The Fraudulent, the Seducers and the Flatterers
Dante and Virgil walk beside a boiling blood-red rill or
stream that flows from the woods of suicide and across the burning plains of
the seventh circle to a great cliff where at the bottom of the cliff begins the
eighth circle.
While on top of the cliff Virgil commands Dante to drop a
chord he had around his waist over the edge. There answering this signal comes
the Geryon, the monster of fraud. Dante and Virgil jump onto the back of the
Geryon and the Geryon flies them down to the eighth circle.
The Geryon had an innocent face yet a body of a reptile. Its
back, arms and chest were all very hairy and it had a tail with a stinger like
a scorpion. Tradition says that Geryon was a Spanish king that Hercules killed
so to acquire his cattle. However tradition, gives another later version of the
Geryon, as being a murderer and thief of strangers whom he lured into his realm
thus defrauding his guests.
Dante gives the eighth circle a name Malebolge which means
the evil ditches. Dante describes the eighth circle as being a great circle of
black stone that is like an amphitheatre with ten concentric ditches. Each
ditch represents a type of fraud and where souls who in life where guilty of
that type of fraud reside.
First Bolgia (Ditch) – The Panderers and Seducers
The panderers and seducers are in the first ditch from the
top of the eighth circle. They have been assembled into two files where demons
with large horns whip them so to keep them moving in a fast walk without rest.
As these souls drove others in life for their own purposes they too here are
driven against their own will.
Second Bolgia (Ditch) – The Flatterers
In the second ditch Dante finds the flatterers immersed in a
river of excrement. One of those in this ditch said to “Down to this have the
flatteries I sold the living sunk me here among the dead.”
Third Bolgia (Ditch) – Simoniacs
Dante finds here in the third ditch the Simoniacs, those who
sold church offices and favours for money. This ditch or bolgia is lined with
tube like holes where the souls that reside have been placed into the holes
head first with the soles of their feet sticking out and on fire. The more
guilty they are the more intense is the fire on their feet.
Fourth Bolgia (Ditch) – Fortune Tellers and Diviners
Dante finds in the fourth bolgia the fortune tellers and
diviners. They have their head turned backwards 180°, so that they only look
back and never forward. Their eyes fill with tears and they are compelled to
endlessly walk backwards. As they tried to look forward in time by forbidden
means (sorcery) which is against God they have their body deformed only to look
backward and not even see in front of themselves.
Fifth Bolgia (Ditch) – The Grafters
Dante finds in the fifth bolgia the grafters. Who are those
that trafficked with justice and abused their position as senators and
magistrates. They are immersed in boiling tar, and demons stand over them ready
to tear at them with claws and grappling hooks if they rise their head out of
the tar. Being immersed in tar out of sight could be symbolic for the fact that
all their dealings were hidden and behind closed doors. The hooks and sticky
tar could indicate how the grafters were in life always trying to get their
hands onto things so to corrupt.
Sixth Bolgia (Ditch) – The Hypocrites
Dante finds in the sixth bolgia the hypocrites. They march
endlessly in a circle following a narrow track wearing robes similar to a monk’s
habit. The habits are golden on the outside and lead on the inside. As the
hypocrites appear to shine and even appear holy, their robes are golden on the
outside and dark on the inside as is typical of a hypocrite. Their lead robes
could symbolize the heavy debt that their deception has on their conscience and
which they must pay.
In this ditch Dante and Virgil find Caiaphas, who is nailed
to the ground with three stakes and in such a position that every hypocrite has
to step on him. As he was the chief hypocrite, being the high priest and yet
advised the Pharisees to crucify Jesus the Christ.
Seventh Bolgia (Ditch) – The Thieves
Dante finds in the seventh bolgia the thieves. They are in a
ditch filled with reptiles. The snakes coil around them binding their hands
behind their back. Other reptiles move through the air and scurry through the
ditch. Dante and Virgil see one reptile fly and pierce the jugular of one of
the thieves. The thief bursts into flames and burns until only ashes remain,
and then with great pain the thief resuscitates, only for it to happen again
later.
The act of thievery is reptile like in nature – quiet and
astute, so reptiles are the elements that punish those who were thieves.
Because the hands are the main instruments of a thief the reptiles bind them,
and as the thieves destroyed their fellowmen by making their belongings
disappear over and over again their own body is made to disappear over and over
again and only be returned to them with much pain.
Eighth Bolgia (Ditch) – The Evil Councilors
Dante finds in the eighth bolgia the evil counselors, who in
this ditch are hidden in great flames. They were the ones who abused the divine
virtues for lower purposes. As they conducted their activities in hiding, they
too are hidden from plain sight and as their tongue was the instrument that
damaged the most they are continuously tormented by being licked by tongues of
fire. Dante finds there Ulysses and Diomede who together planned many
strategies which contributed toward the fall of Troy. That is why they are in a
joint yet divided flame, to perhaps symbollise their joint guilt and to show
that sooner or later a union made for the purposes of evil will split or break.
Ninth Bolgia (Ditch) – The Sowers of Discord
Dante finds in the ninth bolgia the sowers of discord. There
a blood covered demon wielding a huge sword mutilates all those there in the
ninth bolgia. As they divided and made schisms among things that were meant to
be united they are divided (mutilated). They are compelled to drag behind them
mutilated parts to have them heal and when meeting the demon again only to have
them cut off again.
Dante classifies those in this ditch into three classes.
Those who were the: sowers of religious discord, sowers of political discord
and sowers of discord among kinsmen. There is one there that in life had
separated father from son and has his head cut off and carries it by the hair.
Tenth Bolgia (Ditch) – The Falsifiers
Dante finds in the tenth bolgia the falsifiers, which he
describes there being four classes of. The falsifiers are surrounded by all
sorts of decay, stench, disease, thirst, darkness and filth everything that afflicts the senses.
The four classes of falsifiers:
1. The
Alchemists (the falsifiers of material goods)
2. Impersonators
(falsifiers of personal identities)
3. Counterfeiters
(falsifiers of money)
4. False
witnesses (falsifiers of words)
The alchemists suffer from all sorts of diseases, the
impersonators run constantly seizing others and being seized by others, the
counterfeiters suffer many a manner of diseases compounded by an intolerable
thirst, and those who bore false witness suffer by fighting among themselves
exchanging blows and words.
Summary
Neptune is the circle of fraud. Reading through what Dante
said about this circle one gets quite scared. Partly because fraud is very
common today in our society, it seems now with the internet that fraud is even
more prevalent. We even may find ourselves while reading this post a little bit
guilty of some of these frauds to a very minor degree. Well certainly in my
case anyway, concerning flattering, hypocrisy and discord.
Well it is just goes to show that we really have to think
twice about fraud because it is quite a heavy, it is the second deepest circle
in the abyss. It is does harm always to others and this harm is what we usually
underestimate and don’t believe that others should suffer because of our fraudulent
actions.
End (367).
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