Download Canto XXX Judith Schultheis November 20,2007

Canto XXX
Judith Schultheis
November 20,2007
Summary
•
Saturday, April 9, early afternoon
Circle VIII, Malebolge, Bolgia X The
falsifiers
•
This canto deals with the three
remaining categories of falsifiers:
impersonators, counterfeiters and
liars. Unlike all other sinners in
Hell, the falsifiers are tortured
from within themselves, rather than
from without. (We speak of the
immediate agent of torture, not the
ultimate contrapasso punishment,
which in all cases is engendered by
the sin within the sinner.) As the
alchemists in the previous canto
were afflicted with leprosy, so the
impersonators are mad, the
counterfeiters have dropsy, and the
liars have a fever which makes them
smell. These sinners, who falsified
nature, themselves, money or
language, have basically corrupted
their own souls, which are diseased
for eternity. The two illustrations
of madness with which Dante begins
the canto are an ironic contrast to
the madness of Schicchi and Myrrha.
The first of these classical
torments was inflicted by the
goddess Juno, and the second by
fortune, while the sinners portrayed
here brought about their own
punishment through petty greed and
cunning.
Master Adam, the counterfeiter
suffers from eternal thirst, and
is fittingly more parched by his
own images of running water
than by the disease dessicating
his face . When one of the liars,
Sinon the Greek, gets into an
argument with Master Adam,
Dante watches with great
interest until Virgil rebukes
him, as he did at the beginning
of the previous canto. Dante
blushes at once, for he knows
that sympathetic curiosity is
an unworthy stance toward such
low behavior; nevertheless he
needs Virgil to break his
fascination. The incident adds a
final metaphor to the theme of
the canto, for Dante is being
captured by this utterly
spurious quarrel, briefly
falling prey to its falsity.
Indeed, through this display of
curiosity he leaves Malebolge
with a fitting tribute to the
subtle power of fraud.
Characters
•
•
•
Gianni Schicchi A scene in the
tenth chasm, of the Falsifiers, in
the eighth circle. Dante sees
two pale and naked shadows
rushing out biting like hungry
swine. One, Gianni Schicchi,
grabs Capocchio by the neck
with his fangs.
Myrrha –In Greek Myhollogy ,
Myrrha was the daughter of
Theias, and mother of Adonis .
He sees her shade suffering
rabies for all eternity in the
eighth circle of Hell. Her
punishment is not the
consequence of her unnatural
lust (which would have landed
her in the second circle) but for
her practice of the art of
deception.Myrrha was changed
into a myrtle. Adonis was born
from her trunk.
Potiphar's wife
Sinon Of Troy- In Greek mythology, Sinon,
was a Greek warrior during the Trojan
War. He pretended to have deserted the
Greeks and, as a Trojan captive, told
the Trojans that the giant wooden
horse the Greeks had left behind was
intended as a gift to the gods to ensue
their safe voyage home. His story
convinced the Trojans because it
included the former details as well as
an explanation that he was left behind
to die by the doing of Odysseus who
was his enemy. The Trojans brought
the Trojan Horse through the doors.
Inside the giant wooden horse were
Greek soldiers, who, as night fell,
disembarked from the horse and
opened the gates of Troy, thus sealing
the fate of Troy.
• Capocchio – probably the Florentine
alchemist who was burned alive in
Sienna in 1281
•
Master Adam- Master Adam, the
counterfeiter suffers from eternal
thirst, and is fittingly more
parched by his own images of
running water than by the disease
dessicating his face
oIncluded among Virgil's catalogue of fraudulent
offenses in Inferno 11 are theft, falsifying, and "like
trash" the sins that are punished in the final four
ditches of circle 8. With the thieves appearing in the
seventh pit and the falsifiers in the tenth, the "like
trash" must by default fill up ditches eight and nine.
Divisive individuals--sowers of scandal and discord-are tormented in the ninth ditch, and the shades
punished in the eighth pit hidden within tongues of
fire.