Dante Book III Canto XXIX Scene I

 Canto XXIX

The Eighth Circle: Fraud

Bolgia 10: Falsifiers & Alchemy

Scene I

 

“Does it matter, Virgil?” Dante asked of the other soon after they had left the last bolgia. They had arrived at a flowing stream and the water was clear there. They decided to rest and Dante wanted to clean his body.

“Are you still upset?” Dante made the gesture towards Virgil. “You told me yourself don’t be emotional here.”

“I --- Of course, it matters. I am dead and you are not; not yet anyway. I had my list of demands at Limbo. Do you know what it meant when one was without an objective? Its like a lost soul here.”

“Like those in Limbo?” Dante asked.

“Yes--- and No. Not all us limbo in Limbo were in limbo?”

“A tongue twister. Had not heard of one for a long time. Have you heard of this? Fuzzy Wuzzy was a bear. Fuzzy Wuzzy had no hair. Fuzzy Wuzzy wasn’t fuzzy, was he?”

“Bah, if my discussion with you ever get heard, it would had sounded like a tongue twister.: Virgil snapped at Dante. “I am talking logic here. Do you when a child was born, it cried out loud? Did you hear it well? I am not saying the bawling noise. Did you hear the child cried for its missing list? It arrived without it. It cried for it and how many years before it could even scribble the lettering to state its demand? It took years --- and years.” Virgil argued his view. “And when I did, I was in Limbo.”

“You could had recorded it. We so advanced now that we even record heart rhythms for our diagnostics or ---”

“Recording? All I was told then was to utter ‘mummy’ and ‘daddy’. It’s a fallacy that we won’t know them if we did not.” Virgil rant on.

“Hold on, my companion. If you are telling me this, it meant that you believed in reincarnation.” Dante hinted to Virgil.

“I don’t--- I did mentioned reincarnation does not qualify by scientific terms. We had seen it here; the souls moved on to his forsaken place, well some of them for I have not seen an overpopulation here yet. Perhaps this place is infinite.” Virgil mocked Dante with his gesture of looking above and beyond. “I doubt it, and hopefully not or it will a ‘soul long ‘journey.”

“You win, Virgil. I shall not induce in your rhetoric’s of life and death.” Dante laughed. “I shall do my washing at the side of the stream as not to collude with yours.”

It was there, Dante heard the voices. He knew that among those he was to hear could only be sinners. He ignored them for he was past the mood to past on messages for them but the ascent of the voices intrigued him. He stepped back towards Virgil

“I think a soul of my own blood is among the damned.”

“I saw them just now when we crossed the bridge there. There was one who held its finger threateningly at you but your back was turned.” Virgil told Dante.

“You could had told me earlier. That one may be my relative and I do want to meet any of them who are here.” Dante said to Virgil.

“For what do you want to see them? They are dead and you want to cry in tears to recall that for them? If I had seen my ex-wives here, I will not even greet them.”

 “Probably not. They could had married another better man and have many children.” Dante snapped back. “You are a miserable twerp there.”

“I am not and go back to the bridge. I will wait here. I am --- hopeless at family reunion anyway.”

Dante ignored the other and proceeded to the bridge. He saw the one who was of his blood line but not one he wanted to meet there.

“Dante Alighieri, so they finally sent you to Hell? You bloody deserve it.” Dante heard the remark and there was one saying that goes, you can select your friends but not your relatives. He knew the one who spoke.

“Geri del Bello. How do you fare?” Geri was his mother’s nephew by the second or was it third wife of the brother. He was a scoundrel in his living years and deserved to die by the foul means of being murdered.

“I am here ain’t I? My scars on the back unseen by me remained the same. Did you get killed like myself? Or was it a “I am dying’ death on the sick bed. For the former of mine’s death, I was told that none of you avenged my death despite me asking for it in my last breaths.” Geri was a trouble maker and above all, he was a falsifier by trade. He will falsify anything from paintings to inventions and if he could he would falsify his entire life and he did that which resulted in his death.

“I am going to clone myself and the clone will hold all my good qualities.” Geri once boasted and when cloning was banned, he falsified to others that he was one. He was caught and one of them in anger murdered him.

“Geri,” Dante looked to the sinner. “Vengeance brings revenge and it will never end if we do that. And no, I did not die yet.”

“The Alighieri are cowards. Even in Hell, you denied that you are dead. If it was my mother’s side of true bloodline, they would had killed all those who did me. If only I had known, who was it, I will hunt the murderer here too.” Geri had not known his murderer. He had mumbled some names as assumed before he died but none it matters at all. The authorities had closed the investigation on the pretext of ‘no conclusive lead’.

“Geri, we tried but there was no evidence.” Dante explained. “And I am not dead.”

“Falsify them then. I would had done it for you.” Geri hit back. “But you have no enemies. And for God’s sake, don’t tell you made a false death to be here. I am not a child, Dante Alighieri. You are dead and came to Hell. Faced it like a real man. Don’t be a coward.”

Dante decided that returning to see his relative was a mistake. There was no way he can talked to that man. He accepted nothing but the false impressions that he believed in. if God will appear to him, he will deny and said that was a fake. Dante then made an excuse to leave and left to re-join Virgil.

“The next time, I said I wanted to meet a relative, give me a false pretence so I won’t do it.” Dante told Virgil while he rushed the other.

“False pretence? I cannot lie for you here. I am already in Hell. To lie is a sin.” Virgil replied with a sarcasm tone. “I forgotten that I am here. Okay, I will lie for you? Was that your cousin there which you did ---- I recalled now. You are still a virgin. So, we can eliminate that consequences.”

“Imbecille!’ Dante cursed in his native language. “Don’t you ever accuse me of that in front of Beatrice.”

“I won’t. In front of the Empress, I won’t even falsify that you are alive when you are truly dead.” Virgil laughed. He then stopped and spoke to Dante.

“I think we reached the next bolgia. The sign says “Heaven awaits us”. That’s a false sign in Hell.”