Dante's Wisdom ~ Inferno (Part IV)

{find part I here, if you want}

{find part II here, if you want}

{find part III here, if you want}

So ~ now we find ourselves at Hell's Seventh Circle, which contains three rounds ~ one each for sinners who have committed acts of violence against neighbours, violence against self, violence against God, nature and art. Its clear to me, particularly in this circle of Hell, that Dante's Inferno represents a sort of Catholic rendition of kharma, assigning eternal consequences fitting to the actions committed by the souls in question. The notion of the inner violence of one's soul as seeding one's violent actions in life ... and also the notion of fortune as a manifestation of the free will of other humans, which impinge upon each of us ... these stand out for me, as I reflect on Cantos XII through XVI of Inferno.

In the first round, the poets find a scalding, boiling river of blood, the Phlegathon, in which the souls of those who shed the blood the fellow man during their corporeal existence wallow and boil. How fitting, given these souls spent their earthly lives wallowing in the blood other others. Now, they wallow, shrieking all the while, for eternity in the scalding purple river which flows through the entire Seventh Circle of Hell.

The poets encounter the Minotaur, the beast who guards the souls of Hell's Seventh Circle. Fitting, in a Dantean manner, that a beast who devoured human flesh in his lifetime ... a beast conceived from an unholy union, would eternally guard the wraiths incarcerated within this part of Hell. Similarly, the Centaurs also find themselves in this part of Hell, as guardians of those who wallow in this shelf's first round, The poets then pass the broken rocks of Hell ~ the ruins of the Harrowing of Hell, which occurred after Christ's death, when he descended into Hell. Virgil theorizes that the elemental matter of the earth, of Hell itself, felt harmony ~ the harmony of love from Christ's soul ... causing it to implode in chaos.

After the poets receive assistance from one of the centaurs in crossing the bloody and boiling Phlegathon, they arrive at the second round of Hell's Seventh Circle ~ The Wood of the Suicides. As these souls destroyed their own substance in their earthly existence, thus bringing about their own death, so shall they spent an eternity encased in the thorny trees of these woods. Harpies, defilers of all they touch, eternally guard these souls, feeding upon them. The Harpies feed on these souls, creating bleeding wounds ... wounds which provide the only means through which these souls can speak. Here we see another layer of symbolism ~ suicide relieves pain and causes pain, simultaneously. The loudest cry one hears from the one who has suicided himself involves the damnable act of taking his own life.

Having emerged from The Wood of the Suicides, the poets encounter the third round of Hell's Seventh Circle. A slow, eternal rain of fire descends upon a barren landscape of burning sand. The souls of this part of Hell find themselves wallowing in these burning sands, or fleeing endlessly at the insistence of divine compulsion. The symbolism here, of course, speaks to the barrenness of such sins these souls committed during earthly existence. And the perversion of nature, we can see emerging in the rain ~ normally cool and fertile ~ which here, descends as fire. All that we see here, in this circle of Hell, represents the inner violence which really seeds all the sins punishable here.

Dante makes reference to, in these Cantos, the descent of Hell as metaphorical for decline of man, and the waters of Hell ~ which flow to its very icy depths ~ as symbolizing the tears of man's woe. He uses the figure of the Old Man of Crete to conjure this rich symbolism. Also worth noting, perhaps, the fact that Dante encounters a beloved acquaintance here, in the third round. He expresses great sorrow, while respecting the fate of his friend's damnation.