Inferno 28-34

In Canto 28, verse 118, it says, “I surely saw, and it seems I still see, a torso without a head walking like the others of the sorry flock; and his severed head he was holding up by the hair, dangling it from his hand like a lantern; and the head was gazing at us, saying: “Oh me! Of himself he made a lamp for himself, and they were two in one and one in two; how that can be, he knows who so disposes. When he was directly at the foot of the bridge, he raised his arm far up, head and all, to bring his words close to us, which were: “Now see my wretched punishment, you who go still breathing to view the dead: see if any is great as this. And that you may take back news of me, know that I am Bertran de Born, he who gave the young king the bad encouragements. I made father and son revolt against each other. Architopehl did no worse to Absalom and David with his evil proddings. Because I divided persons so joined, I carry my brain divided, alas, from its original which is in this trunk. Thus you observe in me the counter-suffering.” I chose this quote because it was a pretty severe form of punishment. It was fairly good imagery as well, I could picture the headless souls, who were carrying their heads on the side by the hair, like the lantern. It was the first time in the book that Dante referred to counter-suffering, which I thought was interesting. A theme I see here suffering. I know that a lot of the book is about suffering, but this goes along with it because the head was not attached to the body, it was divided, for the punishment of dividing persons. It was interesting to see that kind of punishment for that. It makes me wonder whether it would have been a different punishment if it weren’t father and son. It was interesting how they said they made a lamp for themselves. This I took as the lantern they would look to in order to lead them the way around. This lantern would give them their light, to help guide them in their path.

In Canto 34, verse 55, it talked about the souls who had the greatest punishment. “In each of his mouths he was breaking a sinner with his teeth in the manner of a scutch, so that he made three suffer at once. To the one in front the biting was nothing next to the clawing, for at times the spine remained all naked of skin. The soul up there who has the greatest punishment is Judas Iscariot, with his head inside, waving his legs outside.” Judas is portrayed this way because he betrayed Christ, so Dante wanted to give him the worst punishment. Since Judas’ head was inside, I think that Dante put it that way so that Judas would not have to see anything else that was going on. His head will be on the inside, and he will not be able to see any of his men. He had a very severe punishment. With the legs waving on the outside, I think that he had it that way so he won’t have to run away. He will have no support, because his legs are dangling, so if tries to move his legs and run, he won’t get anywhere. Dante also had two other men in this last punishment. They were Brutus and Cassius. “Of the other two whose heads are below, he who hangs from the black muzzle is Brutus- see how he is convulsed, but does not say a word- and the other is Cassius, who seems so powerfully built.” I know that these were the last three men with the punishments, and were supposed to be the most severe, but I think it could have been harsher. I know he makes three men suffer at once, but there has been a lot of suffering, usually more than one at a time. Brutus hangs from the black muzzle, so he can’t speak. This makes sense, because there is a muzzle.