Canto 11 Refelctions

In Canto 11, Virgil maps out the lower rings of Hell for Dante. There are three rings: violence, fraud, and treachery, respectively.

The ring of Violence is divided into three parts, against yourself, your neighbor, or God. You can harm yourself by either “raising violent hands against themselves” or “their own goods.” If you committed suicide or squandered away your wealth, or horded it you have damaged yourself and are placed in this round. Harming your neighbor’s property also sends you to this hateful layer. Those who scorn, deny, or curse God are also eternally dammed here.

The ring of Fraud is lower. Fraud is something you only do thoughtfully and with intent, so it is singular to man, therefore particularly hateful to God. Here reside the people who, not only cause fraud in accordance with money, but those who lie. The “flatterers, swindling sorcerers, hypocrites, impostors, picker of purses, simonists, panders and greasy palms and all such filth” are banished to these pits.

Not much information is given about the ring of Treachery. Only that it is the lowest ring and is where Satan sits. A good place to avoid.

After Virgil’s monologue, Dante asks him why the souls they saw earlier are in the upper reaches of Hell and not down here. Virgil rebukes him and asks whether he has forgotten “your [Dante’s] philosopher”, meaning Aristotle. In Aristotle’s book the Ethics, he says the three evils that God hates are incontinence, malice, and deranged bestiality. He also says that incontinence is hated less than the others.

Incontinence means failure to restrain oneself from gratification, in this case, the sin. The sins punished in the upper levels were not well thought out, purposeful sins; they were accidents. The best example is Paolo and Francesca, for their love or lust was not premeditated, it took them by surprise.

Malice is purely hate. No matter what the cause, it is frowned upon by God.

Deranged bestiality is when a man loses everything that makes him a man and acts animal-like. Betrayal is not something man was made to do, and by fulfilling that, they lose what sets them apart from the common animal.