A Countryside of Sorrow
Feraco
Myth to Science Fiction
9 November 2009
Canto IX: Data File
• Setting: The Gate of Dis and
the Sixth Circle
• Figures: Furies (Erinyes),
Heavenly Messenger
• Allusions: Medusa (the
Gorgon), Theseus, Hercules,
Erichtho
• Punishable Sin: Heresy
Canto IX: Data File
• Summary: Dante and Virgil wait
for the Messenger as the Furies
menace them. Suddenly, he
appears, throwing open the gate
with ease and rebuking those who
would oppose the poets. Dante and
Virgil walk into the Sixth Circle, a
realm resembling a giant flaming
cemetery with fiery tombs
stretching out in every direction.
The Canto ends as Dante listens to
the anguished screams of the
Heretics’ trapped souls.
Dis
• Dante describes the lower four circles as
a walled city (although it’s a city that
just so happens to be funnel-shaped, so
the walls guard the entrance) called Dis
• Dis was one of Pluto’s alternative names,
and classical Hell was sometimes simply
called Dis (in The Aeneid, for instance)
– If Dante’s using the same traditions, Dis can
stand for both Satan and the realms closest to
him (with Satan at the heart of them)
• Once again, Dante provides wonderful
physical descriptions – great gouts of
flame, imposing watchtowers, a wellguarded entrance – that his
predecessors failed to include
The Furies
• The Furies (Megaera, Tisiphone, and
Allecto, who are also called Erinyes in
Ciardi’s translation) are the first
creatures we encounter who not only
defy Virgil, but threaten him openly.
• They were commonly used in Greek
mythology and medieval stories to
signify any number of evils or sins:
pride, stubbornness, treachery, heresy,
etc. This makes them appropriate
gatekeepers in Dante’s Hell.
• Allecto symbolizes evil thought,
Tisiphone symbolizes evil words, and
Megaera symbolizes evil deeds
The Furies
• As Dante depicts them, the “daughters
of Night” are covered in blood, with
snakes substituting for hair, tearing at
themselves in their uncontrollable rage
– a perfect bridge between wrath and
violence
• They were also used frequently as a
means of exacting revenge on behalf of
offended parties both mortal and
divine. Dido, for example, calls on the
Furies in a rage when Aeneas abandons
her
• Allecto plays a prominent role near the
end of The Aeneid, when her
interference directly affects the
outcome of the final battle
Medusa
• Medusa also has snakes for hair (rather
famously), but her story is a bit different
• While the Furies are basically embodiments of
evil, Medusa was punished for a specific
wrongdoing
– Athena witnessed her consummating an affair
with Poseidon in her temple and transformed her
beauty into extreme ugliness
• Not only did she now have snakes for hair, but
she became so frightening to witness that those
who looked directly at her would be petrified –
literally turned to stone
• Medusa and her sisters (collectively called the
Gorgons) were exiled to an island, where the
Greek hero Perseus attacked and decapitated
her while on a quest; he carried out his attack by
looking at her reflection in his shield rather
than by staring directly at her
Heavenly Messenger
• Although he’s a divine presence, it’s
never clear who the Messenger is
supposed to be
• His appearance reassures Dante, who’d
been growing understandably nervous
about Virgil’s ability to protect him; by
walking on water and throwing open the
gate of Dis, the Messenger seems Christlike enough to defuse further worry
• The visit underscores the divine plan
behind Dante’s travels; even if he
doesn’t always understand where he’s
going, the poet can rest assured that
God/Mary/Beatrice wants him to go
Theseus
• Theseus was a famous Greek hero,
known primarily for slaying the
Minotaur (a half-man/half-beast we’ll
meet as we draw closer to the Seventh
Circle) in Minos’s Labyrinth
• Later, he attempted to capture
Persephone (the queen in classic Hell),
and was imprisoned in Hell after failing
• The Furies mention that they wish
they’d killed him when they’d had the
chance (to serve as a warning to others)
• Hercules ventures into the underworld
in order to save him, which means
mortals have crossed this way before –
something the messenger points out to
the demons
Hercules
• Most of you are familiar with Hercules’s
exploits; he’s mentioned here in
conjunction with Theseus
• The Heavenly Messenger refers to
Cerberus’s still-unhealed neck wound,
which he sustained when Hercules
dragged him across Hell via the chain
he’d been forced to wear, as a way of
discouraging the demons from resisting
• The Aeneid also references Hercules
when Charon refuses to take Aeneas
across, expressing anger at having been
forced to transport Hercules and
Theseus into the underworld in the past
Erichtho
• Virgil mentions that Erichtho forced
him to retrieve a soul from the Ninth
Circle soon after he died
• Erichtho was a bloodthirsty witch who
Dante takes from Lucan’s Pharsalia;
there, Erichtho hijacks the soul of a
newly-killed soldier in order to force
him to reveal future events in that
story’s civil war
• The sorceress’s relationship with the
poet here plays with the medieval belief
that Virgil must have had prophetic
powers himself (especially when it came
to the “Christ poem” in Eclogues)
Canto X: Data File
• Setting: The Sixth Circle
• Figures: Farinata degli Uberti,
Cavalcante dei Cavalcanti
• Allusions: Guido Cavalcanti,
Epicurus, Frederick II
• Punishable Sin: Heresy
Canto X: Data File
• Summary: As the poets venture
onward, one of the souls, Farinata,
speaks with them. Dante quickly
begins debating politics with him,
but the two are interrupted by the
appearance of another soul,
Cavalcante. Dante accidentally
implies that the latter’s son has
died, and the father quickly leaves
in anguish. Farinata continues
talking, telling Dante how the
dead can see the future. As Dante
leaves, he asks Farinata to tell
Cavalcante his son is still alive.
Heresy
• By “heresy,” Dante refers to
teachings that directly
contradict those of the
medieval Christian church
• He focuses on those who deny
the immortality of the soul,
arguing instead that death is
the end of us
The Punishment
• The Heretics lie trapped
within coffins which are then
set ablaze; some of the lids
are set ajar, but most shades
aren’t allowed to rise from
their tombs
• They denied the soul’s
immortality in life, arguing
that it perished with the body
• Therefore, their souls will
exist within graves forever
Epicurus
• Dante specifically identifies
the Heretics as Epicureans
• Epicurus was an ancient Greek
philosopher who taught that
pleasure – peace, passion, and
painless living – represents
the highest human good
• Dante condemns him and his
followers for believing both
body and soul were mortal
Farinata degli Uberti
• Farinata was a Ghibelline leader who
successfully reconquered the city after being
exiled earlier.
• When the Guelfs took back control after his
death, they specifically refused to forgive him.
Instead, they declared him a heretic, dug up his
body (as well as his wife) and burned them,
confiscated his heir’s possessions, and
excommunicated him
• This isn’t very grateful of them, considering he
was the only reason Florence wasn’t burned to
the ground once the Ghibellines took over; he
had to stand up to the people he’d fought side by
side with
• In an odd way, Dante, an exile himself, respects
Farinata despite their irreconcilable political
differences and worldviews; he disagrees with
everything he stands for, yet recognizes that he,
too, loved Florence more than politics
Cavalcante dei Cavalcanti
• Cavalcante, like Dante, is a Guelf, but his
family was much more powerful
• In an effort to lessen Guelf/Ghibelline
hostilities, Cavalcante married off his
son to Farinata’s daughter; that son was
Guido Cavalcanti, who would become
Dante’s “oldest friend”
• Like Farinata, Cavalcante represents the
blending of family and politics – yet
another element of passion and
instability in the unstable Florentine
political scene (as if faith and
governmental structure weren’t
controversial enough on their own)
Guido Cavalcanti
• We’ve met Guido before, way back in “Into
the Inferno”; he’s the same man who
befriended Dante and helped guide him
during the beginning of his career, only to
end up leading the Bianchi faction when
tensions split the ruling Guelfs (which, in
the end, forced Dante to banish him)
• At this point in the story, Guido is still
alive; if we take Virgil’s reading of the
skies at face value, it’s somewhere in
April 1300, and Dante wouldn’t serve as a
prior until June 15th
• After his banishment, Guido grew very
sick due to the awful climate of the region
where he was sent, and passed away in
August 1300
Guido Cavalcanti
• While the two men were friends, they
held radically different views of love;
Guido’s work argued that love was, as
Raffa puts it, “a dark force that leads
one to misery and often to death”
– Now consider how Dante sees love, as well as
how it’s treated in The Inferno
• He points out that Guido “held in
disdain” someone related to his travels,
which implies that his friend didn’t
understand how Beatrice could be so
important to him
• It’s also implied that Guido will end up
in the realm of the Heretics when he
dies, seemingly because he denies love’s
importance (for it’s the thing that
animates the immortal soul)
Frederick II
• Frederick was the last Holy Roman Emperor,
although he was excommunicated twice before
his death; hard evidence of his wrongdoings is
scant, so Dante’s probably just following the
accusations of Frederick’s foes by placing him
here
• Even though Dante puts him in Hell here, he
writes favorably of him in other works; his
artistic court in Palermo was responsible for a
great deal of advancement in everything from
science to music
• That course eventually spawned the first major
Italian vernacular poetic movement, the Sicilian
School; they’re the ones who invented the
sonnet, and the traditions they established
greatly influenced Dante as a young man (who
would go on to influence others by using the
Italian vernacular instead of Latin to write
works such as The Inferno)
Foresight
• Farinata states that the dead can
see the future, but that events
grow less clear as they approach
the present
• Think of it as a form of
farsightedness – the things that
lie at a distance look clearest
• Dante believes that time ends
when the final Judgment arrives
• Since there will be no future, the
souls will no longer be able to
perceive anything except their
suffering
Canto XI: Data File
•
•
•
•
Setting: The Sixth Circle
Allusions: Pope Anastasius II
Punishable Sin: Heresy
Summary: The poets stop at a massive
rockslide at the edge of the Sixth Circle;
the rocks were displaced during the
great earthquake that shook Hell on the
day Christ died. The smell from the
circles below is so powerful that the
poets hide behind a giant tomb in order
to allow themselves to get used to it.
Virgil then explains Lower Hell’s
structure to Dante (and, by extension,
us). The Canto ends with the poets
making their way down the rock pile
and into the Seventh Circle.
Lower Hell
• Dante uses Aristotlean guidelines
for organizing his Hell: first
incontinence, then brutishness,
and, finally, malice.
– Fraud is worst because only humans
commit it (deception through prior
intent)
– Incontinence is mildest because most
of the things we want to enjoy
immoderately (lovers, good food, etc.)
aren’t negative in and of themselves
Lower Hell
• There’s no place within it for the
Vestibule, Limbo, or, really, the
Sixth Circle (what is heresy?)
– How does Dante account for them?
• Raffa speculates that these three
areas are separated because their
“faults” are each based in the
intellect, and are each based on
not doing something (worshipping
correctly, building a moral code,
or believing in God).
Pope Anastasius II
• He served during the fifth century. The
inscription above his tomb reads, “I hold Pope
Anastasius, whom Photinus drew from the
Straight Way”
• Photinus was a deacon who supported the
emperor Anastasius I. The emperor sought to
restore the reputation of a man named Acacius
who had denied Christ’s divine origin. In order
to lend support to the effort, Photinus
convinced the pope to back him
• The problem, of course, is that the denial of
Christ’s divine origin amounted to heresy in
medieval times; by lending his support to the
emperor’s effort, Anastasius II had committed
heresy himself (hence the inscription)
• Dante, upholding the medieval Christian code,
punishes Anastasius II by placing him here with
the rest of the heretics – and by denying him
even the dignity of an appearance
In Conclusion
• Heresy occupies an odd place
within Dante’s structure (not
quite immoderation, not quite
violence)
• Its Cantos give us a wonderful
opportunity to explore politics,
honor, destiny, love, and even the
meaning of life!
• Myths and allusions remain
important as we descend, as well
as figures from Dante’s life