Dante 31

Dante's

Vanni Fucci 'Making Figs' Against God   1824-27pen, ink and watercolour (NGV 20)
Felton Bequest, 1920
National Gallery of Victoria

Inferno XXV, 1-15. Vanni Fucci had been bitten by a serpent, instantly transformed into ashes, and then, like the phoenix, reconstituted into his former shape. This was his punishment for robbing the treasury of San Jacopo in the Church of San Zeno, Pistoia, in 1293. Here Vanni Fucci blasphemes against God with an obscene gesture. The flames rain down on him from the dark cloud above and serpents renew their attacks on him.

Dante 28

Dante 28

Blake Dante Hell XXIV Thieves.jpg
Female Figures Attacked by Serpents(See Klonski's Blake's Dante)

Inferno: Canto XXXIV


"'Vexilla Regis prodeunt Inferni'
  Towards us; therefore look in front of thee,"
  My Master said, "if thou discernest him."

As, when there breathes a heavy fog, or when
  Our hemisphere is darkening into night,
  Appears far off a mill the wind is turning,

Methought that such a building then I saw;
  And, for the wind, I drew myself behind
  My Guide, because there was no other shelter.

Now was I, and with fear in verse I put it,
  There where the shades were wholly covered up,
  And glimmered through like unto straws in glass.

Some prone are lying, others stand erect,
  This with the head, and that one with the soles;
  Another, bow-like, face to feet inverts.

When in advance so far we had proceeded,
  That it my Master pleased to show to me
  The creature who once had the beauteous semblance,

He from before me moved and made me stop,
  Saying: "Behold Dis, and behold the place
  Where thou with fortitude must arm thyself."

How frozen I became and powerless then,
  Ask it not, Reader, for I write it not,
  Because all language would be insufficient.

--------

Inferno: Canto XXV


At the conclusion of his words, the thief
  Lifted his hands aloft with both the figs,
  Crying: "Take that, God, for at thee I aim them."

From that time forth the serpents were my friends;
  For one entwined itself about his neck
  As if it said: "I will not thou speak more;"

And round his arms another, and rebound him,
  Clinching itself together so in front,
  That with them he could not a motion make.
(cf Marriage of Heaven and Hell:
"Now the sneaking serpent walksIn mild humility.And the just man rages in the wildsWhere lions roam.")

 

Dante 27

Dante's Inferno XXII:

From Inferno: Canto XXII:

Ever upon the pitch was my intent,
  To see the whole condition of that Bolgia,
  And of the people who therein were burned.
So upon every side the sinners stood;
  But ever as Barbariccia near them came,
  Thus underneath the boiling they withdrew.

I saw, and still my heart doth shudder at it,
  One waiting thus, even as it comes to pass
  One frog remains, and down another dives;

And Graffiacan, who most confronted him,
  Grappled him by his tresses smeared with pitch,
  And drew him up, so that he seemed an otter.

I knew, before, the names of all of them,
  So had I noted them when they were chosen,
  And when they called each other, listened how.

"O Rubicante, see that thou do lay
  Thy claws upon him, so that thou mayst flay him,"
  Cried all together the accursed ones.

And I: "My Master, see to it, if thou canst,
  That thou mayst know who is the luckless wight,
  Thus come into his adversaries' hands."

Near to the side of him my Leader drew,
  Asked of him whence he was; and he replied:
  "I in the kingdom of Navarre was born;

My mother placed me servant to a lord,
  For she had borne me to a ribald knave,
  Destroyer of himself and of his things.

Then I domestic was of good King Thibault;
  I set me there to practise barratry,
  For which I pay the reckoning in this heat."

Infuriate at the mockery, Calcabrina
  Flying behind him followed close, desirous
  The other should escape, to have a quarrel.

And when the barrator had disappeared,
  He turned his talons upon his companion,
  And grappled with him right above the moat.

But sooth the other was a doughty sparhawk
  To clapper-claw him well; and both of them
  Fell in the middle of the boiling pond.

A sudden intercessor was the heat;
  But ne'ertheless of rising there was naught,
  To such degree they had their wings belimed.

Lamenting with the others, Barbariccia
  Made four of them fly to the other side
  With all their gaffs, and very speedily

This side and that they to their posts descended;
  They stretched their hooks towards the pitch-ensnared,
  Who were already baked within the crust,

And in this manner busied did we leave them.

Blake's Illustrations to Dante's Divine Comedy, object 44
The Baffled Devils Fighting
From page 147 of Klonski:
Ciampolo was talking with Dante and Virgil (he apparently thought they had some control over the horrible mess where he found himself). He proposed to put the devils on his politican adversaries if they would let him go, but he abandoned that artifice to dive into the pitch.
Alchino and Calcabrina turn their hawklike claws on one another until they fell into the pond.

(If Dante and Blake lived today, they might well refer to the two antagonists as Republicans and Democrats!!)Dante and Virgil make their escape along the rim

Dante 26

From Dante's Inferno IX:

Inferno: Canto IX

Soon as I was within, cast round mine eye,
  And see on every hand an ample plain,
  Full of distress and torment terrible.

Even as at Arles, where stagnant grows the Rhone,
  Even as at Pola near to the Quarnaro,
  That shuts in Italy and bathes its borders,

The sepulchres make all the place uneven;
  So likewise did they there on every side,
  Saving that there the manner was more bitter;

For flames between the sepulchres were scattered,
  By which they so intensely heated were,
  That iron more so asks not any art.

All of their coverings uplifted were,
  And from them issued forth such dire laments,
  Sooth seemed they of the wretched and tormented.

And I: "My Master, what are all those people
  Who, having sepulture within those tombs,
  Make themselves audible by doleful sighs?"

And he to me: "Here are the Heresiarchs,
  With their disciples of all sects, and much
  More than thou thinkest laden are the tombs.

Here like together with its like is buried;
  And more and less the monuments are heated."
  And when he to the right had turned, we passed

Between the torments and high parapets.

Blake Dante Hell  Farinata.jpg
Blake's Illustrations of Dante's Inferno
Dante Conversing with Farinata Degli Uberti

This from Wikipedia:

Farinata belonged to one of the most ancient and prominent noble families of Florence. He was the leader of the Ghibelline faction in his city during the power struggles of the time. He led the Ghibellines from 1239, but after the death of the Holy Roman Emperor Frederick II, in 1250, the Guelphs were able to reassert power in Florence, securing his exile from the city, along with his supporters. The exiles sought refuge inSiena, a Ghibelline stronghold. In response to the exile, Farinata allied himself with Frederick's illegitimate son, Manfred of Sicily, who was seeking to expand his alliances in order to secure himself on the throne of Sicily. In September 1260 Farinata led the Ghibelline forces to victory over the rival Guelphs at the Battle of Montaperti. As a result he was able to capture Florence. The leading Guelph families were banished and the government of Florence was radically restructured to ensure Ghibelline dominance. Farinata's allies wanted to ensure that Florence would never again rise to threaten them. Following the example of Roman ruthlessness towards its enemy Carthage, they voted to raze Florence utterly to the ground. Only Farinata stood out against them, declaring himself to be a Florentine first and a Ghibelline second, and vowing that he would defend his native city with his own sword. The Ghibellines thereupon took the lesser course of destroying the city's defences and the homes of the leading Guelphs, knocking down 103 palaces, 580 houses, and 85 towers.

  The description of the meaning

Dante 25

Inferno: Canto XXV


At the conclusion of his words, the thief
  Lifted his hands aloft with both the figs,
  Crying: "Take that, God, for at thee I aim them."

From that time forth the serpents were my friends;
  For one entwined itself about his neck
  As if it said: "I will not thou speak more;"

And round his arms another, and rebound him,
  Clinching itself together so in front,
  That with them he could not a motion make.

Pistoia, ah, Pistoia! why resolve not
  To burn thyself to ashes and so perish,
  Since in ill-doing thou thy seed excellest?

Through all the sombre circles of this Hell,
  Spirit I saw not against God so proud,
  Not he who fell at Thebes down from the walls!

He fled away, and spake no further word;
  And I beheld a Centaur full of rage
  Come crying out: "Where is, where is the scoffer?"

I do not think Maremma has so many
  Serpents as he had all along his back,
  As far as where our countenance begins.

Upon the shoulders, just behind the nape,
  With wings wide open was a dragon lying,
  And he sets fire to all that he encounters.
-

The Six footed Serpent Attacking Agnolo Brunellechi

Locale of Dante's post

This from Vanni Fucci di Pistoia:

Vanni Fucci di Pistoia is a minor character in Inferno, the first part of Dante Alighieri's epic poem the Divine Comedy, appearing in Cantos 24 and 25. He was a thief who lived in Pistoia, as his name ("di Pistoia" meaning "of Pistoia") indicates; when he died, he was sent to the eighth circle of Hell in the seventh bolgia (round; in Italian, "ditch" or "pouch"), where thieves are punished. In that bolgia his punishment was to be stung by a serpent, reduced to ashes, and then restored to his former shape for more torturing. Dante and Virgil meet him and ask him why he was there. He replied that he stole a treasure from the ChurcCacush of St. James in his hometown; he had accused an innocent man, Vanni della Nona, with the crime, for which della Nona was executed. Fucci says he was not caught but he still went to Hell. He then predicts the overthrow of the Florentine Whites to spite Dante and then insults God by making obscene gestures at him, and is attacked by numerous nearby serpents and by the monster Cacus, who was put in the bolgia for stealing Hercules' cattle.

Dante 24

The Seducers tormented by the Devils (Plate 12)
Willam Blake Illustrations of Dante's Inferno
Canto XVIII

Inferno: Canto XVIII after page 58 of Milton Klonsky's Blake's Dante:


There is a place in Hell called Malebolge,
  Wholly of stone and of an iron colour,
  As is the circle that around it turns.

Right in the middle of the field malign
  There yawns a well exceeding wide and deep,
  Of which its place the structure will recount.

Round, then, is that enclosure which remains
  Between the well and foot of the high, hard bank,
  And has distinct in valleys ten its bottom.

As where for the protection of the walls
  Many and many moats surround the castles,
  The part in which they are a figure forms,

Just such an image those presented there;
  And as about such strongholds from their gates
  Unto the outer bank are little bridges,

So from the precipice's base did crags
  Project, which intersected dikes and moats,
  Unto the well that truncates and collects them.

Within this place, down shaken from the back
  Of Geryon, we found us; and the Poet
  Held to the left, and I moved on behind.

Upon my right hand I beheld new anguish,
  New torments, and new wielders of the lash,
  Wherewith the foremost Bolgia was replete.

Down at the bottom were the sinners naked;
  This side the middle came they facing us,
  Beyond it, with us, but with greater steps;

Even as the Romans, for the mighty host,
  The year of Jubilee, upon the bridge,
  Have chosen a mode to pass the people over;

For all upon one side towards the Castle
  Their faces have, and go unto St. Peter's;
  On the other side they go towards the Mountain.

This side and that, along the livid stone
  Beheld I horned demons with great scourges,
  Who cruelly were beating them behind.

Ah me! how they did make them lift their legs
  At the first blows! and sooth not any one
  The second waited for, nor for the third.

On page 144 Klonsky gives us a list of the ten
bowges, which occupy the whole of the eighth circle
arranged in the following order:
1) Panders and Seducers
2) Flattereres
3) Simonaics
4) Socerers
5) Barraters
6) Hypocrits
7) Thieves
8) Counsellors of Fraud
9) Schmatics and Sowers of Discord
10) Forgers and Falsifiers

Really a lurid list of malfactors!

"Fraud, wherewithal is every conscience stung,

  A man may practise upon him who trusts,
  And him who doth no confidence imburse.

This latter mode, it would appear, dissevers
  Only the bond of love which Nature makes;
  Wherefore within the second circle nestle

This from Canto XI
Hypocrisy, flattery, and who deals in magic,
  Falsification, theft, and simony,
  Panders, and barrators, and the like filth.

This from Wikipedia: 

 This circle is divided into ten Bolgie, or ditches of stone, with bridges spanning the ditches:

Bolgia 1: Panderers and seducers march in separate lines in opposite directions, whipped by demons (here Dante makes reference to a recent traffic rule developed for the Jubilee year of 1300 in Rome: keep to the right).[39] Just as the panderers and seducers used the passions of others to drive them to do their bidding, they are themselves driven by whip-wielding demons to march for all eternity.[39] In the group of panderers, the poets notice Venedico Caccianemico, who sold his own sister to theMarchese d'Este. In the group of seducers, Virgil points out Jason, who gained the help of Medea by seducing and marrying her only to later desert her for Creusa.[39]Jason also seduced Hypsipyle, but "abandoned her, alone and pregnant"[40] (Canto XVIII).
Bolgia 2: Flatterers also exploited other people, this time using language. They are steeped in human excrement, which represents the words they produced. Alessio Interminei of Lucca and Thaïs are seen here.[39] (Canto XVIII).
Bolgia 3: Dante now forcefully expresses[41] his condemnation of those who committed simony. Those who committed simony are placed head-first in holes in the rock (resembling baptismal fonts), with flames burning on the soles of their feet. One of the simoniacs, Pope Nicholas III, denounces two of his successors, Pope Boniface VIII andPope Clement V, for the same offence. Simon Magus, who offered gold in exchange for holy power to Saint Peter, is also seen here. The simile of baptismal fonts gives Dante an incidental opportunity to clear his name of an accusation of malicious damage to the font in the church of San Giovanni dei Fiorentini[42] (Canto XIX).
Bolgia 4: Sorcerers, astrologers, and false prophets here have their heads twisted around backward on their bodies, so that they "found it necessary to walk backward, / because they could not see ahead of them."[43] While referring primarily to attempts to see into the future by forbidden means, this also symbolises the twisted nature of magic in general.[44] In thisBolgia, Dante sees Amphiaraus, Tiresias (whose double transformation is also referenced), Tiresias' daughter Manto, Aruns, Michael Scot, Alberto de Casalodi, and Guido Bonatti, among others (Canto XX).
Bolgia 5: Corrupt politicians (barrators) are immersed in a lake of boiling pitch, which represents the sticky fingers and dark secrets of their corrupt deals.[45] The barrators are the political analogue of the simoniacs, and Dante devotes several cantos to them. They are guarded by devils called the Malebranche ("Evil Claws"), who provide some savage and satirical black comedy – in the last line of Canto XXI, the sign for their march is provided by a fart: "and he had made a trumpet of his ass."[46] The leader of the Malebranche, Malacoda ("Evil Tail"), assigns a troop to escort Virgil and Dante safely to the next bridge. The troop hook and torment one of the sinners (identified by early commentators as Ciampolo), who names some Italian grafters and then tricks the Malebranche in order to escape back into the pitch. The promise of safe conduct the poets received from the demons turns out to have limited value (and there is no "next bridge"),[47] so the poets are forced to scramble down into the sixthBolgia (Cantos XXI through XXIII).
Bolgia 6: In the sixth Bolgia, the poets find the hypocrites listlessly walking along wearing gilded lead cloaks, which represent the falsity behind the surface appearance of their actions – falsity that weighs them down and makes spiritual progress impossible for them.[47] Dante speaks with Catalano and Loderingo, two members of the Jovial Friars, an order that had acquired a reputation for not living up to its vows[47] and was eventually suppressed by Pope Sixtus V. Caiaphas, the high priest responsible for ordering Jesus crucified, is also seen here, crucified to the ground and trampled (Canto XXIII).
Bolgia 7: Two cantos are devoted to the thieves. They are guarded by the centaur Cacus, who has a fire-breathing dragon on his shoulders and snakes covering his equine back (in Roman mythology, Cacus was not a centaur but a monstrous fire-breathing giant slain byHeracles). The thieves are pursued and bitten by snakes and lizards. The full horror of the thieves' punishment is revealed gradually: just as they stole other people's substance in life, their very identity becomes subject to theft here,[48] and the snake bites make them undergo various transformations. Vanni Fucci is turned to ashes and resurrected. Agnello is blended with the six-legged reptile that isCianfa. Buoso exchanges shapes with the four-legged Francesco: "The soul that had become an animal, / now hissing, hurried off along the valley; / the other one, behind him, speaks and spits"[49] (Cantos XXIV and XXV).
Bolgia 8: Two further cantos are devoted to fraudulent advisers or evil counsellors, who are concealed within individual flames. These are not people who gave false advice, but people who used their position to advise others to engage in fraud.[50] Ulysses and Diomedes are condemned here for the deception of the Trojan Horse. Ulysses tells the tale of his fatal final voyage (Dante's invention) where he left his home and family to sail to the end of the Earth only to have his ship founder near Mount Purgatory; Ulysses also mentions of his encounter with Circe, stating that she "beguiled him." Guido da Montefeltro recounts how he advised Pope Boniface VIII to capture the fortress of Palestrina, by offering the Colonna familyinside it a false amnesty and then razing it to the ground after they surrendered. Guido describes how St. Francis came to take his soul to Heaven because of Guido's subsequent joining of the Franciscan order, only to have a demon assert prior claim. Although Boniface had absolved Guido in advance for his evil advice, Dante points out the invalidity of that, since absolution requires contrition, and a man cannot be contrite for a sin at the same time that he is intending to commit it[51](Cantos XXVI and XXVII).
Bolgia 9: In the ninth Bolgia, a sword-wielding demon hacks at the Sowers of Discord, dividing parts of their bodies as in life they divided others.[52] As they make their rounds the wounds heal, only to have the demon tear apart their bodies again. Dante encounters Muhammad, with his entrails hanging out, who tells him to warn the schismatic and heretic Fra Dolcino. Dante describes Muhammad as a schismatic,[52][53] apparently viewing Islam as an off-shoot from Christianity, and similarly Dante seems to condemn Ali for schism between Sunni and Shiite. In this Bolgia, Dante also encounters Bertran de Born, who carries around his severed head like a lantern (a literal representation of allowing himself to detach his intelligence from himself), as a punishment for (Dante believes) fomenting the rebellion of Henry the Young King against his father Henry II(Cantos XXVIII and XXIX).
Bolgia 10: In the final Bolgia, various sorts of falsifiers (alchemists, counterfeiters, perjurers, and impostors) – who are a "disease" on society – are themselves afflicted with different types of diseases.[54] Potiphar's wife is briefly mentioned for her false accusation of Joseph. The Achaean spy Sinon suffers from a burning fever for tricking the Trojans into taking the Trojan Horse into their city; Sinon is here rather than in Bolgia 8 because his advice was false as well as evil. Gianni Schicchi is a 'rabid goblin' for forging the will of Dante's relative Buoso Donati. Myrrha suffers from madness for disguising herself to commit incest with her father King Theias.


In Sayers's notes on her translation, she remarks that the descent through Malebolge "began with the sale of the sexual relationship, and went on to the sale of Church and State; now, the very money is itself corrupted, every affirmation has become perjury, and every identity a lie"[54] so that every aspect of social interaction has been progressively destroyed (Cantos XXIX and XXX).

Malebolge

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

In Dante Alighieri's Inferno, part of the Divine Comedy, Malebolge is the eighth circle of Hell. Roughly translated from Italian, Malebolge means "evil ditches". Malebolge is a large, funnel-shaped cavern, itself divided into ten concentric circular trenches or ditches. Each trench is called a bolgia (Italian for "pouch" or "ditch"). Long causeway bridges run from the outer circumference of Malebolge to its center, pictured as spokes on a wheel. At the center of Malebolge is the ninth and final circle of hell.

In Dante’s version of hell, categories of sin are punished in different circles, with the depth of the circle (and placement within that circle) symbolic of the amount of punishment to be inflicted. Sinners placed in the upper circles of hell are given relatively minor punishments, while sinners in the depths of hell endure far greater torments. As the eighth of nine circles, Malebolge is one of the worst places in hell to be. In it, sinners guilty of "simple" fraud are punished (that is, fraud that is committed without particularly malicious intent, whereas Malicious or "compound" fraud — fraud that goes against bond of love, blood, honor, or the bond of hospitality — would be punished in the ninth circle). Sinners of this category include counterfeiters, hypocrites, grafters, seducers, sorcerers and simonists.

Dante and his guide, Virgil, make their way into Malebolge by riding on the back of the monster Geryon, the personification of fraud, who possesses the face of an honest man 'good of cheer,' but the tail of a scorpion, who flies them down through the yawning chasm that separates the eighth circle from the seventh circle, where the violent are punished. Dante and Virgil plan on crossing Malebolge by way of the system of bridges, but find their path disturbed by many broken ledges and collapsed bridges that were destroyed during the Harrowing of Hell. They must then cross some of the bolgias on foot and even rely on demons to guide them. Eventually, they make it to the inner ledge where after a brief look at the giants, the babbling Nimrod to the hostile Ephialtes and heavily chained Briareus, Virgil convinces the giant Antaeus to lower them down to the ninth circle's frozen lake,Cocytus.

**********************************************************************

Dante 23

The Simoniac Pope

________

This from Wikisource:_

The Divine Comedy/Inferno/Canto XIX

< The Divine Comedy‎ | Inferno

←Canto XVIII

The Divine Comedy by Dante Alighieri, translated by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
Inferno, Canto XIX

Canto XX→

William Blake: Inferno, Canto XIX, 10-120, The Simoniac Pope

O Simon Magus, O forlorn disciples,
   Ye who the things of God, which ought to be
   The brides of holiness, rapaciously

For silver and for gold do prostitute,
   Now it behoves for you the trumpet sound,
   Because in this third Bolgia ye abide.

We had already on the following tomb
   Ascended to that portion of the crag
   Which o'er the middle of the moat hangs plumb.

Wisdom supreme, O how great art thou showest
   In heaven, in earth, and in the evil world,
   And with what justice doth thy power distribute!

I saw upon the sides and on the bottom
   The livid stone with perforations filled,
   All of one size, and every one was round.

To me less ample seemed they not, nor greater
   Than those that in my beautiful Saint John
   Are fashioned for the place of the baptisers,

And one of which, not many years ago,
   I broke for some one, who was drowning in it;
   Be this a seal all men to undeceive.

Out of the mouth of each one there protruded
   The feet of a transgressor, and the legs
   Up to the calf, the rest within remained.

In all of them the soles were both on fire;
   Wherefore the joints so violently quivered,
   They would have snapped asunder withes and bands.

Even as the flame of unctuous things is wont
   To move upon the outer surface only,
   So likewise was it there from heel to point.

"Master, who is that one who writhes himself,
   More than his other comrades quivering,"
   I said, "and whom a redder flame is sucking?"

And he to me: "If thou wilt have me bear thee
   Down there along that bank which lowest lies,
   From him thou'lt know his errors and himself."

And I: "What pleases thee, to me is pleasing;
   Thou art my Lord, and knowest that I depart not
   From thy desire, and knowest what is not spoken."

Straightway upon the fourth dike we arrived;
   We turned, and on the left-hand side descended
   Down to the bottom full of holes and narrow.

And the good Master yet from off his haunch
   Deposed me not, till to the hole he brought me
   Of him who so lamented with his shanks.

"Whoe'er thou art, that standest upside down,
   O doleful soul, implanted like a stake,"
   To say began I, "if thou canst, speak out."

I stood even as the friar who is confessing
   The false assassin, who, when he is fixed,
   Recalls him, so that death may be delayed.

And he cried out: "Dost thou stand there already,
   Dost thou stand there already, Boniface?
   By many years the record lied to me.

Art thou so early satiate with that wealth,
   For which thou didst not fear to take by fraud
   The beautiful Lady, and then work her woe?"

Such I became, as people are who stand,
   Not comprehending what is answered them,
   As if bemocked, and know not how to answer.

Then said Virgilius: "Say to him straightway,
   'I am not he, I am not he thou thinkest.'"
   And I replied as was imposed on me.

Whereat the spirit writhed with both his feet,
   Then, sighing, with a voice of lamentation
   Said to me: "Then what wantest thou of me?

If who I am thou carest so much to know,
   That thou on that account hast crossed the bank,
   Know that I vested was with the great mantle;

And truly was I son of the She-bear,
   So eager to advance the cubs, that wealth
   Above, and here myself, I pocketed.

Beneath my head the others are dragged down
   Who have preceded me in simony,
   Flattened along the fissure of the rock.

Below there I shall likewise fall, whenever
   That one shall come who I believed thou wast,
   What time the sudden question I proposed.

But longer I my feet already toast,
   And here have been in this way upside down,
   Than he will planted stay with reddened feet;

For after him shall come of fouler deed
   From tow'rds the west a Pastor without law,
   Such as befits to cover him and me.

New Jason will he be, of whom we read
   In Maccabees; and as his king was pliant,
   So he who governs France shall be to this one."

I do not know if I were here too bold,
   That him I answered only in this metre:
   "I pray thee tell me now how great a treasure

Our Lord demanded of Saint Peter first,
   Before he put the keys into his keeping?
   Truly he nothing asked but 'Follow me.'

Nor Peter nor the rest asked of Matthias
   Silver or gold, when he by lot was chosen
   Unto the place the guilty soul had lost.

Therefore stay here, for thou art justly punished,
   And keep safe guard o'er the ill-gotten money,
   Which caused thee to be valiant against Charles.

And were it not that still forbids it me
   The reverence for the keys superlative
   Thou hadst in keeping in the gladsome life,

I would make use of words more grievous still;
   Because your avarice afflicts the world,
   Trampling the good and lifting the depraved.

The Evangelist you Pastors had in mind,
   When she who sitteth upon many waters
   To fornicate with kings by him was seen;

The same who with the seven heads was born,
   And power and strength from the ten horns received,
   So long as virtue to her spouse was pleasing.

Ye have made yourselves a god of gold and silver;
   And from the idolater how differ ye,
   Save that he one, and ye a hundred worship?

Ah, Constantine! of how much ill was mother,
   Not thy conversion, but that marriage dower
   Which the first wealthy Father took from thee!"

And while I sang to him such notes as these,
   Either that anger or that conscience stung him,
   He struggled violently with both his feet.

I think in sooth that it my Leader pleased,
   With such contented lip he listened ever
   Unto the sound of the true words expressed.

Therefore with both his arms he took me up,
   And when he had me all upon his breast,
   Remounted by the way where he descended.

Nor did he tire to have me clasped to him;
   But bore me to the summit of the arch
   Which from the fourth dike to the fifth is passage.

There tenderly he laid his burden down,
   Tenderly on the crag uneven and steep,
   That would have been hard passage for the goats:

Thence was unveiled to me another valley.

Blake and Dante 1

In the study of Blake's  'Illustrations of Dante's Inferno' I came across a book in our library called 'The Traveler in the Evening'. by Morton D. Paley.  Chapter 3 on the 'Divine Comed'y takes up pages 101 to 177. I found these pages to be a gold mine for this study.

There are many relationships between Blake and Dante.

Plate 16 of Marriage of Heaven and Hell

This closely resembles pictures of Dante's Inferno.

We may move to Blake's Gates of Paradise:

Image 14 of Blake's Gates of Paradise by LC rare books

And here's another representation:

Here are the ugly details:

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Count Ugolino della Gherardesca (c. 1220 – March 1289), count of Donoratico, was an Italian nobleman, politician and naval commander. He was frequently accused of treason and features prominently in Dante's Divine Comedy.

Dante 21

Inferno XIV 94-120:
"These words were of my Leader; whence I prayed him

  That he would give me largess of the food,
  For which he had given me largess of desire.

"In the mid-sea there sits a wasted land,"
  Said he thereafterward, "whose name is Crete,
  Under whose king the world of old was chaste.

There is a mountain there, that once was glad
  With waters and with leaves, which was called Ida;
  Now 'tis deserted, as a thing worn out.

A grand old man stands in the mount erect,
  Who holds his shoulders turned tow'rds Damietta,
  And looks at Rome as if it were his mirror.

His head is fashioned of refined gold,
  And of pure silver are the arms and breast;
  Then he is brass as far down as the fork.

From that point downward all is chosen iron,
  Save that the right foot is of kiln-baked clay,
  And more he stands on that than on the other.

Each part, except the gold, is by a fissure
  Asunder cleft, that dripping is with tears,
  Which gathered together perforate that cavern.

From rock to rock they fall into this valley;
  Acheron, Styx, and Phlegethon they form;
  Then downward go along this narrow sluice

Unto that point where is no more descending.
  They form Cocytus; what that pool may be
  Thou shalt behold, so here 'tis not narrated."

And I to him: "If so the present runnel
  Doth take its rise in this way from our world,
  Why only on this verge appears it to us?"

And he to me: "Thou knowest the place is round,
  And notwithstanding thou hast journeyed far,
  Still to the left descending to the bottom,

Thou hast not yet through all the circle turned.
  Therefore if something new appear to us,
  It should not bring amazement to thy face."

And I again: "Master, where shall be found
  Lethe and Phlegethon, for of one thou'rt silent,
  And sayest the other of this rain is made?"

"In all thy questions truly thou dost please me,"
  Replied he; "but the boiling of the red
  Water might well solve one of them thou makest.

Thou shalt see Lethe, but outside this moat,
  There where the souls repair to lave themselves,
  When sin repented of has been removed."

Virgil describes  the Symbolic Figure of the course of Human History
William Blake's Illustrations of Dante's Poetry
Wiki Common

From UTexas Dante Studies:
"Dante invents the story of the large statue of an old man--located in Mount Ida on the Island of Crete--for both practical and symbolic purposes ( Inf. 14.94-120). Constructed of a descending hierarchy of materials--gold head, silver arms and chest, brass midsection, iron for the rest (except one clay foot)--the statue recalls the various ages of humankind (from the golden age to the iron age: Ovid, Met. 1.89-150) in a pessimistic view of history and civilization devolving from best to worst. Dante's statue also closely recalls the statue appearing in King Nebuchadnezzar's dream in the Bible; this dream is revealed in a vision to Daniel, who informs the king that the composition of the statue signifies a declining succession of kingdoms all inferior to the eternal kingdom of God (Daniel 2:31-45). That the statue is off-balance--leaning more heavily on the clay foot--and facing Rome ("as if in a mirror") probably reflects Dante's conviction that society suffers from the excessive political power of the pope and the absence of a strong secular ruler. 

Although the statue is not itself found in hell, the tears that flow down the crack in its body (only the golden head is whole) represent all the suffering of humanity and thus become the river in hell that goes by different names according to region: Acheron, Styx, Phlegethon, Cocytus (Inf. 14.112-20).