Summary: Canto XXIV
Making their way to the Seventh Pouch of the
Eighth Circle of Hell, Virgil and Dante face many dangers. Because
of the collapsed bridge, they must navigate treacherous rocks, and
Virgil carefully selects a path before helping his mortal companion
along. Dante loses his breath for a moment, but Virgil urges him
onward, indicating that a long climb still awaits them. They descend
the wall into the Seventh Pouch, where teeming masses of serpents
chase after naked sinners; coiled snakes bind the sinners’ hands
and legs. Dante watches a serpent catch one of the sinners and bite
him between the shoulders. He watches in amazement as the soul instantly
catches fire and burns up, then rises from the ashes to return to
the pit of serpents.
Virgil speaks to this soul, who identifies
himself as a Tuscan, Vanni Fucci, whom Dante knew on Earth. Fucci
tells them that he was put here for robbing a sacristy—the Seventh
Pouch holds Thieves. Angered that Dante is witnessing his miserable
condition, he foretells the defeat of Dante’s political party, the
White Guelphs, at Pistoia.
Summary: Canto XXV
Cursing God with an obscene gesture, Fucci flees
with serpents coiling around him, and Dante now relishes the sight.
Moving further along the pit, he and Virgil behold an even more
incredible scene. Three souls cluster just beneath them, and a giant,
six-footed serpent wraps itself so tightly around one of them that
its form merges with that of its victim; the serpent and soul become
a single creature. As the other souls watch in horror, another reptile
bites one of them in the belly. The soul and the reptile stare at
each other, transfixed, as the reptile slowly takes on the characteristics
of the man and the man takes on those of the reptile. Soon they
have entirely reversed their forms.
Summary: Canto XXVI
Having recognized these thieves as Florentines,
Dante sarcastically praises Florence for earning such widespread
fame not only on Earth but also in Hell. Virgil now leads him along
the ridges to the Eighth Pouch, where they see numerous flames flickering
in a deep, dark valley. Coming closer, Virgil
informs Dante that each flame contains a sinner. Dante sees what
appear to be two souls contained together in one flame, and Virgil
identifies them as Ulysses and Diomedes, both suffering for the
same fraud committed in the Trojan War.
Dante desires to speak with these warriors, but Virgil,
warning him that the Greeks might disdain Dante’s medieval Italian,
speaks to them as an intermediary. He succeeds in getting Ulysses
to tell them about his death. Restlessly seeking new challenges,
he sailed beyond the western edge of the Mediterranean, which was
believed to constitute the rim of the Earth; legend asserted that
death awaited any mariner venturing beyond that point. After five
months, he and his crew came in view of a great mountain. Before
they could reach it, however, a great storm arose and sank their
ship.
Analysis: Cantos XXIV–XXVI
Early in Canto XXIV, Dante clarifies the geographical
structure of Malebolge (the Eighth Circle): it slopes continuously
downward, so that, after the Tenth Pouch, it runs right into Hell’s
central pit. Virgil and Dante have thus not been simply progressing around
the underworld’s circumference but descending deeper and deeper
into the Earth’s core.
