{"id":69684,"date":"2014-04-14T14:12:17","date_gmt":"2014-04-14T18:12:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/?p=69684"},"modified":"2014-04-14T14:25:25","modified_gmt":"2014-04-14T18:25:25","slug":"recapping-dante-canto-25-or-a-trip-to-the-reptile-house","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2014\/04\/14\/recapping-dante-canto-25-or-a-trip-to-the-reptile-house\/","title":{"rendered":"Recapping Dante: Canto 25, or a Trip to the Reptile House"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"canto<\/a>

William Blake, The Circle of the Thieves; Agnolo Brunelleschi Attacked by a Six-Footed Serpent<\/i>, Canto XXV, 1827<\/p><\/div>\n

We\u2019re recapping<\/a> the <\/em>Inferno. Read along<\/a>! This week: Virgil shuts up and men become reptiles.
<\/em><\/p>\n

Canto 25 is known for having the least dialogue of any canto in the Inferno<\/i>. It seems like a minor feat, but when you remember how many questions Dante likes to ask, and how long Virgil will typically spend explaining things, and how sinners really like to chat it up with the living, canto 25 begins to seem remarkable. In fact, Virgil hardly has the chance to explain anything at all here.<\/p>\n

It begins with Vanni, the sinner from canto 24 who, in a fit of shame and spiteful anger, revealed to Dante the sad fate of the White Guelph party in Florence. Vanni makes an obscene gesture into the air, and curses God. And although we do not know exactly what \u201cMaking the figs with both his thumbs\u201d means, we can guess that it is the centuries old Italian way of flipping God the bird. Dante wants to get away, and the snakes from the previous canto attack Vanni, hog-tying him and wrapping themselves around his neck to silence him. <\/p>\n

As Dante leaves Vanni, a centaur\u2014with snakes on his back and a dragon on his shoulder\u2014starts screaming. The centaur\u2019s voice was the mysterious sound Dante heard in canto 24, before he lost interest. This is Virgil\u2019s only didactic moment in the canto: he tells Dante that the centaur is Cacus, who was clubbed to death by Hercules. (Accounts of Cacus\u2019s death vary depending on the poet\u2019s preference\u2014strangely, the version Virgil tells Dante is not the version Virgil himself wrote about. Virgil\u2019s Cacus was strangled to death.) Dante uses canto 25 to quarrel with other poets. Later, he describes a scene in which two sinners change their physical appearances, and he essentially tells the reader that this scene is far more striking than any of the shape-changing moments written by Ovid or Lucan.<\/p>\n

The rest of canto 25 features a lineup of sinners, all of them Florentines\u2014just in case Dante\u2019s thoughts on the state of Florence weren\u2019t clear enough. One has to wonder: With all the terrible sinners in Florence and the disastrous state of politics in the city, what\u2019s left there for Dante to like at all?<\/p>\n

First, Dante watches as a reptile bites a sinner; as the beast wraps itself around the sinner\u2019s body, clinging to him like ivy, Dante says, \u201cSlowly, the two become one,\u201d becoming some frightening, unknown beast with one head, one pair of limbs, and \u201cmembers never seen before.\u201d Unlike many of the other punishments, which are designed primarily to inflict pain on the sinners, this one is psychological\u2014it\u2019s demeaning.<\/p>\n

And it seems rather effective. Our pilgrim is bewildered by the scene before him. But he\u2019s about to witness something far more harrowing: as the first transformation finishes, another reptile scuttles out and bites another sinner in the stomach. As the two become transfixed, staring at one another, a thick smoke pours from the reptile\u2019s mouth and from the sinner\u2019s wound. Soon, the two plumes of smoke merge, and slowly the reptile takes on the shape of a man. Its tail becomes legs, its limbs become arms, it grows human skin and walks upright, and its animal features become a human face. As the reptilian hiss slowly becomes a human voice, the wounded sinner and the reptile exchange bodies\u2014the sinner makes the same transformation, but in reverse. Dante believes he may be able to recognize the sinner who had just taken a human form\u2014Francesco de\u2019 Cavalcanti.<\/p>\n

There is something gruesome and poetic in the absolute precision of Dante\u2019s descriptions of the metamorphoses. Canto 25 offers a rare, scientific glimpse into the nature of punishment in hell, and it stands out, along with the forest of suicides and Pier delle Vigne, as one of the more definitive examples of how punishments in hell actually work.<\/p>\n

To catch up on our Dante series, click here<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n

Alexander Aciman is the author of <\/em>Twitterature<\/a>. He has written for the <\/em>New York Times, <\/em>Tablet, the <\/em>Wall Street Journal, and <\/em>TIME. Follow him on Twitter at @acimania<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

We\u2019re recapping the Inferno. Read along! This week: Virgil shuts up and men become reptiles. Canto 25 is known for having the least dialogue of any canto in the Inferno. It seems like a minor feat, but when you remember how many questions Dante likes to ask, and how long Virgil will typically spend explaining […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":419,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[419],"tags":[13534,2930,13535,13289,12028,7043],"class_list":["post-69684","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-arts-culture","tag-canto-xxv","tag-dante","tag-reptiles","tag-sinners","tag-the-divine-comedy","tag-the-inferno"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nRecapping Dante: Canto 25, or a Trip to the Reptile House<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"In this week\u2019s recap of Dante\u2019s \u201cInferno,\u201d Virgil shuts up and men become reptiles in Canto 25.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2014\/04\/14\/recapping-dante-canto-25-or-a-trip-to-the-reptile-house\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Recapping Dante: Canto 25, or a Trip to the Reptile House by Alexander Aciman\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"April 14, 2014 \u2013 We\u2019re recapping the Inferno. 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