Canto IX
Dante, alarmed by Virgil's anxiety, tactfully enquires of him whether he really knows the way through Hell, and gets a reassuring answer. The Furies appear and threaten to unloose Medusa. A noise like thunder announces the arrival of a Heavenly Messenger, who opens the gates of Dis and rebukes the demons. When he has departed, the poets enter the City, and find themselves in a great plain covered with the burning tombs of Heretics.
Canto X
As the poets are passing along beneath the city walls, Dante is hailed by Farinata from one of the burning tombs, and goes to speak to him. Their conversation is interrupted by Cavalcante dei Cavalcanti with a question about his son. Farinata prophesies Dante's exile and explains how the souls in Hell know nothing about the present, though they can remember the past and dimly foresee the future.
This may be just because this has been such a strange and dangerous year, but someone said they suspected the riots were about to reignite this weekend, and now I'm infected with foreboding about that. I guess the best thing to do is to pray and place ourselves in God's hands, and do as much as we can to protect ourselves and our loved ones. Unfortunately, I feel woefully unprepared in that latter category and don't really have a good idea how to change it.
We struggle not against flesh and blood, and, for that matter, our salvation is not of politics and this world. God be with you.
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