since they tried breaking the
rules to look too far forward,
their heads are forever
reversed on their bodies, so
that they must look and walk
backwards for all eternity,
weeping all the while
• Since sorcery distorts God
(and His Will), the sinners’
bodies are distorted in Hell
Bolgia Five
• The Grafters of Bolgia Five are corrupt
political officials – those who used their
high office to curry favor or monetary
gain – who essentially pimp government
in the same way that the Simoniacs
pimped the church and the Panderers
pimped their sisters
• Remember, this was the crime Dante
was accused of when he left Florence;
it’s been hinted at in other Circles, and
is made explicit here
• The Grafters profess to be working for
the public good while they’re really only
working for their own benefit, which
links them with Bolgia Six
Bolgia Five
• The Grafters are sunk in sticky, boiling,
blackened pitch, and set upon by
demons (the Malebranche) who tear
them apart with claws and hooks if they
ever surface
• The Malebranche (Evil Claws), like the
Grafters, always hunger for more, and
their tools hook and tear as well (just as
the Grafter grapples and tears at that
which he skims from); Malacoda (Bad
End) is their leader
– The stickiness of the Grafters’ pitch
symbolizes their sticky fingers when it came
to skimming funds that weren’t theirs
– The black pitch hides their souls from sight,
just as their deeds were always hidden
Bolgia Six
• The Hypocrites in Bolgia Six walk in
endless circles around a narrow track,
weighed down by leaden robes – looking
for all the world like a monk’s habit –
that shine brilliantly
– That which shines may pass for holiness, but
when deceit lies beneath it, the deceiver must
bear that terrible weight – especially in Hell,
where such weight lasts for all time
• Everyone walks on Caiaphas, who
advised the Pharisees to crucify Christ
for expediency’s sake
– He now suffers the weight of the world’s
hypocrisy, and he’s nailed to the ground in a
reflection of the pose Christ assumed during
crucifixion
Bolgia Seven
• Bolgia Seven is a pit full of Thieves
mixed with monstrous reptiles; after
all, theft is a “reptilian” sin
• The Thieves suffer three fates
– The luckiest are merely set upon by reptiles
that proceed to slither all over their bodies
while binding their hands behind their backs,
because their hands were the tools they used
to commit their crimes
– Others must dodge reptiles that launch
themselves at the sinners; if one lands on you,
it sinks its fangs into the sinner until the
afflicted shade explodes in flames, only to
reform painfully from its own ashes
– Since each sinner made his fellow man’s
substance disappear in life (see:
Squanderers), his substance is annihilated
time and time again
Bolgia Seven
• The final state for each sinner is
endless, painful transformation;
other shades set upon them,
trying to steal their substance for
their own
• Some, having been reduced to
reptilian form, forcibly steal the
human forms of others, who then
try to do the same
• In the end, no one really has
anything anymore; only
desperation, fear, and obsessive
hunger remain
Bolgia Eight
• The Evil Counselors in Bolgia Eight move about
while encased within tongues of flame; the fire
burns so brightly that it’s virtually impossible
to see the souls
• They abused God’s gift – in this case, stealing
and repurposing man’s ability to trust other
men – for their own ends, working in hidden
ways all while presenting a public face
– Thus the sinners are hidden away within the flames
that symbolize their own consciences’ burning
• Finally, the Thieves sinned with their hands, and
their hands were incorporated into their
punishments; the Evil Counselors’ wicked tools
are their tongues, so they’re punished within
tongues of flame
– Rhetoric lies at the foundation of human reason,
but the Evil Counselors use it to break reason
Bolgia Nine
• The Sowers of Discord in Bolgia
Nine exist in various horrifying
states of evisceration (depending,
once more, on the gravity of each
sinner’s wrongdoing), with their
wounds knitting and reforming as
they walk in an endless parade
• The three types of Discord
prominently featured here are
Religious Discord, Political
Discord, and Familial
Discord/Discord Between Kinsmen
Bolgia Nine
• Dante argues that God wants us to be
united (hence the real value of Love,
which is a way of permanently unifying
human beings); by sowing discord, these
sinners have torn apart that which God
meant to be joined (especially for those
who sowed discord within families)
• Therefore, God’s punishment is to
violently tear them apart, over and over
again, while they’re forced to walk in
circles long enough to let their wounds
heal before enduring them again
Bolgia Ten
• We see four classes of Falsifiers in
Bolgia Ten: Alchemists, Evil
Impersonators, Counterfeiters,
and False Witnesses
• The Falsifiers’ bodies are warped,
diseased, and dysfunctional, and
they face a terrifying gamut of
punishments – we see just about
anything horrible that Dante can
conceive of (darkness, filth,
disease, thirst, stench, shrieks,
immobility, quasi-cannibalism)
here
Bolgia Ten
• These sinners corrupted society in
various ways, so what we see here is
what society would look like if we had no
morals or capacity for reason – if we
were simply instinctive creatures
forever pursuing our own self-interest
– We would have burned out the world’s light
long ago
• Here, every single sense you have
betrays you by adding to your suffering,
rather than guiding you – just as
falsifiers deceive you, particularly the
False Witnesses (who are the closest one
can come to Compound Fraud/Betrayal
without actually committing it)
The Central Pit of
Malebolge
• The Giants live in the Central Pit of
Malebolge, guarding its farthest reaches
by standing within the pit that leads to
Cocytus
• They are the sons of the earth and
embodiment of the primal and
primitive, buried deep within the earth
• They’re desire unbalanced by morals,
especially love, and acknowledge no law
– political, theological, etc.
• They symbolize the essence of primitive
passion at the heart of every man – an
essence that man must confront,
recognize, and purge in order to elevate
himself and reach salvation