Transcript Slide 1
Screaming as They Go
Feraco
Myth to Science Fiction
6 November 2009
Canto VII: Data File
• Settings: The Fourth and Fifth
Circles
• Figures: Plutus, Fortune
• Allusions: Styx
• Punishable Sins: Hoarding and
Wasting (Fourth Circle),
Wrath and Sullenness (Fifth
Circle)
Canto VII: Data File
• Summary: After leaving the Third Circle,
the Poets encounter Plutus, who shouts
an unintelligible warning to Satan upon
seeing them. Virgil silences him by
reminding him of God’s will, recalling
the poets’ escape from Charon and
Minos. Dante sees men fighting over
great stones, and realizes that these
men grew obsessed with money – either
their ability to hoard it or waste it. None
of them are even recognizable, and the
poets move toward Styx as Virgil
discusses Fortune’s purpose. When they
arrive, Dante witnesses a ferocious,
unending battle between the Wrathful;
the Sullen lie beneath the swamp’s
surface, denied the light of day forever.
Hoarding and Wasting
• Also referred to as Avarice and Prodigality
• Just as Dante elevated lust above gluttony, he
chooses to place financial avarice and
prodigality below consumption
– Timothy 6:10 claims avarice is "the root of all
evils,” and Raffa asserts that “medieval Christian
thought viewed the sin as most offensive to the
spirit of love”
– At least with consumption, someone benefits
(temporarily); no one benefits from obsessive
miserliness, nor from money wasted rather than
invested or spent wisely
• Just as he compared man’s hunger for political
power with gluttony via Ciacco’s prophecy,
Dante explicitly blames avarice for the
corruption gripping his city
• Unlike his fairly sympathetic portrayals of
sinners in the first three circles (Homer,
Francesca, Ciacco), Dante merely scorns the
sinners we find here
The Punishment
• The Fourth Circle’s punishment is shared by
Hoarders and Wasters alike; both parties strain
against giant rocks, yelling angrily at one
another as they charge and collide repeatedly
• The rocks symbolize the mundane nature of the
things the sinners obsessed over; now that
obsession is just dead weight
• Also, Dante notes that he can’t recognize any of
them individually; the combination of anger and
empty greed has dimmed their souls so greatly
that there’s nothing much left of them
• In order to drive home his view that Greed
destroys the light of God within a person, Dante
takes special care to note how many religious
officials – even popes! – appear here
Plutus
• It’s not clear what Plutus is exactly supposed to
be; some translators take Virgil’s “you wolf of
Hell!” statement literally and give him canine
features, while others claim he’s human
– Dante seems to be splitting the difference, giving
him speech while rendering him incapable of
delivering it in a fully human language
– His anger seems animalistic, hinting yet again at
our darker nature
• Also, it’s not clear which god he’s supposed to
represent; Pluto was the Lord of the Underworld
in many myths, whereas Plutus was simply a God
of Wealth
• Dante seems to be fusing Pluto’s ability to rule
with Plutus’s traditional status, thus creating a
creature who hungers for both power and
wealth – “the great enemy”
Fortune
• Dante believed that everything you did
came back to you in the end,
particularly due to divine influence; The
Inferno’s system of divinely-governed
poetic justice makes this perfectly clear
• However, what about what happens
along the way?
• Dante elevates Fortune above the fray of
the mortal world, painting her as a
distributor; just as God distributes light
and goodness throughout creation,
Fortune distributes worldly goods
• She is, in many ways, impossible for
mortals to understand (think
Gilgamesh’s divinities)
Fortune
• Boethius' Consolation of Philosophy, which
Dante read following Beatrice’s death, clearly
inspires Dante’s use of Fortune, although the
former’s is more negative
• He believed you should ignore what Fortune
brings you, concentrating instead on what you
knew to be permanent and certain (divine love
and justice, for example)
• Boethius illustrates this in Consolation by
showing himself as he’s gradually stripped of
everything – possessions, honor, freedom
– This obviously would have more relevance for
Dante in the years after he read the book!
• He eventually argues that the easiest way to
learn his lesson about Fortune is to experience
bad luck, for there is no better teacher that only
the immutable is worthwhile
In Conclusion
• The Fourth Circle is worth
knowing simply for its
portrayal of obsession (the
sinners’ obsession with
wealth) and its explanation of
Fortune’s role
• It’s also important to
remember both how the
sinners are punished and why
that punishment exists
Wrath and Sullenness
• It’s interesting that both the Fourth and
Fifth Circles contain linked sins; that
said, they’re linked in different ways
• The Hoarders and Wasters have
different sins, but they sin according to
the same principle (their attitudes
toward material wealth are corrupt);
this is why their punishments are
identical
• The Wrathful and the Sullen, on the
other hand, embody the same sin, but in
different forms: anger that’s expressed
immoderately (the Wrathful) and anger
that’s harmfully repressed (the Sullen);
this is why their punishments differ,
even though they live in the same area
The Punishment
• The Wrathful and the Sullen occupy the
Styx’s swamp-waters together
• The Wrathful are locked in an endless,
desperate physical battle in which every
soul fights the others; they can only see
and do hateful things
• The Sullen lie beneath the water,
gurgling out something approaching a
hymn – a darkly ironic twist,
considering that Dante believes they
wasted the light of God within
themselves by sulking (rather than
celebrating their fortune in life)
• The water over their heads symbolizes
the anger they internalized, using it to
distance themselves from God
Styx
• Styx was long used in mythology as
Hell’s major river, although it turns up
elsewhere as a marsh or swamp (Virgil
did this in The Aeneid)
• As usual, Dante’s descriptions are more
physically realistic than his
predecessors’
• Dante turns it into a swamp here in
order to heighten the sense that we’re
encountering corrupted morality; here,
the swamp is the Fifth Circle
• Like Acheron, Styx doubles as a border;
it separates Upper Hell from Dis, the
Walled City of Lower Hell
In Conclusion
• Even though we cover a lot of
ground here – two circles’
worth! – Canto VII is fairly
minor, and the Fifth Circle
barely registers
• It’s worth remembering for
its treatment of the final Sin
of the She-Wolf (the Heretics
of the Sixth Circle fit, but
only partially)
Canto VIII: Data File
• Settings: The Fifth Circle,
Styx, and Dis
• Figures: Phlegyas, Filippo
Argenti, Rebellious Angels
• Allusions: The Harrowing of
Hell
• Punishable Sins: Wrath and
Sullenness (Fifth Circle);
unofficially, the denial of
God’s will also counts
Canto VIII: Data File
• Summary: As the poets watch great
flames shoot up from towers on the
other side of Styx, Phlegyas races across
the marsh in order to shuttle them over
to Dis. He’s angry to see a mortal in Hell
(yet another Threshold Guardian!), but
Virgil deals with him in the usual
fashion. One member of the Wrathful,
Filippo Argenti, approaches the poets,
but he’s set upon and torn apart by his
fellow sinners (to Dante’s delight).
When the poets reach the gate of Dis,
they’re denied entrance by the
Rebellious Angels, and even Virgil can’t
force his way past them; the Canto ends
with the poets nervously awaiting divine
intervention from a Messenger.
Phlegyas
• Just like the other figures we’ve
encountered – Minos as the last
vanguard of Reason, Cerberus as
Gluttony personified, and Plutus as the
representation of Financial Avarice –
Phlegyas is associated with his realm’s
sin (in this case, uncontrollable wrath)
• That said, he’s angry for a reason; not
only is he the son of the old war god
(Ares), but another god, Apollo, raped
his daughter
– The furious father burned Apollo’s temple to
the ground, and was promptly slain by him
– He was then cast down to Hell for showing
contempt for the gods; this is where Virgil
shows him in The Aeneid
Filippo Argenti
• It’s not clear why Dante hates Filippo Argenti so
deeply, and it’s a little unsettling to see the poet
react so happily to the sight of a soul being torn
to shreds
– Virgil often has to rebuke Dante for showing
compassion for the sinners he encounters (after
all, he’s supposed to be recognizing and rejecting
sin), so the elder man approves of Dante’s hate
• We know little about him, save that he belonged
to the Neri faction (which would have placed him
at odds with Dante)
• Some critics suggest that Argenti had wronged
Dante in the past somehow, proposing that
Argenti’s brother took possession of Dante’s
property after his exile, or that Filippo himself
had slapped Dante during an argument
– Boccaccio just shows him beating someone in order
to highlight his violent temper
The Rebellious Angels
• The Rebellious Angels plummeted into
Hell after choosing the wrong side in
the great battle between God and Satan
(this separates them from the Angels
who chose no sides, who ended up in the
Vestibule)
• All traces of their former beauty have
been erased; now they’re simply
hideous, transformed by their wrath
and hatred into monsters
• They lie in wait outside of Dis (the
walled city of Lower Hell), trying to stop
the poets from entering; it’s
reminiscent of their failed resistance to
Christ during the Harrowing of Hell
The Resistance
• In theory, the Rebellious Angels
don’t have the right to deny Dante
and Virgil entrance to Dis; God’s
will still reigns supreme here
• However, these beings ended up
where they are because they
habitually resist God; it’s not like
they haven’t done this before
• What’s surprising is how troubled
Virgil seems; the end of the Canto
leaves readers worried and tense
In Conclusion
• Circles Four and Five close out our
experiences with the Sins of the
She-Wolf, although we can (and
will) lump the Heretics in with
them
• As we approach Dis, Dante’s
travels through Hell slow
markedly; there’s more time for
conversation and encounters
• None of these sins are “light” – but
we’re about to get serious