What Evil Marked the Hour

1
What Evil Marked the Hour

• Feraco
• Myth to Science Fiction
• 3 December 2009

2
Circle Eight

• There are two types of fraud, with many other
  sub-types Simple Fraud (Circle 8) and Compound
  Fraud (Circle 9)
• The two types are separated by the sinners
  relation to his victim, with Compound Fraud
  referring to betrayal, i.e. Fraud that violates
  those with special ties to the sinner, and works
  particularly well thanks to those ties (the
  victim lowers their guard)

3
Circle Eight

• Special ties include relatives, political/civic
  comrades, trusted friends, guests, and
  masters/benefactors
• While Dante believes we all share a bond given to
  us by God human being to human being none of
  the other victim/sinner relationships are strong
  enough to count as Compound Fraud

4
Circle Eight

• Remember Dantes reason for viewing fraud as the
  worst of the Three-Beast Sins only humans commit
  it
• Moreover, Dante was not merely a religious man
  he was also a creature of human reason

5
Circle Eight

• Fraud is always the corruption of reason, both on
  the part of the victim (believing something he
  shouldnt) and the liar (using their knowledge to
  their perverse advantage)
• Therefore, fraud results in the combined
  corruption of God, reason, and the human spirit

6
Malebolge

• Malebolge retains the circular structure of the
  other circles, but its a multi-level realm
  think movie theatre seating, which slopes
  downward fairly dramatically
• The series of stone ditches (ten in all) are
  connected along the slope by a series of stone
  bridges
• Male bad bolge series of bolgia pouch and
  ditch

7
Malebolge

• The Bolgia were ditches full of bad people, to
  the point that theyre almost swollen with
  sinners hence the ditch/pouch dual meaning
• The poets will use the bridges to descend to the
  Central Pit of Malebolge, where theyll encounter
  the Giants

8
Degradation

• The first two ditches present the poets with
  images of degraded sexuality, but degradation in
  particular links the Bolgia as we move down the
  bridges
• The degradation results not just from presenting
  a false face to a trusting world (thus violating
  the divine connection between individuals), but
  from essentially trying to upset the natural
  balance of power by trading what shouldnt be
  traded sex, honor, God, power in order to
  garner more influence over their world
• Remember the Usurers? They made bad trades as
  well thus linking Circle Seven with Circle
  Eight

9
Bolgia One

• In Bolgia One, Panderers were pimps, many of whom
  pitched their family members to powerful figures
  in order to curry influence, while Seducers used
  others for sexual purposes with no real intention
  of committing to their partners
• The two groups walk on either side of the ditch
  in opposite directions, while horned demons lash
  at them to keep them walking
• The lashing fits because both groups goaded
  others in order to benefit themselves, driving
  others in life as they are now driven in death
  (with the demons representing the sinners guilty
  consciences)

10
Bolgia Two

• In Bolgia Two, Flatters merely spouted worthless
  words the equivalent of the excrement they
  wallow in but one figure, Thais, links back to
  the sex-based debasement of Bolgia One
• She was a prostitute who supposedly used flattery
  to maintain a relationship with one member of her
  clientele (Thais actually didnt do so Dante
  just misread a passage from Cicero)

11
Bolgia Three

• Even the Simoniacs in Bolgia Three corrupt
  religious officials who sold ecclesiastic favors
  and offices in order to enhance their material
  wealth and earthly influence serve as pimps,
  albeit of a spiritual sort, prostituting the
  church while pretending to act in the name of
  divine love
• Here, the sinners are placed upside down in
  tubes, round holes meant to recall baptismal
  fonts
• Their feet are coated in oil and set on fire,
  with the temperature of the flame corresponding
  to the gravity of their sins
• None of the sinners get to stay in the tubes as
  new sinners arrive, the old sinners are shunted
  into crevices in the rock below, where theyll be
  sealed in, upside down, forever

12
Bolgia Three

• Theyre upside down because they reversed the
  duties of the office (always be good and
  honorable), and set on fire in order to draw a
  cruel distinction between a sinners baptism in
  life (water) and in death (fire)
• The oil on their feet mocks the oil used while
  performing the Last Rites for the Dying this is
  the last experience (outside of their eternal
  imprisonment in the rock) that these souls will
  ever have
• As for that imprisonment, instead of emerging
  into the world (birth), theyre being forced back
  into the darkness from whence their souls once
  issued (into the earth-womb)

13
Bolgia Four

• The Fortune-Tellers in Bolgia Four further
  degrade spirituality by attempting to use dark
  arts in order to gain more power (seeing the
  future and benefitting from it) than God meant
  for any human to possess Simon Magus (the
  original Simoniac) betrayed God by turning to
  sorcery in order to gain more control over his
  world
• Thus Bolgia Fours corruption links spirituality
  (Bolgia Three) and responsible use of power
  (Bolgia Five)

14
Bolgia Four

• Since they tried breaking the rules to look too
  far forward, their heads are forever reversed on
  their bodies, so that they must look and walk
  backwards for all eternity, weeping all the while
• Since sorcery distorts God (and His Will), the
  sinners bodies are distorted in Hell

15
Bolgia Five

• The Grafters of Bolgia Five are corrupt political
  officials those who used their high office to
  curry favor or monetary gain who essentially
  pimp government in the same way that the
  Simoniacs pimped the church and the Panderers
  pimped their sisters
• Remember, this was the crime Dante was accused of
  when he left Florence its been hinted at in
  other Circles, and is made explicit here
• The Grafters profess to be working for the public
  good while theyre really only working for their
  own benefit, which links them with Bolgia Six

16
Bolgia Five

• The Grafters are sunk in sticky, boiling,
  blackened pitch, and set upon by demons (the
  Malebranche) who tear them apart with claws and
  hooks if they ever surface
• The Malebranche (Evil Claws), like the Grafters,
  always hunger for more, and their tools hook and
  tear as well (just as the Grafter grapples and
  tears at that which he skims from) Malacoda (Bad
  End) is their leader
• The stickiness of the Grafters pitch symbolizes
  their sticky fingers when it came to skimming
  funds that werent theirs
• The black pitch hides their souls from sight,
  just as their deeds were always hidden

17
Bolgia Six

• The Hypocrites in Bolgia Six walk in endless
  circles around a narrow track, weighed down by
  leaden robes looking for all the world like a
  monks habit that shine brilliantly
• That which shines may pass for holiness, but when
  deceit lies beneath it, the deceiver must bear
  that terrible weight especially in Hell, where
  such weight lasts for all time
• Everyone walks on Caiaphas, who advised the
  Pharisees to crucify Christ for expediencys sake
• He now suffers the weight of the worlds
  hypocrisy, and hes nailed to the ground in a
  reflection of the pose Christ assumed during
  crucifixion

18
Bolgia Seven

• Bolgia Seven is a pit full of Thieves mixed with
  monstrous reptiles after all, theft is a
  reptilian sin
• The Thieves suffer three fates
• The luckiest are merely set upon by reptiles that
  proceed to slither all over their bodies while
  binding their hands behind their backs, because
  their hands were the tools they used to commit
  their crimes
• Others must dodge reptiles that launch themselves
  at the sinners if one lands on you, it sinks its
  fangs into the sinner until the afflicted shade
  explodes in flames, only to reform painfully from
  its own ashes
• Since each sinner made his fellow mans substance
  disappear in life (see Squanderers), his
  substance is annihilated time and time again

19
Bolgia Seven

• The final state for each sinner is endless,
  painful transformation other shades set upon
  them, trying to steal their substance for their
  own
• Some, having been reduced to reptilian form,
  forcibly steal the human forms of others, who
  then try to do the same
• In the end, no one really has anything anymore
  only desperation, fear, and obsessive hunger
  remain

20
Bolgia Eight

• The Evil Counselors in Bolgia Eight move about
  while encased within tongues of flame the fire
  burns so brightly that its virtually impossible
  to see the souls
• They abused Gods gift in this case, stealing
  and repurposing mans ability to trust other men
  for their own ends, working in hidden ways all
  while presenting a public face
• Thus the sinners are hidden away within the
  flames that symbolize their own consciences
  burning
• Finally, the Thieves sinned with their hands, and
  their hands were incorporated into their
  punishments the Evil Counselors wicked tools
  are their tongues, so theyre punished within
  tongues of flame
• Rhetoric lies at the foundation of human reason,
  but the Evil Counselors use it to break reason

21
Bolgia Nine

• The Sowers of Discord in Bolgia Nine exist in
  various horrifying states of evisceration
  (depending, once more, on the gravity of each
  sinners wrongdoing), with their wounds knitting
  and reforming as they walk in an endless parade
• The three types of Discord prominently featured
  here are Religious Discord, Political Discord,
  and Familial Discord/Discord Between Kinsmen

22
Bolgia Nine

• Dante argues that God wants us to be united
  (hence the real value of Love, which is a way of
  permanently unifying human beings) by sowing
  discord, these sinners have torn apart that which
  God meant to be joined (especially for those who
  sowed discord within families)
• Therefore, Gods punishment is to violently tear
  them apart, over and over again, while theyre
  forced to walk in circles long enough to let
  their wounds heal before enduring them again

23
Bolgia Ten

• We see four classes of Falsifiers in Bolgia Ten
  Alchemists, Evil Impersonators, Counterfeiters,
  and False Witnesses
• The Falsifiers bodies are warped, diseased, and
  dysfunctional, and they face a terrifying gamut
  of punishments we see just about anything
  horrible that Dante can conceive of (darkness,
  filth, disease, thirst, stench, shrieks,
  immobility, quasi-cannibalism) here

24
Bolgia Ten

• These sinners corrupted society in various ways,
  so what we see here is what society would look
  like if we had no morals or capacity for reason
  if we were simply instinctive creatures forever
  pursuing our own self-interest
• We would have burned out the worlds light long
  ago
• Here, every single sense you have betrays you by
  adding to your suffering, rather than guiding you
  just as falsifiers deceive you, particularly
  the False Witnesses (who are the closest one can
  come to Compound Fraud/Betrayal without actually
  committing it)

25
The Central Pit of Malebolge

• The Giants live in the Central Pit of Malebolge,
  guarding its farthest reaches by standing within
  the pit that leads to Cocytus
• They are the sons of the earth and embodiment of
  the primal and primitive, buried deep within the
  earth
• Theyre desire unbalanced by morals, especially
  love, and acknowledge no law political,
  theological, etc.
• They symbolize the essence of primitive passion
  at the heart of every man an essence that man
  must confront, recognize, and purge in order to
  elevate himself and reach salvation