Dante's Divine Comedy

• 1. How is “transition” accomplished in the first tercet of this canto?

Line 1 proceeds immediately from the final line of the previous canto where with Dante on Nessus’s back the three cross the ford of the Phlegethon. In line XIII.1 Nessus is headed back to the shore from which he led them while Dante and Virgil are just entering the Wood of the Suicides which has no trail.

Semantically, what do lines 1 and 3-7 have in common. (It may help to examine the first three tercets in Italian.)

Each is cast in the negative; in Italian each of those specific lines begins with non, “not.”

This construction exemplifies the rhetorical device called anaphora. We have seen it before in III.1-3 and V.100-108. What effect does anaphora produce in Canto XIII?

The entire construction emphasizes what is either no longer or not present at all. In the case of five of the lines, they point to the lifelessness of the place, the absence of what one might expect in a wood.

• 2. Lines 10-15 observe the “guardians” of the Wood of the Suicides (Round 2 of Circle 7). How are they like the guardians of the First Round?

They are a mixing of the human and the bestial. In this case, they are great birds with human faces and necks as well as feathers and claws.

What borders either side of the Wood of the Suicides? (XII.47-48, XI.42-51, and XIII.19)

Round 1, where the violent against their neighbors suffer, is the Phlegethon, a river of boiling blood. (XII.47-48) Round 3, where the violent against God, Nature, and Art suffer, is the desert of burning sand upon which falls flakes of fire. (XI.42-51 and XIII.19)

Read line XIII.24. Now, compare it to John Ciardi’s translation of I.1-3—“Midway in our life’s journey, I went astray/from the straight road and woke to find myself/alone in a dark wood.” What parallel, if any, do you see between the line from Canto XIII and Canto I?

In both selections, we see the word “lost.” (In Italian the former is the word “smarrita”; the latter is “smarrito.” Both mean “lost.” Dante the poet is setting up a connection or parallel between his own state before his journey began and the condition of those in the Wood of the Suicides, thus adding a dimension to the pilgrim’s situation at the outset: perhaps his near despair was tainted with suicidal thoughts.

• 3. Dante begins to learn the nature of the Wood of the Suicides in lines 28-40. How does Virgil know to speak lines 28-30 to Dante?

Virgil seems to read Dante’s mind here (and elsewhere in the poem).

What do you think of Esolen’s translation of line 30?

The word “stumps” is perfect for the Wood of the Suicides.

What is the purpose of the epic simile in lines 40-45?

It allows the reader an auditory image of what Dante hears from the broken twig leaking blood. It is terrifying.

What is the punishment for the suicides?

Their souls are encased in thorn trees and bushes.

What do you make of lines 20-21 in the context of Lines 45-51?

Lines 20-21 are somewhat ironic considering that Dante regards the Aeneid as the ideal of poetic composition and must, therefore, be familiar with every aspect of it. Lines 45-51 assert that had Dante believed what he read in Book III of the Aeneid, he could have understood where the sounds were coming from.

Lines 49-51 provides an apology for Dante’s pain-inducing action as well as a second apology for Virgil’s prompting Dante to take such action. The scene seems to be developed not only from the Aeneid but also from the adage, “Seeing is believing.”

• 4. Who is the soul encased in this thorn tree, the representative sinner of this circle?

Pier delle Vigne

How does Virgil offer as compensation for the injury Dante committed? (lines 52-54)

Virgil suggests that Dante, when he returns to terrestrial life, might revive Pier’s reputation.

What does line 55 reveal about Pier?

The fact that he accepts Virgil’s suggestion, indicates that Pier wants to be remembered, that his reputation is most important to him.

How does Pier describe himself? (lines 58-64)

He calls himself the “guardian of Frederick’s heart, the Emperor’s trusted man who held the keys, locking, unlocking with so soft a heart [he] stole most of the other courtiers from his secrets.” The last part about stealing secrets means that Frederick shared more private thoughts with him than with any other courtier.

In lines 62-64, he asserts that he gave himself wholly and tirelessly to serving Frederick, weakening his own body.

What biblical figure is evoked by line 59?

The most obvious allusion is to St. Peter. “And I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven, and whatever you bind on earth will be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth will be loosed in heaven.” (Matthew 16:19)

We might also consider Isaiah 22:22

The key of the house of David
I will lay on his shoulder;
So he shall open, and no one shall shut;
And he shall shut, and no one shall open.

If so, the “house of David” may be interpreted in this case as connecting to the Emperor Frederick II. The third and fourth lines evoke Matthew 16:19.

• 5. How does Pier explain his suicide? Lines 64-72

First, in lines 64-69, he claims that the other courtiers grew envious of him. Consumed with envy, they moved others to the same sin and, in turn, inspired suspicion in Frederick. The result was the transformation of his former honors to “mournful gloom.”

What is meaning of the phrase “Caesar’s house” (“l’ospizio di Cesare”) in line 65?

It refers to Frederick’s court or his palace. It is an example of metonymy: “the use of a reference to something by the name of something closely associated with it, not by a literal part of it.” For example, “the Pentagon announced today . . .”

The use of the word “Caesar” is another example of metonymy. “Cesare” evokes the “imperial office” or the Roman idea of empire. In context, Frederick II is the emperor whom Pier delle Vigne served.

What does Pier mean in lines 65-66?

Envy is the second most serious sin in the ranking of the Seven Deadly Sins. It is a form of malicious love (loving another’s harm. Unlike wrath which is explosive and active, envy is cold and inward. Pier in these lines blames envy for the actions taken against him by Frederick’s other courtiers. He calls envy the “vice of the court,” implying that it pervades all courts at all times.

Furthermore, he blames envy for “death for all mankind,” thus alluding to Wisdom 2:24—"But by the envy of the devil, death came into the world.”

How does envy explain his suicide? Lines 70-72

Pier essentially says that he could not live with the shame and so chose to take his own life to escape it.

In a creative use of wordplay (paronomasia), he says, “My spirit . . . made me against myself, though just, unjust.” The heart of it lies in the juxtaposition of “just” and “unjust.” This line entire tercet is typical of his “chancery style.” It also demonstrates his other career as a poet.

• 6. What is the sense of lines 73-75?

In a bizarre way, Pier swears by the “bizarre root of this tree,” the tree in which his soul is encased, that he never “broke the faith I owed my lord.” In other words, he is innocent of any offense against the emperor by the means of his office as chancellor.

In fact, historians have proven that he did commit embezzlement. Whether Dante knew this or not is not clear. That fact depends in part on the interpretation of Pier delle Vigne and his character.

What request does he make in lines 76-78?

He asks that if either Dante or Virgil return to the living world that they vindicate his name.

What truth about his character that justifies his sin as an example of disordered love does this request reveal?

His reputation means more to him that does his emperor or his God.

Lines 79-84 provide a unique situation in Inferno. Can you identify it?

These are the only words that Dante the pilgrim speaks in this canto.

What is his justification for declining to ask a question? Have we seen this response in him before this canto?

He says that he pities Pier too much to ask him any question. He asks Virgil to ask whatever question that he believes would satisfy Dante.

He pitied nearly everyone he encountered in Upper Hell – but not all. He pitied the sinners gathering before Minos that he fainted. He pitied Francesca so much that he “swooned for pity.” In the Sixth Circle, he is in awe of Farinata.

What question does Virgil ask? (lines 85-90)

Virgil asks if any soul encased in the trees is ever allowed to be freed from it.

What is Pier’s answer? (lines 94-108) How does it represent the contrapasso of the sin of suicide?

The sinner who destroyed the body is denied the dignity of a human form. The sinner who rejected life is rooted in a form that cannot die but can only suffer. The sinner who silenced his own voice must speak only through wounds.

The suicide rejected the body God gave; therefore, he receives no stable, chosen, or dignified form. He becomes: 1) rooted (unable to flee himself), 2) wild (reflecting the disorder of self-violence), and 3) thorny (embodying the pain he inflicted inwardly)

The randomness of the landing mirrors the disordered, unreasoned act of self-destruction.

When the Harpies tear at the dark foliage, 1) the plant-soul bleeds, 2) the wound becomes a mouth, and 3) the soul moans through the gash. The suicide tried to end pain by ending the body. Now, pain is continuous, not escapable; the body is fragmented, not annihilate; and speech is possible only through violence, not through the natural human voice.

Dante adds a second layer of contrapasso that will unfold at the Resurrection: 1) suicides will not be reunited with their bodies; 2) reunion would be unjust, since they voluntarily severed that union; 3) instead, they will drag their bodies through the Wood; and each body will hang from the tree that houses its soul, “each by the thorns of its assaulting soul.”

The suicide’s act was a violent rupture of the God-given unity of body and soul. Therefore, the soul must carry the body as a burden, not as a restored gift; 2) the body becomes a symbol of guilt, not identity; and 3) the soul’s own thorns—its self-inflicted violence—become the hooks that bind body to tree. In all of Inferno, this is one of Dante’s most chilling eschatological images: the sinner dragging the very body he once rejected, unable to inhabit it, unable to escape it.

• 7. Who are the spendthrifts?

Lano da Squacia of Siena of the Squanderers’ Brigade and Jacopo da Sant’ Andrea

Dante’s “spendthrifts” (scialacquatori) are those who destroyed their own goods and patrimony through reckless waste, often violently squandering wealth, property, and even their own lives in the process. They are not suicides in the strict sense, but they ruined themselves by destroying what sustained their lives.

What is the punishment of the spendthrifts? How can you explain the contrapasso for that sin?

The spendthrifts in Inferno XIII suffer a contrapasso that is closely related to—but distinct from—the suicides among whom they run. The key is that Dante places two kinds of violence against self in the same wood, but gives each a punishment that mirrors the specific form of their self-destruction.

The spendthrifts are punished by being chased relentlessly by ravenous black dogs who tear them apart limb from limb—an externalization of the violent, uncontrolled squandering that consumed their lives.

They destroyed their own substance so their bodies are destroyed. Just as they wasted their substance (goods, wealth, inheritance), now their substance—literally their bodies—is torn to pieces. Their self-ruin becomes a perpetual, physical dismemberment.

They lived in reckless, uncontrolled expenditure → they run in reckless, uncontrolled flight Their lives were marked by impulsive, ungoverned spending.
Now they are forced into impulsive, ungoverned motion, sprinting through the wood without direction or rest.

They were consumed by their own wastefulness → they are consumed by dogs. The black bitches (cagne nere) symbolize: rapacity, destruction, the devouring nature of vice. As spendthrifts “devoured” their own goods, now they themselves are devoured.

The Wood of the Suicides is already a place of brokenness, sterility, and violence against self. The spendthrifts crash destructively through it, breaking branches and scattering fragments, just as they shattered the stability of their own houses and families.

Their destruction was public and chaotic → their punishment is noisy, chaotic spectacle. Their punishment is not silent like the suicides’ rooted suffering.
It is violent, loud, and dramatic, matching the public, ruinous extravagance of their earthly behavior.

The spendthrifts’ contrapasso is a perpetual reenactment of their self-destructive wastefulness. They are: torn apart as they once tore apart their own patrimony. They are driven in chaos as they once lived without measure or restraint. Their punishment is the outward dramatization of the inward disorder that consumed them in life.

• 8. Why does Dante make the unidentified suicide anonymous?

It is possible that Dante chose to keep the character nameless to draw attention to the extreme frequency of suicide in Florence, generally due to hanging.