Mischievous Malebranche

“Should I just touch him on the rump?” Replied/ The others, ”Yes-go on and give him a cut (217).”

The Malebranche demons are just bizarre. They sounded to me like obnoxious, vicious things. They were different than all the other demons. The other demons, like Charon or Cerberus, appeared so large and serious. They seemed to have much more control over the souls. But the Malebranche demons were arguing or poking people for fun. They were comical. They struck my attention because of the sudden humor. Even though Dante has the reader in a deep layer of hell, he throws in these strange funny creatures. I thought the passage above was pretty funny and different then what most of the demons would be saying. They also provide action. A lot of the story Dante is wandering around and talking to people but here the demons create movement. When they chase after the sinner or when Dante and Virgil run away from them because they are trying to eat them. I thought they were fun and frightening creatures.

And then to me, ”O Tuscan, you who arrived/At the sad hypocrites’ assembly: pray tell-(239)“

The way Dante has set up his hell and the order of those that are punished is strange. To have the violent crimes before the hypocrites seems strange to me. I would think killing someone would be worse than being hypocritical or a barrator. But it appears that Dante was angry with a lot of people that committed crimes like being hypocritical or being a barrator against the government and church. There was a lot of corruption in the church at the time. Is it supposed to be the farther a sinner gets in hell the worse their sin was? I found out l'ipocriti tristi is sad hypocrite in Italian.