The Inferno:
A Countryside of Sorrow:
The Sixth Circle (The Heretics)
Feraco
Myth to Science Fiction + SDAIE
12 November 2014
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
• 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 (i.e. the supreme
force of the underworld) 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 well-guarded
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. (which makes them appropriate
gatekeepers in Dante’s Hell).
Allecto symbolizes evil thought,
Tisiphone symbolizes evil words, and
Megaera symbolizes evil deeds.
The Furies (Cont’d)
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.
And Allecto plays a prominent role near
the end of The Aeneid, when her
interference directly affects the outcome of
the final battle (no spoilers).
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.
The Heavenly Messenger
Although he’s a divine presence, it’s never
clear who the Messenger is supposed to be –
in other words, he’s not an allusion to any
other specific figure.
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 Christ-like 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 his
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
• Summary: As the poets venture onward into the
Sixth Circle, one of the souls, Farinata degli
Uberti, 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 and Its Punishment
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, who argue instead,
per your Baselines, that death is the end of
us.
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 Uberto
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 our
introductory material; 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 (Cont’d)
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.”
(Consider that attitude in light of 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
Finally, Farinata makes explicit what
I’ve already told you several times – 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
•
•
•
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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
As previously mentioned, 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.
There’s no place within it for the Vestibule,
Limbo, or, really, the Sixth Circle (what is
heresy?)…so 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.