Canto 34 (Satan)

Wednesday,
November 05, 2008

10:13 AM

Canto XXXIV

Summary: Canto XXXIV

Still
journeying toward the center of the Ninth Circle of Hell, Dante becomes aware
of a great shape in the distance, hidden by the fog. Right under his feet,
however, he notices sinners completely covered in ice, sometimes several feet
deep, contorted into various positions. These souls constitute the most evil of
all sinners—the Traitors to their Benefactors. Their part of Hell, the Fourth
Ring of the Ninth Circle, is called Judecca.

Dante and
Virgil advance toward the giant, mist-shrouded shape. As they approach through
the fog, they behold its true form. The sight unnerves Dante to such an extent
that he knows not whether he is alive or dead. The figure is Lucifer, Dis,
Satan—no one name does justice to his terrible nature. The size of his arms
alone exceeds all of the giants of the Eighth Circle of Hell put together. He
stands in the icy lake, his torso rising above the surface. Gazing upward,
Dante sees that Lucifer has three horrible faces, one looking straight ahead
and the others looking back over his shoulders. Beneath each head rises a set
of wings, which wave back and forth, creating the icy winds that keep Cocytus
frozen.

Each of
Lucifer's mouths holds a sinner—the three greatest sinners of human history,
all Traitors to a Benefactor. In the center mouth dangles Judas Iscariot, who
betrayed Christ. In the left and right mouths hang Brutus and Cassius, who
murdered Julius Caesar in the Roman Senate. Brutus and Cassius appear with
their heads out, but Judas is lodged headfirst; only his twitching legs
protrude. The mouths chew their victims, constantly tearing the traitors to
pieces but never killing them. Virgil tells Dante that they have now seen all
of Hell and must leave at once.

Putting
Dante on his back, Virgil performs a startling feat. He avoids the flapping
wings and climbs onto Lucifer's body, gripping the Devil's frozen tufts of hair
and lowering himself and his companion down. Underneath Cocytus, they reach
Lucifer's waist, and here Virgil slowly turns himself around, climbing back
upward. However, Dante notes with amazement that Lucifer's legs now rise above
them, his head below. Virgil explains that they have just passed the center of
the Earth: when Lucifer fell from Heaven, he plunged headfirst into the planet;
his body stuck here in the center. According to Virgil, the impact caused the
lands of the Southern Hemisphere to retreat to the North, leaving only the
Mountain of Purgatory in the water of the South. Dante and Virgil climb a long
path through this hemisphere, until they finally emerge to see the stars again
on the opposite end of the Earth from where they began.

Analysis: Canto XXXIV

Here in
the Fourth Ring of the Ninth Circle of Hell, at the utter bottom, Dante comes
to the end of his hierarchy of sins and thus completes the catalogue of evil
that dominates and defines Inferno. Although Inferno explores most explicitly
the theme of divine retribution and justice, the poem's unrelenting
descriptions, categorizations, and analysis of sin makes human evil its
fundamental subject. The positioning of fraud as the worst of sins helps us to
define evil: fraud, more than any other crime, acts contrary to God's greatest
gift to mankind—love. A deed's degree of wickedness thus depends on the degree
to which it opposes love. So-called ordinary fraud only breaks the natural
bonds of trust and love that form between men; other categories of fraud reach
an even greater depth of evil because they break an additional bond of love. Of
these, frauds against kin, country, and guests constitute the lighter end of
the scale, for they violate only socially obligated bonds—our culture expects
us to love our family and our homeland and to be a good host. But fraud against
a benefactor constitutes the worst fraud of all, according to Dante, for it
violates a love that is purely voluntary, a love that most resembles God's love
for us. Correspondingly, one who betrays one's benefactor comes closest to
betraying God directly. Thus, the ultimate sinner, Judas Iscariot, was a man
who betrayed both simultaneously, for his benefactor was Jesus Christ.

The
justice of Brutus and Cassius's placement in the lowest depths of Hell is more
problematic. History tells us that these men did betray and murder Julius
Caesar, but Caesar's status as a great benefactor remains disputed. The
explanation for their presence lies in Dante's often-implied belief that Rome
is the sovereign city, destined to rule the world both physically and
spiritually. Just as Christ, whose church is centered in Rome, was the perfect
manifestation of religion, Dante feels that Caesar was the perfect
manifestation of secular government, as the emperor of Rome at the height of
its power. Since spiritual concerns must, in the end, outweigh temporal ones,
Judas has committed the greater sin, and his head, rather than his legs, feels
the constant chewing of Lucifer's teeth. However, the fact that Brutus and
Cassius suffer a punishment only slightly less harsh demonstrates Dante's
belief that church and state play equally important roles, each in its own
sphere. Throughout Inferno, Dante has expressed the view that church and state
should remain separate but equal. Now, Dante finds an arrangement for the final
circle of Hell that both completes his vision of the moral hierarchy and makes
one last, vivid assertion of his politics.

Dante's
portrait of Lucifer makes him a grotesque mimicry of God in Heaven, much in the
same way that the sinners' punishments in Hell grotesquely mimic their sins on
Earth. We recall that the poem refers earlier to Hell as a city—a perversion of
the city of God. In the same way, Lucifer, with his three heads in one body,
constitutes a perversion of the Trinity, the three aspects of the single God.
Medieval Christian theology held that evil can only mimic or distort, not
create; Lucifer is Dante's embodiment of this premise.

Dante
displays a surprisingly astute grasp of physics in describing Virgil and
Dante's transition between the Northern and Southern Hemispheres. Using Virgil
as a mouthpiece, he describes the center of the Earth as the point to which all
weight falls. This depiction, and Virgil and Dante's turnabout at the center,
forms a fairly accurate account of gravity; such an understanding eluded many
of Dante's contemporaries. The fanciful explanation of how Lucifer ended up at
the center of the Earth demonstrates a somewhat less keen comprehension of the
world, however: Dante, along with most fourteenth-century thinkers, believed
that the Southern Hemisphere contained no continents.

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Canto 34 (Satan)

Wednesday,
November 05, 2008

10:13 AM

Canto XXXIV

Summary: Canto XXXIV

Still
journeying toward the center of the Ninth Circle of Hell, Dante becomes aware
of a great shape in the distance, hidden by the fog. Right under his feet,
however, he notices sinners completely covered in ice, sometimes several feet
deep, contorted into various positions. These souls constitute the most evil of
all sinners—the Traitors to their Benefactors. Their part of Hell, the Fourth
Ring of the Ninth Circle, is called Judecca.

Dante and
Virgil advance toward the giant, mist-shrouded shape. As they approach through
the fog, they behold its true form. The sight unnerves Dante to such an extent
that he knows not whether he is alive or dead. The figure is Lucifer, Dis,
Satan—no one name does justice to his terrible nature. The size of his arms
alone exceeds all of the giants of the Eighth Circle of Hell put together. He
stands in the icy lake, his torso rising above the surface. Gazing upward,
Dante sees that Lucifer has three horrible faces, one looking straight ahead
and the others looking back over his shoulders. Beneath each head rises a set
of wings, which wave back and forth, creating the icy winds that keep Cocytus
frozen.

Each of
Lucifer's mouths holds a sinner—the three greatest sinners of human history,
all Traitors to a Benefactor. In the center mouth dangles Judas Iscariot, who
betrayed Christ. In the left and right mouths hang Brutus and Cassius, who
murdered Julius Caesar in the Roman Senate. Brutus and Cassius appear with
their heads out, but Judas is lodged headfirst; only his twitching legs
protrude. The mouths chew their victims, constantly tearing the traitors to
pieces but never killing them. Virgil tells Dante that they have now seen all
of Hell and must leave at once.

Putting
Dante on his back, Virgil performs a startling feat. He avoids the flapping
wings and climbs onto Lucifer's body, gripping the Devil's frozen tufts of hair
and lowering himself and his companion down. Underneath Cocytus, they reach
Lucifer's waist, and here Virgil slowly turns himself around, climbing back
upward. However, Dante notes with amazement that Lucifer's legs now rise above
them, his head below. Virgil explains that they have just passed the center of
the Earth: when Lucifer fell from Heaven, he plunged headfirst into the planet;
his body stuck here in the center. According to Virgil, the impact caused the
lands of the Southern Hemisphere to retreat to the North, leaving only the
Mountain of Purgatory in the water of the South. Dante and Virgil climb a long
path through this hemisphere, until they finally emerge to see the stars again
on the opposite end of the Earth from where they began.

Analysis: Canto XXXIV

Here in
the Fourth Ring of the Ninth Circle of Hell, at the utter bottom, Dante comes
to the end of his hierarchy of sins and thus completes the catalogue of evil
that dominates and defines Inferno. Although Inferno explores most explicitly
the theme of divine retribution and justice, the poem's unrelenting
descriptions, categorizations, and analysis of sin makes human evil its
fundamental subject. The positioning of fraud as the worst of sins helps us to
define evil: fraud, more than any other crime, acts contrary to God's greatest
gift to mankind—love. A deed's degree of wickedness thus depends on the degree
to which it opposes love. So-called ordinary fraud only breaks the natural
bonds of trust and love that form between men; other categories of fraud reach
an even greater depth of evil because they break an additional bond of love. Of
these, frauds against kin, country, and guests constitute the lighter end of
the scale, for they violate only socially obligated bonds—our culture expects
us to love our family and our homeland and to be a good host. But fraud against
a benefactor constitutes the worst fraud of all, according to Dante, for it
violates a love that is purely voluntary, a love that most resembles God's love
for us. Correspondingly, one who betrays one's benefactor comes closest to
betraying God directly. Thus, the ultimate sinner, Judas Iscariot, was a man
who betrayed both simultaneously, for his benefactor was Jesus Christ.

The
justice of Brutus and Cassius's placement in the lowest depths of Hell is more
problematic. History tells us that these men did betray and murder Julius
Caesar, but Caesar's status as a great benefactor remains disputed. The
explanation for their presence lies in Dante's often-implied belief that Rome
is the sovereign city, destined to rule the world both physically and
spiritually. Just as Christ, whose church is centered in Rome, was the perfect
manifestation of religion, Dante feels that Caesar was the perfect
manifestation of secular government, as the emperor of Rome at the height of
its power. Since spiritual concerns must, in the end, outweigh temporal ones,
Judas has committed the greater sin, and his head, rather than his legs, feels
the constant chewing of Lucifer's teeth. However, the fact that Brutus and
Cassius suffer a punishment only slightly less harsh demonstrates Dante's
belief that church and state play equally important roles, each in its own
sphere. Throughout Inferno, Dante has expressed the view that church and state
should remain separate but equal. Now, Dante finds an arrangement for the final
circle of Hell that both completes his vision of the moral hierarchy and makes
one last, vivid assertion of his politics.

Dante's
portrait of Lucifer makes him a grotesque mimicry of God in Heaven, much in the
same way that the sinners' punishments in Hell grotesquely mimic their sins on
Earth. We recall that the poem refers earlier to Hell as a city—a perversion of
the city of God. In the same way, Lucifer, with his three heads in one body,
constitutes a perversion of the Trinity, the three aspects of the single God.
Medieval Christian theology held that evil can only mimic or distort, not
create; Lucifer is Dante's embodiment of this premise.

Dante
displays a surprisingly astute grasp of physics in describing Virgil and
Dante's transition between the Northern and Southern Hemispheres. Using Virgil
as a mouthpiece, he describes the center of the Earth as the point to which all
weight falls. This depiction, and Virgil and Dante's turnabout at the center,
forms a fairly accurate account of gravity; such an understanding eluded many
of Dante's contemporaries. The fanciful explanation of how Lucifer ended up at
the center of the Earth demonstrates a somewhat less keen comprehension of the
world, however: Dante, along with most fourteenth-century thinkers, believed
that the Southern Hemisphere contained no continents.

Pasted
from <file:///G:\English\Dante\01-Canto%20XXXIV.doc>