In
line 27 of the eighth canto of Dante’s Inferno,
Dante says “there seemed to be no weight [on the boat] until [he] boarded.”
Dante mentions this because he is the only live person in this setting, so he
is the only one with a physical body that carries the weight of sin. Phlegyas
and Virgil do not add weight to the boat because they are merely spirits, and
their sins have caused them to become a part of Hell. Because they are already
pieces that make up Hell, they do not add any weight to the boat. The sin and
anger that their spirits are comprised of makes them one with the boat. Dante,
however, is a foreign substance in Hell and therefore adds to it. Rather than
being a component of Hell, he does not belong there, so he adds weight to the
boat. On the following page, in lines 43-45, Phlegyas calls Dante and his
mother “blessed” because he is without anger. The boat they travel on is
accustomed to voyagers whose spirits are comprised of anger, but because
Dante’s spirit is pure, he is made of a different element and therefore adds to
the boat’s weight.
In
the ninth canto in lines 23 and 24, Dante says, “That savage witch Enrichtho…
called the shades back to their bodies.” Shades block light from passing
through windows, just as Enrichtho obstructs light from reaching the spirits
who have been damned here. Anyone who dwells in this level and below has no
goodness in their soul because sin has overtaken them and Hell has sucked any
goodness they had out of them. From this level and onward, Hell is filled with
complete darkness and evil.
On
pages 99-101 of the eleventh canto of Inferno,
usury is condemned as a sin that angers God because it involves a person
choosing to stray away from the divine path in order to make personal gain. It
is explained to Dante that “Divine Art” and “Divine Nature” follow each other
on a path so that art is closely related to God (11.99.100-105). It is said
that when man strays from this path to make personal gain, he is going against
nature and therefore God.
In
the twelfth canto, Dante travels to the seventh circle, where those who have
commited violent crimes are tortured by immersion in boiling blood. This is
fitting because usually it is said that anger that causes violence feels like blood
boiling due to the heat associated with rage. Because these souls let violence
take over their earthly life, it now drowns them in their eternal lives. The
depth of the blood each body is immersed in also correlates with the level of
guilt each soul carries. Those who have committed more violent crimes (those
commited against God rather than those against others or oneself) are immersed
in deeper boiling blood.
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