As we wandered through the Castle of Dis, reserved for those heretics in their custom-heated tombs, and made our way to the river of boiling blood, Phlegethon, my class discussed the idea of anger and its manifestations. Earlier in the cantos, Dante deals with what must be termed righteous anger, when he runs across an enemy from Florence whom he sees in Hell and rejoices. Virgil, Dante's guide and the manifestation of human reason, explains the concept of righteous anger as that emotion which we should, in fact, reserve for those sins and sinners who violate the trust we all have with one another. We discussed in class the ways we may all feel righteous anger and how such an emotion has played a pivotal role in movements across history, spurring Civil Rights activists among others as well as marches for equality and peace and research. In this third river in hell though, the sinners are not just angry; they are tyrants who shed blood. They are highway bandits and murderers and those who not only spilled blood but whose own blood boiled with malice. Dante seems to spend quite a bit of time detailing these feelings of anger and down further here, rage. Clearly as a man who has lost his home, his family and his position as Prior of Florence, this emotion was not foreign to him.
However, through these sinners and punishments, Dante seems to call for a tempering and a step back, away from the river alive with rage and to a place of reflection. Only with such can one see the source of this discontent. Sure it is a 700 year old lesson, but its relevance is undeniable.
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