What is the sin in canto 17?

In Canto XVII, the monster Geryon symbolizes Fraud, the sin of the souls in Circle VIII. Furthermore, like Fraud, his innocent face fools the onlooker long enough to be stung by his scorpion-like tail.

What does the dark wood symbolize for Dante?

The dark woods symbolize sinful life on Earth, and the “right road” refers to the virtuous life that leads to God. Read an in-depth analysis of the opening lines of the poem.

What is the contrapasso in canto 17?

The sinners contrapasso is that the souls are put on burning sands where there is a constant rain of fire and they are bitten by flies.

What purpose does Geryon serve in canto 17?

Geryon, like many of the guards in the Inferno, is evil, but he serves God’s purpose by serving as a guard of the sinners in the Inferno — and by serving as transportation for Virgil and Dante.

What monster do Dante and Virgil ride in Canto 17?

Geryon
In Canto Seventeen, Virgil and Dante encounter Geryon, a monster with the body of a serpent and hairy paws and arms. He’s covered in colorful designs and has a poisonous pointed tail like a scorpion’s. Virgil talks with Geryon while Dante has a brief encounter with the usurers.

How do Dante and Virgil get to the next level Canto XVII?

Dante is frightened and means to ask Virgil to help him hold onto the monster, but his voice fails. Virgil holds Dante securely anyway, and commands Geryon to fly down gently to the next circle.

How did Dante end up in the dark wood?

After resting for a moment, he begins to climb the hill towards the light, but he is suddenly confronted by a leopard, which blocks his way and he turns to evade it. Then a hungry lion appears more fearful than the leopard, but a “she-wolf” comes forward and drives Dante back down into the darkness of the valley.

What do the three beasts represent in Dante’s Inferno?

While he seeks a way out of the forest, he meets three beasts: a leopard, a lion, and a wolf. They force Dante back into the dark forest. The three beasts are allegories of three different sins: the leopard represents lust, the lion pride, and the wolf represents avarice.

What does Geryon look like?

Geryon was often described as a monster with either three bodies and three heads, or three heads and one body, or three bodies and one head. He is commonly accepted as being mostly humanoid, with some distinguishing features (such as wings, or multiple bodies etc.) and in mythology, famed for his cattle.

What is the significance of the purses that the usurers carry?

[16] Dante’s use of moneybags, and his placement of them around the necks of his usurers, is very important, since it indicates his awareness of an iconography traditionally associated with Jews.

What does it mean to be violent against God?

Being violent against god means using his name in vain, talking bad about him or talking bad about religion.

Why did Dante choose Cato?

Dante seems to have assigned this prominent role to Cato because he so valued freedom that he gave his life for it (1.71-2): the historical Cato chose suicide over submission to tyranny after he was defeated (along with Pompey) in the civil war against Julius Caesar.