ctaylor

“Look, if you had one shot, one opportunity

To seize everything you ever wanted…one moment

Would you capture it or just let it slip?” (Lose Yourself, Eminem)

In Canto 31, Virgil and Dante take advantage of the suave words Virgil speaks to Antaeus to pursuade him to lower them into the last pit of hell.  If they want to complete their journey they have to take advantage of every possible "shot" to achieve their goal.  In Canto 33, Friar Algberigo sees his chance, in Dante's arrival and passage through, to regain a little fame through Dante by telling him his story.  Dante wishes to hear about his predicament, and the Friar tells him.  He is then eternally commemorated by being included in The Inferno.  In Canto 34, Virgil gets one shot to escape from hell with Dante and captures the moment do it.  Virgil was "watching for a moment when the wings were opened wide, reached over dexterously and siezed the shaggy coat of the king demon" (The Inferno, p.185).  Then Virgil climbs down the devils lower half to the center of the earth, then flips over and climbs up the last part of the devil.  Then they climb back onto the earths surface.  All three of these situations were a single opportunity situation where the person could take advantage of the opportunity or forever hold their peace because they would never get anoth chance, this was their only shot, and they call captured it.

“O human race born to fly upward, wherefore at a little wind dost thou fall” (The Divine Comedy).  In The Inferno, there are three Florentines that Dante meets, well known Florentines that Dante approaches and speaks with, and Pope Nicholas III who were all highly respected people in their lives on the earth, but crashed into the condemnation of torture in the Seventh and Eighth Circle of Hell.  The three Florentines in Round Three of Circle Seven are Guido Guerra, Tegghiaio Aldobrandi, and Jacopo Rusticucci.  These three men were “higher then you think there in the world, in honor and degree” (The Inferno, p. 143) “whose good counsels the world would have done well to understand” (The Inferno, p. 144).  The third says “I owe my sorrows to a savage wife” (The Inferno, p. 144).  These three men were of high stature during their lives.  They all, though, committed violence against nature and art.  These three men flew upward in life, succeeding in every aspect they wanted to, but they had one flaw, a little wind, that brought their achievements tumbling to eternal torture.  At the end of Round Three, just before Dante and Virgil board Geryon for their flight into the next circle of hell, Dante speaks to a Paduan for Florentine who is waiting the arrival of Vitaliano “the sovereign cavalier” (The Inferno, p. 151), who the translator, John Ciardi, traces to Giovanni di Buiamonte.  Buiamonte was an esteemed Florentine and held many high offices, but was violent against the arts, which was the little wind that would cause his fall from the high offices into the Third Round of The Seventh Circle.  In the Third Bolgia of Circle Eight Dante meets Pope Nicholas III, who obviously held a high office in the Church during life, was tormented in this section of hell because he bought his way into the position.  The little wind that collapsed his high flight of Papacy was how he obtained his situation.  All of these wraiths were of high standards and lived well respected lives, but had one short-coming that made a little wind, that converted their high flying into a fall, landing them in hell.

"In the middle of the journey of our life I came to myself within a dark wood where the straight way was lost" (The Divine Comedy).  There are three places in The Inferno that touch on the same subject as the one from The Divine Comedy quoted above.  The first is when Virgil is explaining to Dante why some of the souls are tormented outside of the Red City, while the rest are tortured inside.  Virgil asks Dante, "Have you forgotten that your Ethics states the three main dispositions of the soul that lead to those offences Heaven hates- incontinence, malice, and bestiality?" (The Inferno, p. 106).  Virgil reminds Dante of the three offences that will lead a soul to the "dark wood" where they probably will not be saved from, as Dante was.  Dante was saved from the evil that he was caught in by a divine soul that wished the salvation of his soul.  Dante must have committed one of the three offences, because he was in the dark woods.  According to Virgil, every soul in hell has committed one of the offences and the road to hell is the dark woods.  As Dante and Virgil enter the first round of Circle seven, Virgil explains to Dante that he is viewing "all who struck down their fellow men"(The Inferno, p. 112).  In the second round of Circle seven, Virgil instructs Dante to break a branch off a tree.  The tree tells Dante his story, the Virgil tells Dante to ask any questions he has of the tree.  Dante asks Virgil to ask the question he would best learn from, so Virgil asks the tree how spirits become encaged in the tree.  The tree responds shortly that, "when out of the flesh from which it tore itself, the violent spirit comes. . ." (The Inferno, p. 122).  These two quotes tell about what souls did that condemned their souls to their entrance into the dark woods, which in then lead them to their eternal torture in the seventh Circle of hell.  Those who killed other or killed themselves were sentenced to the first and second round of Circle seven.  The third round is Blasphemers, who were violent against God, Sodomites, who were violent against nature (homosexuals), and Usurers, who were violent against art.  These actions made these souls find themselves in the dark wood, and then in hell.  These three rounds of Circle seven are full of souls that were bestial, which is one of the three offences that Heaven hates, and is the darkness that makes a soul lose the straight way.

"There is no greater sorrow than to be mindful of the happy time in misery"(The Divine Comedy).  Dante and Virgil encounter three spirits that are currently in a state of misery, but are mindful of the happy times when they were alive.  In Circle three, a spirit sits up abruptly when Dante passes and asks Dante if he remembers him.  Dante replies that he doesn't recognise his face, but that it may have been distorted by his sufferings.  The spirit replys that he was a citizen of Florence called Ciacco, or The Hog.  Ciacco, while in his misery, is thinking about his happy, living past, and also the future of the Blacks and Whites.  His prophesy is mournful because he remembers the time in his life when he was happy, and is currently in a more somber situation.  In the sixth circle, Filippo Argenti rose up from the slime of the swap to harass Dante as he passed on Phlegyas' boat.  When Dante asks who he is, he says he is, "'one who weeps'" (The Inferno).  The spirit became morbid when he saw Dante , who was there before his time.  It reminded him of when he was happy and made him miserable.  Upon entering circle six, Dante talks to a few souls who are burning in a stone coffin.  One of them is Cavalcante Del Cavalcanti.  He expected Dante to be lead by his son, Guido.  When Dante tells him he is being lead by Virgil, the spirit mistakes his words for Guido's death.  The sight of a mortal being reminds Cavalcante of the happiness he shared with his son.  When he finds that he isn't there, he weeps and falls backward into the flame because he was thinking of a jovial time, while in an atmosphere much more depressing.  All three of these spirits think on a happier time, while in a miserable situation and become sad, weep, and mourn.

"A great flame follows a little spark" (The Divine Comedy).  Dante finds himself in the dark woods of error.  He tries to make his way out to the mountain of joy, when he is confronted by three wild beasts.  An action of his, the one that caused him to be in the dark woods was a spark that exploded into a flame, his onerous journey through hell.  The first souls that Dante sees being tormented are the souls of people that eschewed any and every path, good or evil.  These people, even though they committed no evil in their lives, they did no good either, living only for themselves and are punished to an eternal torment of being chased by a swarm of wasps and hornets, which make them bleed.  They had a little spark, being amoral, and the denouement was a great flame of eternal torment to be brought upon them.  The first circle of hell that Dante encounters if filled with "virtuous pagans."  They were born before Christianity, which was their spark.  When they were born, their life was an imprecation.  They could not be redeemed because Christ had not been born yet, so they are not tormented, but instead are engulfed in the pain of having no hope. 

»10:25 AM    »4 comments     »0 TrackBack(s)     »Send entry    

Posted by: ctaylor
Modified on January 12, 2006 at 9:55 AM