Inferno Canto 9

     INFERNO

Canto IX

v Summary:

Dante waits afraid outside of the gate to the City of Dis as Virgil fails to get Dante inside with him. While the two talk, Virgil tells Dante of Erichtho who summoned a spirit from the lowest level of hell. Virgil continues to assure Dante that they will continue their journey without anyone stopping them. Soon, the angles return and shut the gates ending their conversation. When Virgil returns, he tells Dante that soon an angel from Heaven will come to open the gates for them.

Dante sees three Furies who call for Medusa to come and turn Dante into stone. Virgil places his hands over Dante’s eyes, warning him to cover his eyes from Medusa’s head. A loud noise makes its way over the Styx, while spirits rush away from him. The messenger arrives to the gate and demands for it to be opened for the travelers, and soon his task is completed.                                                                The two poets enter the gates leading into the Sixth Circle of Hell. As they walk in, Dante sees the huge graveyard with tombs covering the land. Sounds of torture and cries come from the open tombs, as hot flames outside each wall raise them. Dante asks who the sinners are inside the tombs, and Virgil answers that they are the arch-heretics and those that follow them.

v Sin:

In Level 6, the walled city is filled with heretics. These are the people who denied immortality of the soul and are there because they chose wrongly. The difference with them and the virtuous pagans, and opportunists is that the pagans had no choice, and the opportunists did not choose. “Dante opts for the most generic conception of heresy--the denial of the soul's immortality (Inf. 10.15)”

v Punishment for their sins:

The heretics came to a decision with God which was wrong, leading to them being inside the walled city. Living in full distress and torment punishes the heretics. Burning tombs cover the land with hot flames where they stay. 

v Link to contrapasso:

      Failing to believe in God and the afterlife leaves them to lie where they wont be offered any leisure. They now stay with the three infernal Furies that live in this circle. Dante uses this circle to present a clear and effective form of contrapasso. The heretical souls will be tormented in fiery tombs endlessly because they believed that there was no heaven and god.

v Character Analysis:

Alecto, Tisiphone, and Megaera: (Greek and Roman Mythology) 3 terrible female spirits, known as furies, with snake as hair, and who punish those of unavenged crimes. The three furies live in level six and work with Medusa.

Medusa: (Greek Mythology) She is one of 3 Gorgons who turns humans into stone when they look at her. Like the furies, she also has snakes as hair.