Cantos 9-10

Cantos IX

Lines 39-43--"he fierce Erinyes,; He said, who knew those handmaids of the queen...Megaera...Alecto...Tisiphone."
The three fate plus medusa and hectate, the queen of hell, gaurd thecity of Dis. The three, again following the theme of threebeing a holy number, are monsters who seduced men. The placing of them here could be a testament to womens seductive nature and that women at that time werent very good and therefor deserved hell.

Lines 70-73--"a thousand souls of the ruined; Flee before one who strode across the Styx; Dry-shod as though on land. With his left hand; He cleared the polluted air before his face."
Their are many important keys in this quote. First is that the evil souls flee before him, this shows the obvious dominance of heaven over hell. It also shows how powerful heaven is. Second is that he strode across the river without getting wet, possibly an allusion to the bible. Third is that with his "left" hand he cleared the pollution. This shows that it used very little effort since the right hand is considered stronger.


Canto X

Lines 21-25--"Your way of speakin in so courteous a fashion-;...shows that you were born; in the same noble fatherland: there where; I possibly have wrought excessive harm."
This, firsty, reinforces the theme of Dantes glorification of himself. He uses the character to show that he is of a great place and speaks very eliquently. Secondly, it goes along with the idea that all of Dantes enemies are in hell. This man attcked Dante's homeland, and therefore he is labled as a non-believer and setenced to hell.

The people in the burning coffins who id not believe in the afterlife are sentenced to only be able to see the past and the future. They cannot live in the present because that was their flaw in life, they only believed in the now, they did not believe in the future afterlife. This goes along with the rest of the book in that the condemned suffers what they did wrong in life.