DanteWorld: Definitely not Funland. LIBRARY OF CONGRESS
Date published: 5/9/2008
In her May 4 column decrying the domestic spread of "human trafficking," Linda White incorrectly describes the center of Hell ["Do you think trafficking of humans can't happen here? Think again"].
Citing Dante Alighieri's "The Inferno," she says that the center is where the damned will find "the real heat." She later makes reference to Hell's "flames flickering around us."
The "seducers" she rightfully lambastes in her column are consigned by Dante to the eighth of nine circles of hell, along with thieves, fortune-tellers, grafters, falsifiers, and simoniacs, among others.
But while it is certainly true that there are some fiery places in "The Inferno," we're mostly past them by the time Dante and his guide Virgil arrive at the eighth circle of Hell. No fire in the ninth, either.
That's where we find Cocytus, a huge frozen lake. And, as it turns out, the very center of Hell--in the exact middle of Cocytus--is fire-free, as well. It is, in fact--or at least in Dante's conceptualization--made entirely of ice.
More precisely, at the center of Hell is Satan, "his great wings beating like a windmill, fixed into the ice at the center to which flow all the rivers of guilt; and as he beats his great wings as if to escape, their icy wind only freezes him more surely into the polluted ice."
That's poet John Ciardi's description in the notes to his masterful translation of "The Inferno."
I suppose we all tend to read Dante, as we do most texts, through our own particular prisms, and appropriate him for our own particular uses.
As an example, in the ninth circle of Hell we find, trapped up to their necks in ice, the treasonous Count Ugolino gnawing his fellow traitor Archbishop Ruggieri's brains out for all eternity. Every time I read that passage, I can't help but think of George Bush and Dick Cheney.
Damned if I know why.
Steve Watkins
Fredericksburg
The writer is associate professor of English, linguistics, and speech at the University of Mary Washington.
barf making(posted by
phantom_twit
, May 9, 2008 3:02 pm)
Dang liberal, pro-sodomite ivory tower pervert and your un-American fancy words. You green leafy eating, anti-synthetic blend garmet wearin, PBS watching, soccer lovin, small car driving, book reading scum. Intellectuals attacking our sacred Leaders - those ordinary, non-elistists just like us who grew up just like us. Why not just push out a big stinky steamer on ol' glory commie boy? Smarty-thinking & freedom of un-American speech is the devils work and you sir, are certainly going H-E-L-L.
SEEMS LIKE YOUR BRAINS HAVE BEEN EATEN(posted by
Seadragon
, May 9, 2008 9:12 am)
Do Marxists and neophytes like yourself think you are not Satan's mouthpiece? We know most snotty professors, like you, in the universities, have a hellier than thou attitude.
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