Tag: Circle Five: The Wrathful and the Sullen

February 16, 2024 – The Divine Comedy, Inferno, Canto VIII

February 16, 2024 /

This canto also covers some of two circles. Once again I am going to focus on the one of them, circle five the wrathful and sullen. Circle six will cover several cantos so we can cover that adequately next week. Don’t forget that this circle officially began last canto, but don’t worry I will cover it here.

It wasn’t just my imagination but reading the notes for this canto said that the last chapter was a change in philosophy. It is speculated that Dante took a break at Canto VII and that it was intended to be one circle per canto. But that break brought out a re-imagination about how the story was going to go. As a consequence, I am rolling with it. Next week will be three cantos for the first time.

There isn’t too much going on from this level. The setting is the river Styx. The condemned seem to be under the black and stinky water. Once again there was only one encounter, a fella by the name of Fillipo Argenti. He was apparently an argent enemy of Dante’s.

If you ask me, it seems like Dante was the wrathful in the story. Dante is using his writing as the vengeance that he seeks. Very little is said other than sharply condemns his enemy. So, I guess we will have to look at the crime (or end it here).

I think we all generally know what wrathful means. So let us look at sullen. The definition that I see for for the word means gloomily or resentfully silent or repressed. I rhetorically ask, is this really worthy of the fifth circle of hell? To date, the crimes have all been pretty petty to get into hell.

Apparently, level six is a transition from what is considered outer to inner hell. To get into inner hell, it is all contained in iron wall like a prison called the city of Dis. Another thing that I kind of find interesting is that most of these so called sins to date would not be considered crimes in our society. No assault or rape or murder, maybe those will be in the inner circle but even theft or larceny? Once again, the wrathful one seems like Dante.

I am not totally sure where to really go with this today other than it is very clear that this story is personal to Dante. So I am giving you an early weekend this week. The pace is going to pickup next week and go into hyperdrive for the following week. Get ready.

End Your Programming Routine: Like a good Christian, I believe in redemption. So, it would be a good idea for my soul not to get involved in too much wrathfulness or sullenness or gluttony or any of the other sins. That being said, if we do slip into any of those things, I can’t help but be thankful that something is out there to help out eternity.

February 9, 2024 – The Divine Comedy, Inferno, Canto VII

February 9, 2024 /

Today we are on the fourth circle of hell. Interestingly enough, this Canto contains the fourth circle and some of the fifth. I considered covering both but then in Canto VIII it covers the fifth and sixth circles. So, we will cover the fifth next week since the sixth overlaps multiple Cantos thereafter.

When I think about it, I understand that this story is written in a formula. Each Canto is approximately the same number of lines composed of equally divided stanzas. Each layer of the the afterworld contains nearly the same number of Cantos. Since this book seems largely a social commentary, I surmise that this fourth level of hell Dante didn’t have that much to say about it and hence he combined the levels so that the story would work with the formula.

The fourth circle is interesting from the fact that it is two opposite factions pitted against one another. If you think about it, the opposite of hoarding is wasting and vice versa. It would seem as though extremes in either direction warrant an afterlife in the fourth circle according to Dante. He describes the situation that they are like two gangs, pitted against each other like they are going to brawl. Being that this is a political commentary, I find it interesting that the only constituents mentioned were clergy and church officials in this realm. I will focus in on this a little bit for now.

In today’s vernacular, it seems like hoarders are also wasters. They can’t seem to move beyond all of their possessions including garbage. And so things that have value get lost or spoil in the trash. This definition is not the strict definition of hoarding however. Hoarding is taking what you can, because you can. Just like wasting is letting something degrade because you can.

Both of this positions seem to have a personal initiative component. The term waster has a clear visible effect whereas hoarder is more subjective. A lot of people like to equate people that prepare as hoarders when I believe nothing is farther from the truth. These are people that use the time of plenty to prepare for the time without. In a season of surplus, anyone with the means can purchase, make, etc. If you look at the perspective that way, anyone that preserves a garden or purchases a whole beef would be a hoarder. They are not going to eat it all in a couple days time, but it is necessary to take advantage of when it available.

As history gets exposed, it is becoming more clear that the clergy was a home for a lot of deviants and sociopaths. If you think about the middle ages where this story was written, the church was one of the few outlets to leave of peasantry. I imagine that upward mobility combined with sociopathy lead to a lot of hoarding and wasting. It is literally the holier than thou syndrome.

End Your Programming Routine: By no means is this intended to disrespect the clergy. But, the fact remains that a some people in that profession were not living to their core values. By all accounts, Dante was middle class and it also seems like he was on the losing side of a political conflict. It seems pretty likely that he might have an ax to grind with those who were probably doing wrong.