Inferno

1
Inferno

• Cantos IV-V

2
Circle One LimboThe Virtuous Pagans

• There is no harsh punishment
• No tortured wailing rose to greet us here, but
  sounds of sighing rose from every sidea grief
  breathed out of untormented sadness (25-29).
• Sinners born before Christs teachings
• Their birth fell before the age of the Christian
  mysteries, and so they did not worship Gods
  trinity, (36-39).
• Still considered virtuous respected

3
The Virtuous Pagans

• For such defects are we lost, though spared the
  fire and suffering of hell in one affliction
  only that without hope we live on in desire,
  (40-43)
• They now know Christs teachings
• They will never know him (heaven)

4
The Virtuous Pagans

• The signature honors
• left on earth is recognized in Heaven
• and wins them ease in Hell out of Gods
  favor.
• (76-78)
• Honored in life and respected in death (heaven)
• Homer, Lucan, Ovid, Horace

5
Virgil

• One of the Virtuous Pagans
• The pain of these below us here,
• drains the color from my face of pity..
  (19-20)
• Guides Dante
• You do not question
• what souls these are that suffer here before
  you?
• I wish you to know before you travel
  on(31-33)

6
Citadel of Human Reason

• we reached the base of a great Citadel
• circled by seven towering battlements
• and by a sweet brook flowing all around them
• This we passed over as if firm ground.
• Through seven gates I entered with those sages
• and came to a green meadow blooming round.
• (106-111)
• Citadel philosophy
• 7 liberal arts/ sciences
• Water separates them from those in darkness

7
Inhabitants

• Heroes and Heroines
• Trojans
• Hector, Aeneas
• The Philosophers
• Acceptable to the church
• Plato, Aristotle
• The Naturalists
• Theoreticians, historians of science

8
Canto V

• Circle Two
• The Carnal

9
Minos

• There Minos sits, grinning, grotesque, and
  hale./ He examines each lost soul as it arrives/
  and delivers his verdict with his coiling tail.
  (4-6
• Judges and delivers the realm the soul will
  reside in
• From mythology, King of Crete
• Known for wisdom
• Presented as horrific in Inferno
• Zeus took form of bull and raped Europa

10
Minos

• when the ill-fated soul
• appears before him it confesses all,
• and the grim sorter of the dark and foul
• decides which place in Hell shall be its end,
• then wraps his twitching tail about himself
• one coil for each degree it must descend.
• (7-12)
• Souls want to confess
• They choose their fate, free will

11
The Carnal

• I came to a place stripped bare of every light
• and roaring on the naked dark like seas
• wracked by a war of winds. Their hellish
  flight
• Of storm and counterstorm through time foregone,
• sweeps the souls of the damned before its
  charge.
• Whirling and battering it drives them on
  (28-34)
• Committed in dark
• Swept by temptations
• Had no restraint so brutally hit
• Sins of the she-wolf

12
The Carnal

• Associated with love
• Least severe punishment

13
Sinners

• Dido
• Left husband for Aeneas
• Achilles
• Deserted Greeks for Love
• Francesca Paolo
• Affair
• Husband killed them (Caina, treacherous to kin)

14
Dantes Emotional Reaction

• and I was swept by pity and confusion (72)
• I felt my sense reel
• and faint away with anguish. I was swept
• by such a swoon as death is, and I fell,
• as a corpse might fall, to the dead floor of
  Hell. (136-140)
• Pities souls
• Resemble his love for Beatrice