The Gluttons

In Canto VI, Dante comes to find those who committed the sin of gluttony also known as the Gluttons. For these sinners, the contrapasso is that they are drenched in muck and eternally swarmed by cold and dirty hail, rain, and snow. How fitting of a punishment for the Gluttons. For Dante explains the area around him like so: "We walked across this marsh of shades beaten down by the heavy rain, our feet pressing on the emptiness that looked like human form." But what I found so interesting about these particular sinners was the testimony of Ciacco. He was an Italian from Florence who revealed his political prophecy to Dante and Virgil. The part I find so interesting about using this particular name is the name's meaning. If you take a look at one of the footnotes, it has the direct translation of Ciacco's name. In Italian, it translates to a noun as pig or hog and to an adjective as filthy or swinish in nature. The use of the name Ciacco is clearly intentional. The underlying meaning of both the contrapasso and Ciacco's name baffles me. Its just amazing how Dante was capable of creating so much meaning in so many different simple and complex ways.