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October 9, 2009
Dante Blogging - Inferno Canto XXI
Canto XXI
Dante begins this Canto with a lovely set of sound effects - read it out loud and see!
Così di ponte in ponte, altro parlando
che la mia comedìa cantar non cura,
venimmo; e tenavamo 'l colmo, quando
restammo per veder laltra fessura
di Malebolge e li altri pianti vani; e vidila mirabilimente oscura
And so from one bridge to the next we came,
talking of things I do not care to sing
within my Comedy, and reached the top,
And rested there to see the other crack of Evil Pouches, and their useless cries; and what we looked upon was wondrous black. (21.1-6)
Those first four lines with their P, C, and O are really something - and he's using them to describe things he will not sing to us.
The Canto ends with the opposite - a vulgar sound all done with T, C, and D.
Per l'argine sinistro volta dienno;
ma prima avea ciascun la lingua stretta
coi denti, verso lor duca, per cenno;
ed elli avea del cul fatto trombetta. (21.136-139)
Then the platoon turned sharp left on the bank,
but first they'd stuck their tongues between their teeth
and blown it at their sergeant for a sign,
and he had made a bugle of his arse.
As Esolen points out, "one musical note in Hell, as it were" (461). The sergeant generating the note is a devil - one of Dante's first band of dedicated demon tormenters. This ditch is full of boiling pitch and bribe-takers; the demons circle the bubbling goo poking any grafter who sticks a body part above the surface. Their names are, as Esolen points out, very Screwtapey: Calcabrina works out to Tramplefrost, Cagnazzo becomes Larddog, Rubicante becomes Redfroth (460). I'd never thought, though, that these crazy compounds should remind us of the brigands and politicians of Dante's time. Remember that one of his great patrons (though perhaps not this early?) was Bigdog of the della Scala family, Cangrande.
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Posted by CrankyProfessor at October 9, 2009 7:32 AM