In Canto XII, Virgil and Dante had been given into the care of a centaur named Nessus to find the place in the Phlegethon River of boiling blood where it’s shallow enough to cross. Dante rides him over the river of blood. Once he deposits Dante and Virgil on the other side, Nessus turns and gallops back across the river to his companions.
Nessus had not yet reached the other side
When we moved forward into the woods unmarked
By any path. The leaves not green, earth-hued;
The boughs not smooth, knotted and crooked-forked;
No fruit, but poisoned thorns. Of the wild beasts
Near Cecina and Corneto, that hate fields worked
By men with plough and harrow, none infests
Thickets that are as rough or dense as this.
Here the repellent Harpies make their nests,
Who drove the Trojans from the Strophades
With dire announcements of the coming woe.
They have broad wings, a human neck and face,
Clawed feet, and swollen, feathered bellies; they caw
Their lamentations in the eerie trees.
Cecina and Corneto are rivers that mark northern and southern Tuscany. The “hate fields” were known for their dense, wild vegetation.
Harpies – Harpies are half-human and half-bird personification of storm winds. The harpies seem originally to have been wind spirits. Their name means “snatchers” or “swift robbers”. They were said to carry evildoers (especially those who have killed their family) to the Erinyes. In this form they were agents of punishment who abducted people and tortured them on their way to Tartarus. They were vicious, cruel and violent. Often referred to as the Hounds of Zeus. In Virgil’s Aeneid, Book 3.216, “They are said to have been feathered, with cocks’ heads, wings, and human arms, with great claws; breasts, bellies, and female parts human.” Here Dante says the Harpies “drove the Trojans from the Strophades with dire announcements of the coming woe”. The Strophades are two small Greek Ionians islands that are sparsely vegetated and rocky. They are home to a lot of birds, including, according to Dante, Harpies. Zetes and Calaïs, sons of Boreas, who voyaged with the Argonauts, rescued Phineus from the Harpies who were driven back but not killed. They were turned back at the Strophades by Iris, goddess of the rainbow, while continuing their pursuit of the creatures.
This is the seventh circle, the second ring. The seventh circle of Hell is for the Violent. The first ring was for those who were violent to others. The second ring is for those who were violent to themselves.
On every side, I heard wailing voices grieve,
Yet I could not see anyone there to wail,
And so I stopped, bewildered. I believe
My guide believed that in my belief the voices
I heard from somewhere in among the grove
Came somehow from people who were in hiding places –
And therefore the master said, “If you remove
A little branch from any one of these pieces
Of foliage around us, the thoughts you have
Will also be broken off.” I reached my hand
A little in front of me and twisted off
One shoot of a mighty thornbush – and it moaned,
“Why do you break me?” Then after it had grown
Darker with blood, it began again and mourned.
“What have you torn me? Have you no pity, then?
Once we were men, now we are stumps of wood:
Your hand should show some mercy, though we had been
The souls of serpents.” As flames spurt at one side
Of a green log oozing sap at the other end,
Hissing with escaping air, so that branch flowed
With words and blood together – at which my hand
Released the tip, and I stood like one in dread.
Violence against oneself can take several paths. The first one we think about is suicide, self-murder. Another would be deliberate physical self harm. Another would be self harm by squandering God-given blessings such as time, youth, strength, good health, talents, energy, possessions, education, etc.
The trees and bushes in this wood are the transformed souls of suicides. The people here are in non-human form because they killed their bodies. God had given them good bodies that they despised. So they are deprived of human form now. They didn’t appreciate what God had given them and they abused His gift. They retain their selfhood, their souls. A human being is born with a physical body created by God and given life by God. A human being is also born with a soul which includes personality, selfhood, character, experiences, memories, intelligence. When we accept Jesus Christ as our Savior, our spirit is born. We become a three part being like God. It’s what we call being born again. Until we are born again in Jesus Christ, we are missing that third part, spirit. Sometimes people mix spirit and soul up, calling one the other, but we are a two part being until we are born again and then we are a three part being. When Adam and Eve were created, they were three part beings: body, soul, spirit. When they sinned, the spirit died and they became two part beings. Everyone born since then have been born with two parts. We must accept Jesus Christ and be saved in order to be born again and have the third part, our eternal spirit, born. It’s a miracle and a divine mystery! The Holy Spirit was sent by Jesus Christ to enable, empower, teach and train our new spirit being. So the Holy Spirit is in us. We are the temple of the Holy Spirit on earth now.
These suicides have retained their selfhood. They speak, they are intelligent and know who they are. But their bodies have been transformed into mere vegetation. We find out that suicides believe they can kill the body and it would kill the pain. But we shall see that these bushes still feel pain.
The one whom Dante snaps a twig from, turns out to be Pie delle Vigne, Chancellor to the King of Sicily and minister to Frederick II. He tells Dante and Virgil that he was faithful to Frederick II but envy in the court got to Frederick who turned against Pier. Pier was accused of stealing and imprisoned for treason and heresy. He felt disgraced and thought it would be more noble to commit suicide in disdain. Pier committed suicide to make a statement. He thought he was being heroic. But rather, he just cared too much about what others thought of him and what Frederick thought of him. He didn’t take into consideration what God would think of his suicide. He took the life God gave him and murdered it out of pride. He literally bashed his head against the walls of a church and dashed his own brains out. He squandered what God had given him, his body, his life.
God is the giver of life. God planned, designed, created every single human life and He breathed His Life into that human being. God alone has the wisdom and knowledge to know when it’s time for that life to end. Our birth and death should be in God’s hands. When we decide that we know better than God about the beginning and ending of life, we are disdaining God and making ourselves into gods. We think we know better than God and could do a better job than God. Taking birth and death out of the hands of God is a dangerous business. God loved human beings so much that He gave His Son to die on the cross in order to save us. He finds us so extremely valuable and He loves us so much that He provided a way for us to spend eternity with Him. It does not go unnoticed by Him when we disdain a human life and kill it for our own purposes. A baby is conceived only because God planned, designed and created that child and gave that child life. But when a parent decides that they don’t want the child and abort it, that’s murder. That’s playing God and deciding God didn’t know what He was doing and so “I WILL TAKE CARE OF THE PROBLEM”. You put yourself on the throne as though you know what you are doing. You think you know the future. You think you are smarter and wiser than God. You think God made a big mistake and you have to clean up His mess.
The same with any murder: you have decided that a human being shouldn’t live so you play God and kill another human being whom God loved. Taking life from God, robbing God. Our lives were planned, created, and given life by God. We are His creations. When we take our own life, or the life of another, we are robbing God of His beautiful creation. We disdain the human being we kill, thus disdaining God.
The opposite is true when we try to force life. Let’s say a couple can’t conceive and they become desperate to have children. So they begin playing God to force a birth to happen. They cannot trust God and wait on Him. They have to make it happen because they want it so bad. “God must be making a mistake or He is incompetent so we will just make it happen ourselves”.
Then there are those who would prolong life through all kinds of Frankenstein-ian ways. They will have organ transplants, ventilators, etc to keep someone alive. “Surely God is making a mistake to think my loved one is ready to leave this earth. God can’t be serious! I idolize this person and have to have them so scoot over God and let me take control”.
Please don’t misunderstand me. I’m as human as you are and I want things and I hurt when a loved one dies too. I have to believe there is a balance, a godly balance. I know God has given us scientific and medical discoveries that can extend human life and I’m thankful for it as I’m still here because of those gifts. On the other hand, if we get desperate and we are trying to make something happen, we may be out of balance. We must be willing to submit to God’s Will and trust Him for the outcome. This is very hard for any of us to do, but necessary in a Christian life. And if we think it through, we will realize that we are poorly made to play God. We were made to trust God not be God.
My Mother had dementia. We knew it was coming 8 years before she died. I could tell even earlier as her Mother died of Alzheimer’s Disease and I saw the signals early. She knew when she was in the early stages. She could have decided that life wasn’t worth living; she didn’t want to be a burden; she didn’t want to hurt her husband and children in that way; it was a frightening future because she had seen her Mother die that way… etc. She could have committed suicide and I would have understood if that had been the case. But she accepted it with grace. She figured God knew what He was doing and she was along for the ride. God used her even when she forgot almost everyone. She became a tool to teach us compassion, love, and care. We had lessons to learn that we might not have learned if she hadn’t submitted to God’s Will. As it was, she did submit and she trusted God. Therefore, He took her quietly and without any pain or fear just days before we were going to have to decide about where to put her. She had just lost the ability to stand and walk and therefore we knew we couldn’t get her to the bathroom or to bath her. And she was getting to where she couldn’t eat. We knew it meant a nursing home. I literally mean it was going to have to be in the next day or two. But she died quietly that morning. Dad and my youngest sister had assisted her to the bathroom, brushed her teeth for her and sat her in a wheelchair in front of the TV. Dad made her something easy to swallow and fed her. Then he cleaned up the kitchen. When he went back to her, she was gone. It couldn’t have happened at a better time and it couldn’t have happened in a more peaceful way. God did know what He was doing.
My Dad grieved hard. He loved her so much. He could have decided, with his age and his emotional pain, there was no use carrying on. He could have taken his own life. But he didn’t. He told my sister he just wanted to be with Mom but he kept putting one foot in front of the other and he seemed very healthy and strong for his age. But 4 months later, almost to the day, Dad had some chest pain. We took him to the ER and they said it was a pulmonary embolism and they started him on blood thinner with the anticipation that all would be well. The blood thinner evidently dislodged the clot and it went to the heart. His blood pressure kept going down, down, down. My sister and I were with him. They wanted to move him to ICU and I was under the impression it was imminent so I gathered our things together and moved our cars and was sitting in the waiting room of ICU waiting for them to move him. A nurse came and got me. As soon as I had left, he crashed and they had been giving him CPR until they could find me. My sister and I had to decide to stop the CPR. It had been at least 20 mins for those poor ER workers while they found me. So we said it’s time to stop. He was gone. He went into the hospital that morning feeling fine, joking, talking, just some pain in his chest. While his blood pressure was declining we held his hand, told him we loved him, asked if he was afraid and he said no. His grandson was able to shake his hand and tell him he loved him. But he was gone. It was so hard and grieving both parents has been awful. On the other hand, we can see where God knew what He was doing and did it beautifully. Mom and Dad were saved. They went peacefully and without the trauma that often comes with deaths. They were only separated by 4 months. We might could have forced Dad to stay longer with machines or something, I don’t know. But we knew God was calling him home and we let him go and trusted God to be with us during our grief.
My point in telling this story is to show you we can trust in God. We don’t know the future. We don’t know all the variables involved in life and death decisions so it’s best to trust Him. We may see a bleak future and we are afraid of it. But God is with us all the way and we can make it through whatever He calls us to go through. He is enough.
This is particularly hard for me as I struggle with depression and suicidal ideation. I have all my life. I wanted to die when I was a little girl because I was so afraid of the future. For someone looking at my life they would wonder what in the world I had to be depressed about but it’s always been there. I fight it daily with God. I have to ask forgiveness for the times when I fantasize about suicide as an answer to emotional pain. I have had to ask forgiveness for the times I’ve attempted suicide. When I’m in my right mind, I know that it’s a failure in trust when I get like that so I ask His forgiveness and He’s gotten me through. I’m almost 61 years old and I never thought I would make it 18. I take absolutely no credit for still being here. God has had to carry me kicking and screaming some of the way. But I’m still here and I hope to have a natural, God-ordained death rather than Sharon-ordained death.
The thornbush tells his story:
I am he who possessed
Both keys to Frederick’s heart – and I turned either,
Unlocking and locking with so soft a twist
I kept his secrets from almost any other.
To this, my glorious office, I stayed so true
I lost both sleep and life. The harlot that never
Takes its whore’s eyes from Caesar’s retinue –
The common fatal Vice of courts – inflamed
All minds against me; and they, inflamed so,
So inflamed Augustus that the honors I claimed
In gladness were converted into pain.
My mind, in its disdainful temper, assumed
Dying would be a way to escape disdain,
Making me treat my juster self unjustly.
and by this tree’s strange roots, I swear again:
I never betrayed my lord, who was so worthy
Of honor. If you return to the world above,
Either of you, please comfort my memory
Still prostrate from the blow Envy gave.”
…
“When the fierce soul has quit the fleshly case
It tore itself from, Minos sends it down
To the seventh depth. It falls to this wooded place –
No chosen spot, but where fortune flings it in –
And there it sprouts like a grain of spelt, to shoot
Up as a sapling, then a wild plant: and then
The Harpies, feeding on the foliage, create
Pain, and an outlet for the pain as well.
We too shall come like the rest, each one to get
His cast-off body – but not for us to dwell
Within again, for justice must forbid
Having what one has robbed oneself of; still,
Here we shall drag them, and through the mournful wood
Our bodies will be hung: with every one
Fixed on the thornbush of its wounding shade.”
Dante may have thought Pier delle Vigne was innocent of the charges when he wrote the comedie. But some of the notes on Pier indicate he may have been guilty of the charges. Maybe Dante knew he was guilty but has Pier declaring his innocence to manipulate Dante, the pilgrim.
Pier tells Dante what happens when a suicide arrives at Hell. Remember Minos in Canto V? The monster between the first and second circle of hell with the tail that curls around him so many times to indicate which level of Hell each person goes. Pier says that a suicide is sent by Minos down to the seventh circle and second ring. They are like a seed that is planted in this wood and grows into a sapling and then a plant. That seed is their self, their identity. They retain that part that makes them uniquely themselves.
He goes on to say that the Harpies feed on their leaves and it causes them pain. They bleed and vent their pain in moans, wailing and lamentations. Then he explains that when Christ comes to collect all the human bodies and transforms them into the resurrected, immortal bodies that rejoin their souls (and, for the saved, their spirits) they will receive back their “cast-off body” as well. But these immortal bodies will merely be dragged back to this level of Hell to be hung on the vegetation that they inhabit. Christianity, on the other hand, holds that body and soul, unified, will live forever. “When reunited and perfected, we will suffer greater pain if in Hell and enjoy greater bliss if in Paradise.” DigitalDante.columbia.edu
Christians believe that our body dies but they will be resurrected, immortal and incorruptible, to rejoin with our soul and spirit in the last day! We will once again be a three part being, including our body. But our body will be perfect as it was when God created Adam and Eve. He made them to be immortal. They would not have gotten sick, aged, died but for sin. Sin brought death. Their spirits died and their bodies would die. But God promises eternal life and resurrected bodies through Jesus Christ!
1 Corinthians 15:3-57 (NLT) 3 I passed on to you what was most important and what had also been passed on to me. Christ died for our sins, just as the Scriptures said. 4 He was buried, and he was raised from the dead on the third day, just as the Scriptures said. 5 He was seen by Peter and then by the Twelve. 6 After that, he was seen by more than 500 of his followers at one time, most of whom are still alive, though some have died. 7 Then he was seen by James and later by all the apostles. 8 Last of all, as though I had been born at the wrong time, I also saw him. 9 For I am the least of all the apostles. In fact, I’m not even worthy to be called an apostle after the way I persecuted God’s church.
10 But whatever I am now, it is all because God poured out his special favor on me—and not without results. For I have worked harder than any of the other apostles; yet it was not I but God who was working through me by his grace. 11 So it makes no difference whether I preach or they preach, for we all preach the same message you have already believed.
12 But tell me this—since we preach that Christ rose from the dead, why are some of you saying there will be no resurrection of the dead? 13 For if there is no resurrection of the dead, then Christ has not been raised either. 14 And if Christ has not been raised, then all our preaching is useless, and your faith is useless. 15 And we apostles would all be lying about God—for we have said that God raised Christ from the grave. But that can’t be true if there is no resurrection of the dead. 16 And if there is no resurrection of the dead, then Christ has not been raised. 17 And if Christ has not been raised, then your faith is useless and you are still guilty of your sins. 18 In that case, all who have died believing in Christ are lost! 19 And if our hope in Christ is only for this life, we are more to be pitied than anyone in the world.
20 But in fact, Christ has been raised from the dead. He is the first of a great harvest of all who have died.
21 So you see, just as death came into the world through a man, now the resurrection from the dead has begun through another man. 22 Just as everyone dies because we all belong to Adam, everyone who belongs to Christ will be given new life. 23 But there is an order to this resurrection: Christ was raised as the first of the harvest; then all who belong to Christ will be raised when he comes back.
24 After that the end will come, when he will turn the Kingdom over to God the Father, having destroyed every ruler and authority and power. 25 For Christ must reign until he humbles all his enemies beneath his feet. 26 And the last enemy to be destroyed is death. 27 For the Scriptures say, “God has put all things under his authority.” (Of course, when it says “all things are under his authority,” that does not include God himself, who gave Christ his authority.) 28 Then, when all things are under his authority, the Son will put himself under God’s authority, so that God, who gave his Son authority over all things, will be utterly supreme over everything everywhere.
29 If the dead will not be raised, what point is there in people being baptized for those who are dead? Why do it unless the dead will someday rise again?
30 And why should we ourselves risk our lives hour by hour? 31 For I swear, dear brothers and sisters, that I face death daily. This is as certain as my pride in what Christ Jesus our Lord has done in you. 32 And what value was there in fighting wild beasts—those people of Ephesus—if there will be no resurrection from the dead? And if there is no resurrection, “Let’s feast and drink, for tomorrow we die!” 33 Don’t be fooled by those who say such things, for “bad company corrupts good character.” 34 Think carefully about what is right, and stop sinning. For to your shame I say that some of you don’t know God at all.
35 But someone may ask, “How will the dead be raised? What kind of bodies will they have?” 36 What a foolish question! When you put a seed into the ground, it doesn’t grow into a plant unless it dies first. 37 And what you put in the ground is not the plant that will grow, but only a bare seed of wheat or whatever you are planting. 38 Then God gives it the new body he wants it to have. A different plant grows from each kind of seed. 39 Similarly there are different kinds of flesh—one kind for humans, another for animals, another for birds, and another for fish.
40 There are also bodies in the heavens and bodies on the earth. The glory of the heavenly bodies is different from the glory of the earthly bodies. 41 The sun has one kind of glory, while the moon and stars each have another kind. And even the stars differ from each other in their glory.
42 It is the same way with the resurrection of the dead. Our earthly bodies are planted in the ground when we die, but they will be raised to live forever. 43 Our bodies are buried in brokenness, but they will be raised in glory. They are buried in weakness, but they will be raised in strength. 44 They are buried as natural human bodies, but they will be raised as spiritual bodies. For just as there are natural bodies, there are also spiritual bodies.
45 The Scriptures tell us, “The first man, Adam, became a living person.” But the last Adam—that is, Christ—is a life-giving Spirit. 46 What comes first is the natural body, then the spiritual body comes later. 47 Adam, the first man, was made from the dust of the earth, while Christ, the second man, came from heaven. 48 Earthly people are like the earthly man, and heavenly people are like the heavenly man. 49 Just as we are now like the earthly man, we will someday be like the heavenly man.
50 What I am saying, dear brothers and sisters, is that our physical bodies cannot inherit the Kingdom of God. These dying bodies cannot inherit what will last forever.
51 But let me reveal to you a wonderful secret. We will not all die, but we will all be transformed! 52 It will happen in a moment, in the blink of an eye, when the last trumpet is blown. For when the trumpet sounds, those who have died will be raised to live forever. And we who are living will also be transformed. 53 For our dying bodies must be transformed into bodies that will never die; our mortal bodies must be transformed into immortal bodies.
54 Then, when our dying bodies have been transformed into bodies that will never die, this Scripture will be fulfilled:
“Death is swallowed up in victory.
55 O death, where is your victory?
O death, where is your sting?”
56 For sin is the sting that results in death, and the law gives sin its power. 57 But thank God! He gives us victory over sin and death through our Lord Jesus Christ.
Romans 6:5-11 (BSB) 5 For if we have been united with Him like this in His death, we will certainly also be united with Him in His resurrection. 6 We know that our old self was crucified with Him so that the body of sin might be rendered powerless, that we should no longer be slaves to sin. 7 For anyone who has died has been freed from sin. 8 Now if we died with Christ, we believe that we will also live with Him. 9 For we know that since Christ was raised from the dead, He cannot die again; death no longer has dominion over Him. 10 The death He died, He died to sin once for all; but the life He lives, He lives to God. 11 So you too must count yourselves dead to sin, but alive to God in Christ Jesus.
Philippians 3:10-12;20-21 (NLT) 10 I want to know Christ and experience the mighty power that raised him from the dead. I want to suffer with him, sharing in his death, 11 so that one way or another I will experience the resurrection from the dead! 12 I don’t mean to say that I have already achieved these things or that I have already reached perfection. But I press on to possess that perfection for which Christ Jesus first possessed me… 20 But we are citizens of heaven, where the Lord Jesus Christ lives. And we are eagerly waiting for him to return as our Savior. 21 He will take our weak mortal bodies and change them into glorious bodies like his own, using the same power with which he will bring everything under his control.
Romans 8:10-11 (NLT) 10 And Christ lives within you, so even though your body will die because of sin, the Spirit gives you life because you have been made right with God. 11 The Spirit of God, who raised Jesus from the dead, lives in you. And just as God raised Christ Jesus from the dead, he will give life to your mortal bodies by this same Spirit living within you.
1 Thessalonians 4:13-18 (NLT) 13 And now, dear brothers and sisters, we want you to know what will happen to the believers who have died so you will not grieve like people who have no hope. 14 For since we believe that Jesus died and was raised to life again, we also believe that when Jesus returns, God will bring back with him the believers who have died. 15 We tell you this directly from the Lord: We who are still living when the Lord returns will not meet him ahead of those who have died. 16 For the Lord himself will come down from heaven with a commanding shout, with the voice of the archangel, and with the trumpet call of God. First, the believers who have died will rise from their graves. 17 Then, together with them, we who are still alive and remain on the earth will be caught up in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air. Then we will be with the Lord forever. 18 So encourage each other with these words.
From these scriptures (1 Thessalonians 4) we can see that Jesus will return and without setting foot on the earth, He will reclaim His people, all those who are saved. Their bodies will be resurrected and rejoin their eternal spirits. I believe this happens in the Rapture just before the Great Tribulation or the End of Days on this earth as we know it. After the Tribulation, Jesus comes back and this time sets feet upon the earth. He wins a battle with satan and his armies and establishes a kingdom on this earth called the Millennial Kingdom.
Revelation 20:1-3 (NLT) 1 Then I saw an angel coming down from heaven with the key to the bottomless pit and a heavy chain in his hand. 2 He seized the dragon—that old serpent, who is the devil, Satan—and bound him in chains for a thousand years. 3 The angel threw him into the bottomless pit, which he then shut and locked so Satan could not deceive the nations anymore until the thousand years were finished. Afterward he must be released for a little while.
Jesus Christ rules for 1,000 years. His citizens will be those of us who are saved when He comes. Those who died before Christ returned and those who were still alive (saved during the Great Tribulation) when He returns. For that millennium we will enjoy the reign of Christ.
Revelation 20:4-6 (NLT) 4 Then I saw thrones, and the people sitting on them had been given the authority to judge. And I saw the souls of those who had been beheaded for their testimony about Jesus and for proclaiming the word of God. They had not worshiped the beast or his statue, nor accepted his mark on their foreheads or their hands. They all came to life again, and they reigned with Christ for a thousand years. 5 This is the first resurrection. (The rest of the dead did not come back to life until the thousand years had ended.) 6 Blessed and holy are those who share in the first resurrection. For them the second death holds no power, but they will be priests of God and of Christ and will reign with him a thousand years.
But there will be those who are born during this time to those who were still alive when Christ returned. These also have a decision to make, whether to accept Jesus Christ as their Savior and Lord, or to rebel as they ancestors did. At the end of the 1,000 year reign, Jesus let’s satan out of the pit where he has been chained.
Revelation 20:7-9 (NLT) 7 When the thousand years come to an end, Satan will be let out of his prison. 8 He will go out to deceive the nations—called Gog and Magog—in every corner of the earth. He will gather them together for battle—a mighty army, as numberless as sand along the seashore. 9 And I saw them as they went up on the broad plain of the earth and surrounded God’s people and the beloved city. But fire from heaven came down on the attacking armies and consumed them.
Satan once again tries to lead a rebellion but is instantly put down and this time he and his demons are thrown forever in the Lake of Fire. All those who followed him in rebellion will join him where they and their immortal bodies (that were resurrected) will suffer punishment for eternity in the Lake of Fire.
Revelation 20:10- (NLT) 10 Then the devil, who had deceived them, was thrown into the fiery lake of burning sulfur, joining the beast and the false prophet. There they will be tormented day and night forever and ever. 11 And I saw a great white throne and the one sitting on it. The earth and sky fled from his presence, but they found no place to hide. 12 I saw the dead, both great and small, standing before God’s throne. And the books were opened, including the Book of Life. And the dead were judged according to what they had done, as recorded in the books. 13 The sea gave up its dead, and death and the grave gave up their dead. And all were judged according to their deeds. 14 Then death and the grave were thrown into the lake of fire. This lake of fire is the second death. 15 And anyone whose name was not found recorded in the Book of Life was thrown into the lake of fire.
When an uproar surprised us, just as when
A hunter mindful of wild boar and the chase
Suddenly hears the beasts and crashing brush.
There on our left came two at a desperate pace.
Nake, torn, so hard pressed they seemed to crash
Headlong through every tangle the wood contained.
The one in front cried, “Come now, come in a rush,
O death!” The other shouted, falling behind,
“Your legs were not so nimble when you ran
At the jousting of the Toppo, Lano my friend!”
And then, perhaps because his breath began
To fail him, he stopped and hunched against a bush
As if to make himself and its branches one.
Behind them, eager as greyhounds off the leash,
Black bitches filled the woods, avid and quick.
They set their teeth on the one who stopped to crouch,
And tore his limbs apart; and then they took
The wretched members away. Then my escort
Led me by one hand to the bush – which spoke,
Grieving in vain through places where it was hurt
And bled: “Jacopo da Santo Andrea,” it cried,
“What did you gain by shielding in me? What part
Had I in your sinful life?” My master said,
When he was standing above it, “And who were you,
Who through so many wounds exhale this blood
Mixed with sad words?” It answered, “O souls – you two
Who arrive to see this shameful havoc crush
My leaves and tear them from me – gather them now
And bring them to the foot of this wretched bush.
In life I was of the city that chose to leave
Mars, her first patron, and take the Baptist; for which
The art of Mars will always make her grieve.
And if his semblance did not in part remain
Still at the Arno, she would not survive –
And later, when they pitched the city again
Over the ashes left by Attila, those
Striving to refound it would have worked in vain.
And I – I made my own house be my gallows.”
In this section, we see two men being chased by “beasts”, “black bitches” as eager as greyhounds. These she-mastiffs catch one of the men who crouched down by one of the bushes. They tear him limb from limb. These men are those who needlessly put themselves in harm’s way. They don’t respect their bodies enough, nor are they thankful to God for their bodies. They are self-harmers.
Today we recognize self-harming as an aberrant behavior by people who use razor blades to cut their bodies or those who practise bulimia or anorexia. But there are all kinds of “self harm” behavior. There are those who take on suicide missions because they don’t value their own lives. (I’m not talking about those heroes who are doing a necessary job in order to protect others but those who do unnecessary, and virtually suicidal missions, because they don’t care if they live or die.) There are those who hideously mark their bodies with piercings, tattoos, implants and scarring because they don’t value the bodies God has given them. There are those who take drugs, abuse alcohol and practise particularly unsafe lifestyles because they don’t consider themselves worthy of taking good care of themselves. They practise unsafe sex, promiscuous lifestyles, always putting themselves in danger with strangers because they don’t value their God-given bodies. There are those who like to participate in extreme and dangerous sports. They have no thought of what they are doing to their bodies or what happens if they are injured or killed by their dangerous and unnecessary actions. It’s particularly selfish to endanger your health and life just for adrenaline rushes. You would leave behind loved ones who are devastated by your loss or are called to take care of you when you may be paralyzed or maimed and unable to take care of yourself. There are those who squander their lives. God has given them youth, health, energy, time, education, material possessions, talent and people take these gifts for granted and either abuse them, ignore them, complain about them or pervert them for sinful uses. For example, a God-given talent to play instruments and sing and someone uses it for singing satanic inspired music and songs. Or someone who has youth and energy but they waste it in front of video games for hours, days, weeks on end. Or someone who has beautiful red hair but complains and grumbles because they hate their red hair. They don’t value their uniqueness. Or someone who has a free education but they don’t use it to learn more about God by reading the Bible. They use their education to teach others evil things instead of teaching about God. Education was wasted on them because they used it wrongly and squandered the opportunities God gave them.
Are you beginning to see all the different ways we can “self harm”. It is all based on being ungrateful for what God has done in creating us and giving us life. I’m right up there with all of you. You see some way in which you have “self harmed” and been ungrateful? I have! I used to really hate myself. I hated everything about me. I hated I was even born. I hated my height, my looks, my weaknesses, etc. Slowly, God has been giving me another lens. As I read the Word and study it, I’m coming to realize how I’ve disdained what God has made when He made me and I’ve been very ashamed for not treasuring and valuing what He did when He created me. I’m trying to see myself as a blessing from God and how can I use it for Him; to be thankful. I want to invest myself in Him and not squander what He’s given me. It’s a whole new outlook and is taking a lot of change in attitude. Especially as we age and we no longer look so great; no longer feel so great. I go by a mirror and can’t believe that old person is me. You will experience that too. But it makes us no less valuable to God.
To get back to our study, the two men are Jacopo da Santo Andrea and “Lano” is Arcolano di Squarcia Maconi. Lano was a Siennese who was wealthy but was a member of the Spendthrift Club (sort of like the Billionaire Boy’s Club) where he spent so lavishly that he lost all his money. Reduced to poverty he had joined the military and went on a suicide mission because he couldn’t face poverty. He basically threw everything God had given him away. Jacopo was a Paduan who wasted his property in wanton extravagance. Once he had squandered his money, he killed himself in despair. He was best known for having thrown money into a lake just to have something to do. He also set cottages on his property on fire to impress his dinner guests.
The bush that was hurt by the fracas with the she-mastiffs complains that it’s lost some leaves and suffers pain: “Grieving in vain through places where it was hurt and bled: ‘Jacopo da Santo Andrea,’ it cried, ‘What did you gain by shielding in me? What part had I in your sinful life?'”
This suicide is unnamed. He sounds rather petulant which we do when we complain about the glorious and complex body and life God has created. Why does this bush ask Dante and Virgil to pick up it’s leaves and bring them to the foot of the bush?
“Gather them now, and bring them to the foot of this wretched bush”
In life this person had no care for his own body and life. Now he has a pathetic care for even the leaves torn off as though he cares about keeping what little he has, even though it’s meaningless.
The bush goes on to say he was from Florence whose first patron was the Roman God of War, Mars. But Florence had been christianized and now recognizes John the Baptist as it’s patron saint. He indicates that Florence is still always embroiled in wars. After Attila the Hun ruined the city and the rebuilding began, this person hanged himself in his own home evidently unable to face the uncertain future. Some say the bush is Florence, the city, which virtually committed suicide with all the political fighting that occurred there over centuries.
Before leaving this canto, I was intrigued by some play on words:
“I believe my guide believed that in my belief the voices I heard from somewhere in among the grove came somehow from people who were in hiding places.”
“The harlot that never takes its whore’s eyes from Caesar’s retinue – the common fatal Vice of courts – inflamed all minds against me; and they, inflamed so, so inflamed Augustus that the honors I claimed in gladness were converted into pain.”
The excerpts of Inferno were from Robert Pinsky’s translation.
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