The Wood of the Suicides was a location in Dante's Inferno. It was the organic forest of souls that comprised the second part of the Seventh Circle of Hell. The Harpies are charged of tormenting the souls by breaking branches and snapping limbs, but they are strangely not seen in the game. The suicidal souls are transformed into gnarled, condemned and cursed trees which are part of this dark forest. The souls like Pietro della Vigna, Bella Abati, Lano da Siena and Jacopo da Sant'Andrea are among those who are trapped here. According to Virgil, a soul who was deprived of life shot up like a sapling. It sprouted without a body, only the pain. It was unjust that a soul possessed what it deprived itself of in life which was why the Damned here did not have a human body.
Overview[]
The sinners who took their own lives were condemned by King Minos to the Seventh Circle. The souls are transformed into the gnarled, disfigured and brittle trees which comprised this gruesome forest. Each tree was representative of the sinner's own suicide and every tree was different. For example, Bella's tree had a vine wrapped around her neck like a noose, representing how she took her life.
In the game, the trees also produced Suicide Fruit that brought suicidal thoughts about in the humans like Dante. If he is unable to resist the effects of the fruit, Dante will commit suicide by stabbing himself with his cross.
Trivia[]
- The trees screamed when they are struck with the scythe.
- In "The Inferno", Dante describes the Woods of Suicide as consisting of thorny and gnarled trees which are the souls of those who committed suicide. The Harpies tormented the souls by breaking the branches and snapping limbs only to have them grow back again.
- In the original poem, the forest was where not only the suicides were condemned, but also the Profligates (Those who forsook the value of their own goods, much like how the suicides forsook the value of their own bodies) who are chased by wild dogs through the forest.
- In the Inferno, the souls of the suicide trees, in a dark twist of their sin (Violence against themselves) are unable to speak to Dante unless the tree is injured and bleeding. As they ended their lives with physical violence, they now depended on physical violence to communicate. They can only speak for as long as the blood flows. Their original bodies are found in the branches of the tree, but this body is no more than a lifeless corpse.
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