Inferno Commentary

Ryan Readinger

10 IB English

January 8, 2009

Ms. Peifer

Dante’s Inferno Commentary

“’Your citizens nicknamed me Ciacco, The Hog: / gluttony was my offense and for it/ I lie here rotting like a swollen log. / Nor am I lost in this alone; all these/ you see about you in this painful death/ have wallowed in the same indecencies.’/ I [Dante] answered him: ‘Ciacco, your agony/ weighs on my heart and calls my soul to tears; / but tell me, if you can, what is to be/ for the citizens of that divided state, / and whether there are honest among them, / and for what reasons we are torn by hate.’” (Dante, 49-60 in Canto 6)
This passage is very important to the overall story of Dante’s venture into hell. When Dante talks to Ciacco, this is really his first view and understanding of how bad Hell really was to the people being punished in it. Dante gets that idea and feeling when he sees the misery of Ciacco and the others. When Dante engages Ciacco in conversation, Ciacco tells him that everybody on his level of hell endures the same pain as him, and that they all committed the same felony. Dante’s mistake, though, is his pity for Ciacco and the rest of those being punished “‘Ciacco, your agony/ weighs on my heart and calls my soul to tears’”(Dante, 56-57). He is later scolded for his pity by Virgil, and that’s what makes Dante have no pity for the rest of the doomed in Hell.
The language used in this excerpt makes the passage more in-depth and quite detailed. Dante uses more complex words to brighten, or darken in some cases, a sentence of phrase. He scatters these words thought the passage, using them to describe the situation or thing in greater detail. The way Dante constructs this diolouge throughout the story is quite interesting. Though not mostly in this passage, Dante uses phrases such as “ and I to him” and “and he to me”, but he does start to uses these in this passage. When Dante is asking his question to Ciacco, “’but tell me, if you can, what is to be/ for the citizens of that divided state, / and whether there are honest among them, / and for what reasons we are torn by hate.’”(Dante, 57-60) Dante makes you think about the question by not clearly defining what his asking. Though Ciacco knows exactly what he is querying about, the reader must think back to history and find out when the city from which both Dante and Ciacco came was fighting. It is a smart use of allusion.
The overall impact of this passage on the rest of the story is big because of the pity that Dante shows Ciacco and the scolding he shortly received after wards by Virgil.