See how he squirms and says nothing!

Patrick Bahners

Features correspondent in Cologne and responsible for “humanities”.

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    Vedi come si storce, e non fa motto!

    (Inferno XXXIV, 66, translated by Kurt Flasch)

    At the lowest point in hell, in song 34 of the Inferno, Virgil and Dante meet the devil personally. Satan has three heads in three colors, and between the teeth of each of his mouths is a traitor: in the middle Judas, who handed Jesus over to the murderers of justice, left and right Brutus and Cassius, the leaders of the conspiracy against Julius Caesar. Brutus hangs upside down from his black snout, and Virgil asks Dante: "See how he squirms and says nothing!"

    The lowest circle of hell is the realm of eternal ice: the punishment of Brutus freezes his deed. Brutus is condemned ceaselessly to do what he did in order for his deed to succeed: he is silent. In his biography of Brutus, which was not directly accessible to Dante, Plutarch reports how Brutus, after winning the noblest Romans for the plot, averted the danger of discovery by keeping his thoughts to himself and under control. On the day of the crime, the secret had to be kept until the first stab in the back. A senator had greeted Brutus and Cassius warmly and wished them luck in their undertaking, which had to be carried out quickly because it was already the subject of conversation. When the same senator was seen a little later in an intimate conversation with Caesar,the plot seemed imminent. But Brutus said nothing, but with his cheerful expression heightened the confidence of his friends.

    In hell, the social art of deciphering communicative behavior in front of witnesses is no longer necessary. When Dante complies with Virgil's request in verse 66 of Canto 34, he sees something very simple, an act reduced to mere physicality. He should look at two things, but he will recognize it at a glance: There is no more sound coming from Brutus' mouth and his limbs fidget. This body, condemned to twitch, with presumably also the lips moving senselessly, is the shape of a split soul: once and for all it is over with the coordination of gestures and words, visible and audible signs.

    Plutarch relates that Brutus lost control of his murderous thoughts during the night. His wife Porcia noticed in the marriage bed that he was restless and that he was evidently tossing and turning a difficult plan in his mind. The faithful wife understood this, although he did not say a word; his involuntary movements were sufficient for her. At night Brutus became someone else, writes Plutarch; this other he remains in the night of hell.

    The remorse, of which insomnia is believed to be a symptom, does not lead to the traitor in the hereafter admitting the injustice of his deed. In the hellish torture cellar, the work of the conscience is, so to speak, externalized. It is done by Satan's grinding teeth and thereby expands infinitely. Unlike most of the inmates of Hell the Wanderers have encountered, the arch traitors do not speak of their deeds. Rowan Williams, the former Archbishop of Canterbury, explained why this is so in his commentary on the 34th chant. The betrayal is the utterly uncommunicative act, the rebellion against the promise of reliability given with every word, "the suicide of language" - Judas hanged himself and Brutus threw himself on his sword. Poetry renews the promisethat "created reality" with Williams is "a system of understandable references". The imperative “see” is aimed at a reader who can only hear the poet.

    The sin of betrayal creates culturelessness.

    It cuts the symbolic context of a human life.

    According to tradition, the authority of Brutus rested on the fact that his cultivated verbal power lived up to his name.

    This speaker and connoisseur of poets can no longer be recognized in the clutches of the devil.

    First he glanced up at the sky, which was full of stars, then quoted Euripides: This is how Plutarch describes Brutus' departure from life.

    Only Virgil and Dante saw the stars again: in the last verse of Canto 34, at the exit of hell.

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