The Inferno: Canto 7
Created .For Lent, I'm reading The Inferno, the first part of The Divine Comedy by Dante Alighieri. As I read this classic work, I'll journal my experience. I'm using Anthony Esolen's translation, and will supplement my reading by listening to Ascend: The Great Books Podcast.
The plan is to read a Canto each day, once through on my own, then once with the notes in the back of the book, and journal my thoughts here.
Canto 7
Synopsis:
Dante and Virgil descend to the fourth ring of Hell. A rebuke from Virgil causes the gibbering demon Plutus to collapse. The avaricious suffer here, two opposing groups of damned souls pounding each other with rolled boulders and hurled insults. Some were hoarders, some prodigal, but all made worldly goods their idol. Virgil talks about the angel Fortune, who stirs up worldly goods with a plan unknowable to man. Moving to the fifth circle, the river Styx, they first encounter the wrathful, locked in endless violence in a muddy swamp. Virgil speaks of the sullen under the water, constantly rising and sinking, drowning and crying out from water-choked throats. Finally, they see a tower.
Thoughts:
I notice a pattern emerging after the encounter with Plutus: the demons gibber, posture, yell, and threaten, but are powerless before Virgil's rebukes. I'm not sure if it's the invocation of the Almighty—this is willed where power is power to do whatever it will—or if it's because the demons can't stand before opposition, like Cerberus with a double-mouthful of mud. I think the demons are weak, and crumble when challenged. Contrast the demons with the three beasts from Canto 1. The leopard, lion, and she-wolf are formidable and Dante's inability to get past them is the entire reason for this journey. These animals represent our own inclinations to sin, the result of the Fall, and will not be quelled by Virgil simply telling them to shut up and go away. Dante must change.
The avaricious are two groups forever at odds with each other. The greedy savers and prodigal spenders are two sides of the same coin. Both lost sight of the purpose of worldly goods—they are gifts from God, meant to be used for His purposes. Many of the damned souls in this circle are ordained, identifiable by their haircuts. Esolen notes, "...the only thing that distinguishes some of them, to their shame, is the haircut that was supposed to have served as a sign of their submission to God." (p.426)
Virgil's discourse on Fortune reminded me to step back and look at the big picture; we cannot understand the turnings of Fortune, the best we can do is to love the people we encounter and trust in God. I guess that "big picture" is actually more of a "small picture". This made me think of effective altruism and why I dislike the idea: it tries to be too big, judging the relative benefit of actions before they are taken. It assumes too much, and stinks of hubris.
The passage about the wrathful seems pretty straightforward. Given to wrath in life, they are reduced to pure violence here, naked, muddy, and in pain. Like the lustful, gluttonous, and avaricious that we've seen, nothing of the image of God remains—they are reduced to the sin that they gave themselves to in life.
Esolen identifies the sullen with the sin of acedia (sloth), "the sin against festivity itself" (p.427). When I was reading it, I identified it with a more common definition of sullen: "bad-tempered and uncommunicative, especially on account of resentment" (ref). When I read this section about the sullen, it caused me to wonder if the habitually sarcastic would fall into this circle—those sunken so deep in bitter sarcasm or irony that they have lost the ability to be sincere about anything.
Conclusion:
I'm starting to hit a rhythm when it comes to reading each Canto and reflecting on it. This mysterious tower that they see at the end of Canto Seven has me looking forward to reading the next part of the journey. As I think more about what the poem is telling me, I'm wanting to see how Dante changes through his journey, and want to see what happens in Purgatory, and eventually Paradise as well.