cantos 13-20

"'Behold the beast that has the pointed tail,/ That crosses mountains, leaves walls and weapons broken,/ And makes the stench of which the world is full!'/ So did my leader address me, then paused to beckon/ Him ashore near where the causeway came to an end./ And fraud's foul emblem came closer, till he had taken/ His head and chest from the deep to rest on land/ Before us, not drawing his tail up onto the bank./ His face was a just man's face, outwardly kind," (Cantos XVII, 1-9)
Not entirely sure I understand this. First off, if it's fraud's foul emblem, is it a fake? And is that why it has the face of an honest man? For some reason it seems like it's just a guy in a monster suit, which would not be nearly as hellish as the rest of the book, so I guess that can't be right. But, I guess it could be saying that the beast is this level of hell's mascot, thus being fraud's emblem, which i suppose makes more sense. Although, since it is "fraud's foul emblem" wouldn't it have some sense of fakeness to it as well? But is the fraud the fact that the monster has an honest man's face? Since, of course, the man cannot be honest since he is in hell. Also, why does the beast break walls and weapons? Is he allowed out of hell to go wreak havoc? It seems like he's a beast from Greek mythology, which, in a way is odd, since that would be magic-esque, which I don't think is allow. Sorcery or divination isn't allowed, so I don't see how it's allowed that a beast can be conjured to go wreak havoc. And, if sorcery isn't allowed, then how can god do it? There just seems to be some holes, maybe it's because I don't know christian teachings very well. I also thought the use of the exclamation mark here is interesting, and I guess there's a pretty good smattering of them throughout, but I just didn't think it would be natural here.

"O Simon Magus, and O you wretched crowd/ Of those who follow him and prostitute/ In your rapacity the things of God/ Which should be brides of righteousness, to get/ Silver and Gold- it is time the trumpet sounded/ For you: the third pouch is where you are put"
Even though I had to go look some things up, I thought this was an uncharacteristically clear passage. I like how I, as the reader, am told where Dante is and what group of people are here. It's very nice to have a roadmap, just for clarification, because sometimes it seems that he skips over a part or two of hell, but maybe it's just because there aren't such wonderful written roadmaps. So I did have to look up Simon Magus, who is regarded as the source of all heresies, which is a rather intense title. So he give rise to the term "simony" when he offered to purchase from the Apostles Peter and John the supernatural power of transmitting the Holy Spirit. And "simony," which I also had to look up, is the the buying or selling of sacred things or ecclesiastical office. So, yeah, that's bad and in the third pouch of the 8th circle of hell. It's just so useful to be like, oh look, I'm here reading about simony land, and hey, in case I was keeping track, Dante's in the third pouch (even if it doesn't say what circle, but luckily, there's a table at the beginning of the book). Anyways, the clarity was a very helpful breath of fresh air.