Emil's Blog Post Number 2- Circle 7, Round 3

Plain of Burning Sand

         As Dante and the poets move to the third round of the seventh circle, they come to the burning plain. Here are the Blasphemers, Sodomites, and the Usurers, who all are spread out on the sand doing different things for punishment of their sins. The plain represents that of a desert, which in life we believe that to be a very barren, desolate, and sterile place. While in Dante's interpretation, he describes what he saw as " Most numerous were those that roamed the plain. Far fewer were the souls stretched on the sand, but moved to louder cries by greater pain "(111). The souls seem to be roaming the plain in agony and pain and in Dante's eyes, the way we think of a desert seems to be somewhat similar to what Dante see's as the desert in circle seven because of it representing a barren and empty place for the sinners to live in for eternity. The desert is a symbol of the sterility, which represents the sterility in the actions caused by the sinners and forces them to live in that sterility forever in Hell. 

Rain of Fire

           The second pain that is bestowed upon the violence against nature is the rain of fire that descends upon them from the sky. As Dante watches the sinners being bombarded by the rain, he describes it as " And over all that sand on which they lay or crouched or roamed, great flakes of flame fell slowly as snow falls in the Alps on a windless day "(111). To our knowledge, rain is a very fertile and refreshing thing in life, but from Dante's interpretation, it seems as it is the opposite as the rain is very and harmful to those beneath it. Dante also describes the rain to be moving slowly, which in life rain always falls fast so not only is the basic way of rain is the opposite, but the speed in which it falls from the sky. The entire  punishment of the rain in Dante's eyes is the exact opposite of the way we are accustomed to, which these sinners have forced to succumb to.