NovelGuide: The Inferno: Novel Summary: Canto 18

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Canto 18

Summary
Dante tells us the shape of the Eighth Circle; he calls it Malebolge, evil pouches. Each "pouch," or bolgia, goes all the way around the yet deeper pit that yawns in the center, and each one holds a different kind of sinner. Dante and Virgil cross each bolgia by a spur of rock that forms a bridge over it. Around the bottom of the First Pouch, lashed by horned demons, go the panders and seducers. Among the panders in the First Bolgia is someone Dante recognizes who confesses that is true that he made his sister sleep with a powerful nobleman, and among the seducers is Jason, the "hero" who brought back the Golden Fleece to Greece, using and leaving several women in the process. In the Second Bolgia, plunged in what looks and smells like excrement from human outhouses, are the flatterers.
Analysis
No one in either of these bolgias asks to be remembered when Dante returns to the world; their sins, which involve either betraying innocent women or using the uniquely human gift of speech to manipulate rather than to tell the truth, are too vile. Dante and Virgil do not linger.