Canto XXII 
Still in the eighth circle, fifth ditch, which contains the bribe-takers, the pair set off accompanied by the ten demons. Dante says he has seen all kinds of military actions, and their calls, but never anything like this. Dante is fixed on searching the tar to see every kind of person he can, but as the demons approach, each sinner dives underneath so that won’t be gaffed. One missed his opportunity though and gets caught. Dante asks Virgil to find out who he is, so Virgil engages him. The man says he was from the kingdom of Navarre, which is in present-day northern Spain, right next to the Basque region. The sinner (traditionally seen as Ciampolo) explains that his mother got pregnant by a rogue, so she sent him off to work as a servant to the king, Thibault. The demons tire of delaying the torture while Virgil questions him and begin to get impatient. They warn Virgil to hurry it up before they tear him apart. Virgil asks if there are any Latins, (Italians) there in the pit. The sinner says yes, and he wishes he were still down there covered up. Then the demons rip some meat off of him. After that, the demons calm a bit, and Virgil continues, asking who the other was that got away while he, Ciampolo, was caught on shore? Ciampolo says that was Friar Gomito, from Gallura, a region in the far north of Sardegna, who was exceptionally corrupt. He had several of his master’s (Nino Visconti) enemies in hand, but for bribes, let them off for nothing. The Italian says di piano, meaning “softly”, but apparently it comes from the Latin de plano, a legal term meaning “for nothing”. He mentions that Gomito had other duties too but there too he was no small-time bribe taker, but the king of bribe takers. 

Then he mentions another Sardinian, Michel Zanche, of Logodoro (region just to the south of Gallura), and between the two of them, they can’t stop talking about how great Sardegna is. 

Finally, Ciampolo mentions that the demons are baring their teeth at him and he was about to get it. He offers to call up seven others in his place if they would let him go. One of the demons says “Listen to this malice this guy is proposing… but he’s doing it just to buy time and try to escape. To which Ciampolo replies: I am that malicious, if I’m willing to bring greater pain to my fellow sufferers. But one of the other demons says he is interested, hoping to get more sinners to rip apart. He says he will let Ciampolo whistle and they will wait up top in hiding while they come up. They are working out the details of how this will happen when Ciampolo notices they aren’t watching him, he takes his chance and dives back under the pitch where they can’t see him. 

Alichin, the demon who had proposed letting Ciampolo exchange himself for seven others, tries to stop him from escaping, but can’t get there in time and pulls up. But Calcabrina, one of the other devils, pissed by being taken in, follows after Alichin and sinks his claws into his compatriot demon. Alichin however, is also a predatory creature and they get into a fight that drags them both into the pitch. The heat makes them let go of each other, but the tar covering their wings means they can’t get out alone. The others quickly assemble to get them out, but the demons were already, we are told, cooked inside the crust that had formed on them.  

While this is happening and the demons are distracted, Virgil and Dante leave and head off on their own. 

Canto XXIII 
Still in the eighth circle, fifth ditch, Dante and Virgil have left the bickering demons and taken off by themselves, without saying anything to the demons. Dante gives a simile that had me scratching my head. He mentions Aesop’s fable of the frog and the mouse. The fable is essentially that a mouse comes to a stream he can’t get across. A frog offers to take him across with the intent of drowning the mouse halfway across. But while the mouse is struggling, a bird comes and grabs them both. OK, with that in mind, Dante says this: 

Vòlt’era in su la favola d’Isopo 
lo mio pensier per la presente rissa, 
dov’el parlò de la rana e del topo; 
ché più non si pareggia ’mo’ e ’issa’ 
che l’un con l’altro fa, se ben s’accoppia 
principio e fine con la mente fissa. 

This recent scene turned my thoughts  
to Aesop’s fable, where it talks about 
the frog and the mouse; 
the words ‘now’ and ‘presently’ are not so similar  
as the one with the other, if we put together  
beginning and end with an attentive mind. 

This is supposed to bring some clarity, but it sort of does the opposite. First, at least for me, was the confusion over “the one with the other”. But after looking at this enough, and confirming with a bunch of translations, it seems it should be read as: 

“the words ‘now’ and ‘presently’ are not so similar  
as that fable and the demon’s brawl, ” 

The italian uses two words ‘mo’ and ‘issa’ that both mean ‘now’, to say that not even these two words that mean the same thing are not as similar as the fable to the demon’s brawl he witnessed in the previous canto…….  

“if we put together beginning and end with an attentive mind.” 

Here’s where some of the fun starts. The fable has several different interpretations, none of which anyone is sure about which Dante is referring to. We’re encouraged to put together the beginning and the end “with an attentive mind”…. But that hasn’t helped scholars through the years figure out what he means. So… I’m gonna ignore it too. 

But as Dante is thinking, he is becoming more certain that those demons will be pissed and coming after he and Virgil shortly. He finally confesses this to Virgil and suggests they ought be hiding. Then… Virgil pops off with another difficult simile: 

In Italian, it reads: 

E quei: «S’i’ fossi di piombato vetro, 
l’imagine di fuor tua non trarrei 
più tosto a me, che quella dentro ’mpetro 

That literally reads: 

If I were lf leaded glass, 
The image of your exterior I couldn’t take 
More quickly to me, than what inside I fathom 

Trying to render that into something that makes sense to me, I came up with: 

“If I were a leaded glass mirror, 
I couldn’t grasp what your physical form  
communicates quicker than the inner implores. 

I feel like what this means is: even if I were a mirror, I couldn’t have caught your physical reflection any faster than I understood what you were thinking. 

Anyway… apparently, they’re both on the same page as far as understanding the impending danger of hanging around much longer. And just then, the travelers see the demons coming for them. 

Virgil grabs Dante, holds him to his stomach, and jumps down the embankment, to that he is protecting Dante while he slides down on his bank to the next ditch. The demons get there a moment too late, and can only watch as they see Virgil and Dante, but are unable to cross the boundary into the next ditch. 

Eighth circle- sixth ditch, which holds the hypocrites. 

In this circle, Dante sees people who look like they are painted. They wear capes made of a blinding shiny gold on the outside, but the capes are heavy lead on the interior. They are so heavy that the sinners can proceed only very slowly. Dante mentions that with every step he and Virgil took, they were alongside new sinners. 

Dante asks Virgil to find some sinner he can talk with, whose name or deeds are known to him. One hears him speaking Tuscan and says that he can answer any questions. When Dante slows up, the man and his friend are taken aback by the fact that Dante is still living. They wonder how he can be down there with no heavy mantle like they carry. They then ask who he is. He tells them he is Tuscan, and asks what they have done to merit such punishment. They were two members of the Frati Godenti, Jolly Friars, who, by rule of their order, were forbidden office. But they were invited to rule the divided Florence. Catalano was a Guelph, Loderingo was Ghibelline. They initially helped, but it turns out, they were being orchestrated by a pope, who was moving them to bring back Guelph families and exile Ghibelline. Dante begins to heartily condemn these men when another sight catches his eyes: a man crucified to the ground with three stakes. Catalano notes Dante looking at the guy and explains that he is the one who counseled the Pharisees that it would be better for one man to die for the people, than for the people to catch trouble from Rome. So this would be Caiaphas. It is noted that his father-in-law and the others that followed his counsel, which brought such evil for the Jews, are also here. 

Virgil breaks in and asks where they might get out of this ditch. The friar says it’s actually pretty close by. There was once a bridge that arched over each of the ditches, but it broke in this place. However, the ruins that fell into the bottom, could be climbed up on to get over the ridge. At this, Virgil realizes he had been duped by Malacoda, who had not told him the truth, and he says this out loud. The friar then responds in a kind of smart-assed way that he once heard at school that the devil has lots of vices, among which are that he is a liar and the father of lies.  

Virgil takes off and Dante follows after him. 

Canto XXIV 
Eighth circle, seventh ditch- thieves. 

Again, Dante is on with the star signs etc to declare something about the time of year.  

“In that early part of the year when the sun’s rays are tempered under Aquarius (Jan 20 – Feb 18) and night lasts about half the day” (length of day and night are about equal) 

Then he gives an extended bit on the time of year: 

“when the hoarfrost on the ground looks like her white sister (the snow), except her quills aren’t so long,” then he goes on about a peasant with no fodder around, getting up and seeing the countryside and thinking- well crap, it’s all snowed in. He beats his thighs, (presumably to help keep warm?) then goes back in and grumbles. But after a while of being at a loss, he thinks again, goes outside, and then noticing it wasn’t actually snow, it was only frost, and has perhaps melted away, he takes heart, and leads his flock out to pasture. 

THIS, he uses as a description of himself, after seeing Virgil’s face, being bummed about the climb ahead to get out of the sixth ditch, where the bridge had collapsed in a heap (or maybe because of how he had been treated by the demons… unsure why Virgil appeared upset). Because even though the bridge had collapsed, and there was a pile of rubble that could be climbed to get out of it, it was apparently no easy climb, so Virgil’s first instinct was to be troubled. Then Virgil changed his tune, scouted the way up, and set to climbing. He lifts Dante up and then they start working their way up the ruins of the fallen bridge. Dante notes that landscape of Malebolge here. Because the site tilts down towards the center, the inner ledge of each ditch is shorter than the outer ledge. Dante notes that except for this fact, he probably wouldn’t have been able to make it up the side. He was so drained that he could only sit down once they had gained the top. But here Virgil tells him he needs to shake off this need to sit down and get going, since fame doesn’t come to those sitting in comfy chairs or lying under covers. He will need to conquer his exhausted body with that spirit that can overcome all.  

Just a note about this: Virgil encourages Dante to get moving…. with earthly fame as the motivator. Earthly fame, under the Christian understanding, is a sinful motivator, but of course, Virgil isn’t a Christian. Interestingly enough, in his simile, he makes the comparison that without earthly fame, a man’s life would be remembered no more than smoke in the air or foam on the water. But this is meaningless in a context of heaven and hell. Jesus points it out: what would it profit a man if he should gain the whole world, but lose his own soul? Our earthly efforts aren’t to be about gaining treasures on earth, and this would include fame, not as a physical good, but nonetheless an earthly good, for the prize is to be known on earth. Instead, we are to seek God, who will bring us into heaven not for our glory, but for His. 

Dante mentions that the bridge over the seventh ditch is much steeper than the previous. He was talking while he walked to keep from thinking about his weakness, when he heard a voice from inside, ill-suited to forming words. Dante gets to the top of the bridge but can’t see down into the darkness. He asks Virgil if they can descend closer to the bottom, and at the base of the bridge, he can see snakes everywhere. Running among the snakes were a bunch of sinners, stripped naked, and terrified. They are said to be “sanza sperar pertugio o elitropia”; without hope of ’pertugio’, which is a narrow opening, and ’elitropia’, which was, for Dante, a type of magical stone that would render the bearer invisible, and had curative powers, both of which would be handy in this scenario. Their hands were tied behind the backs by the snakes, who had latched on to their midsections by the heads and tails in knots. This is a sort of nasty parody of the garden of eden: with humans back in their original unclothed forms, covered in snakes, which was the form of Satan in the garden, rather than fig leaves. 

In the description of the snakes, Dante refers to Lucan, who describes all kinds of snakes from the Libyan desert, and in the passage that follows, Dante refers to Ovid’s Metamorphosis in his description of the Phoenix.  

Dante sees one guy running by, and a snake launches itself at him, bites him where the neck and back join, and the guy catches on fire, burns, and turns to ashes. But then the ashes collect themselves, come back together, and the guys original form is recreated.  

Then Dante gives a simile of the phoenix, that is reborn. He follows that with another about a guy who falls and doesn’t know how, (probably epileptic) who when he comes to, is completely dazed as to what happened, suffering from anxiety, then he gathers himself, and takes a deep breath. This is what the sinner looked like.  

Virgil asks who he was, and he replies that he recently “rained down” (was thrown down) from Tuscany. He lived a bestial, not even human, life, and his name was Vanni Fucci. Dante knows of him as a wrathful, killer. So he tells Fucci not to evade the truth, and be honest about how he got there. Fucci addresses Dante without trying to falsify his story. He admits that he stole from the church and let others take the blame for it. But then in a spiteful turn, tells Dante that in Pistoia, the Black Guelphs will first be driven out, but then Florence, will change leadership and with that, will come a new mindset too. Mars, the god of war, will “draw mists from the Val di Magra” (Maroello Malaspina, a black guelph), which is “enveloped in dark clouds” (symbolic of being accompanied by many other black guelphs), and a battle will be fought over the plains of Piceno, near Pistoia, which will break up, or split, the fog (which is white, probably representing the white guelphs), so that every white (guelph) will be injured.  

Then Fucci ends it with “I’ve told you this just to bring you pain”. He had told Dante before the prophecy that he would do this: “so that you won’t enjoy this sight (the sight of Fucci in hell) too much.” 

Canto XXV 
Eighth circle, seventh ditch- thieves; continued 

At the end of Vanni Fucci’s speech, Fucci being the sinner from the end of the last canto, he raises his hands and makes the ‘figs’ gesture. Fico is ‘fig’ in Italian, but the feminine form- fica, is a rude word for the vagina, roughly equivalent to pussy or cunt. This sign is no longer used (surprising given the number of hand gestures Italians use) but it has been said it consisted of putting the thumb between the pointer and middle fingers, to imitate the shape of the vagina. So making this rude gesture upwards, he then screaming out: Togli, Dio, ch’a te le squadro! – Take that God, I aim them square at you! 

Dante then mentions that from this moment on, the snakes were his friends. Meaning they turned on Fucci. One wrapped around his neck as if to say: Non vo’(glio) che più diche– “I don’t want you saying any more”, or, as I translated it- “You’re done talking here”, and another wrapped around his arms, then tightened so he couldn’t budge. Then Dante imprecates against Pistoia and says, why don’t you decree to incinerate yourself so you won’t last any longer, since you surpass your ancestors in evil.  

Then he notes that he had not seen so arrogant a soul in all of Hell, even the one who fell from Thebes- Capaneus in canto 14. But Fucci’s punishment comes pretty quickly when Cacus, the mythological monster, comes running after him calling: Where is he? Where’s the bitter one? 

Cacus is described as a centaur, but his back is covered in snakes, over which also sits a dragon that burns up anything it happens across.  

Cacus is in hell for theft too, because he stole some prized cows from Hercules’ herd. Dante says he doesn’t take the same path as his brothers, who were those that chastised sinners in another circle, but since he committed the theft, and did it in such a deceptive manner, he is consigned here. He led the cows away backwards into his lair under Mount Aventine, so that Hercules would be thrown off by the tracks heading the wrong way. But he was caught and “quit his sinister deeds under the club of Hercules, who perhaps hit him a hundred times, of which he didn’t feel ten”…. Meaning he was dead before the tenth blow, but Hercules continued to beat on him to vent his rage. 

The next passage is going to show a strange metamorphosis. While Dante and Virgil watch Cacus chase after Fucci, three spirits arrive under the bridge. One calls out “who are you? Where did Cianfa (Donati- a cattle thief) get to?” 

Dante then addresses the reader and says we may be slow to believe what he is going to say; he himself had a hard time accepting it. 

A six-legged serpent launches himself at one of the three. He grips on to the man’s stomach with his middle legs, and his arms with the front legs, and then bites the man engulfing one cheek, then the other. His back legs latched on to the man’s legs, and the serpent’s tail wrapped under the man’s crotch, went between his legs and up the man’s back. They began to fuse together like hot wax, and their color’s mixed so that neither was what it was before. One of the other two says: Geez (omè), Agnel(lo Brunelleschi), how you are changing! You’re no longer either one or two! 

The two heads were already one, with features of both mixed inside. Then two arms were made from four prior limbs, the thighs, legs, stomach and torso became limbs that were not there before, and each of the former countenances were undone. The perverse image seemed to be both, and neither, and went away very slowly. Then a little serpent raced up and bit on to the belly button, then fell down stretched out. Both the former man, and the serpent that had bit him, stood staring at each other, but were immobile and seemed tranquilized. Smoke poured out from the man’s bite, and the serpent’s mouth, and the smoke then merged.  

Here Dante tells both the poets Lucan (who, in the Pharsalia, tells of Sabellus, who was bitten by snake and began to dissolve; and Nasidius, who was bitten and swelled to explode in his breastplate) and Ovid (who tells how Cadmus, founder of Thebes, was changed into a serpent; and the nymph Arethusa was changed into a fountain), that he has a better story to tell; in other words, he has witnessed a more astonishing metamorphosis than they described. It was also mentioned that while Dante tells both Ovid and Lucan, “Taccia”, or “be quiet”, he also shushed Virgil earlier. So in one canto, Dante has told three of the most famous poets, and literary heroes of his, to be quiet. 

He then describes that the serpent split his tail into two, while the man put his feet together and his legs fused. The serpent’s forked tail now took on the look of legs, with soft skin, while the former man’s skin hardened into serpent skin. The arms of the former man then withdrew into the armpits, and the short legs of the former serpent lengthened until they were the length of a man. The hind feet of the serpent then twisted together and became a penis, while the former man’s penis, was split into two members that became legs. 

The smoke veiled them and hair grew where it needed and was removed where needed. The former man then fell to the ground like a serpent, while the former serpent then stood up, all the while never removing their burning gaze from one another. The one now upright drew the extra material that was his snout back towards his temples, and the excess was converted into ears. The leftover skin in the front was changed into a nose and lips. Meanwhile the one laying on the ground had the opposite happen, his ears withdrew and the excess material pushed outward to form the serpent’s snout. The tongue now split into two, while the tongue of the upright one was united. 

The snake, now completely transformed, hissed and took off along the floor of the ditch. While the other spit out words behind him. I’m unsure how exactly this looked. The Italian reads: 

L’altro dietro a lui parlando sputa; literally it means “the other behind him talking spits”. 

Most of the other translations read it as the new ‘man’ followed behind the snake spitting and talking. 

Some of the old italian commentaries say he spoke the word ‘spit’. The thing that came to my mind when I read it was: the new man remained behind him spitting out words.  

My understanding was supported by one, if only one, of the commentaries I saw, by Giovan Battista Gelli (1541-63): “che gli sputava parlando dietro, cioè gli sputava parole dietro, che vuol dire parlare (chè così si usa dire alcuna volta nella nostra lingua)”.  

He says here that the phrase is understood as he spit words behind him, which is another way of saying “he spoke”, a phraseology which is sometimes used in our language.  

I suppose it doesn’t make too much of a difference, but it would change the picture of what is happening.  

Then the serpent that had become a man said to the other: Let Buoso (dei Donati) run all fours along the street, just like I had to. 

Dante mentions that this is how the seventh ballast- a creative way of saying the material that filled the bottom of the seventh ditch- would morph and change. 

Dante says that while this is all very confusing, and his mind seemed distracted, he couldn’t help but notice Puccio Sciancato, and another “was he (Francesco de’ Cavalcanti) that you, Gaville, weep over”. 

The people of Gaville murdered Francesco de’ Cavalcanti after he committed some unknown crime along with Buoso dei Donati. 

Canto XXVI 
Eighth circle, eighth ditch- evil counselors 

Dante leads off with a sarcastic little speech to his hometown Florence: Enjoy yourself Florence, you’re so great that you beat your wings over land and sea (meaning the city spreads its influence far and wide), and more and more people in hell know about you (since more Florentines are being added to the ranks of hell-bound citizens). I found five of your members among the thieves, which made me feel more shame- your honor is NOT increasing! If it’s true that our dreams are closer to truth as we near morning (apparently, this was something people believed in the middle ages: that as one got closer to the morning, dreams were more likely to be true), then very shortly you, Florence, will feel what your neighbors in Prato which for you. If it were already done, it wouldn’t have happened too soon, so bring it on. Then Dante says something here: ché più mi graverà, com’ più m’attempo ; it translates to “the older I get, the more it weighs on me”. But what did Dante mean? There are two basic ways of understanding it: The older I get, the more the fact that Florence hasn’t been destroyed yet bothers me; and the second is; the older I get, the more it weighs on me that Florence has so many problems. Most early translators thought it was the first, but apparently, as time as gone on, the second understanding has supplanted the first. I have no idea which it would be, but I’d probably lean towards the older interpretation since they were closer in time and culture to the original, but that’s me. 

Then Dante says he and Virgil start off climbing again, which wasn’t possible without using both hands and feet in the effort.  

Then Dante laments that he is aggrieved because he would have to, given what he had seen, hold back his own genius. Why? He may be tempted to run too far in front of virtue. This sounds like boasting, and it is, but Dante was well-regarded in his time, and this work, the divine comedy, was so well known and studied that even today I can check on what 20 others had to say about the passages, because they had written down extensive commentaries on the work within the first few hundred years. I’m not sure if there is a better known work of literature, outside of the Bible that has more commentaries on it. But at any rate, Dante describes what he sees in the eighth ditch of Malebolge with a simile…. natch. 

Like a peasant who would go up on a hill during the summer season, and as dark sets in, sees a bunch of fireflies down the hill, so Dante noticed the eighth ditch was lit up with all kinds of fires.  

Dante then makes a biblical reference when he says: “As the one who avenged himself with the bears saw Elijah’s chariot depart when the horses carried it straight up to heaven….”. This is the story of Elisha, who had received the “double portion”, or inheritance, of Elijah’s ministry. After having performed some miracles, he was rewarded by the local punk kids throwing rocks at him, and telling him “Go on up, you baldhead”, at which point, he calls down vengeance on them and God sends some bears to maul them. Dante uses the imagery of Elijah being unable to see Elijah as he ascended, he could only see the flame as it ascended…. so while he could see flames on the floor of the ditch, the flames enveloped and hid the sinner.  

Dante mentions he is up on the bridge holding on to a protrusion in the rock, otherwise he would been unable to stay there without falling in. Virgil sees him and tells him, “Inside the flames are spirits, each one enveloped by that (the flame) which he is ignited”. Dante says he could see that, but he has a particular interest in a flame that seems split into two, as if it were horns. Virgil tells him that is Ulysses and Diomedes, who are punished together, just as they were angry together in life. Virgil mentions two fraudulent activities they committed. The first was the “the ambush of the horse”, or the story of the Trojan horse; and the second was stealing the statue of Pallas from the Palladium. 

Then Dante pleads with Virgil: I’m seriously begging you, and begging again, and let this be like a thousand beggings, that you don’t make me wait any longer, and that horned flame would come over here. You can see how I’m bowed down before you with this one desire. This sounds very childlike: Please, pretty please, I promise that if you just do this for me I’ll never ask you anything ever again! 

Virgil grants it, but tells Dante to just listen, since they’re Greek and they might not want to open up to someone who isn’t Greek speaking. Virgil calls them over and asks them nicely, if he has merited any favor from them, for one of them to explain where he was lost and went to die. 

Here Ulysses launches into a speech that goes until the end of the canto. Recalling that this ditch is for those that defraud through evil counsel, the salient point is that he will lead his men into destruction for through a search for glory. It should be noted however that the type of fraud this ditch holds is not explicitly said until the next canto. 

Ulysses starts off from when he left Circe, and how family ties were not enough to keep him at home because he burned for adventure, and wanted to know more of the world, both of valor and vice. He convinces his men to set off through the strait of Gibraltar with a speech: You’ve come through countless dangers to reach this point, beyond which are lands unknown. Our lives on earth are short and you don’t want to lose the opportunity of experience “behind” (beyond) the sun (further west than the Strait of Gibraltar). Consider what your descendants will say; you were not meant to live like brutes, but to pursue manhood and understanding. This last sentence is considered to be one of the most important. The earliest commentors considered these to be the spirit with which the middle ages were passed, and the renaissance was entered in: Fatti non foste a viver come bruti, ma per seguir virtute e canoscenza; “You weren’t made to live as brutes, but to pursue manhood and understanding, or knowledge.” 

This little speech fires them up so they set off and turn to the south. Through some five months they journey southward seeing the stars ”de l’altro polo“ (of the other pole, the south pole), and their own usual constellations they would see in the northern hemisphere were now on the horizon. They saw before them a huge mountain, dark in the distance, so high that there probably none other like it. This is supposed to be the mountain of purgatory, which Ulysses was not meant to see, so as they come up to it, a whirlwind springs up, causes a whirlpool and sinks the ship, ”com’altrui piacque“ (as Another (God) pleased). 

Here the canto ends. 

There is a parallel between Dante’s own journey through hell, purgatory, and paradise, with Ulysses’ journey. But Dante’s is commissioned by God. Ulysses took his journey by presumption and desire for human glory. The Strait of Gibraltar was the point of passage beyond which he wasn’t supposed to go, but he stirred his men up with visions of glory to seek out knowledge beyond what they were meant to have. This is reminiscent of the sin of Adam and Eve, trespassing beyond what they were given in order to gain the knowledge of good and evil.  

Canto XXVII 
Eighth circle, eighth ditch- evil counselors; cont…. 

Ulysses had finished his speech on the last line of the previous canto. Now the flame is still and goes away. But the travelers are immediately approached by another flame, that has a ‘confused’ sound coming from within. Dante likens this to a bronze bull, that was commissioned by the tyrant of Agrigento, Phalaris. The hollow bull was a torture device built by Perillus, which, utilizing some acoustic innovations, when a fire was set underneath the bull, would heat it up and would make the screams of the victims inside sound like the bull itself was bellowing. Perillus was himself the first victim. So the voice from inside the flame is likened to the bellowing that would have come from that bronze bull. But the sound having made its way up to the tip of the fire, it caused the flame to move like a tongue, and subsequently was able to speak. The speaker never gives his name, but it is known to be Guido da Montefeltro. He begs Dante for information about his homeland, Romagna- whether it is under war, or at peace. Dante notes that the tyrants there always have war in the hearts, but as of when he had left, there was no current fighting. Then he runs through, what to modern readers, are some rather cryptic descriptions of the major towns in the Romagna region.   

Ravenna’s the same as it has been for many years; Guido il Vecchio (the eagle) broods there, controlling the port city of Cervia. 

The “land”, not named, but Forlì, had withstood a siege by the papal armies and the French, the the same Guido da Montefeltro, led a surprise attack and defeated the French, which were heaped up and referred to as the bloody heap, or pile. Forlì is said to be under the green claws (the family crest of the Ordilaffi had a green lion with paws up and claws out). 

The old mastiff of Verrucchio, covering the area around Rimini, is Malatesta il Vecchio, the new is his son Malatestino. They are bulldogs because, they won’t let things go, even after they’ve gotten their prey. They “made of Montagna the bad government”; they killed the Ghibelline Montagna, by what Dante calls- making a juice with their teeth. Apparently, this means, like the dogs in the simile, they made a bloody mess of the conquest. 

The rivers of Lamone and Santerno designate the cities of Faenza and Imola, which were under a banner that had a lion on a white shield, which, Dante tells us, were prone to change parties from “summer to winter”, meaning…. whenever it was expedient. 

Then “that which the Savio (river) bathes its side”… meaning the city of Cesena, is between tyranny and being a free state. Ok, that historical and geographical section aside, Dante says- be no more difficult with me than I’ve been with you, which is to say, not at all. Tell me who you are, that your name would endure in the world. 

Guido apparently doesn’t believe this because he starts out by saying “If I believed my response were to someone that would ever return up to the world, this flame would be still and move no more. But since no living person ever returns from this pit, if I’ve heard correctly, I’ll respond with no fear of infamy. 

He explains he was a man of arms, but then became a ”cordigliero“, one who wears the cord… a Franciscan friar, believing that this would make amends for his former lifestyle. And it would have, so he claims, had not the “high priest” (the Pope), may evil (Hell) take him, dragged him back into his former sins. He confesses that his actions were not leonine, not brave and courageous, but fox-like, meaning he was more subtle and scheming. He knew the clever tricks and hidden ways so well that his methods we well-known far and wide. When he reached the point in life when one should be settling down, the things that had formerly pleased him became nauseating. He repented, confessed, and surrendered himself… which would have done him good… but the prince of the new Pharisees (the Pope) was at war with the Lateran, which refers to Pope Boniface VIII’s conflict with the Colonna family. Guido complains that this Pope wasn’t engaged in trying to win back the Holy lands with war against the Saracens or Jews, but instead, was busy fighting other Christians. These were not the Christians who had turned traitor to the faith and helped the Saracens retake Acre, nor were they merchants among the Muslims, which would have been against Papal orders. But the Pope disregarded his own high office and sacred orders, as well as the “harness on me that used to make belts thinner”. This refers to the custom of fasting, the ‘harness’ that the Franciscan order placed on its members to help them put to death the flesh, making them thinner in the process.  

Dante says, as Constantine, when he was sick with leprosy, had gone to mount Soracte and asked Pope Sylvester to pray for him and heal him, so Boniface VIII called Guido as a master, to ‘heal the fever of his pride’, which kind of sounds like the Pope wants to get better, but what it means is that “fever” is the heat of avarice, and the Pope wants a cure, something that will fix his longing and bring him his desire, which is to bring down Palestrina, the seat of the Colonna family. 

Guido says he remained silent since it sounded to him like something a drunk would say. But the Pope gives both a carrot and stick. The Pope tells Guido: don’t be suspicious or worried about committing crime. I will absolve you of anything going forward. Then he adds, I can lock and unlock heaven. This is from the biblical passage where Jesus tells Peter he will give him the keys to heaven. The Popes understood this as them having the power, being in the line of Peter, of being able to declare who would, and would not, enter heaven. This is both a carrot- if you do this for me, you’ll be absolved of any wrong, which I can do because I’m Pope… and if you don’t do this for me, I can also excommunicate you, because I also have THAT key. This persuades Guido that it would be better to give the pope what he wanted than not. He tells Boniface, since you would wash me of whatever sin this will be, the advice I give you is: be long on your promises, and short on keeping them. 

Then we jump to the point of Guido’s death, where St. Francis comes to collect him, as one of the members of his order. But then a demon jumps in and says: don’t take him, he should go down with me, since he gave fraudulent counsel. (Here the sin of the eighth ditch is finally named outright), and ever since then, I’ve been in his hair… or waiting patiently right behind his back.  

Then the demon says that the Pope can’t absolve someone who doesn’t repent, and furthermore, repentance does not square with someone willfully committing the sin, because the law of contradiction would not allow it. 

Guido is devastated and shaken by this, but the demon, as it grabs him, says: “perhaps you thought I wasn’t a logician! 

Then Minos grabbed him and wrapped his tail around him eight times, and threw him down to the present place. With that, Guido finishes his speech and departs in sorrow. 

The canto closes with Virgil and Dante moving over the next ditch, where those sowed strife and schism are consigned. 

Canto XVIII 
Eighth circle, ninth ditch- schismatics/sowers of discord 

Dante leads off this canto with a disclaimer that human language can’t really capture the carnage he saw in this ditch. He reasons that if one were to gather all those that had fallen in the various wars that occurred in the region of Puglia: Aeneas and the Trojans around 500BC; the dead from the long wars against Hannibal and the Carthaginians, particularly at Cannae in 216BC where Dante mentions a huge pile of rings, which were the rings collected off the dead Roman soldiers; those that tried to resist Robert Guiscard in 1170AD; and the battle of Ceperan (Ceprano) near Benevento in 1266, and 1268, where Manfred was abandoned by his Pugliese troops, and defeated by Charles of Anjou; Dante mentions all these and says that if all the dead and wounded, those with lopped off limbs and sliced open bodies, were brought out en masse, they still wouldn’t equal what he was seeing in this ninth ditch. 

The first of the condemned he sees, he likens to a barrel, that had one of its middle staves broken into, or maybe the bottom piece hacked up. This person was sliced across the midsection so that “between his legs hung his guts; the organs were seen outside and that disgusting sack that makes shit out of what we gobble up”. He sees Dante checking him out and then opens his torso up with his hands and says “See how Mohammed is mangled!”. Then Mohammed lets us know that “the others you see here were disseminators of scandal and schism”, so they are split open here. More about this at the end. 

Mohammed then questions Dante and Virgil asking them, what are you doing up there on the ridge? Are you trying to delay your punishment down here for a few moments more? 

Virgil then explains that he has not been sent here by his sins, but travels through to gain a full experience, for which he, Virgil, is his guide through the various levels of Hell.  

At this point, more than a hundred stop their travel, walking the circumference of the ditch, to take a look at this marvel: a living person able to traverse hell. 

Mohammed then suggests to Dante that he, if he goes back up to the world, might warn Fra Dolcin to stock up on food. Dolcin was the leader of a sect called the Apostolic Brothers, who preached communion of goods, including wives…. in a foolish attempt to avoid the worldliness of town and mercantile life. Pope Clement V called a crusade against him, so Dolcin and his followers fled to a mountain stronghold and withstood a siege from the towns of Vercelli and Novara, until a harsh winter forced him to surrender. Mohammed isn’t really trying to warn a fellow human of impending disaster in an attempt to convince him to change his ways. The advice is malicious, because he knows what will happen. Even then in death, he is an unrepentant sower of discord. 

Then having halted his circuit to talk with Dante, continues on. 

Then another comes up, with a mangled face split into two, and says he is Pier da Medicina, of who we know little. But he tells Dante that he should warn two “of the best of Fano”, Guido del Cassero and Angiolello da Carignano, to beware. They would be called to a meeting by Malatestino Malatesta, duke of Rimini, who would give the sailors on the ship orders to tie up the men, put a weight on them, and toss them into the sea. The description of this incident is a bit cryptic. 

Then Pier turns to a companion, Gaius Curio, who can’t speak since he has had his tongue split in his face. Pier says Curio “was chased out, drowned the doubts of Caesar, affirming that one prepared always suffers loss when he delays”. Curio had taken a bribe to join Caesar’s army in the civil war against Pompey. Caesar hesitated to cross the Rubicon, which would be seen as declaring war on the Roman senate, when Curio counseled, “Do not delay, putting a thing off always harms those who are prepared”. 

Then another came up and, I believe referring to himself, says “remember Mosca (dei Lamberti) too”. He was a leader of an important Ghibelline family.  He was engaged to a young girl in the Amedei family, but broke it off and married an Donati instead.  The offended Amedei met with the Lamberti to figure out what to do, at which Mosca said: “cosa fatto capo ha”, or “a thing that’s done has an end”. The result was years of bitter rivalry between the Amedei (Ghibellines) and Donati (Guelphs) and the civil discord that tore Florence apart. He is portrayed then as a modern-day Curio, urging the powerful to do what they must have understood in their hearts as something not to be done. 

Finally, they meet a condemned man, Bertram dal Bornio, carrying his severed head by the hair. He was rumored to have spurred the young English king Henry II to rebel against his father. 

The last four lines of the canto are: 

Perch’io parti’ così giunte persone, 
partito porto il mio cerebro, lasso!, 
dal suo principio ch’è in questo troncone. 
Così s’osserva in me lo contrapasso 

Because I severed people so united, 
Alas, I now carry my head severed 
From its beginning, which is in this trunk. 
As such, observe the just retribution in me 

This is the only mention of the term “contrappasso” in the inferno, but the concept is important. It literally means “opposite punishment”. (it looks like counter ‘step’, but passo comes from the latin patior). The idea is “just retribution”; that whatever sin was committed in life, the punishment will mirror the sin. The biblical principle is “an eye for an eye”. The punishments in Dante’s hell are meant to fit the crime committed in the world, in the sense of an obvious emblem and symbol of the sin. What the sinners did in life, they have now become, with the self-deception stripped away. 

Though this was unnamed in the previous cantos, the effect could be seen and understood, so that, while unstated, it was also understood.