Dante Book II Canto XX Scene I

 Canto XX

The Eighth Circle: Fraud

Bolgia IV: Sorcerers

Scene I

 

The lighter emotions of Dante were soon downgraded when he reached the next bolgia. In the last one, he felt the justification of the punishment for the sins as removal of the freedom was the bane of committing criminal acts but who are we to foresee our journey when we committed the crime. He was completely and fully aware that the Popes being punished for Simony richly deserve their punishment. In Canto 19, Dante the Pilgrim seems aware that God does not make mistakes when he puts unrepentant sinners in Hell, but maybe in Man we could be mistaken. (https://www.missskirtich.com/uploads/2/3/3/7/23374820/inferno_discussion_guide.pdf)

“Where are we?” Dante stopped in his track of what was before him. He saw a circular valley, filed by the moving souls, but they differed there. Each one seemed to be distorted in the physique.

“Look at them. From the top of their chest, the head twisted to the rear, and backward it behoved them to advance, as to look forward had been taken from them.” Dante said to Virgil. “What sin have they done?”

“I know. I heard of the sin they had done. They are soothsayers, and despite the advancement of the generations the current twenty-third century, the advanced technology we have created, and the extent of our methodology in eliminating random probability which we are still far from it, I will say the world still reeks of forecast that is unwarranted by logic.” Virgil took the long explanation which Dante had one word for it.

“Fortune-telling was it. I had seen it many times. The ones that said to foretell the future and in its trail anxiety to the believers. I give you Leviticus 20:6, If a person turns to mediums and necromancers, whoring after them, I will set my face against that person and will cut him off from among his people.”

“Spoken like a true follower of the faith, but before you turned it to stone, let us proceed to see if the stone will weep when it's pressed,” Virgil said.

“I am not stubborn if you are implying.” Dante walked on.

“He who is often reproved, yet stiffens his neck, will suddenly be broken beyond healing; Proverbs 29:1” Virgil mumbled in the low tone. Dante heard the words but his sight was on the souls made to walk backward.

“Their heads have been twisted around so that they always look backward for their eternal, very appropriate punishment. They weep, and as they weep, their tears flow between their butt cheeks. Yet sinners do not have guards.” Virgil raised an observation.

“They need not for they are unsure of lies ahead,” Dante replied. He then approached the ones that were there. As usual, his curiosity got the better of him.

“Tell me of your sin and I may narrate on it when I see God,” Dante spoke to the souls there, with their back to him but their face was to him.

“Whither rushest thou, Amphiaraus? Why dost leave the war?” One of the souls stepped forth to speak. His left eye was scarred and his right was blurred in the vision.

“Amphiaraus?” Dante searched his mind on that name. He came up with one who was one of the seven kings who fought against Thebes. He foresaw that he would die if he fought against Thebes; the war mentioned beforehand, Seven Kings Against Thebes. He attempted to hide so that he would not have to fight. Unfortunately, his wife revealed his hiding place, so he had to go on the military expedition. The Earth opened up and he fell into the chasm, dying as he had foreseen.

“I am not of him,” Dante replied to the soul.

“Then could you be Tiresias?” The sightless soul probed on. “He was a blind prophet of Apollo in Thebes, famous for clairvoyance and for being transformed into a woman for seven years. He claimed to have obtained his information varied: sometimes, he would receive visions; other times he would listen for the songs of birds, or ask for a description of visions and pictures appearing within the smoke of burnt offerings or entrails, and so interpret them.”

“Augury! I have researched my findings for logic reasoning.” Virgil cut in. “ The practice from ancient Roman religion of interpreting omens from the observed behavior of birds. When the individual, known as the augur, interpreted these signs, it is referred to as "taking the auspices". 'Auspices' is from the Latin ‘auspicium and auspex’, literally "one who looks at birds’.”

“Once the founders of Rome, Romulus, and Remus, arrived at the Palatine Hill, the two argued over where the exact position of the city should be. Romulus was set on building the city upon the Palatine, but Remus wanted to build the city on the strategic and easily fortified Aventine Hill. The two agreed to settle their argument by testing their abilities as augures and by the will of the gods. Each took a seat on the ground apart from one another, and, according to Plutarch, Remus saw six vultures, while Romulus saw twelve.” Virgil continued.

“So, you believe in it?” Dante questioned Virgil.

“No, I am a creator of science. If I did, the doves at my last wedding would have told me that I was to be strung by the vultures from my wife’s family.”

“May it be foul of the father befalls the daughter? Manto, do you stand here in his stead? It was stated in the writings of Odyssey.” The soul called out. “We are seers here.”

Tiresias lived life as both a man and a woman. He once saw two snakes having sex, and he hit them with his staff. As his punishment, Hera turned him into a woman. Tiresias married and gave birth to Manto, his daughter, who was also a prophet.

After seven years as a woman, he saw two snakes having sex, and according to one version of the myth (not Ovid’s version), he did not hit them with his staff. As his reward, Hera turned him into a man again. Tiresias had lived life as both a man and a woman, so when Zeus and Hera quarreled over who enjoyed sex more: the man or the woman—they turned to Tiresias to settle the argument. Tiresias said that women enjoyed sex more, and Hera struck him blind.

Zeus could not undo the blindness, but as compensation, he made Tiresias a seer. The story of Tiresias appears in Ovid’s Metamorphoses by Homer.

“What trickery have your mind concurred on me? He is Dante and not of any prophesy or divine foreteller. I felt defiled that his identity had been defiled by your words.” Virgil defended who was Dante.

“It’s to my readers in William Kingdon Clifford’s “The Ethics of Beliefit, it is wrong to believe on insufficient evidence, or to nourish belief by suppressing doubts and avoiding investigation. It is not only the leader of men, statesman, philosopher, or poet, that has this duty to mankind. Every rustic who delivers in the village alehouse his slow infrequent sentences may help to kill or keep alive the fatal superstitions that clog his race. No simplicity of mind, no obscurity of station, can escape the universal duty of questioning all that we believe.” (https://www.missskirtich.com/uploads/2/3/3/7/23374820/inferno_discussion_guide.pdf. Page 120)

“In choosing to believe in God, we may very well have to take a leap of faith and believe without sufficient evidence either that God does exist or that God does not exist.” Dante closed the passage for Virgil. He then looked to the souls there.

“I was taken to tears that amongst the sinners, yours was too harsh; made to walk backward and not see where you may trip. We are gifted with sight and used them we did to check our steps but our mind created the same had been twisted in our head, that we graft that we could see what may have been pre-destined. We emulate the act of God when we are his servant. For that, my tears flowed no more for all of you.” Dante then walked away and as usual, Virgil had to run to catch up.