Summary of the cantos
After Geryon, the poem enters Malebolge, ten ditches of dark stone around a well. Here is punished the fraud that breaks only the natural bond of love between people (the distinction of canto XI), and each ditch gives this deceit a physical form: the body sold and the body seduced, the sweet-tongued word, the sacred put up for auction, the future stolen, the public office bought. The punishment repeats the sin from the inside. Whips for those who treated others as merchandise, dung for the mouth that flattered, holes headfirst and soles on fire for those who traded the sacred for gold, a twisted neck for those who wanted to see what was not theirs, sticky pitch for those who sold what belonged to all. The tone changes from canto to canto: disgust in XVIII, invective in XIX, reprimanded tears in XX, farce in the last two. Behind the change is a single question: how much are word, office, the sacred, and the future worth when one can sell them? The poem answers with a humor that does not soothe: the demons at the end are laughable and have real hooks, and whoever laughs at them learns, like Dante, not to lower his guard.
Canto XVIII: Procurers and Flatterers
Summary of the canto
Geryon leaves them at the base of a high cliff of iron-colored stone, and Virgil turns left, with Dante behind. Before them opens Malebolge, the eighth circle: a field of dark stone cut into ten concentric ditches, which the poet compares to the moats around a castle, with bridges of rock that leave the foot of the cliff, cross the ditches, and lead to a wide well at the center. In the first ditch, naked, the sinners walk in two files going in opposite directions, lashed by horned demons; Dante compares the movement to that of the people of Rome in the jubilee year, who divided on the bridge to go to Saint Peter's on one side and to the mountain on the other. One of the scourged lowers his face so as not to be seen, but Dante recognizes him and stops, and Virgil lets him step back. Dante calls him by name: Venedico Caccianemico, of Bologna. He answers reluctantly, obliged by Dante's clear speech, which makes him recall the world, and confesses that he was the one who led Ghisolabella (his sister, according to tradition) to do the marquis's will:
Analysis
I’ fui colui che la Ghisolabella / condussi a far la voglia del marchese, / come che suoni la sconcia novella.
, I was the one who led Ghisolabella to do the marquis's will, however foul the story may sound.
Venedico hides his face and speaks only because Dante's clear speech compels him, but after confessing he does not shrink: he spreads the blame over the city, saying that the ditch is full of Bolognese and that the "avaro seno" of Bologna is the proof. He does not deny having handed over Ghisolabella; he wants to stop being the only one to carry the fact. The text sustains the opposite reading as well: whoever knows the story is already public speaks of it without shame.
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Canto XIX: The Simoniacs
Summary of the canto
The canto opens without scene, with an apostrophe by Dante to Simon Magus and his followers, who adulterate with gold and silver what belongs to God; the trumpet sounds for them because they are in the third ditch:
Analysis
Canto XX: The Soothsayers
Summary of the canto
The canto opens by saying that the punishment is new and asks for new verses. From above, Dante sees coming through the round valley a silent, weeping crowd, at the pace of the litanies of this world, and when his gaze descends he sees that each has his face twisted between chin and the start of the chest, turned toward his back: they walk backward, because the ability to see ahead has been taken from them. The poet interrupts the narration and asks the reader to think for himself how he could have dry eyes seeing the human image so twisted that the tears of their eyes wet their buttocks through the cleft. Dante weeps, leaning on a stone of the bridge, and Virgil rebukes him:
Analysis
Canto XXI: The Demons and the Pitch
Summary of the canto
The canto opens with the poet saying, in passing, what the poem leaves out of what the two were talking about as they walked from bridge to bridge:
Analysis
Canto XXII: The Navarrese and the Demons' Brawl
Summary of the canto
The canto opens with Dante recalling the signs of war he has already seen (trumpets, bells, drums, castle signals) and saying that he never saw knights or ships move to such strange pipes. They walk with the ten demons:
Analysis
Reading of the Canto Block
Analysis