Dante's Divine Comedy

• 1. Who is the guardian of Circle 4?

Plutus (mentioned in only a single line in the Aeneid) (Canto VI, line 115)

How does Virgil’s first word of advice (lines 4-6) apply to both Plutus and all of Hell?

Plutus, despite his roaring, “clucking” gibberish can in no way prevent Dante from proceeding on his journey of self-discovery and exploration of the Fourth Circle of all Hell, for that matter.

Further, Plutus unintelligibility and rage characterize the corruption and irrationality punished in the Fourth Circle.

Further, his rage and pride connect him to the rebellious angels.

How do Virgil’s words in line 8 addressed to Plutus connect to avarice, the sin punished in the Fourth Circle?

Virgil calls Plutus “cursed wolf of Hell.” The she-wolf Dante encounters in the dark wood in Canto I was a symbol of avarice and insatiable desire, the sin punished in the Fourth Circle.

The she-wolf is also the symbolic beast associated with all of Upper Hell – from the Second Circle to the Fifth. How are lust, gluttony, avarice, and wrath each connected to that symbolic beast?

Lust is an insatiable desire for sex, gluttony an insatiable desire for food and drink, avarice an insatiable desire for wealth expressed in two types: miserliness and wasteful spending, and wrath an insatiable wrath also expressed in two types: rage and sullenness.

• 2. How is the word choice in lines 16-18 appropriate to the Fourth Circle?

The Fourth Circle punishes avarice. Esolen’s choice to use the phrase “the fourth purse” to describe this circle evokes that which holds wealth as does the word “bags”. [Note that Esolen, influenced by the imagery of “bags” chose to translate “la quarta laca” (“the fourth lake”) as he has.]

• 3. Describe the punishment of the avaricious in detail (lines 25-35).

They roll great stones, those who wasted their wealth going in one direction while those who hoarded push in the opposite direction. When they slammed into one another, the prodigal yell, “Why do you hoard? (Why do you hold?) and the misers yell, “Why the fists so tight?” (Why do you laugh?) When they get halfway round the circle, they turn around and start anew.

Interpret the contrapasso here.

The weights suggest that wealth is a burden. The pursuit of wealth is parodied by a dance halfway around the circle that simply reverses and repeats itself endlessly. The cost of that pursuit boils down to the erosion of humanity, rationality, and language.

How does the scene impact Dante the pilgrim himself? (line 36)

He remains stricken by the punishment and its results as he did among the lustful and the gluttons though perhaps to a lesser degree.

• 4. Why is there no representative sinner in this circle? (lines 49-54)

Those in this circle lived a “know-nothing life that made them foul,” a life that “Dims them beyond all recognition now.” The “know-nothing life” may refer to their ignorance of or refusal to pursue the mean between miserliness and prodigality, which Aristotle called liberality. Such a life made the value they placed on wealth and the extremes to which they pursued it an idol whose “worship” erased their identity.

However, some commentators suggest that the rubbing of the stones against the front of their bodies scraped off their faces.

However, there is a class of sinners that a person might regard as representative. How are they identified? (lines 46-48)

Their tonsured heads belong to clerics. They constitute a large portion of the sinners, who – according to Aquinas, squandered the wealth of the Church which rightly belong to the poor.

Who does Dante list among the tonsured? (lines 46-48)

Clerks, popes, and cardinals

• 5. What is the nature of avarice? (lines 40-42, 61-67)

In life, the avaricious (both the miserly and the prodigal) failed to discern the mean between the two extremes of hoarding and wasting. That mean, according to Aristotle is “liberality,” the virtue of generosity – the right balance in giving and taking. The liberal person knows how much to give, to whom, and when, whether the amounts are small or large. For Aristotle, liberality is more about the character of the giver than about the quantity of his gifts in relationship to his own wealth. Think of the widow’s mite.

Liberality values wealth only as a tool for helping others and making noble contributions.

The lust for money is so obsessive in its nature that no amount of wealth would ever satisfy either a miser or a spendthrift.

The avaricious fail to see God and relationship to Him as the true good.

How does Virgil respond to Dante’s question regarding Fortune? (lines 67-72)

Initially, he calls Dante and most people “simpletons.” Virgil’s desire to “feed” Dante marks a turning point in the pilgrim’s (and the poet’s) understanding of Fortune.

As Esolen explains in his note on line 64, Fortune is an agent of God. Though Dante significantly adapts Boethius’ image of Fortune, in the end the two agree. How do lines 91-93 support this interpretation?

Those who suffer loss curse Fortune and blame her for their loss.

Do men’s attitudes impact Fortune? (lines 94-96)

No, she is blessed in her role as an agent of God’s providence. Like all the other angels, she takes joy in her service.

How does the concept of wheels, circles, or cycles fit into the language and imagery of this canto? (lines 22-24, 25-36, 74, 82-83, 90, 94-96, 98-99, 100-101).

The whirlpool Charybdis is a whirling vortex. (lines 22-24)

The circling of the sinners in Circle Four is an endless circular cycle. (lines 25-36)

The division of the heavens into spheres is an image of concentric circles (as are the levels of Hell and Purgatory). (line 74)

The cycle of rising and falling empires (lines 82-83)

The image of Fortune spinning her wheel (lines 94-96)

The apparent circling of the stars in the night sky over the course of the night (lines 98-99)

A reference of the circular geography of Hell (lines 100-101)

• 6. What do lines 98-99 reveal to us relative to the progress of Dante and Virgil’s journey? These lines might be more clearly translated “For every star that rose when I set out/is sinking now, and we must not linger here.”

It’s now after midnight of the night they set out on their journey at 6:00 PM on Good Friday.

• 7. How has Dante adapted the River Styx (the River of Hate) from Greek mythology.

In the Greek version, Charon takes his boat across the Styx at the beginning of the Underworld.

What is the source of the Styx? (lines 100-102)

The source is a spring that “boiled and bubbled over into a trench that led the stream away. Since the Styx supposedly derives its name for the word for sorrow, it makes sense since Aquinas regards sorrow as the source of anger, sloth, and envy, making it for Dante the appropriate condition of punishment.

In his geography of Hell, what is the Styx? (lines 106-108)

It is a swamp that is also the Fifth Circle.

Describe the punishment of the sinners there. (lines 109-114 and 118-126)

Some of the sinners, naked and covered in mud, fight each other in a rage, using their hands, feet, chest, head, and teeth as they “rip each other limb from limb.”

Others lie beneath the swampy waters sighing and wailing their own sullenness. However, their attempts to speak are made unclear as they struggle against the foul water.

What sins are punished here?

Wrath and sullenness

Many regard the structure of the Comedy as similar to that of a cathedral. If so, what aspect of a cathedral does line 125 evoke?

The word gargle derives from the French “gargouiller” which meant “to gurgle, to bubble” which, in turn, derives from gargole, “throat or waterspout.” That evokes an image of the sullen as gargoyles. Since gargoyles were carvings of grotesque monsters or demons, the fighting wrathful also evoke this image.

• 8. Who are your examples of the twin sins of avarice and the twin sins of anger?

OPEN QUESTION