The Contrapasso In Dante's Inferno

The Contrapasso in Circle Eight
The Inferno is the first of three books about a pilgrim named Dante journeying his way through Hell on an ultimate quest to get to Heaven. This story is all an allusion of Dante, the author, and his journey through life and the trials he has to go through. While in Hell, Dante encounters many sinners who have specific punishments tailored to fit their crime. Dante calls the idea of a punishment fitting its crime the “contrapasso”. I believe that the contrapasso is fair, and the punishments in the ninth and tenth ditch of circle eight of hell are fitting of the crimes committed by the divisive individuals and falsifiers who reside in those ditches.
In Canto 28, Dante the Pilgrim and his guide arrive to section nine, “ditch” nine of the
This ditch is home to alchemists, falsifiers who claimed to know magic and potions during their lifetime. Alchemists would claim to have elixirs to cure diseases and save lives, but those promises would soon prove false, and those alchemists would be tortured with the scabs from the diseases they claimed to be able to cure. Dante makes his way down the hill to a few souls “plying fast the bite of nails upon himself”, trying scratch the pox off (Alighieri XXIX.79). This punishment also fits the falsifiers crimes of saying they had a cure, when in reality they had no such thing. Dante the Poet, while perhaps a bit harsher than would be allowed in modern times, was fair in his punishments as they related to the crimes. The sinners of ditch nine who caused disunion among various groups were, in turn, were physically separated from themselves. The alchemists in ditch ten who promised false cures were cursed with the diseases they had tried so hard to evade. Dante’s contrapasso is fair and fits the crime each sinner