Week 14 Reading Notes: Dante's Inferno, Part B

Here are my notes on Dante's Inferno.

1: The Minotaur and the Centaurs
-on the way to the seventh circle, Dante and Virgil run in to the minotaur; they continue walking down to the seventh circle; on the way down, they come to the first ring where they find centaurs; they meet Chiron and Nessus; Nessus guides Dante and Virgil down

2: The Harpies and Capaneus
-Dante and Virgil enter the seventh circle of hell, for the murderers; there they see tyrants, murderers and warriors; notably, they see Alexander the Great and Dionysius; the sinners boil in rivers of blood; they keep walking to the second ring, where the sinners who committed suicide are guarded by harpies; they walk to the third ring, where the people who were violent against god are; they come across Capaneus (a dead warrior) who just lays there in the torment; Capaneus tells Dante that Zeus hit him with a lightning bolt and killed him because of pride

3: The Old Man of Crete and Geryon
-Dante and Virgil come to a stream and Virgil tells Dante a story about Crete and the age of humanity; he says that as humanity evolves, they become more corrupt and sinful; they keep walking and come across Geryon; they get on Geryon's back and continue on

4: Descending on Geryon's Back
-Dante and Virgil fly on Geryon's back to the eighth circle of hell, called Malebolge

5: Jason and the Demons
-Dante and Virgil enter the first chasm of the 8th circle, for pimps and seducers; they see Jason there (bc he apparently seduced a girl and left her); they continue to the second chasm, for the flatterers; the sinners are immersed in excrement; there Dante sees Alessio; Virgil instructs Dante to hide while he crosses a bridge because it's guarded by demons; Virgil talks the demons into letting them pass

6: Caiaphas
-the demons lead Dante and Virgil through the rest of the 8th circle; they come across the area where the hypocritical sinners are; two spirits come up to Dante and talk to him; he asks them who they are, they tell him they are the Fraudi Gaudenti (friars who are supposed to keep the peace); they come across a man lying crucified on the ground; the friars tell Dante that this is Caiaphas, a priest who convinced the Pharisees to crucify Jesus

7: Ulysses and Diomede
-Dante stands on a bridge, overlooking the sinners burning below him; Virgil tells him the Odysseus and Diomede are burning below him for their punishment; Virgil speaks to Odysseus in the fire and asks him to tell them what got him there; Odysseus tells them that after he went home in the Odyssey, he left home on another voyage; eventually, Odysseus's boat sank and killed him, so he ended up there

8: The Giants
-Dante and Virgil keep walking to the center pit, but the pit is guarded by giants; Virgil introduces Dante to Nimrod, one of the giants guarding the pit

9: Ugolino
-Dante and Virgil enter the ninth circle and see two frozen spirits trying to eat one another; Dante asks them who they are, and one spirit tells him that he is Count Ugolino; Ugolino was trapped in a tower by the other spirit (Archbishop Ruggieri) and was never let out; eventually, Ugolino's children die of hunger in the tower, and Ugolino eats their corpses

10: Satan
-Dante and Virgil enter the city of Judecca, which is the part of the ninth circle of hell where the devil lives; Dante sees the devil; he's huge and has 3 faces (Judas, Brutus, Cassius); he's eating sinners; Virgil tells Dante that the faces of the devil serve the greatest punishment; Virgil tells Dante they have to go, and the climb out of hell and emerge into the normal world

All the circles of Hell. Source: Untextbook.

BIBLIOGRAPHY
"Dante's Divine Comedy" translated by Tony Kline. Source: Untextbook.