1. First, carefully read "Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs" (any version) and carefully read the excerpts from Dante's work posted here and on the next page, and while you are reading them, think about

From Dante’s Inferno

The Eighth Circle of Hell (Malebolge)

In this section of the epic poem, Dante (the narrator) and Virgil (his guide) travel to the eighth circle of Hell, called Malebolge, where those who are guilty of fraud are kept. Here you will read about the punishments that await various kinds of liars, including seducers, flatterers, corrupt politicians, and fortune tellers.

NOTE: I have provided a few notes here, but you should have a dictionary handy for the tricky vocabulary.

The Inferno is divided in to “cantos” which are analogous to chapters Canto 18

Malebolge means “Evil Ditches” in Italian 1 There is a place in Hell called Malebolge,

2 fashioned entirely of iron-colored rock,

3 as is the escarpment that encircles it.

4 At the very center of this malignant space

5 there yawns a pit, extremely wide and deep.

6 I will describe its plan all in due time.

7 A path that circles like a belt around the base

8 of that high rock runs round the pit,

9 its sides descending in ten ditches.

10 As where concentric moats surround a castle

11 to guard its walls, their patterns clear

12 and governed by a meaningful design,

13 in such a pattern were these ditches shaped.

*******

Seducers are being punished here. 22 To our right I saw a suffering new to me,

23 new torments, and new scourgers,

24 with whom the first ditch was replete.

25 The sinners in its depth were naked,

26 those on our side of the center coming toward us,

27 the others moving with us, but with longer strides,

*******

34 Here and there on the dark rock above them

35 I watched horned demons armed with heavy scourges

36 lashing them cruelly from behind.

37 Ah, how they made them pick their heels up

38 at the first stroke! You may be certain

39 no one waited for a second or a third.

*******

67 Then I rejoined my escort. A few steps farther

68 and we came upon a place

69 where a ridge jutted from the bank.

70 This we ascended easily and,

71 turning to the right upon its jagged ledge,

72 we left behind their endless circling.

73 When we came to the point above the hollow

74 that makes a passage for the scourged,

75 my leader said: 'Stop, let them look at you,

76 'those other ill-born souls whose faces

77 you have not yet seen, since we have all

78 been moving in the same direction.'

79 From the ancient bridge we eyed the band

80 advancing toward us on the other side,

81 driven with whips just like the first.

82 And the good master, without my asking, said:

83 'See that imposing figure drawing near.

84 He seems to shed no tears despite his pain.

85 'What regal aspect he still bears!

Jason, the famous Greek hero, was a notorious lover and leaver of women. 86 He is Jason, who by courage and by craft

87 deprived the men of Colchis of the ram.

88 'Then he ventured to the isle of Lemnos,

89 after those pitiless, bold women

90 put all the males among them to their death.

91 'There with signs of love and polished words

92 he deceived the young Hypsipyle,

93 who had herself deceived the other women.

94 'There he left her, pregnant and forlorn.

95 Such guilt condemns him to this torment,

96 and Medea too is thus avenged.

97 'With him go all who practice such deceit.

98 Let that be all we know of this first ditch

99 and of the ones it clenches in its jaws.'

100 Now we had come to where the narrow causeway

101 intersects the second ridge to form

102 a buttress for another arch.

103 From here we heard the whimpering of people

104 one ditch away, snuffling with their snouts

105 and beating on themselves with their own palms.

106 The banks, made slimy by a sticky vapor

107 from below, were coated with a mould

108 offending eyes and nose.

109 The bottom is so deep we could see nothing

110 unless we climbed to the crown of the arch,

111 just where the ridge is highest.

112 We went up, and from there I could see,

In this ditch of Hell, the flatterers are kept. 113 in a ditch below, people plunged in excrement

114 that could have come from human privies.

115 Searching the bottom with my eyes I saw

116 a man, his head so smeared with shit

117 one could not tell if he were priest or layman.

118 He railed: 'What whets your appetite to stare at me

119 more than all the others in their filth?'

120 And I answered: 'The fact, if I remember right,

121 'that once I saw you when your hair was dry --

122 and you are Alessio Interminei of Lucca.

123 That's why I eye you more than all the rest.'

124 Then he, beating on his pate:

125 'I am immersed down here for the flattery

126 with which my tongue was never cloyed.'

127 And then my leader said to me: 'Try to thrust

128 your face a little farther forward,

129 to get a better picture of the features

130 'of that foul, dishevelled wench down there,

131 scratching herself with her filthy nails.

132 Now she squats and now she's standing up.

133 'She is Thaïs, the whore who, when her lover asked:

134 "Have I found favor with you?"

135 answered, "Oh, beyond all measure!"

136 And let our eyes be satisfied with that.'

Canto 19

*******

Here, corrupt priests are being punished. 13 Along the sides and bottom I could see

14 the livid stone was pierced with holes,

15 all round and of a single size.

16 They seemed to me as wide and deep

The priests are kept upside-down in baptismal pools . . . 17 as those in my beautiful Saint John

. . . but there’s no water, only fire. 18 made for the priests to baptize in,

19 one of which, not many years ago,

20 I broke to save one nearly drowned in it --

21 and let this be my seal, to undeceive all men.

22 From the mouth of each stuck out

23 a sinner's feet and legs up to the thighs

24 while all the rest stayed in the hole.

25 They all had both their soles on fire.

26 It made their knee-joints writhe so hard

27 they would have severed twisted vines or ropes.

28 As flames move only on the surface

29 of oily matter caught on fire,

30 so these flames flickered heel to toe.

Canto 20

In this ditch, fortune tellers are being punished 7 I saw people come along that curving canyon.

8 in silence, weeping, their pace the pace of slow

9 processions chanting litanies in the world.

10 As my gaze moved down along their shapes,

11 I saw into what strange contortions

12 their chins and chests were twisted.

13 Their faces were reversed upon their shoulders

14 so that they came on walking backward,

15 since seeing forward was denied them.

16 Perhaps some time by stroke of palsy

17 a person could be twisted in that way,

18 but I've not seen it nor do I think it likely.

19 Reader, so may God let you gather fruit

20 from reading this, imagine, if you can,

21 how I could have kept from weeping

22 when I saw, up close, our human likeness

23 so contorted that tears from their eyes

24 ran down their buttocks, down into the cleft.

Canto 21

In this ditch, unscrupulous businessmen are punished. 1 Thus from one bridge to the next we came

2 until we reached its highest point, speaking

3 of things my Comedy does not care to sing.

4 We stopped to look into the next crevasse

5 of Malebolge and heard more useless weeping.

6 All I could see was an astounding darkness.

*******

17 a thick pitch boiled there,

18 sticking to the banks on either side.

19 I saw the pitch but still saw nothing in it

20 except the bubbles raised up by the boiling,

21 the whole mass swelling and then settling back.

22 While I stared fixedly upon the seething pitch,

23 my leader cried: 'Look out, look out!'

24 and drew me to him, away from where I stood.

25 Then I turned like a man, intent

26 on making out what he must run from,

27 undone by sudden fear,

28 who does not slow his flight for all his looking back:

29 just so I caught a glimpse of some dark devil

30 running toward us up the ledge.

31 Ah, how ferocious were his looks

32 and fierce his gesturing,

33 with wings spread wide and nimble feet!

34 One of his shoulders, which were high and pointed,

35 was laden with the haunches of a sinner

36 he held hooked by the tendons of his heels.

“Malebranche” means “Evil Claws” 37 From our bridge he said: 'O Malebranche,

38 here is one of Santa Zita's Elders.

39 Thrust him under, while I head back for more

40 'to that city, where there's such a fine supply.

41 Every man there -- except Bonturo -- is a swindler.

42 There money turns a No into a Yeah.'

43 He flung him down and turned back up

44 the stony ridge. Never did a mastiff

45 set loose to chase a thief make greater haste.

46 The sinner sank, then rose again, his face all pitch.

47 The demons, under cover of the bridge, cried out:

48 'This is no place for the Holy Visage!

49 'Here you swim a different stroke than in the Serchio!

50 Unless you'd like to feel our hooks,

51 don't let yourself stick out above the pitch.'

52 Then, with a hundred hooks and more,

53 they ripped him, crying: 'Here you must do your dance

54 in secret and pilfer -- can you? -- in the dark.'

55 In just the same way cooks command their scullions

56 to take their skewers and prod the meat down

57 in the cauldron, lest it float back up.

*******

97 I drew my body up against my leader

98 but kept my eyes fixed on their faces,

99 which were far from friendly.

*******

127 'Oh, master,' I said, 'I don't like what I see.

128 Please, let us find our way without an escort,

129 if you know how. As for me, I do not want one.

130 'If you are as vigilant as ever,

131 don't you see they grind their teeth

132 while with their furrowed brows they threaten harm?'

133 And he to me: 'Don't be afraid.

134 Let them grind on to their hearts' content --

135 they do it for the stewing wretches.'