Week 11 Extra Credit Reading: Dante's Inferno Part A

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Dante's Divine Comedy, translated by Tony Kline Link Here

Dante and Virgil 

• This first section or chapter of the story was hard to follow for me. I will see if it gets better as I continue.
• There were some cool parts. 

• The monsters 
• The drama of it all 
• Seeing ancient spirits in pain 

The Gate of Hell and Charon 

• No cowards! 
• No uncertainty! 
• Beautiful illustration by William Blake that I will be using for my post 
• "stained, eternally, like sand spiraling in a whirlwind."-- LIKEEEE 
•  'I will tell you, briefly. They have no hope of death, and their darkened life is so mean that they are envious of every other fate. Earth allows no mention of them to exist: mercy and justice reject them; let us not talk of them but look and pass.' 
• Despicable crew 
• Crossing over 

Limbo 

• Buggy eyed creature picture "Charon"- by Michelangelo 
• Very interesting chapter 

Poets and Philosophers, Heroes and Heroines 

• Penthesilea 
• tragic 

Paolo and Franchesca 

• No hope of rest, or even lesser torment, comforts them. And as the cranes go, making their sounds, forming a long flight of themselves in the air, so I saw the shadows come, moaning, carried by that war of winds, at which I said: 'Master, who are these people, that the black air chastises so?' 
• 'The next is Dido who killed herself for love and broke faith with Sichaeus's ashes; then comes licentious Cleopatra.  
• Love led us to one death. 
• And she to me: 'There is no greater pain than to remember happy times in misery, and this your teacher knows. But if you have so great a yearning to understand the first root of our love, I will be like one who weeps and tells. We read, one day, to our delight, of Lancelot and how love constrained him: we were alone and without suspicion. Often those words urged our eyes to meet and coloured our cheeks, but it was a single moment that undid us. When we read how that lover kissed the beloved smile, he who will never be separated from me, kissed my mouth all trembling. That book was a Galeotto, a pandar, and he who wrote it: that day we read no more." 

Cerberus and Plutus 

• Cerberus, the fierce and strange monster, triple-throated, barks dog-like over the people submerged in it.  
• Papé Satàn, papé Satàn aleppe,' Plutus, began to croak, and the gentle sage, who understood all things, comforted me, saying: 'Do not let fear hurt you since, whatever power he has, he will not prevent you descending this rock.' 
• But you, my son, can see now the vain mockery of the wealth controlled by Fortune for which the human race fight with each other, since all the gold under the moon, that ever was, could not give peace to one of these weary souls.' 

Fortune and Phlegyas 

•  "We were sullen in the sweet air that is gladdened by the sun, bearing indolent smoke in our hearts: now we lie here, sullen, in the black mire." This measure they gurgle in their throats, because they cannot utter it in full speech.' 
• 5th circle 

The Fallen Angels 

• And he to me: 'The eternal fire that burns them from within makes them appear reddened, as you see, in this deep Hell.' 

The Furies and the Heretics 

• ….three hellish Furies, stained with blood, had risen that had the limbs and aspects of women, covered with a tangle of green hydras, their hideous foreheads bound with little adders and horned vipers. 
• 6th circle 
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