Chapter 5 · Malebolgeone of the damnedCircle VIIIPlayable
Geri del Bello
A sower of discord who points his finger at you from the foot of the bridge while you look at Bertran, and is gone when you look at him.
ch’io vidi lui a piè del ponticellomostrarti e minacciar forte col dito,e udi’ ’l nominar Geri del Bello.
Revealswhere Geri del Bello stands, and when he shows himself.
In the canto it is Virgil who tells it, once they have left the ninth ditch: while Dante was wholly taken up with the one who once held Altaforte, a shade at the foot of the little bridge pointed at him and threatened him fiercely with his finger, and Virgil heard him named Geri del Bello; Dante did not look that way, and so he went (Inf. XXIX 25-30). Dante answers that the violent death of that shade had not yet been avenged by anyone who shares the shame (31-33).
In the game he is not there until you look at Bertran. While Bertran is in the middle of your sight, from close by, he appears in one of four fixed places at the foot of the broken bridge, on either side of the line of the blade, whichever lies at that moment at the edge of your view or just off it: standing still among the others, his arm raised toward the spot where one stands to talk with Bertran, the forearm beating like a finger that threatens. He points at that spot, not at you. The moment he enters the cone of the camera he is gone, and he does not come back. Only if he has shown himself, once you are up on the last bank, Virgil tells you who he was.
The numbers
| What | How much | When |
|---|---|---|
| Where he can appear | four fixed places | at the foot of the bridge, on either side of the blade’s line and never on it |
| When | while you look at Bertran | Bertran within 12 degrees of the centre of your sight, from 10 m or less |
| Where in your sight | 28 to 80 degrees from the centre | at the edge, or just off the screen, and in plain view |
| When he is gone | within 20 degrees of the centre |
Links
- See also
- Bertran de Born, The Cleaving Devil, Mosca