Cantos XIII-XX

"In life I was of the city that chose to leave/ Mars, her first patron, and take the Baptist: for which/ The art of Mars will always make her grieve." (XII. 134-136)

In this passage, Dante are listening to the story of a man whose soul has been turned in a bush. The soul tells the two journeyers that he is from a city that abandoned the faith in the god Mars. Mars is the Roman god of War and was considered as one of the most powerful of the gods. The bush goes on to say that his city changed allegiances to the Baptist, also known as John the Baptist. It is this change of patrons that will always make her(the city) grieve from the art of Mars. It is implied that since Mars was the God of War then his "art" that plagued the city was war and violence. I believe that this is a reference to the troubled violence that has plagued the city of Florence during this time in history. This is not the first time that Dante draws allusions to Florence, the city he has been banished from. More often than not, the allusions refer to the troubles and problems of the city. The soul of the bush seems to feel that there is no hope to be had for the city of Florence and this compounded the stress which led him to hang himself in his own home.

"Since first we entered through that open gate/ Whose threshold on one is denied,/ Nothing your eyes have seen is so worth note./.....They form Cocytus- and about that pool/ I shall say nothing, for you will see it soon" (XIV.70-102)

Virgil draws special attention to the river before them and describes the origins of the water in Hell. Virgil explains that the water comes from the leaking tears of a statue of an old man from the land of Crete, which was once the epicenter of the world at its purist form. The fact that the leaking statue originates from a city of great purity is very interesting. One would not think to find water in Hell at all, only flames and treacherous monsters, but it is ironic that the only source of water comes from a place without sin. Why does Virgil feel that the origin and the river itself is so important? Perhaps Virgil wishes to show to Dante that there is some relief form all of the cruel torture and torment that occurs in the depths of hell in the the form of the water from the outside world. Then again, the water that gathers in the pool of Cocytus is from the "tears" from the old man statue. The water may be a way of showing that even what one would think to be refreshing, is in fact full of sorrow and lament. The source of the water also offers some possibility as to where Hell actually is. Normally Hell is thought of as some after life world which is everywhere beneath the world we live in, but at the same time it has no definite location. Dante indicates that Hell is somewhere below the land that was once claimed by Crete.