What is the punishment in canto 13?

Dante’s excessive pity incapacitates and almost paralyzes him (just as it earlier made him faint around Francesca). The suicides’ punishment is fitting in that, having disdained their bodies by enacting their own death, they are now separated from their bodies and transformed into something else (trees).

How does Dante describe the tree in canto 13?

Virgil and Dante now enter into a pathless wood. This is a dismal wood of strange black leaves, misshapen branches, and poisonous branches barren of fruit.

What is the Contrapasso in canto 13?

In Canto 13, contrapasso shows its authority in Hell with the Forest of Suicides. “When the fierce soul departs from the body it… falls into the wood, and no place is assigned to it, but where chance hurls it, there it sprouts like a grain of spelt.

Who are the two spirits that caught Dante attention?

However, what caught the interest of Dante the pilgrim, was the two souls that were moving together. Dante called them down, where he heard the story of Francesca and Paolo. Francesca, the wife of Gianciottois, had an affair with her husband’s brother, Paolo, in a moment of weakness.

Who can Dante meet Canto 13?

Virgil has Dante break a branch off of one of the trees. Dante is surprised when the tree cries out in pain. He learns that this tree was Pietro della Vigna, a Chancellor to Frederick II, who was wrongly accused of heresy and treason; he ended up killing himself in disgrace.

How does Dante describe the wood of the suicides?

In “The Inferno”, Dante describes the Woods of Suicide as consisting of thorny and gnarled trees which are the souls of those who committed suicide. The Harpies tormented the souls by breaking the branches and snapping limbs only to have them grow back again.

What sinners are in Canto 13?

The souls in this ring—those who were violent against themselves or their possessions (Suicides and Squanderers, respectively)—have been transformed into trees. Virgil tells the damaged tree-soul to tell his story to Dante so that Dante may spread the story on Earth.

Who is Pier della Vigna in Dante’s Inferno?

1190 – 1249 Pietro della Vigna was an Italian jurist and diplomat, who acted as chancellor and secretary to Emperor Frederick II. Falsely accused of lèse-majesté, he was imprisoned, blinded and committed suicide soon after. He appears as a character in the Inferno of the Divine Comedy by Dante Alighieri.

What does the Old man of Crete symbolize?

In the second half of Inferno 14, the parable of the Old Man of Crete illuminates the same principle, by showing us that human history is decadence and by teaching us that the rivers of Hell are made of human tears.

What does Dante learn about the sins of suicide from Pier?

He was loyal to Frederick, and was later accused of stealing from him. Not long after his imprisonment, Pier killed himself. This ring in which Dante finds himself is the realm of the suicides, who, ungrateful for their bodies on earth, are deprived of flesh in hell. Pier is an unusual sinner.

What happens to people who commit suicide in Dante’s Inferno?

When Dante/pilgrim enters into the seventh circle, he finds himself in another, darker forest. Here the souls of those who have committed suicide are removed from their earthly bodies and are transformed into horrible, gnarled thorn bushes.