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A Crux-like Torture In The Inferno

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Fox-on-Cross

Fox-on-Cross

Great-Cruxinquisitor
When Dante in the Inferno ...
is descended he regards all possible forms of punishment. One of them is the torture by snakes who tangle woman's body as if it is bounded. It is the crucifixion similar. Other than in the Purgatorio ...
salvation is never possible. The crux is hard and inexorable.

Think about what you're getting!
 

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That's a nice image - Dante certainly reported seeing snakes tormenting people in Inferno,
though on the whole they seem to be men - can you say which canto that scene illustrates?
 
Eulalia said:
That's a nice image - Dante certainly reported seeing snakes tormenting people in Inferno,
though on the whole they seem to be men - can you say which canto that scene illustrates?
Click to expand...
In cantos 24 & 25, Dante describes thieves as being pursued & bitten by snakes. Once bitten, they transform in different ways. Some burn to ashes, others turn into monsters. although the only individuals Dante recognizes are males, since the place, part of the 8th Circle, is for the punishment of thieves, we can assume that female thieves received the same punishment.
inf_dore_24.093.jpg
The Divina Commedia is only the most famous - and best written - work depicting a vision of Hell, there were many others that were popular in the Middle Ages. There is an earlier one I read, a long time ago, that describes snakes crawling into women's vaginas. I believe it was a punishment for promiscuity or adultery. I can't remember the name of the work.
 
Nice response, Naraku.

For me was it a surprise that Lucifer lived in ice on the bottom-point of the vortex-Hell.
Always we smellled the smoke of the flames. Did we not learn that is was a burning-folter in the Hell?
 
In Sawles Warde (Guard of the Soul), a 13th century text for nuns,
souls in Hell are flung back and forth from unbearable heat to bitter cold.
Studying that text as an undergrad,
I remember sitting in a lecture-room thinking,
'The shower in my lodgings is just like that' :p
 
Eulalia said:
In Sawles Warde (Guard of the Soul), a 13th century text for nuns,
souls in Hell are flung back and forth from unbearable heat to bitter cold.
Studying that text as an undergrad,
I remember sitting in a lecture-room thinking,
'The shower in my lodgings is just like that' :p
Click to expand...

Your past is remarkable!
A degree under that is a severe roman-catholic school, where about has told many times here.
 
I was studying it mainly for its language,
an example of a distinctive literary dialect of Middle English :cool:
 
Amazing.
I remember that you are a linguist(e).

I have French dictionaries from also old and middle French,
for German I did not further back than 19th C.
Rather old English I heard by Händel, Elgar (Cardinal Newman) and the anthems in Choral Evensong (BBC3 radio). And not to forget the sonnets of Shakespeare, which drama's went given on the BBC3 radio in modern fashion.
The sonnet for crucifixion pain is #LXVI.
 
Definately do not like snakes. There was a copperhead right outside my front door once. I am so glad it did not bite me!
 
On the subject of crucifixion as punishment in great works of literature, has anyone seen the passage in Swift's A Modest Proposal which talks about "the body of a plump girl of . . . who was crucified for an attempt to poison the Emperor . . ."? Swift took the anecdote from Psalmanazar's bogus Description of Formosa, and quoting it in full would infringe at least two of this forum's rules.
 
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