Inferno Commentary

Natalie Mironov
Ms. Peifer
English 10 IB
January 9, 2009

The Inferno

"About us now in the depth of the pit we found

a painted people, weary and defeated.

Slowly, in pain, they paced it round and round.

All wore great cloaks cut to as ample a size

as those worn by the Benedictines of Cluny.

The enormous hoods were drawn over their eyes.

The outside is all dazzle, golder and fair;

the inside, lead, so heavy that Frederick's capes,

compared to these, would seem as light as air.

O weary mantle for eternity!

We turned to the left again along their course,

listening to their moans of misery,

but they moved so slowly down that barren strip,

tired by their burden, that our company

was changed at every moment of the hip.

And walking thus, I said: 'As we go on,

may it please you to look about among these people

for any whose name or history may be known.'"

(Alighieri 55-72).

This passage of The Inferno is from circle eight, bolgia six, which is about the hypocrites. The hypocrites are forced to wander endlessly wearing coats that are elegant and extravagent, yet extremely heavy. This is representative of one of Dante's main themes, symbolic retribution. The sinners must wear these coats because on the outside they will appear beautiful and holy, but underneath is the weight of all the lies and wrongdoings that the sinner must carry around forever. The passage also shows how dismal a place hell must be since it is filled with sinners of all types.

This section of the text uses literary devices such as connotation, allusion, similes, and imagery to portray hell and the punishment for hypocrisy. A sad and dejected connotation is especially present in the beginning of the passage when describing the sinners. Dante calls them a "weary and defeated" (Alighieri 56) people, stuck in a "weary mantle" (Alighieri 64) along a "barren strip" (Alighieri 67). This shows how desolate and boring a place they are in because sinners must get punished rather than rewarded.

Allusion and similes are also a key component to understanding the full meaning behind the retribution. The sinners "all wore great cloaks cut to as ample a size as those worn by the Benedictines of Cluny" (Alighieri 58-59). This is referencing the elegant robes worn by the monks in the Benedictine monastry in Cluny. By comparing the robes of the hypocrites to those of the monks, the reader understands how luxurious these cloaks actually appeared. The second allusion goes on to discuss "the inside, lead, so heavy that Frederick's capes, compared to these, would seem as light as air" (Alighieri 62-63). When it says Frederick's capes, Dante is referencing the Roman Emporer, Frederick II, who punished traitors by forcing them to wear leaden capes and placing them in boiling cauldrons. Saying the capes given to the traitors are light as air compared to the ones given the hypocrites in hell emphasizes how heavy these cloaks actually were and how awful the punishment must have been.

Visual imagery is the last important literary device used to support the gloomy atmosphere of hell where the sinners reside. "In the depth of the pit we found a painted people, weary and defeated. Slowly, in pain, they paced it round and round" (Alighieri 55-58). This gives the reader a picture of how dismal and repititious this pit of hell must be with the sinners wandering endlessly due to their hypocrisy during life.

This passage stands out because of the symbolic retribution. The punishment of the sinners is exactly that, punishment, but without being outright torture. In other pits of hell there are more physically painful retributions, but this one is important in that it makes the sinners realize their wrongdoings. The interesting part is how it's done through this weariness rather than them just being stabbed with a sword.

Works Cited

Alighieri, Dante. The Inferno. Trans. John Ciardi. London: Signet Classics, 2001.