Continuing On: My Journey Through The Divine Comedy, Part 1 Inferno Cantos 25 through 30

Canto 25 — Thieves
That nest of writhing cords and wires, terrible to see, claimed the thief again but as he was ignited he jabbed his fists to God and cursed the world for what he endured. He lunged toward us, energized with fury and at once I was glad for those sparking snakes. One coiled round his neck and drew him back. He could not reach me.

In all the underworld’s corruption, all that darkness and decay, I had not witnessed such rage, not even from the kings who fell from the halls of power. He turned and burning as he went, fled. I soon saw the reason why.

A guard rode up to find the troublemaker, on horseback, he rode him down and pulling him onto his saddle like a lover, then flung him to the jaws of a great roaring serpent who towered above the chasm.

My Guide said, “That one would have been famous at one time. He was the leader of many thieves. To you, Tony Soprano or any of the Mafioso patriarchs. He had a kind of power on earth and will not relinquish it here.

He has been beaten a thousand times by a thousand different heroes and has always risen again. He believe it is his right. And he will keep trying, even after death, after desolation — he will reclaim what he thinks is his throne.

And there were many others. When your predecessor came to this realm, their lives were important. There were not so many, the things they stole meant life and death. Look here and now — that is not so.”

I looked around and saw men guarding piles of old TVs, radios and computers, they counted cigarettes and paper money as though it mattered here. Their hoards bled into each other’s and they fought over the boundaries. It all blurred into one great heap and I was reminded of a landfill. It really was no different from the plain of the hoarders.

We began our climb. We mounted another hill of stones between this penned in hoard and the next. The place was desolate, it seemed lonelier than the other places we had seen. The damned here cared for things and could not see the value of the stuff of life. So they were alone and scattered living in crowded solitude, longing for something they never knew, even here.

To someone else, perhaps someone rich or maybe someone very poor, this circle may have held a great deal more. I’m sure there’s nuances to theft and thievery that escaped me. But this is my hell, my walk and so it is a walk seen through my eyes and I have a habit of blurring things I do not think important as much, or more than things I do not wish to see.

When I was a child, it was my parents practice to use material things as a reward or punishment. Because we were sometimes poor and I was always rebellious, things I wanted were withheld more often than not. In this way, I learned to disregard my own desire for material comforts until it really didn’t bother me to be deprived of them anymore. The logic goes something like this: If you don’t deserve anything, then nobody can steal anything from you.

Having observed the sincere anguish of people who cherish their things and then lose them, I understand that theft does great injury to many. However, I cannot claim to understand the sin of it. And that is a gift of my mother’s neglect, a gift of sorrowful circumstance. I can be thankful for it.

For me, this place was flat. It was an empty place.
There is no more to say about it.

26 Bad Counsel (part one)

“I see joy in the world above.” I said to my Guide. “There is light and hope, the pleasure of a comfortable bed, a nice view. Am I to believe that working hard to have the things I want will do me harm in my afterlife? or even in my own mind? The comforts and pleasures that drive us, those are not evils visited on the world, they are the things we live with daily. Is that wrong?”

“Yes, there is joy and no it is not wrong,” she answered. “This is your journey, though you follow in his footsteps you are not Alegheri. This paradox of mimicry, it is yours as it was his. But you will find your Florence someday, you think you have an idea of it now.” I nodded, “I do,” I said “a very good idea.” She smiled and I wondered what she was smiling about.

And as is the way of these things, much later I would discover an answer. I was, at the time, thinking of a place where I would never live, with a man who would never love me and, if I was honest, I would have known, even then, I was thinking of a man I could never love.

In that moment, I was determined to win my way through to both the wrong man in the wrong place but at the same time, out of a sense of duty or an idea of insurance, taking every possible path, “just in case.” I didn’t know it but I had already set in motion the events that would lead me out of these dark woods, out of my hometown, off this mountain and into the light of my own, true, life.

But that is getting ahead of the story.

“Hell doesn’t claim those who keep these things in balance. Life should be full of appetites and the living attend to them with joy. Life is made of that. But take care not to let an appetite take you over or an idea, for that matter. Hell hates questions, so keep asking.”

“Some of your bloodline could not release their fear and you will see that here. But if you will look, really look and try to accept what you see, then you may find your way out to a better life. You are angry. I know it but I tell you now; yes, it was their job to see that you never came here, that’s true but it’s your job, just the same, to walk out.”

We climbed on, stone by stone ascending on that broken stair. And here, I really felt I lost heart. Too sad for tears, I managed just to climb in silence. Nothing mattered, which, despite my tired state, made it easy to carry on. What was I anymore but a body carrying these ideas and regrets over space? Physical or not, made no difference.

My “gift,” as my friends and boyfriend called it, had never helped me. Never given me anything but the beauty of a moment captured and then regret for time wasted, money never made, security lost.

If it sounds confusing, that’s because it is. A gift that persists and demands your time and attention but gives you nothing but itself in return, can you call that a gift? I think maybe to be born with such a gift is to be cursed. To write beautiful letters, beautiful social media posts, wonderful birthday cards, to be able to write poetry, and publish it, to be able to sing, the gift of a beautiful voice, unless you were born blessed by material wealth, that “gift” will leave you poor and sad, you will suffer for it. And even as you are suffering, people will tell you how lucky you are. It can make you bitter and I think you’d be right to be bitter under those circumstances.

How can you even tell it’s a gift if nobody buys it? I mean — a “gift” that nobody wants is an affliction, isn’t it? At the very least, it’s a burden.

Observing the scenery, and distracting myself with our destination I glimpsed a a low hanging fog in the near distance. Within it sparks flew, low fires burned. There were people in there, silenced by the crackling of fire and hidden from view.

Every few seconds the mist was split by a flash of lightening that showed inhumanly ugly bodies, naked and squirming in the shock of light.

“Those are evil counsellors” said my Guide. “In the past, you might have known their names. They are the ones who understand how to engineer a better profit for their companies at the expense of the workforce. They are the ones who plan strategic wars and the lawyers who squandered their brilliance on taking the guilty to trial and knowingly twisting the truth to gain a victory.

They worked for money, said it was their job but it was the dignity they desired. Their sin is destruction through the pride they took in their skills. They never lost a fight. Never.”

Their heroes are here with them, Ulysses — for one. His cunning led to death for more than his victory was worth and here too are the committee members who ignored all reason and petitioned for sports events that were not safe. You can watch them fight, ski, sled and die while money rains down on them as useless here as their cleverness was wasted there.

Forever, round and round the tracks they go, slipping on the coins they craved, while others watch in silence.

As she spoke I looked into the sky and from the clouds two small planes dipping and diving like crippled birds, whooped above us and then wobbled free of air and currents and crashed — first into each other, they fell like a single meteor, flaming to the ground where more were crushed beneath them.

I did not ask to speak to any one of them but knowing human nature, my Guide called out to Ulysses and asked if he had any words for me. I thought of Joyce, how in my time Ulysses came to mean many more things than when Dante walked here but all had a sense of dexterity. Clever, tricky, daring and wise — the zest of words, used like foils to fence and to unman a foe, Ulysses was all of these things and a long-dead hero too.

As if a wind blew through the place some sense of a soul pressed forward, warming the air around us. Waves of heat shimmered in the air, like looking at an asphalt road on a July day. The air quivered, liquid with the heat.

“When I left Circe after a nearly a year,” it said, “I did not turn immediately for home. My first love was to roam, I put out to sea and from there was distracted and detained. I saw the world. The ancient wonders of Morocco, Gibraltar, Spain.”

“I toured castles and the sites where your cathedrals rose. Saw the stars from every disposition. Wind and longing can become addictions, I was hooked.”

“When we returned to home my house had fallen. My wife was silent, dressed in the black robes of a Greek widow. She was aged and I never knew what she had lived through only that she had been faithful. I turned my head from that knowledge and spent my days remembering the journey and romancing it. My story remains.”

“And in my heart we put to sea again. We sailed beneath the stars. The sun and moon were our companions, we kept on until the deck collapsed beneath us and the mast, at last, dipped below the waves and carried us out of life. I do not know where she is now but I’ve been told to wait.”

Canto 27: Bad Counsel (part 2)

The voice stopped and the air became still again. The heat receded. As it did, a sound arose from one of the tracks. A runner there was trying to get our attention. Its body was so misshapen, I couldn’t tell what its gender had been or even if it was human or fabulous beast. It roared and bellowed, howled and sang out in booming tuba tones.

I felt it vibrate in my bones. A trained voice, it was harnessed to submission here but still commanded our attention. “Oh you, who pass through here and back to earth, hear me too!”

“I know I come late to your attention but tell me, you have come so recently from earth, tell me what is happening in my home country” Is there prosperity? Are we the envy of the world? Tell me, was I right?”

I knew him then, the shoe-black hair, the weakening smile, he delivered his speeches well but I always wondered if he understood the things he said. His words, his acquiescence began that downward slide and while it did result in a rebirth, it is hard to forgive reckless damage done.

“The world” I said, “still staggers under the load you heaped on us. No amount of reason, no justice seems able to dig us completely free. A rising tide is called a flood and flood is a catastrophe. Your nation rose again, it’s true, but their strength was in spite of you and all your works. Yet they hold you dear. You acted very well.”

But just the same I thought, I’m glad to see you here. Many, many people loved this man in his time. But his policies laid the foundation of the ruin of his nation. The rich prospered as never before, by his hand, but there were more poor crushed under the wheel of commerce because of him, and as time went by that wheel only seemed to move faster and crush more. He deserved to be here, that’s for sure and I nearly told him so.

But I stopped myself. Taking pleasure in the suffering of another being, even when that suffering is deserved, in a place like this was not just cruel but dangerous. “The world’s affairs, old man,” I said “are no concern of yours, you are dead.”

Sometimes saying the obvious thing can be the cruelest and as soon as I said it I wished I had been silent, but in this same place Dante gave a full account of his political world. How could I do otherwise? I felt my words smack into him as though they were blows, and I felt small and mean.

Behind the man, four referees in striped shirts rose up and took him by the elbows. They whispered in his ears as they walked him back to the track and started him running again. Even here, it is the council behind a powerful man that makes him act, never only one thought but many.

So trusting, I wondered, was that a sin? “Not trust but the desire to believe, love of power, and fear of seeming stupid. Those are damning him.” My Guide had answered my thought without a word.

We went on, over the next ridge to the bank vault of the dark world. Destruction’s most cherished and exacting tools are kept in the circle that houses the sowers of discord

Canto 28: Discordia

I read somewhere that this place was the home of all the troubles in the world. And we describe it to each other endlessly. These ideas of hell, on earth, in fantasy — we cut out images of horror, remembered anguish, captured suffering and pasted together they make our ideal of hell.

I’ve read about it, seen it on TV, listened to accounts of it, you have too. And when I stray too far away, there is always someone ready to remind me that hell exists on earth, we see it every day.

Here was the fulfillment of every bitter wish, avenged sorrow, retribution, broken hearts torn, punished and torn again for wounding some place or person, some idea of innocence. And rightly so, I thought, shouldn’t life be fair? If not on earth then after, surely?

I tried my hardest to assume all of this was well outside of me. I tried to look on bleeding hands and anguished faces as marks of God’s defence of those who suffered for their goodness. I wanted to indulge in vengeance and felt I deserved it but the weight became too heavy here.

Stumbling down the hill of stones that led us into the next encounter, my grief laid heavily in my chest. To know the evil suffer is not balm. Really, it’s not. It felt like sorrow and regret. To inflict a wound, one must first have suffered cruelty. To see a wound inflicted, if you have any kindness in you, it hurts.

Every killer in every war knew death, knew the loss of a love and killed to avenge it. From Troy to terrorism, every wrong is justified in someone’s mind.

Here, I will tell you what my predecessor saw and remind you only of this; we are all, I think, the killer and the killed. I have no more words for that.

There was a man, gutted like a fish, he pulled himself together as he shambled over the stones, holding one flap of skin close to the other, his entrails jiggling with every step.

Another’s head was open at the top, he held it closed and cried as he walked, the red blood mingling with his tears and running down his naked body like a veil.

Behind us was their warden, shouting commands as he had always done. He brandished a taser now but in the past, I hear it was a sword or gun. The warden, remember, had to live here too and suffer the pain of watching his blows land, wound and never kill. Never a blue sky here, never a quiet, sunny day.

As we reached the floor of that pit, the wounds of the wounded had begun to knit, they tore them open again and continued on their way, wailing as they went.

“Hey! Who are you?” the Warden shouted, and reached for a fishing knife as big as my arm. “Where is your wound?” I stumbled back and nearly fell. My Guide intervened, “She is not dead, guilt does not drive her. She has no wound she knows of yet. I bring her through alive to learn her way, just as two other travellers came and passed so long ago.”

“Long to you, maybe” he said, “it was not long to me. Tell her, when she returns she may tell these others what she’s seen and tell her that some of her leaders will come to me.” He began to list names but I turned away, my Guide bought his silence with a gesture just as she had many times before.

One half-dismembered soul paused to speak to me, staring in wonder at a body still whole, something he possessed himself once. He had no nose, his face was marked and slashed as though for surgery. While I say “he” I could not know, his lips were red, his figure slight, he looked as much woman as man, neither dark nor light.”

“Oh soul who still will see the gentle earth,” he said, “remember me. See that they remember me. I did some good and truly, I meant no harm.” He wept as he spoke, one hand was bandaged but the other bled and bled. I thought I recognized him and I turned away.

And as I did, I could still hear him prophesying doom and giving advice on how to heal the ruined world. And then he began to tell the story of those who had harmed his ancestor, the beginning of the road that led him here.

He said, “A one-eyed traitor walked beside me. Cruel and ugly, he belittled anyone who crossed his path. Gave false advice, created little wars between artists, between villages. He walked as a human but I doubt you could call him that.

He is the one who counselled others to defend with offence, he coddled some and crushed others as his whim dictated. Like a cruel father he drew us to him and made us despair. Mad with anguish and fear, we went into the world and did as we could.”

Slowly, his steps began to falter and I lost him in the crowd. Another came forward and showed me where her arms had been hacked away, “Could you blame me,” she said, “for letting my children go to my defence. They were warriors and were given a better life that way. I pushed them, as I could, away from me for their own benefit.”

Another came and then another, eloquent speakers, stripped of their tongues, writers catching their brains in their hands as they tumbled out of their broken skulls. It was anguish, all and only that.

And then I saw it there and seem to see it still. A body without a head, ancient in dress and stature. It stumbled forward and I saw in its hand grasped by a hank of hair, his head, swinging like a lantern as he went.

My Guide winced at this and I knew why. Judith was Artemisia’s muse and Judith bore the mark of this man’s suffering, although my Guide had painted her as a heroine, here she knew the limits of her art.

The mouth moved and spoke to her, she paled. “Yes,” he said, “like Salome, you celebrated the loss of my head but you painted rather than danced on my grave. I was in the realm of the prideful — there is movement here sometimes. Now I walk this circle, knowing what I caused. And now you are here and I ask you; do you know what you caused?”

“Holofernes” my Guide whispered, “or Ted or Tassio, it doesn’t matter.”

“No, it does not” he said, “I am not here to teach you but I remind you Poet, your words were heeded and you one day could live here as I do.”

“In duty and in love I walk this track. And I display what you encouraged, an eye for an eye. Isn’t that right?”

“I never said that.” she whispered, “I never did it.”

“No” he said, “that’s right, you advocated for it and used your talent to persuade, the strength of your art much more than the strength of your arm.”

“Let’s go.” she said to me, “It’s time to leave. This is your story, not mine. Time to go.”

So we went on.

Canto 29: Deceivers

My heart was heavy and my vision blotted with tears. Straining to be strong and not to feel the horror and compassion stirred by the place, I couldn’t speak and wanted not to feel another single thing.

In that naked frame of mind we passed out of Discordia, the realm of the bleeding dead but as we did, I turned to search the crowd for a face I knew would be there. He passed his lies and misery up into the world even after he was dead, so skillful was his treachery. Yet once I loved him.

“We go on now.” she said, “Come on, you never wanted to remain in any other place, why do you linger here?” “If you knew who he was to me,” I said “You would not hurry me”

“You think I don’t know? Of course I do. Why search for him?” the poet said, “He gave you nothing you needed and took away much more.” She paused and sighed, “Oh love, I knew it well.” Her arm held me firm and steered us both across the final bridge. “I saw him. He was there and you do not want to see, you don’t need to see anymore.” We crossed the gap that kept the residents of one side in and gave the others their freedom, such as it was.

And we were in cacophony, standing on a busy street with car horns shrieking and sirens blaring in the rain. “Let your mind turn to other matters now” the poet shouted, “leave him in his blindness, he earned itl.”

We stood outside a hospital on a busy street. The drizzle came down in heavy drapes, cold and wet seeped into everything. The noise was overwhelming but the smell of stale exhaust, sewage and dank wet air was even worse.

We walked along the sidewalk, dodging beggars and businessmen until we came to a courtyard adjacent to the hospital. There a dry fountain made a gathering place for some of the people who lived there. They lay against the rim of it and moaned to one another. Some used blades to cut away their own flesh, others used needles to take their poison in. Some licked at their friends’ wounds like bats or dogs in the wild, tasting the blood as though it were nectar, like it was love.

Some lay like lovers in each others’ arms, some rested against the back of a fallen colleague. They were a heap of souls, seeking shelter in each other but finding no comfort there. Some were covered in scabs, it made no difference, they clung to each other just the same.

Two stood in the basin of the fountain and scrubbed at their own flesh, raising welts and scratches, trying to be free of their skin, scrubbing at themselves as though they were scaling fish.

“Tell us” my Guide called out to them, “where are you from and why are you here? Why are you doing that?”

“We know where we are.” replied one, “We’re scrubbing to be clean of the things that brought us here. They won’t do it,” he jerked his chin toward the others, “lazy thugs. But we do. Whose asking?”

My Guide said, “This woman will take her story to the surface. She’s your witness.”

Ask them whatever you wish,” she said to me.

“Who are you?” I asked, “Tell me where you are from?”

“I’m here by mistake” said one, “I said I could heal the dead and they did not believe me but I could. I could perform miracles, I know it. I just hadn’t performed them yet.”

“I was from your land,” said another, “I promised compassion and I would have given it, if only they had given me a mandate — I never had the chance I never had enough power to be truly good.”

I said to the poet, “Do they ever admit their failings? Do they know the outcome of their weaknesses?”

She answered, “they know it in their hearts and they could have made amends. If they would let themselves know any of it, if they could be truly human, then they would not be here. Pride and fear keeps lies alive and lying keeps them here.”

“There was a time when allegiance determined a just cause, at least as far as history was concerned. That time has passed. Siena, Canada, America, England, Florence or Byzantium, Israel or Iran — the just and the evil can be found anywhere, anytime. What anthem they sing, what flag they salute, means little. They’re all citizens here.”

We went on.

Canto 30: Deception

Once upon a time there was a great queen. She was richly powerful, her majesty spread across the globe — she was female power in its essential form. Her name was Hera, called Juno by some and many years later, other names, often just “Goddess.” From Hera comes our manner of calling all women “her.”

Her husband was of equal rank, of course. But being male he did as so many men do, when powerful their eye begins to wander and soon their hands do follow.

He was indiscreet and she was angry. She followed him to where he made his second home with an earthbound woman, young and inexperienced. Hera persuaded her to demand the truth from her beloved and she did. It was this truth that killed her, burned her away to ash but her son survived.

This cremated woman’s uncle was a man much like her beloved. Powerful, easily tempted and a philanderer, he had a good heart and took his niece’s son to raise as his own. His wife, as jealous as Hera (maybe inspired by Hera herself) had ever been and with just as many reasons, schemed behind his back, playing on trick after another on his sanity until one day, he went mad.

He thought her children were animals of prey. It frightened him to see them stalking his garden and he threw out a net, caught and killed one like a fish, forgetting it was his own son. His wife ran from him and when she was cornered, in her panic to escape, jumped from a high cliff into the sea with the younger son in her arms. The sea took them in and they died there. Still the orphaned son survived and we ascribe the all the pleasures and pitfalls of wine to him today.

There’s more of course, the saga never ends. “But why,” I asked my Guide “do we discuss it here?” “Deception’s roots run deep.” She answered, “as deep as human time and history. And it all has its beginnings in self-deception.”

Just then, two men, pale, flabby and naked, ran by. One snarling like a dog, his quarry yelping and panting, a wounded child with the schoolyard bully hard on his heels. As we watched, the hunter caught his prey and drove him to the ground. He sank his teeth into the other’s throat and ripped. I turned away.

“Some politicians,” said my Guide, “come here to continue as they were in life. Those are two. They served and were served at all the highest banquets. And over there,” she pointed, “restless in her lover’s arms? She kept her silence as he took his pleasure in their childrens’ beds.” They lay together on the dirt and as he whispered in her ear, he bit little chunks out of the flesh and spat them out. She squirmed but was not released.”

There were so many more, the place was thick with bodies, all acting out their dramas in full view of the others and all unconcerned. The field was plain, flat, ice — dirty and devoid of any comfort. And it stretched out forever.

I watched two fighting, one was armless and the other had no legs. They ripped at each other with accusations and replied with flat denials. Two swindlers of Rome, they remained in place these 400 years past.

I stared at the rotting bodies, watched their endless argument and pondered. Joseph’s brother, taken from the bible, languished in a fever here and there were those even older than that. I wondered if we might see some not yet evolved. Did the first of us come here too? Was this habit so ingrained that it had grown with us through all our incarnations?

“Keep staring.” I heard my Guide say, “And I will have to slap you.” When I heard her raise her voice to me, I turned, ashamed but not really knowing why I should be.

“I’m here to see and learn, aren’t I?” I said in my defence. I knew I was not learning anymore but gawking at these horrors as we passed.

“To learn, yes.” She said, “To be amused or distracted? No you are not. This is a circus of the dead and every torture registers a little pang of thrill to your rough, earthly brain. See beyond that and if you can’t see — then walk out of compassion. Anyone can land here. You included.”

I was ashamed. She caught me watching eternity play itself out like a story on the nightly news. These little scenes, cut and assembled from the worst of life, could not tell anyone’s true story. They were all fairy tales, they were all theatre to those who did not live them.

“I see your shame, see that you remember it. Next time you read a gossip column or decide to speak out about a story in the nightly news — remember them and hesitate. That’s all I want from you here. To feed this hunger for the macabre is to debase yourself and everyone you see.”

She warned me, “Watch them long enough and you will become just what you see.”