Chapter 4 · The Walls of DiscircleCircle VIIBeing built
The Wood of the Suicides
The wood where the souls are the trees.
«Non fronde verdi, ma di color fosco; non rami schietti, ma nodosi e ’nvolti» (XIII, 4-5). Questi non sono alberi: sono quelli che si sono tolti il corpo da sé, e non lo riavranno. Parlano solo da dove si spezzano.
Non fronde verdi, ma di color fosco;non rami schietti, ma nodosi e ’nvolti;non pomi v’eran, ma stecchi con tosco
Revealshow the second ring of the violent is built, and why you cannot get your bearings.
In the poem it is the second ring of the violent, where whoever took his own life will never have a body again and becomes a thorn tree, and speaks only if you break it, because the voice comes out of the break. In the game it is a wood of three lobes, wide rather than round, where the trunks are all alike on purpose and there is no landmark anywhere.
The chapter’s fog leaves little of an object at forty metres, so the lamp is no compass. The only thing still visible from far off is the wound of a tree already broken, which bleeds and gives light: you can see the road only where you have already paid for it. The Harpies nest in the thorns and eat their leaves, which makes pain, and a window for the pain.
At the far end stands Pier della Vigna, who asks for the one thing this game knows how to give, that his name be set back on its feet. At the foot of his trunk lies a noose, which in a wood of hanged men is the most natural thing there is.
The numbers
| What | How much |
|---|---|
| Lobes of the wood | 3, instead of one single basin |
Links
- See also
- The Harpies, Pier della Vigna, The noose, The Burning Sand