Canto 32 in Dante's Inferno is about the treacherous to the kindred. These are the people who have betrayed and/or killed their family members. These sinners are frozen in a lake of ice with their heads bowed down for all of eternity. It makes sense for their heads to be bowed because maybe they are ashamed of what they have done. Furthermore, it makes sense that they are in frozen in a lake because in this ring of hell, there is no hope at all. These are the sins that change the soul- they are not love based sins like lust or greed. The sin of treachery to the kindred changes who one is because it is murder and betrayal to your loved ones-- there is a deeper level of hate here, I think to be able to betray family. Here Dante meets a man named Camiscion de' Pazzi who explains to Dante where exactly he is. This man tells Dante that the 2 men he almost stepped on were two brothers from a place called Caina (hmmm ironic). The footnote says that these brothers were the first of the treacherous and it is fitting that they would be named after Cain because he was the first man to ever kill his brother.
I commented on Nate's and Natalie's!
That is cool imagery that I did not catch until now - that their heads are bowed as if to represent their shame. And Dante is clever to associate Cain's name with Caina, making the reader recall the story of Cain and Abel.
ReplyDeleteI would argue that all these different sins do change your soul in some way, but I do see a definite line drawn throughout this story. These people have not only betrayed themselves, but they betrayed others to the greatest extent of taking ones own life.
ReplyDeleteI can definitely see that treachery to the kindred is on a different level than treachery against someone else. Although there are times when you're closer to people that you aren't related to, there is still something especially twisted when someone turns on their own family.
ReplyDeleteSolid comments. Also, another reason they could be hanging their head is to avoid being recognized, just as in an act of betrayal they pursued to be undiscovered.
ReplyDeleteI think the distinction to be made between the sin of the treacherous compared to sins in higher levels of hell is that though distorted and misplaced, the higher sins exercise a misunderstanding of what love is. The lower sin however, is betrayal and to betray involves making a concerted effort to act out hatred towards someone undeserved. It's a lower sin because there is a lack of love-the most incredible absence and rebellion against God.
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