Canto XXI - XXIII

Wheeling along the left bank. But first
Each signaled their leader with the same grimace:
Baring their teeth, through which the tongue was pressed;

And the leader made a trumpet of his ass.
(Canto XXI lines 136-139)

I honestly do not know what to think of Cantos 21 and 22. Did Dante believe he needed to lighten the mood in hell for a bit? That's all I can figure. The Demons are stupid and goofy to begin with and then they are further humiliated as they show themselves to be cowardly, then the whole farting incident. I really do not even know what to think. Especially since Dante dwells on the fart! Whats the deal with that? The demon farts are Dante spends the beginning of the next Canto talking about how he's never heard an army march off to such a strange trumpet. REALLY WEIRD.
I looked up the names of the demons, they were in Italian so I figured they meant something:
Malacoda: "evil-tail."

Calcabrina: "he who can walk on brine."

Cagnazzo: "big dog,"

Libicocco: "winds,"

Barbariccia: "curly beard."

Draghignazzo: "big dragon."

Circiatto: "hog."

Farfarello: "evil ghost."

Rubicante: "he who grows red."

Graffiacane: "he who scratches dogs,"

And again I've got to point out how low a level we are in hell now and we're punishing more political crimes, not murder, not suicide. Simony. And honestly its not even real simony, its like pseudo-political simony, the selling of political offices. I really do not understand! I guess I can see where he is coming from though, these are the sins closest to his own person, he probably deals with them everyday. Its the same as me putting drivers who cut off bikers in the ninth level of hell, its not that they are the worst, its just that I know them and I personally hate them. Another thing I noticed about this section of hell is that the punishment seems slightly lighter than other levels. So they are being burned alive in boiling pitch, that sucks, but they seem to get relatively used to it and they only have a bunch of stupid demons to watch over them. They reportedly make signals with eachother which seems to constitute having conversations with one another. I dunno, it doesn't seem as bad as some of the other ones...
Second thought, maybe it is, burning pitch beats burning sands hands down but i dunno if it really trumps boiling blood and arrows. Boiling blood probably hurts just as much as boiling pitch and the centaurs seem to be a lot smarter than the demons. Boiling pitch definitely does not beat being turned into a tree, that's really awful.
Hmmm, it just seems that these sinners don't seem to mind the pitch so much, it's weird but it's there.