The Divine ComedyThe Inferno

Canto I - VIII

Canto I: Lost in the dark wood

In mid-life, Dante finds himself in a dark wood

Fearful, Dante knows he has lost his way

Dante rests near a hill and waits for dawn

Rested, Dante resumes his walk.

Suddenly, he faces a leopard

It would not let him pass

Dante turns aside and walks on

A lion appears

The lion is rabid and hungry

As Dante turns from the lion, he is confronted by a she-wolf.

The three beasts block his path, preventing Dante from ascending

Jeremiah prophesied the fate of unrepentant sinners

"Wherefore a lion out of the wood hath slain them, a wolf in the evening hath spoiled them, a leopard watcheth for their cities: every one that shall go out thence shall be taken, because their transgressions are multiplied, their rebellions strengthened" (Jeremiah 5:6).

The beasts: medieval meanings

The leopard: carnal sins of the flesh like lust and gluttony.

The lion: sins of the world like power and violence and greed.

The she-wolf: sins of the devil like envy, malice, and treachery.

Dante notices the figure of a man

Dante begs for pity from the stranger

The stranger announces that he is a poet, the author of the poem about Aeneas.

Dante is delighted to meet Virgil, a poet he admires greatly

Virgil tells Dante he must go another way

The she-wolf will destroy all in her path until the greyhound comes to destroy her and free the land of Camilla, Turnus, Nisus, and Euryalus.

Virgil will guide Dante through the regions of God

But, because he lived in ignorance of God’s law, he will only be able to conduct Dante through the regions where spirits are in pain.

Dante thanks Virgil and they set off

Canto II: Virgil’s Mission

Dante invokes the muses of invention and memory.

Invention (Genius, Thought)

Memory (Mnemosyne)

Dante will continue to combine the classical (pagan) and the Christian

throughout the Commedia

Thus, Dante was a major contributor to the acceptance of Christian humanism that was an important feature of the Renaissance.

Feeling unworthy, Dante asks why he should take such a journey

Unlike Aeneas or St. Paul, Dante says, I am unfit to visit these realms.

Virgil explains that the blessed spirit Beatrice came to him

She asked him to help her friend, who had gone astray

Virgil agrees to help, and asks why she descended to Limbo

Beatrice explains that she has been so transformed by God’s grace that the flames and suffering have no power to hurt her.

Beatrice was sitting with Rachel in Paradise when she received a message

Rachel represents the contemplative life

Lucia, or Saint Lucy, came at the request of the Virgin Mary

Mary wanted to know why Beatrice was not helping her friend, Dante,who was in danger of spiritual death.

Mary represented compassion

Resolved, Dante follows Aeneas down the path to the underworld.

Canto III: The vestibule of Hell

Above the gate was written:

THROUGH ME THE WAY TO THE INFERNAL CITY:THROUGH ME THE WAY TO ETERNAL SADNESS:THROUGH ME THE WAY TO THE LOST PEOPLE.

JUSTICE MOVED MY SUPREME MAKER:I WAS SHAPED BY DIVINE POWER,BY HIGHEST WISDOM, AND BY PRIMAL LOVE.

BEFORE ME, NOTHING WAS CREATED, THAT IS NOT ETERNAL: AND ETERNAL I ENDURE.FORSAKE ALL HOPE, ALL YOU THAT ENTER HERE.

Dante hear the moans of the cowards or opportunists

Virgil explains that these are the souls of the spiritually neutral, those who made no choice between good or evil, but chased after worldly ideals.

Here, they continually chase banners always out of reach

Here Dante saw the angels who sided with neither God nor Lucifer during the

rebellion in Heaven

These wretches were goaded by hornets and wasps

Continually stung, the streamed a mixture of tears and blood

Which fed maggots and worms under their feet

Among these souls, Dante sees one he refers to as “the great refuser”

Most scholars interpret the refuser as Pope Celestine V

Elected Pope at the age of 80 in 1294, Celestine abdicated 5 months later to become a hermit

Celestine’s refusal to remain Pope paved the way for the election of Boniface VIII, a pope Dante considered to be completely corrupt

Boniface imprisoned Celestine, who died in 1296.

Boniface was the source of the political plots which led to Dante’s exile from Florence.

Boniface died in 1303. Dante put him in with the evil counselors.

Some scholars feel that the “great refuser” could be Pontius Pilate

Pilate refused to either condemn or exonerate Jesus, passing the case on to Herod

Pilate infamously washed his hands of the case, thereby becoming the historically Christian “great refuser.”

Of course Dante was a poet, and poets love ambiguity, which allows a reference or metaphor to have two or more simultaneous meanings.

Next, Dante reports many souls gathered on the bank of a river

The souls fought to get on an arriving boat

Charon, the boatman, decided who could board and who could not

Charon wanted to refuse passage to Dante (see Aeneid VI, 384-91)

But Virgil intervenes, and the poets sail across the Acheron to Hell

The opportunists try to board the boat, but as they ignored the choice between good and evil, so they will be ignored. Dante faints.

Canto IV: Circle I – Limbo, The Pagans

Limbo!

Thunder awakens Dante, who is afraid, and notices that Virgil is white-faced

Vigil tells Dante he is white with pity for the souls confined here.

These are the souls of the unbaptized. Many were great and good people, born before the time of Christ. Many are infants and children.

Dante asks Virgil if anyone was ever released from this circle.

Virgil tells him that shortly after his own death, a “great one” (Christ is not named in Hell) came and took some of the blessed souls with him to Paradise.

This event was commonly referred to as “the harrowing of hell.”

Harrowing of HellThis event is the supposed descent of Christ--following his crucifixion-- into Limbo, when he rescued and brought to heaven ("harrowing" implies a sort of violent abduction) his "ancestors" from the Hebrew Bible. Virgil supplies an eye-witness account, from his partially informed perspective, in Inferno 4.52-63. Since, according to Dante's reckoning, Christ's earthly life spanned thirty-four years, the harrowing can be dated to 34 C.E. Only suggested in the Bible, the story of Christ's post-mortem journey to hell appears in apocrypha--books related to but not included in the Bible--such as the Gospel of Nicodemus. So prominent was this story in the popular and theological imaginations that it was proclaimed as church dogma in 1215 and 1274. Dante's version of the harrowing, as we see from repeated allusions to the event during the protagonist's journey, emphasizes the power--in both physical and psychological terms--of Christ's raid on hell.

Those released included Adam, Abel, Noah, Moses, Abraham, King David, Jacob, Isaac, and Rachel.

Dante sees some grand souls standing apart and Virgil explains these are the noble poets.

First out, sword in hand, is the epic poet Homer, putative author of the Iliad and the Odyssey

Homer was supposedly blind, and thus needed a guide

Then Horace, the Satirist

Ovid

Ovid wrote Metamorphoses, The Art of Love, The Remedies for Love

Lucan

Lucan wrote Pharsalia, considered the greatest Latin poem after the Aeneid, in 62 A.D.

The poem is about the civil war between Pompey and Julius Caesar.

Caesar began the war when, returning from the conquest of Gaul in 49 BC, he led his army across the Rubicon river into Italy.

"Let the dice fly high!" he said (quoting a half-line of his favorite Greek poet, Menander), as he crossed the Rubicon…the great gamble could now begin; for he was starting a civil war and, according to the view occasionally expressed in his works, 'Luck is the greatest power in all things and especially in war.' Admittedly, in another passage, he adds that human endeavor could lend luck a helping hand, and the knowledge that he would not be found wanting in this respect will have filled him with confidence.

The Senators opposed to Caesar fled across the Adriatic and organized an army led by

Pompey

The armies met at Pharsalus in Thrace on June 6, 48 B.C.

Though outnumbered 2:1, Caesar won

Pompey fled to Egypt, where he was murdered

Lucan bemoans this event as that which ended all hopes for Rome to remain a

republic

"The loser bears the burden of defeat;The victor wins, but conquest is a crime."

The Pharsalia, Lucan, VII, 144-5.

The emperor Nero, jealous of Lucan’s talent (and perhaps irritated by his anti-imperial sentiments), forbade him to write, and later compelled him to

commit suicide

Nero

The four great poets welcomed Virgil back, and honored Dante by including him as the 6th great poet.

Thus, Dante made himself the first living member of the

Next, they came to a castle with 7 gates

This is the castle of philosophers

The 7 gates represent the 7 liberal arts

A young man being introduced to the seven liberal arts.

Inside the castle, Dante sees the spirits of great heroes and heroines

He saw Electra

This Electra was one of the seven Pleiades, daughters of Atlas

She and Zeus were the parents of Dardanus, and she was considered the “mother” of all Trojans, and later, Romans.

Among the heroes, Dante also saw Hector

Aeneas

Julius Caesar

Camilla

Penthesilea

Penthesilea was a queen of the Amazons

She fought for Troy

She was killed by Achilles, who fell in love with her after her death.

Dante saw Latinus and his daughter Lavinia, wife of Aeneas

Lavinia

He saw the old Roman hero Brutus

Lucius Junius Brutus was considered to the founder of the Roman Republic

In 509 B.C., he overthrew the Tarquin monarchy.

When his sons betrayed him by trying to restore the monarchy, he sentenced them to death and presided over their execution.

Brutus’ dead sons return home

Dante saw Lucretia

A virtuous woman, Lucretia was raped by Sextus Tarquinas, son of king Tarquinius Superbus.

Though absolved of guilt by both her husband Tarquinius Collatinus, and her father Tricipitinus, Lucretia could not forgive herself.

She took out a knife and stabbed herself in the heart

Great grief at her death turned to anger, which helped Brutus overthrow the Tarquin monarchy.

Julia, Marcia and Cornelia represent virtuous Roman women

Julia Julius Caesar’s daughter by Cornelia, the daughter of Cinna.

She married Pompey. She is mentioned as a type of the noble Roman woman.

Marcia, wife of Cato of Utica Noted for her integrity and nobility. For Dante (and for

Chaucer, as Marcia Catoun) a type of the noble Roman wife. She was Cato’s second wife who yielded her to his friend Quintus Hortensius. When he died she married Cato again. Dante’s Convito treats her return to Cato as an allegory of the soul’s return to God.

Cornelia The daughter of Scipio Africanus (Publius Cornelius Scipio

Major), and the wife of Tiberius Sempronius Gracchus, and mother of Tiberius and Caius the two famous tribunes, the Gracchi. A type of the noble Roman woman. She claimed that ‘her sons were her jewels’.

Dante notices Saladin, off by himself

A 12th century Kurdish Sunni Muslim born at Tikrit, Saladin defended Jerusalem from

Christian crusaders

Although an enemy and a Muslim, Saladin was known for his humane treatment of enemy captives and Christians in general.

Richard I negotiated a treaty with Saladin whereby Christians could visit Jerusalem

Next, Dante sees the spirits of the great philosophers

Aristotle

Plato's most famous student was the Macedonian scientist Aristotle of Stagira (384-322).

After the death of his master, he studied biology and accepted a position as teacher of the Macedonian crown prince Alexander at Mieza. When the Macedonians subdued Greece, Aristotle founded a school at Athens. Most of his writings are lost; what remains are his lecture notes, which were rediscovered in the first century BCE. During the last decades, scholars have started to re-examine the fragments of the lost works, which has led to important changes in our understanding of Aristotle's philosophy. However, the accepted view remains that he replaced his master's speculations with a more down-to-earth philosophy. His main works are the Prior Analytics (in which he described the rules of logic), the Physics, the Animal History, the Rhetorics, the Poetics, the Metaphysics, the Nicomachean Ethics, and the Politics. All these books have become classics, and it is not exaggerated to say that Aristotle is the most influential philosopher of all ages and the founder of modern science.

Plato and Aristotle

Socrates

Thales, Pythagoras, Heraclitus, Parmenides, and Democritus had been trying to explain the diversity of nature. The object of the philosophy of the Athenian Socrates (469-399) was altogether different: he was interested in ethics. It was his axiom that no one would knowingly do a bad thing. So knowledge was important, because it resulted in good behavior.

If we are to believe his student Plato, Socrates was always asking people about what they knew, and invariably they had to admit that they did not really understand what was meant by words like courage, friendship, love etc. Socrates was never without critics. The comic poet Aristophanes ridiculed him in The clouds, and when his pupil Alcibiades had committed high treason, Socrates' position became very difficult. He was forced to drink hemlock after a charge that he had corrupted the youth.

Death of Socrates

Plato

The Athenian philosopher Plato (427-347) is usually called a pupil of Socrates, but his ideas are no less inspired by Parmenides. Plato accepted the world of the phenomena as a mere shadow of the real world of the ideas. When we observe a horse, we recognize what it is because our soul remembers the idea of the horse from the time before our birth. In Plato's political philosophy, only wise men who understand the dual nature of reality are to rule the country.

Plato's hypothesis that our soul was once in a better place, and mankind lives in a fallen world, made it easy to combine platonic philosophy and Christianity, which accounts for the popularity of Platonism in Late Antiquity.

Democritus

Democritus developed in detail the ideas of his master, Leucippus, that atoms are what everything is made of, and the only real forces. He believed atoms were ever-moving, and had qualities such as position, shape, size and impenetrability and that they moved through space (the void). He said qualities such as thought and sensations were appearances of the various shapes and combinations of atoms. Democritus believed that physical phenomena were caused by a compound of atoms. He said that atoms of water were smooth, round, and unable to "hook" together so they roll over and over each other. He said that iron atoms have jagged, rough, and uneven edges, so they can hook together to form a solid. He explained that even though all atoms are fundamentally the same that small differences make different matter. He believed white things have surfaces made of smooth atoms, sour things consisted of needle-like atoms. Democritus also explained people's thoughts and senses with atoms. He said that when you see something, that a film of atoms thrown off an object enter your eye. He explains the concept of a soul by saying there were soul atoms. Democritus also believed that atoms can not be created, or perish. Democritus' theories foreshadowed many future theories, such as theories about the indestructibility of matter, and the conservation of energy.

Diogenes

Diogenes was from Sinope, a Greek colony on the Black Sea. Many stories about his behavior survive, though he had no interest in writing them down himself: one story says he deliberately glued up a scroll, so it couldn't be read. Another that he shaved one side of his head, not the other: making him the first punk. Until about the age of 60 he worked with his father, minting coins, but was exiled (in 350 BCE) when caught debasing the coinage. He then went to Athens, where the philosopher Socrates had taught. Here he lived in the market square and slept in public places, adopting a life of poverty. But his outrageous actions were part of a plan to test the limits of decency and free speech, and the limits of the thinking on offer in Athens. One philosopher preached the impossibility of motion: so Diogenes walked away. When Diogenes heard Plato classify man as "a featherless biped", he brought a plucked chicken into the class, saying "here is Plato's man".

Diogenes: the original Cynic

Alexander asks Diogenes if he can do anything for him.

Yes, says the barrel-dwelling philosopher, you can move so you're not keeping the sun off me!

Anaxagoras

Anaxagoras[Clazomenae, 500-428 BC]

Anaxagoras was an astronomer and a man of science. He observed vortexes and spiral phenomena in nature, which fascinated him. He believed the world was created through the rotary motion of a spiral, where initially all mass was united in the center and then, by centrifugal force driven by "mind", things came into being through the separation of mass into an increasing number of bodies and substances. It is unlikely that Anaxagoras derived this idea from the observation of spiral galaxies in space, because their structure cannot be observed by the naked eye and the Greeks did not have telescopes.

Thales

Thales, a Greek from Miletus, traveled to Egypt in 600 B.C., and naturally, went to see the pyramids

He asked his guide how tall the great pyramid was. No one knew.

One of Thales’ talents was theoretical geometry, especially the study of

proportions

He had figured out that there was a ratio between the height of an object and the length of the shadow of that object.

He knew his own height and paced out the length of his shadow, then paced out the length of the shadow cast by the pyramid, and announced to his startled hosts the height of the pyramid: 160 paces.

Thales’ formula

Thales was also able to calculate the distance of ships at sea

Empedocles

Empedocles (490 BC - 430 BC) was a Greek philosopher and a citizen of Agrigentum in Sicily.

He maintained that all matter is made up of four classical elements (which he called roots): water, earth, air and fire. In addition to these, he postulated something called Love (philia) to explain the attraction of different forms of matter, and of something called Strife (neikos) to account for their separation. He considered these to be distinct substances, with the four elements in solution with them.

Empedocles was also a mystic and a poet, and some consider him the inventor of the study of rhetoric. Gorgias of Leontini was his student, and it is probably from Empedocles that Gorgias developed the notion of rhetoric as magic.

Heraclitus

Heraclitus was a rich man from Ephesus and lived c.500, during the Persian occupation of his home town. His philosophical work consists of a series of cryptical pronouncements that force a reader to think. Unfortunately, a great part of his work is lost, which makes it very difficult to reconstruct Heraclitus' ideas. It seems certain, however, that he thought that the basic principle of the universe was the logos, i.e. the fact that it was rationally organized and therefore understandable. Bipolar oppositions are one form of organization, but the sage understands that these oppositions are just aspects of one reality. Fire is the physical aspect of the perfect logos.

Zeno

ZenoAfter the conquests of Alexander, the world was larger than ever, and the city-state had ceased to be an important political unit. Like Diogenes and Epicurus, Zeno of Citium (336-264 BCE) ignored traditional values like prestige and honor, and focused on man's inner peace. In his view, this was reached when a person accepted life as it was, knowing that the world was rationally organized by the logos. A man's mind should control his emotions and body, so that one could live according to the rational principles of the world. It has often been said that Zeno's ideas combine Greek philosophy with Semitic mysticism, but except for his descent from a Phoenician town on Cyprus, there is no proof for this idea. This philosophy, called Stoicism, became very influential under Roman officials.

Dioscorides

DioscoridesA surgeon in the Roman army under the dreadful emperor Nero. Born around 20 A.D. (or maybe around 40 A.D. - no one is sure) in Anazarbus, near Tarsus, in what is now Turkey, Dioscorides became a physician and a botanist (which were not all that different in those days, as most doctors were basically herbalists). He developed a passionate interest in the use of plants as a source of drugs. This led him eventually (around 70 A.D.) to write one of the great classics of medical literature, De Materia Medica. De Materia Medica, a magisterial work in five volumes, was the world's first really systematic pharmacopoeia. It contained detailed descriptions of about 600 plants that Dioscorides studied on his extensive travels throughout the Mediterranean world, in both Europe and Africa, and it discussed about 1000 medications derived from these plants. It eclipsed every other work of its kind and remained the final authority in botany and pharmacology for about 15 centuries.

Dioscorides was considered the father of pharmacy

Orpheus was the next spirit Dante saw.

Orpheus was A mythical musician who lived in Thrace (north of Greece) and was said to be able to control men and beasts by his music. His powers incensed the women of Thrace who killed and dismembered him. Thereafter his severed head was said to have spoken oracles. He was married to Eurydike whose death and eventual dismissal to Hades he was unable to avert because he looked round as he fetched her back to the upper world. He is usually shown in oriental or Thracian dress, and with a lyre. Only in late classical art is his power over animals shown.

Orpheus was the most skilled poet in Greek myth

He could charm humans, animals, and even inanimate objects with his song

When his young wife Eurydice died, Orpheus was grief stricken

He went down to the underworld, and so charmed Persephone and Hades with his music that Hades agreed to let Eurydice return with Orpheus.

However, the deal was off if Orpheus looked back his wife would remain

Orpheus looked back at his wife, and she remained in Hades

Orpheus is an interesting figure for Dante to include because

He was the first Greek character to visit the underworld while alive and return.

He was a poet, not a warrior or “hero.”

He went to the underworld due to his love for a woman

Dante points out Cicero

Marcus Tullius Cicero (106 BC-43 BC)

An accomplished poet, philosopher, rhetorician, and humorist, Marcus Tullius Cicero (106 BC-43 BC) was also the greatest forensic orator Rome ever produced. But to Cicero, service to the res publica (literally, "the public affair") was a Roman citizen's highest duty. At age 26 (in 80 BC), he successfully defended a man prosecuted unjustly by a crony of the bloodthirsty dictator Sulla. In 69 BC, he brought to order the corrupt Sicilian governor Verres. As consul in 63 BC, he put down the Catilinarian conspiracy; later, he was sent into exile for refusing to join the First Triumvirate. Late in life, he led the Senate's gallant but unsuccessful battle against Antony, for which he paid with his life on 7 December 43 BC.

Next Dante sees LinusThe mythological poet, the brother of Orpheus, and son of King Oeagrus and the Muse Calliope (of epic poetry). Alternatively he was the son of Apollo and the Muse Urania (astronomy). He was killed by jealous Apollo. He composed poems honouring Dionysus and a Creation epic. He is said to have invented melody and rhythm. The lament for him was widespread and is the theme of the Egyptian song of Maneros. His portrait was carved in the rock on Helicon near the grove of the Muses. It was claimed that he was buried at Thebes.

Orpheus taught by Linus

Linus killed by Hercules(danger of being a music critic)

Seneca

Lucius Annaeus SenecaBorn in Spain in 4 BC, Lucius Annaeus Seneca was educated in Rome and became famous not only as a playwright, but as an orator and philosopher as well. He served as tutor to the young Nero, and when the boy became Emperor in 54 AD, he retained Seneca as his advisor. For several years, Seneca exerted a calming influence on the young emperor. After he retired in AD 62, however, he lost favor with his former pupil, and in AD 65, he was accused of conspiring against Nero and was forced to commit suicide.

Quotes from Seneca: playwright, philosopher, moralist

All art is an imitation of nature.

An unpopular rule is never long maintained.

As was his language so was his life.

Be not too hasty either with praise or blame; speak always as though you were giving evidence before the judgment-seat of the Gods.

Be silent as to services you have rendered, but speak of favors you have received.

Consult your friend on all things, especially on those which respect yourself. His counsel may then be useful where your own self-love might impair your judgment.

Dangerous is wrath concealed. Hatred proclaimed doth lose its chance of wreaking vengeance.

Euclid

Euclid (ca. 325-ca. 270 BC) Greek geometer who wrote the Elements , the world's most definitive text on geometry. The book synthesized earlier knowledge about geometry, and was used for centuries in western Europe as a geometry textbook. The text began with definitions, postulates ("Euclid's postulates "), and common opinions, then proceeded to obtain results by rigorous geometric proof. Euclid also proved what is generally known as Euclid's second theorem: the number of primes is infinite. The beautiful proof Euclid gave of this theorem is still a gem and is generally acknowledged to be one of the "classic" proofs of all times in terms of its conciseness and clarity. In the Elements , Euclid used the method of exhaustion and reductio ad absurdum. He also discussed the so-called Euclidean algorithm for finding the greatest common divisor of two numbers, and is credited with the well-known proof of the Pythagorean theorem.

Ptolemaeus

Claudius Ptolemaeus (Greek: Klaudios Ptolemaios; A.D. circa 85 - circa 165), known in English as Ptolemy, was a Greek geographer and astronomer and astrologer who probably lived and worked in Alexandria in Egypt.

Ptolemy was the author of two important scientific treatises. One is the astronomical treatise that is now known as the Almagest (in Greek Hè Megalè Syntaxis, "The Great Treatise"). It was preserved, like most of Classical Greek science, in Arabic manuscripts (hence its familiar name) and only made available in Latin translation (by Gerard of Cremona) in the 12th Century.

Ptolemy's other main work is his Geography. This too is a compilation of what was known about the world's geography in the Roman empire at his time. He relied mainly on the work of an earlier geographer, Marinos of Tyre, and on gazetteers of the Roman and ancient Persian empire.

Hippocrates

Hippocrates was a Greek physician born in 460 BC on the island of Cos, Greece. He became known as the founder of medicine and was regarded as the greatest physician of his time. He based his medical practice on observations and on the study of the human body. He held the belief that illness had a physical and a rational explanation. He rejected the views of his time that considered illness to be caused by superstitions and by possession of evil spirits and disfavor of the gods.

Hippocrates held the belief that the body must be treated as a whole and not just a series of parts. He accurately described disease symptoms and was the first physician to accurately describe the symptoms of pneumonia, as well as epilepsy in children. He believed in the natural healing process of rest, a good diet, fresh air and cleanliness. He noted that there were individual differences in the severity of disease symptoms and that some individuals were better able to cope with their disease and illness than others. He was also the first physician that held the belief that thoughts, ideas, and feelings come from the brain and not the heart as others of his time believed.

Hippocrates traveled throughout Greece practicing his medicine. He founded a medical school on the island of Cos, Greece and began teaching his ideas. He soon developed an Oath of Medical Ethics for physicians to follow. This Oath is taken by physicians today as they begin their medical practice. He died in 377 BC. Today Hippocrates is known as the "Father of Medicine".

Avicenna

Avicenna, or in Arabic, Abu Ali al-Husain ibn Abdallah ibn Sina or simply Ibn Sina (as he is called by Persians) (980 - 1037), was a physician, philosopher, and scientist. He was the author of 450 books on many subjects, many on philosophy and medicine. His most famous works are The Book of Healing and The Canon of Medicine, also known as the Qanun.

He was born in Kharmaithen (in modern Uzbekistan), in Persia, and died in Hamadan, then in Persia (now Iran). He is considered "The Father of modern medicine" and is one of the greatest physicians of all time.

Galen

Claudius Galenus of Pergamum (131-201 AD), better known as Galen, was an ancient Greek physician. His views dominated European medicine for over a thousand years.

Galen was born in Pergamum (modern-day Bergama, Turkey) to an architect's family. His interests were eclectic - agriculture, architecture, astronomy, philosophy - until he concentrated on medicine.

By the age of 20 he had become a therapeutes ("attendant" or "associate") of the god Asclepius in the local temple for four years. After his father's death in 148 or 149 he left to study abroad. He studied in Smyrna and Corinth and at Alexandria. He studied medicine for a total of twelve years. When he returned to Pergamum in 157, he worked as a physician in a gladiator school for three or four years. During this time he gained experience of trauma and wound treatment. He later regarded wounds as "windows into the body".

From 162 he lived in Rome where he wrote extensively, lectured and publicly demonstrated his knowledge of anatomy. He gained a reputation as an experienced physician and his practice had widespread clientele. One of them was consul Flavius Boethius who introduced him in court where he became a court physician to emperor Marcus Aurelius. Later he also treated Lucius Verus, Commodus and Septimius Severus. Reputedly he spoke mostly Greek, which was a more respected language of medicine than Latin at the time. He briefly returned to Pergamum in 166-169.

Galen spent the rest of his life in royal court, writing and experimenting. He performed vivisections of numerous animals to study the function of the kidneys and the spinal cord. His favorite subject was the barbary ape. Reportedly he employed 20 scribes to write down his words. In 191, fire in the Temple of Peace destroyed some of his records

Averrhoes

AVERRHOES Ibn Roshd, commonly known as AVERRHOES, was born at Cordova, where his father held the office of mufti (chief magistrate) of Andalusia. His father taught him Mohammedan law: under other tutors he studied theology, philosophy, and medicine. He succeeded his father as mufti of Andalusia, and afterwards held a similar post in Mauritania; but his theological speculations, in which he had attempted to reconcile predestination with free will, involved him in a charge of heresy, and after a public recantation he was dismissed. Ultimately he retired to his native town, and was then reinstated in his former office, which he held till his death, variously dated at 1198 or 1206.Averrhoes was a voluminous writer. To Dante he was known as he who wrote the Great Comment, Aristotle being the author commented; he also wrote on the Republic of Plato. Of his medical works the chief is the work called The Total (Kulliyat), a treatise in seven books, dealing successively with Anatomy, Health, Diseases, Symptoms, Drugs and Foods, Regimen, Treatment of Disease.

Dante and Virgil leave the first circle, and descend to a darker place

Canto V: Circle 2

Dante hears howling, and sees Minos

Minos judges the damned, sending sinners to the level of hell indicated by the number of coils his tail encircles him.

Minos

The mythical King of Crete, son of Zeus and Europa, brother of Rhadamanthys and Sarpedon, lawgiver and builder of the Labyrinth at Cnossus, Daedalus being the architect. He was appointed by Zeus as one of the three judges of the dead, with Rhadamanthys and Aeacus, and lived in the Elysian Fields in the Underworld. He ruled over ninety Cretan cities and controlled navigation of the Mediterranean. He is the judge of the infernal regions in Virgil’s Aeneid and is for Dante a symbol of the sinner’s guilty conscience.

Grinning, Minos invites Dante to enter

Virgil instructs Minos to let Dante pass

Dante sees a powerful storm battering the lustful

The souls swirl

The souls cry and curse God

Virgil points out Semiramis

SemiramisSammuramat, Queen of the New Assyrian Empire, ruled 810-805 BC, whose policies were successful during the minority of her son Abadnirari III. She was supposed to have succeeded her husband Shamshi-Adad V, Ninus, (according to Orosius). Though Dante is correct in believing that the Assyrians held Egypt (the Soldan’s land) it was not till much later under Esarhaddon. She surrounded Babylon with brick walls, and was the ancestress of Polydaemon. Ovid in the Metamorphoses links her to the Babylonian goddess Dercetis worshipped in Syria as Atargatis, who was half-woman and half-fish and identified with Aphrodite by the Greeks. Semiramis was her daughter, and was said to have been cast out at birth, and tended by doves. Fish and doves were sacred to Dercetis who was the consort of the Babylonian great god Adad.

Inferno Canto V:52-72. Dante takes her as a type of licentiousness, has her ruler of Egypt (the Sultan’s land) and has her rule over many languages, presumably a reference to Babylon’s identification with the Tower of Babel.

Semiramis built Babylon

Dido

Cleopatra

Helen

Achilles, who lusted after Polyxena

Paris

Dante asks to speak to a pair who seem to whirl together

The woman tells Dante that love was their downfall

Dante asks Francesca how they fell into sin

Francesca da Rimini loved Paolo Malatesta, Il Bello, and was unfaithful to her husband Gianciotto, the son of Malatesta da Verucchio, Lord of Rimini. Gianciotto, brave but possibly deformed, stabbed to death the unfaithful Francesca, along with, Paolo about 1285. (He was still alive in 1300, the date of the vision, so that Caïna, the first ring of the ninth circle, reserved for murderers of their kin, is ‘waiting’ for him according to Francesca.) According to legend she thought that Paolo was her intended husband when he stood proxy for his brother in the marriage. She was born in Ravenna, the daughter of Guido Vecchio da Polenta, and aunt of Guido Novello at whose court in Ravenna Dante found his last refuge.

She says it began when they read a book.

It was the story of Lancelot

When they read that Lancelot kissed Guinevere, they too kissed

Francesca blames the book and its author for leading them to sin

Dante faints from pity.

Canto VI: Circle Three

Dante wakes to find himself in the third circle, a place of cold and heavy rain

He sees Cerberus, the three-headed dog, attacking spirits

Cerberus

A three-headed dog who guards the entrance to the classical underworld. In the Aeneid Virgil describes Cerberus as loud, huge, and terrifying (with snakes rising from his neck); to get by Cerberus, the Sybil (Aeneas' guide) feeds him a spiked honey-cake that makes him immediately fall asleep (Aen. 6.416-25). Look at Dante's related but very different version of Cerberus in Inferno 6.13-33. How has Dante transformed him to fit the role of guardian in the circle of gluttony? How does Cerberus himself shed light on Dante's conception of the sin? Verses 28-30, describing the actual experience of a dog intent on his meal, exemplify Dante's attention to the real world in his depiction of the afterlife.

Cerberus prepares to attack the poets

But Virgil feeds him handfuls of dirt

They see souls lying in garbage

One spirit challenges Dante to recognize him

Dante cannot, so Ciacco introduces himself

The name "Ciacco"--apparently a nickname for the poet's gluttonous friend--could be a shortened form of "Giacomo" or perhaps a derogatory reference to "hog" or "pig" in the Florentine dialect of Dante's day. Dante, who certainly accepts the common medieval belief in the essential relationship between names and the things (or people) they represent, at times chooses characters for particular locations in the afterlife based at least in part on their names. "Ciacco" may be the first case of this sort in the poem. Independently of what Dante writes in Inferno 6, we unfortunately know very little of Ciacco's life. Boccaccio claims that, apart from the vice of gluttony (for which he was notorious), Ciacco was respected in polite Florentine society for his eloquence and agreeableness. Another early commentator (Benvenuto) remarks that the Florentines were known for their traditionally temperate attitude toward food and drink--but when they fell, they fell hard and surpassed all others in their gluttony.

Dante asks Ciacco about the future of Florence

Ciacco tells him that the Blacks will eventually gain power, and oppress the Whites

A member of the White party, Dante is thus predicting his own exile.

Dante asks about some friends of his

• Farinata• Tegghiaio• Jacopo Rusticucci• Arrigo• Mosca

Ciacco tells Dante they are all lower down in Hell

Then Ciacco sinks back into the garbage.

After Virgil explains the day of judgment, he and Dante move on

Canto VII: Circle Four

Dante and Virgil come upon Plutus

Plutus is the god of wealth

Plutus, Pluto, DisPluto was the son of Saturn and the brother of Jupiter and Neptune, and was assigned the rule of the Underworld. Dante merges him with Plutus, god of the riches dug from the ground, and therefore the source of the sin of avarice, and the ‘great enemy.’

Plutus growls in language unknown to Dante; Virgil quiets the beast

Dante sees spirits rolling great weights

They howl, crash into each other, turn, and continue on

Because they were only concerned with brute matter in life, they now must push brute matter around for eternity.

These are the hoarders and wasters.

Or, the avaricious and prodigal

Useless keeping and useless spending has robbed them of the bright world

They will forever grasp and waste

Dante notices many churchmen among the throng

Dante asks Virgil about Dame Fortune

Fortuna holds the wealth of the world in her hands.

Fortuna spins the wheel as she pleases

Individuals, families, nations, may experience sudden changes in fortune

Virgil says the goddess herself is blameless, but men who put their faith in her are foolish.

Virgil urges Dante to hurry on

They cross to the River Styx, and look down on the marsh of the 5th circle.

They see angry spirits kicking, punching, and biting each other

The wrathful are on the surface

The sullen are fixed in the slime under water, gurgling.

The poets move to the base of a tower

Canto VIII: Circle five

Dante notices a light flash from the tower

Immediately, a boat approaches

It is piloted by Phlegyas

Dante and Virgil board the boat

Some of the wrathful try to board the boat

One spirit pops up and addresses Dante

It is Filippo Argenti

Filippo challenges Dante’s right to be there; Virgil pushes Filippo off the boat

Filippo is torn apart.

They hear wailing, and Virgil tells Dante they approach the city of Dis

Here flames burn, and deeper sins are punished

Amidst the fire, fallen angels obstruct their entrance.

Virgil speaks to them, but they shut the gate in his face

Virgil tells Dante a heavenly messenger is on his way