Inferno: Canto 10 -- Circle 6
The dialogue between Farinata and Dante advances the plot significantly in that we learn how it is the dead like Ciacco can predict the future but like Cavalcanti cannot see the present. The answer is simple, Farinata explains, and forms part of the divine justice of hell -- things far off can be seen but as things get closer in time, they are lost to the damned. This far-sightedness of the dead will cause them to lose their knowledge altogether at the end of time, as Farinata relates: "So may you understand that all we know/ will be dead forever from that day and hour/ when the Portal of the Future is swung to" (106-8). We already know from Dante's earlier conversation with Virgil that the pain will be increased at the end of time, and it will be a pain void of intellect, a body writhing without knowledge of anything.
Although the dead can remember their own present fairly well and have a constant influx of new company with which they might discuss events current at the time their company arrives, there is the sense that even though they know of one another's presence, they don't communicate with one another. Cavalcanti's interruption of Farinata, for instance, doesn't deflect the latter from his train of thought in the least though he pauses to allow the interruption. Cavalcanti, in fact, recognizes Dante's voice and immediately thinks that his own son has turned Aeneas to come and speak with him in the underworld. Not seeing Guido and perceiving Dante's use of the past tense followed by a hesitation, Calvalcanti naturally thinks that his son is dead before his time and sinks back down in despair. The end-times with its fugue would seem a comfort. Nonetheless, it's doubtful that Farinata relayed Dante's message to Cavalcanti.
It is also important to remember that we're in another kind of vestibule here -- an atrium, really -- to a city where the sins of perverse reasoning are punished. The heretics, in their unwillingness to accept the reality of G-D, will be sealed forever in fiery tombs after the last day. A willful disconnection from the fount of all things is the beginning of violence and fraud against neighbor, self, nature, and art, for all of these things are derived from the Creator.
S.
Although the dead can remember their own present fairly well and have a constant influx of new company with which they might discuss events current at the time their company arrives, there is the sense that even though they know of one another's presence, they don't communicate with one another. Cavalcanti's interruption of Farinata, for instance, doesn't deflect the latter from his train of thought in the least though he pauses to allow the interruption. Cavalcanti, in fact, recognizes Dante's voice and immediately thinks that his own son has turned Aeneas to come and speak with him in the underworld. Not seeing Guido and perceiving Dante's use of the past tense followed by a hesitation, Calvalcanti naturally thinks that his son is dead before his time and sinks back down in despair. The end-times with its fugue would seem a comfort. Nonetheless, it's doubtful that Farinata relayed Dante's message to Cavalcanti.
It is also important to remember that we're in another kind of vestibule here -- an atrium, really -- to a city where the sins of perverse reasoning are punished. The heretics, in their unwillingness to accept the reality of G-D, will be sealed forever in fiery tombs after the last day. A willful disconnection from the fount of all things is the beginning of violence and fraud against neighbor, self, nature, and art, for all of these things are derived from the Creator.
S.
posted by Sebastian Mahfood at 9:48 PM
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