Returning to “The Inferno” series of videos, (and there are only a few left,) this week’s posting is “That Bull is Brass.” The title refers to Canto 27, where Dante describes a “Sicilian” brazen, or brass, bull torture device. I won’t describe details here, but it seems to me a particularly awful way to go.
The brass bull is one of the many comparisons to punishments in which Dante uses contrapasso — “a process either resembling or contrasting with the sin itself (Wikipedia).” The descriptions of sin and punishment force the reader to be not amused, terrified, nor sickened by these descriptions. Rather, Dante writes cautionary tales, ones which he hopes the reader learns for their own lives.
Remember, then, that bull___ is brass, and don’t go following any golden calves either.