Summary:

     We finished talking about the last sections of the 8th circle. The deceivers with their flaming tongues, the sowers of schism (Mohammed), the falsifiers of metals/nature and finally the Ninth circle with the river Cocytus and the traitors frozen in it. Dante met several famous people from all throughout history such as Ulysses. He among others are proof that metis generally leads you to Hell, for metis is not virtuous and therefore does not receive such merit that it earns in ancient Greece. As Dante travels on his journey, he frequently feels pity for the victims who suffer. After a reprimand from Virgil, he gradually improves and we see that the running theme throughout the epic is that God is just. The nature of the people in Hell stays the same. They are ever committing the same sin and always will into eternity. It is not the way to true happiness. 

     We returned to Canto V for an in-depth look at the circle of Hell where the crime is lust. For this the sinners receive the punishment of being whirled around in heavy winds which were a metaphor for how they lived their lives: blown around by lust. Furthermore, we delved deeper into the most infamous scences of Inferno. We discussed the parallels seen between Francesca and Paolo as compared to Guinevere and Lancelot's romance. Overall, one sees how Francesca "seduces" Dante with her story, sharing with him how she and Paolo first came to be. It is seen how the couple used the book involving the characters Guinevere and Lancelot as their Galehot. In the end, Dante faints, and though he is not dead, it shows how one should not pity anyone in hell and how dangerous it is for the living to fall unconscious in such a world.

Word Count: 197

Passages:

"And all the while

the one of the two spirits spoke these words,

the other wept, in such a way that pity

blurred my senses; I swooned as though to die,

and fell to Hell's floor as a body, dead, falls."

Canto V

Lines 138-142

•      This passage illustrates two things, first about Dante himself, and second about the residents of Hell. At this stage of his journey, Dante is wrongly sympathetic to the residents of Hell. He has not yet fully realized that pitying them does no good. The people in Hell got there by sinning in life, and they continue to sin in Hell, doing precisely what they did in life. Sympathizing with them for doing wrong will not get them out of Hell, and puts Dante himself at risk, for what he does nears him to sin and causes him to faint. Dante is a living person who is not bound to Hell, but should he "die" in Hell, such as his fainting spell, he could become stuck in Hell himself. Francesca is also at fault; it's her seducing, her sin from when she was alive, that evokes such emotions from Dante.

"I and my mates were old and tired men.

Then finally we reached the narrow neck

where Hercules put up his signal-pillars

to warn men not to go beyond that point.

On my right I saw Seville, and passed beyond;

on my left, Ceuta had already sunk behind me.

'Brothers,' I said, 'who through a hundred thousand

perils have made your way to reach the West,

during this so brief vigil of our senses

that is still reserved for us, do not deny

yourself experience of what there is beyond,

behind the sun, in the world they call unpeopled.

Consider what you came from: you are Greeks!

You were not born to live like mindless brutes

but to follow paths of excellence and knowledge.'

With this brief exhortation I made my crew

so anxious for the way that lay ahead,

that then I hardly could have held them back."

Canto XXVI

Lines 106-123

•      Here we have the words of Ulysses, or by his Greek name Odyssyeus, a legendary hero of ancient Greece. However, he was not virtuous in the eyes of the Christian faith, as his chief reason to earn his fame was his metis, his powers of deception and trickery. The ancient Greeks treasured metis, but the Christians of Dante's time did not. We also see Odyssyeus urging his men to proceed forward past signs of danger, for the purpose of gaining knowledge. Ignoring warnings to gain knowledge, or in a more general sense attempting to go where one is not allowed to, and the resulting consequences, is a recurring theme. In the Garden of Eden, eating the Fruit of Knowledge resulted in Adam and Eve being cast out. The builders of the Tower of Babel were trying to construct a means of reaching Heaven, and had their languages scrambled as a means of preventing such a thing.

"If the thought of what my heart was telling me

does not fill you with grief, how cruel you are!

If you are not weeping now--do you ever weep?"

Canto XXXIII

Lines 40-42

•      Here, Dante has learned one of the lessons that was intended for him to understand, and pass on the teaching to the living. He fully understands at this point that those trapped in Hell condemned themselves as a result of their sin, and that their existence in Hell is naught but the perpetuation of their living sin. Thus there is no need or purpose in pitying them, as he would be sympathizing with sin.

Terms:

Contrapasso- counter penalty (one of the few Italian words left untranslated)

Courtly Love- afflicts the noble. The man wears the lady's scarf on their lance into battle, etc. Both must be completely submissive to love and passion. They must be true to their love and be selfless. It is usually unrequited (at least for a while).

Galehot-something that is used as a "go between" or messenger; seen in the story of Lancelot and Guinevere, Galehot was the noble knight who sent messages to and from the lovers and in the situation of Francesca and Paolo, the book that they read (which was in fact the story of Lancelot and Guienevere) was their Galehot.