A central theme throughout Dante Alighieri’s Divine Comedy is the concept of counter penalty; this is illustrated in many ways throughout the Inferno, Purgatorio and Paradiso. This principle of counter penalty, or contrapasso is a law of retaliation that says a punishment inflicted should be equal to the sin committed. One of the most interesting instances of this legislation is in the case of the sinners in the second ring of the seventh circle of the Inferno, those who are violent against themselves. Specifically focusing on the suicides, this idea can be illustrated: what one does in life determines the type and severity of their punishment or reward in the afterlife.

The suicides have been transformed into leafless trees that are tortured by Harpies. These foul mythological monsters have the face of a woman and the body of a bird. “Their wings are wide, their feet clawed, their huge bellies / covered with feathers, their necks and faces human. / They croak eternally in the unnatural trees” (Inf., XIII, 13-15). The Harpies represent the violence the suicides inflicted upon themselves, constantly cause them pain and lament. When the trees are broken, they bleed; these souls are only allowed to “speak through that which tears and destroys them. Only through their own blood do they find a voice” (Ciardi 104).

Virgil tells Dante to break a twig from a tree (Inf., XIII, 29-30) and when the tree begins to bleed and cry, it asks why Dante hurt him and asks if there is any “pity left in any soul” (Inf., XIII, 35-6). Virgil explains that he asked Dante to wound him because he could never have known the truth if he did not see it for himself (Inf., XIII, 50-1). Virgil urges the soul to reveal its name, and the soul indicates that he is Pier delle Vigne who in life was a minister of Emperor Frederick II (Inf., XIII, 58). Pier was accused of treachery by Frederick and after being imprisoned and blinded, Pier killed himself (Ciardi 110). Virgil asks this imprisoned spirit to explain how a soul transforms into a twisted, knotted tree and if the souls are ever freed from their imprisonment (Inf., XIII, 85-90).

Pier explains that the souls of the suicides refused to accept divine regulation of their mortality and consequently ended their lives. This disregard for the natural order of a human life causes eternal justice to place the suicide tree “wherever fortune flings it” (Inf., XIII, 98). These souls have essentially thrown away their bodies in life and so are denied them in the afterlife. Pier says that “we shall drag them and . . . / our bodies will dangle to the end of time, / each on the thorns of its tormented shade” (Inf., XIII, 106-08).

The punishment assigned to the violent against themselves is appropriate and just as it correlates directly to the sin committed: however, I do not believe that all cases should be punished in the same manner. There is a difference between one who commits suicide as an act of cowardice and one who takes their life for a greater purpose. In some cultures, it is considered honorable to kill yourself rather than fall at the hand of the enemy. Dante is staying faithful his own beliefs but the image of tormented trees is very troubling to me. The act of violence against oneself is a sin but it is sometimes the best choice. In Hell the souls of the suicides are bound in the form of twisted trees and are forced to forever hang the bodies they once possessed from their limbs.

They attempted to set themselves free from pain or fear in life by choosing to reach their fate sooner than God willed it and for that they are damned to an eternity without Him. They are forced to endure the pain they were trying to escape in the life they were given by God. Pier chose to end his life rather than to continue being tortured. I do not think God is merciful to punish someone who commits an act in desperation; while it is not a courageous way to die it should not be considered a sin. Consequently, I do not agree with Dante on the placement of suicides in Hell, at least not in such a low circle, I do admit that the punishment is a powerful image. This is the most severe punishment, in my eyes, for it forces the soul to be disconnected from itself, to be forever silenced until it is ripped open, to view its own flesh hanging from twisted limbs.

Dante deems it just to refuse a body to one who destroyed their own and reaffirms that it is a sin to waste anything that God gives to humans be it talent, money or even life. The Inferno mainly consists of Dante attempting to search for words to explain these horrible punishments and the love of God to justify the increasingly appalling torments of each descending ring of hopeless sinners. There are many questions about our eternal paradox and after reading The Inferno, it can be deduced that we have only to answer to ourselves and God when we reach the end of our life’s path.

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