Abandonate ogni speranza, voi ch'entrate!

The words above the gates of hell, Canto II...

Continuing on with Inferno...

Dante and Virgil continue on into the middle circles of hell, and in Canto VI they enter the Third Circle of Hell, where the gluttonous sinners lie. There they learn that the three most common sins committed by man are jealousy, avarice, and pride (conceit). Dante encounters Ciaccio, and wants to know if some of his fellow poets and thinkers have either been "poisoned in Hell, or sweetened into Heaven".

In Canto VIII they encounter Pluto and the sinners of greed and lavishness, who are forever condemned to roll large heavy stone wheels back and forth in opposite directions with their chests. Dante and Virgil descend lower and come to the river Styx, where they encounter the captain of the boat, Flegias who will take them across. He is not happy to be carrying Dante, who as a human being and not a dead sinful soul has no right to be in this underworld. Virgil accosts Flegias, once again telling another demon that this trip has been willed from above and shall not be prohibited. Flegias takes them across the river into the city of Dis, where the gates are locked and the inhabitants will not allow them entrance for the purpose of Dante not being one of theirs. Even after talking with Virgil, they slam the doors in his face and now Divine Aid comes to the rescue when the pair must wait for an angel from Heaven to descend the depths of Hell to unlock the gates of Dis.

In canto IX they enter into the city of Dis, and the Three Furies, who claw and tear at their own chests invoke the Gorgon Medusa to deal with Dante, and Virgil covers Dante's eyes with his own hands lest Dante be turned to stone from her glance. In the city of Dis in Canto X they encounter the heretics and those who follwed them. There are condemend Shades that approach Dante and Virgil and they are punished with the sight of knowing the past and foreseeing the future, but never knowing what is happening at the present, and when one of them Speaks to the author of his own son, Dante uses the past tense, sending the Shade into sorrow thinking that his son is "no more".

Entering the Sixth Circle of Hell in Canto XI they stop to rest so they may grow used to a most foul stench coming from below. Dante sees the tomb of Pope Anastacio, and here Virgil starts to explain a little of the geography of the lower depths of Hell, saying that in the Seventh Circle there are three smaller circles, each filled with different sinners, blasphemers, and murderers. One circle houses those who have done evil against neighbors, themselves, or the makers of war, including arson, plunder, and extortion.. .etc. The second circle houses those who have done evil against themselves by means of suicide. The third and final ring of the Seventh Circle houses those who have done evil against God, art, or nature. This includes blasphemers, sexual deviants, and money lenders. Dante believed money lending to be a sneaky art, where the lender charged interest on a loan for their own greed.

I'll try to get in a few more lines before bed, but I'm not promising anything. Each Canto gets more and more interesting!

Nel mezzo del cammin di nostra vita....

Okay so I started Inferno and it is actually great. I've gotten through Cantos I-V and it is full of imagery so profound and literarily fantastic that you can't even imagine it unless you read it yourself. From the first line of the first canto, "Nel mezzo del cammin di nostra vita..." (Halfway through the walk of life) we know that Dante is bringing us into a vivid world of the afterlife.

In Canto I Dante is so full of sleep that he has lost his way through the "walk of life". He comes to a hill where he is happened upon by a leopard who blocks his path. Then a lionness and a wolf also meet him and he is forced in retreat, where the figure of the dead poet Virgil comes out of the mist to guide him in the opposite direction, through the afterlife of the Inferno, where the souls of all evil and unjust and impure people lie. Virgil, one of Dante's literary mentors, feels it best to show Dante all three aspects of the afterlife: Inferno, Purgatorio, and Paradiso. In Purgatory, Dante's true love Beatrice will lead him through Limbo and into the spheres of Paradise, to meet the Almighty Father.

In Canto II Virgil leads Dante into the ante-inferno, or limbo to view the souls of those who were either born before Christianity or without baptism. He is lead down the treacherous mountain of the Inferno, where each circle holds a different host and realm of sinners. There is actually a really good description in the beginning of Canto V where there is an endless line of sinful souls who march up to meet the fearful Minos. Each soul states their name and the sins they have died for, and according to the number of times Minos wraps his tail around his body is the level of the Inferno the soul is to remain. It's sort of like the St Peter at the gates, but the Hell version. Through Cantos III and IV we see the souls of Paris, Helen of Troy, Achilles, Francesca da Rimini, Pietro Malatesta, etc. The endless tempesta, or storm that ravages the souls as they wait in line to find their place in the Inferno would be an awesome scene in a movie, should any director EVER be brave enough to even TRY to make the Divine Comedy a blockbuster!

Well onto more reading! I hope anyone reading is enjoying this so far, hopefully I'll get a little more in depth, but then again I'm not supplying Cliffs notes here...

Ora di leggere!

So since I haven't been doing anything lately or blogging, I've decided to do something quite "literal". Being that my goal in life is to become an Italian teacher at the high school level, and maybe-BIGGGG maybe here-to teach Italian at the University level later on, I need to get pro-active on the literature.

I have had a copy of Dante's Inferno since I was probably in 8th grade, when my obsession with the Italian culture, language, and country began. It sat on my bookshelf dusty and unread for about four years or so, when in senior year I began flipping through its pages, trying to make sense of the vernacular, terza rima lines that Alighieri wrote, flowing so beautifully on the page. However, I never made it past the first few pages as I was constantly reading other books for required reading, working, didn't have any actual study guides or teachings to help me fully grasp its concepts or my attention for long....however it wasn't long in college before I once again picked up the now yellowing copy of Inferno, actually reading a passage here, passage there for my literature classes for my major. However, I want to experience it more and actually be able to possibly use it for reference and understand it even more the next time I have to read it for more advanced college courses, or for even teaching it. Nobody, I think, will ever be able to say they fully understand Dante's work of art, but here's to trying!

Soo here's my goal: I went out to the bookstore yesterday, bought Purgatorio and Paradiso, and I am going to read La Divina Commedia in tutto, or the whole Divine Comedy.

I will give myself until Easter Sunday...which is I believe the time at the end of the Divine Comedy where Dante ends his story.

It begins on Good Friday and ends on Easter Sunday...so three books, 100 cantos, and thousands of lines later is only supposed to take three days in real time, so pray for me. Will be starting Inferno tonight and hopefully will have blogging material by Monday. I want to at least get 3 cantos in per blog...this whole idea of the 3 meaning Trinity in Dantespeak. (No not Dante's Peak like the 1997 movie with Linda Hamilton and Pierce Brosnan....Dantespeak, like a language..hahaha....I'm a nerd.)

Buona Fortuna a me!