Dante`s Inferno

Published in Great Britain by Scripsi – www.scripsi.org
First published 2010
Second edition with corrections and modifications 2013
Copyright © John Lambert, 2010
The right of John Lambert to be identified as the
author of this work has been asserted by him in accordance
with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
All rights reserved. No part of this publication
may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system,
or transmitted, in any form or by any means,
electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise,
without the prior written permission of the copyright owner.
ISBN: 978-0-9552884-2-5
Printed by
Printondemand-worldwide
9 Culley Court, Bakewell Road,
Orton Southgate, Peterborough, PE2 6XD
www.printondemand-worldwide.com
Contents
Introduction
The life of Dante
What type of poem is the Comedy?
The political backdrop
The moral structure of Hell
The translation
Acknowledgements
Hell
1 1 3 6 8 11 12 15 Notes
257 Maps
351 List of plates
353 Hell
Canto 1
Canto 2
Canto 3
Canto 4
Canto 5
Canto 6
Canto 7
Canto 8
Canto 9
Canto 10
Canto 11
Canto 12
Canto 13
Canto 14
Canto 15
Canto 16
Canto 17
Canto 18
Canto 19
Canto 20
Canto 21
Canto 22
Canto 23
Canto 24
Canto 25
Canto 26
Canto 27
Canto 28
Canto 29
Canto 30
Canto 31
Canto 32
Canto 33
Canto 34
Dante awakes in a dark wood; meets the lipard, lion & wolf, and his guide Virgil
Account of Beatrice visiting Virgil in Limbo to intercede for Dante
Upper Hell entry – the uncommitted; Charon rows them over the River Acheron
First Circle: Limbo – the worthy unbaptised & pagans; the noble castle
Second Circle – the lustful; Minos judges the dead; story of Paolo & Francesca
Third Circle – gluttons; Ciacco predicts the decline of Florence
Fourth Circle – the avaricious & prodigals; Fifth Circle – the wrathful & slothful
Phlegyas rows them over the River Styx to the city of Dis; meet Filippo Argenti
The angel opens the gate into Lower Hell; Sixth Circle – heretics
Dante speaks to the heretics Farinata & Cavalcante; predictions of Dante’s future
The tomb of Pope Anastasius II; Virgil describes the moral structure of Hell
Seventh Circle: First Circuit: River Phlegethon – the violent against others
Second Circuit – the violent against themselves (suicides & wastrels)
Third Circuit – the violent against God (blasphemers)
The violent against God/nature (sodomites); Dante talks to Brunetto Latini
Dante talks to three Florentine sodomites; Virgil summons Geryon
The violent against God/nature/art (usurers); Geryon flies them down the cliff
Eighth Circle: First Pocket – panders & seducers; Second Pocket – flatterers
Third Pocket – simonists; Pope Nicholas III speaks; Dante criticises the popes
Fourth Pocket – diviners; Virgil explains the founding of Mantua
Fifth Pocket – barrators; Dante & Virgil meet the Evilclaws
The Evilclaws conduct Dante &Virgil to the Sixth Pocket; skirmish in the pitch
Dante &Virgil descend into the Sixth Pocket – hypocrites; Friar Catalano speaks
Dante & Virgil ascend the bank to reach the Seventh Pocket – thieves
The reptilian transformation of the Florentine thieves
Eighth Pocket – false counsellors; Ulysses tells of his death near Mt. Purgatory
Guido da Montefeltro tells how Pope Boniface VIII brought about his downfall
Ninth Pocket – schismatics; Dante talks to Mohammed & Bertran de Born
Tenth Pocket – falsifiers; Dante threatened by Geri del Bello, a relative of his
Gianni Schicchi & Myrrha appear; Master Adam tells his story; the liars’ dispute
The giants guarding the Ninth Circle; Antaeus places Dante & Virgil in it
Ninth Circle: River Cocytus: Caïna – traitors to kin; Antenora – traitors to party
Count Ugolino tells his story; Ptolomea – traitors to guests
Judecca – traitors to high authority; Satan in the ice; exit from Hell to Purgatory
Dante in the dark wood
Canto 1
Midway along the path of our life
I found myself in a dark wood,
because the direct way was lost.
3
How hard to say what it was like –
that savage wood, and harsh and thick –
the thought of which renews my fear!
6
So bitter death’s but little more;
and yet, to treat of good I found there,
I’ll speak of other things I spied there.
9
I can’t well say just how I came there:
I was so full of sleep that point
I left the truthful way behind.
12
But when I reached the foot of a hill,
just where that valley that’d pierced
my heart with fear came to an end,
15
I looked up high and saw its shoulders
now clothed in light beams of the planet
that leads us straight on every road.
18
So then the fear was hushed a mite
that I’d endured in my heart’s lake
that night I’d passed so piteously,
21
17
THE COMEDY: HELL
and like a man with panting breath,
escaping from the main to shore,
turns round and scans the parlous sea,
24
just so my mind, though still in flight,
turned back to eye again the pass
that none’s yet ever left alive.
27
I rested my tired frame a bit,
then took way on a desert slope,
with e’er my standing foot the lowest.
30
And there! About the steep’s beginning,
a lipard, light and very fast,
and covered with a spotted coat:
33
it wouldn’t get out of my face,
but rather blocked my path so much
that many times I turned to return.
36
The start of morning was the time,
the sun now climbing with the stars
with it the time the Divine Love
39
first set those lovely things in motion,
so that the hour of day and sweet
season was reason for good hope
42
against that beast with garish skin –
but not so much I didn’t fear
sight of a lion that appeared!
45
This lion seemed to come against me,
his head up high and hungry mad,
so that the air appeared to quake –
48
18
The lipard
THE COMEDY: HELL
and a she-wolf, who in her thinness
seemed loaded up with every craving
(and many now she’s made live sadly).
51
She gave me such a heaviness
through fear that came from sight of her
I lost all hope of the ascent.
54
Like one who keenly makes a gain
but time arrives to make him lose,
who cries in all his thoughts and whines,
57
just so the ruthless beast made me,
as, coming on me bit by bit,
she drove me where the sun stays silent.
60
Whilst plunging to a place below,
my eyes were then presented with
a man who from long lull seemed faint.
63
On seeing him in the great desert,
I shouted: ‘Miserere on me,
whoe’er you are, shade or sure man!’
66
He answered me: ‘Not man, though man
I once was, and with Lombard parents,
both of them Mantuans by birth.
69
I was born late sub Julio
and I lived under good Augustus
in Rome, the time of fake, false gods.
72
A poet I who sang of just
Anchises’ son trav’lling from Troy
when haughty Ilium was burnt.
75
20
CANTO 1
But why return to such vexation?
Why not ascend the charming mountain,
the start and cause of every joy?’
78
‘Are you that Virgil and that fountain
which spreads so wide its stream of speech?’
I answered him shamefacedly.
81
‘Honour and light of other poets,
may the long study and great love
that made me search your work avail me.
84
You’re my authority and master;
you’re the sole one from whom I took
the lovely style that’s brought me honour.
87
Behold the beast from which I turned.
Defend me from her, famous sage:
she makes my veins and pulses throb.’
90
‘But you must take another trip,’
he answered when he saw my tears,
‘if you’d escape this savage place,
93
because this beast which makes you cry
allows no-one to pass her way,
but hinders them so much she kills,
96
and she’s so vile and wicked natured
she never sates her craving will –
post-meal she’s hungrier than before.
99
She mates with lots of animals,
and there’ll be yet more, till the hound
arrives who’ll make her die in pain.
102
21
THE COMEDY: HELL
This hound won’t feed on land or pewter,
but sapience and love and virtue.
His stock’ll be ’tween felt and felt.
105
He’ll save that lowly Italy
for which from wounds the virgin Camilla,
Euryalus, Turnus, and Nisus died.
108
This hound’ll hunt her through each town
until he’s sent her back to Hell,
where envy first released her from.
111
And so I think and judge it right
you follow me. I’ll be your guide
and draw you hence through a timeless place,
114
a place you’ll hear the desp’rate screams
and see the doleful ancient spirits
who each bewail their second death.
117
You’ll also see those who’re content
in the fire, coz they hope to reach,
whene’er that is, the blessed people.
120
If then you’d like to climb to them,
for that there’ll be a worthier soul –
I’ll leave you with her when I go –
123
because that Emp’ror ruling there,
coz I rebelled against his law,
is loath to let me in his city.
126
All parts He governs, there He reigns;
his city’s there and his high seat.
How happy him He picks to be there!’
129
22
CANTO 1
And I to him: ‘I beg you, poet,
by that same God you didn’t know,
so that I flee this ill and worse,
132
conduct me where you’ve just related,
so I may see Saint Peter’s Gate
and those you’ve made so melancholy.’
So off he set, and I came after.
136
23
Canto 2
Day was departing and dark air
releasing creatures on the earth
from their exertions, whilst I, one man
3
alone, prepared to face the strife
of both the path and of the pity
that mind unerring’ll retrace.
6
Muses, high genius, help me now.
You mind, who wrote down what I saw,
here your nobility’ll show.
9
I began: ‘Poet who leads me on,
check if my power’s capable
fore to the deep pass you entrust me.
12
You say the sire of Silvius,
though still corruptible, attained
the immortal world (and with his senses),
15
but that All Evil’s Foe was courtly
to him, in view of the high outcome
from him and who and what he was,
18
seems not unfit to men of reason,
coz he was picked in the Empyrean
as blessed Rome and her empire’s father,
21
24
CANTO 2
both, if you want to speak the truth,
established for the sacred place
where Great Peter’s successor sits.
24
By this trip, whence you give him glory,
he heard the words which were the cause
of his success and the pope’s mantle.
27
And then the Chosen Vessel came there
to bring back comfort in that faith
which is the start of salvation’s way.
30
But why do I go there? Who grants it?
I’m not Aeneas, I’m not Paul.
Nor I, nor others, think me worthy.
33
And so, if I commit to coming,
I fear it may be mad. You’re wise:
you realise what I can’t reason.’
36
Like one who unwills what he’s willed
and swaps intent for new ideas,
so he forbears to start at all,
39
so I became on that dark slope,
for, by reflection, I wasted effort
that was so nimble at the start.
42
‘If I’ve grasped well your speech’s meaning,’
that shade of the great heart replied,
‘your soul’s defiled by cowardice,
45
which many times encumbers man
to turn his hon’rable design,
like a false sighting a shy beast.
48
25
THE COMEDY: HELL
To free you from this fear, I’ll tell you
just why I’ve come and what I heard
the first time that I grieved for you.
51
Whilst I was with the ones suspended,
a lady called me, so blessed and lovely
that I beseeched her to command me.
54
Her eyes shone brighter than the stars,
and in her own style – sweet and soft,
an angel’s voice – she started speaking:
57
“You courtly soul of Mantua,
whose fame still lingers in the world
and shall as long as the world lasts,
60
my friend, but not a friend of Fortune,
is so impeded in his path
on the bare slope he’s turned through fright.
63
I fear, from what I’ve heard of him
in Heaven, lest he’s now so lost
I’ve risen too late to his rescue.
66
Now stir, and with your polished speech
and what’s required for his survival
assist him, so I may be consoled.
69
I’m Beatrice who compels your going.
I come from where I long to return to.
Love’s moved me: it compels my speech.
72
When I’m before that Lord of mine,
I’ll praise you to Him frequently.”
So she fell silent; then I began:
75
26
Beatrice and Virgil
THE COMEDY: HELL
“Lady of virtue through which alone
the human race surpasses all
within the lesser circles’ heaven,
78
your word’s so pleasing that obeying,
if by now done, would be belated.
You need no more than state your wish.
81
But say the reason you don’t mind
descending to this centre here
from the vast place you burn to return to.”
84
“Because you wish to grasp so much,
I’ll tell you briefly,” she replied,
“why I don’t fear to enter here.
87
We only ought to fear those things
which have the force to do us harm;
of the rest, no, coz they’re not scary.
90
I’m fashioned so by God, his grace,
that your affliction doesn’t touch me,
nor does this fire’s flame assail me.
93
In Heaven there’s a genteel Lady
so rues this bind I send you to
she breaks stern judgement there above.
96
She summoned Lucy to her, saying:
‘Your faithful one’s in need of you
right now and I commend him to you.’
99
The foe of every cruelty, Lucy,
set off and came to where I was,
sat down beside the ancient Rachel.
28
102
CANTO 2
She said: ‘Beatrice, true praise of God,
why don’t you help he who so loved you
for you he left the vulgar crowd?
105
Don’t you hear pity in his cries?
Don’t you behold the death that fights him
upon the flood where sea’s no clout?’
108
No earthly folk were e’er so quick
to seek their good or flee their harm
as I, after such words were spoken,
111
to come down here from my blessed bench,
confiding in your honest discourse,
which honours you and those who’ve heard it.”
114
As soon as she’d explained this to me,
in tears she turned her shining eyes,
which made me come more speedily.
117
And so I came here as she wished.
I took you from that beast that barred you
the short route of the lovely mountain.
120
And so, what’s up? Why, why delay?
Why nurse such cowardice in heart?
Why’ve you no boldness and resolve,
123
considering three such blessed ladies
have care for you in Heaven’s court
and my speech promises such good?’
126
As little flowers bent and closed
from nighttime frost, after sun lights them,
all open straight upon their stems,
129
29
THE COMEDY: HELL
so I became with my drained courage,
and so much boldness coursed my heart
that I, as one who’s firm, began:
132
‘How pitying was she who saved me!
And courtly you, who quickly obeyed
the truthful words she offered you!
135
You’ve so disposed my heart with longing
to come along by your remarks
I’ve turned back to my first intention.
138
Now go, coz there’s one will for two:
you leader, you lord, and you master.’
Thus I addressed him. And once he’d started,
I entered on the deep, wild path.
142
30
Notes
Canto 1
The allegorical aspect of the Comedy is nowhere in this canticle
better demonstrated than in this canto. It is replete with
allusions to both biblical and classical literature. At the same
time, on the literal level, it’s the tale of a man lost in a wood…
1-3. At once we are aware of man in general (the biblical ‘path
of life’ is the path of us all) and one man, Dante himself (‘I
found myself’). It’s a moral tale of those ‘who leave the straight
paths to walk in dark ways’ (Proverbs 2:13) and one about a man
in a midlife crisis. On the literal level, as the midway point of life
is thirty-five – ‘The length of our days is seventy years’ (Psalms
90:10) – the story is set in the year 1300, as Dante was born in
1265. The setting is significant: 1300 was the year Pope Boniface
VIII proclaimed Christianity’s first Jubilee, a set period during
which pilgrims to Rome could gain remission for their sins.
From other temporal references, specifically one in Canto 21,
112-114 (see also v. 21), we know that Dante got lost in the
wood on Maundy Thursday evening (which occurred on April 7
in 1300). Hence his awakening is allegorically tied to Christ’s
Agony in the Garden of Gethsemane, a time of great doubt
before he became ‘the atoning sacrifice for our sins, and not only
for ours but also for the sins of the whole world’ (1 John 2:1).
The wood is not only related to the garden beneath the
Mount of Olives, but to the luci Triviae (‘groves of Trivia’)
situated before the entrance to the Underworld in Virgil’s Aeneid.
Hence there are four rites of passage alluded to here – Christ’s,
Aeneas’, Dante’s, and Everyman’s.
THE COMEDY: HELL
That Dante suffered a crisis of conscience in 1300 is debateable (cf. Canto 2, 107 and Purgatory, Canto 1, 58-60 and notes).
This was when he was at the height of his fame and power,
which continued until his exile in 1301. The crisis seems an ex
post facto artifice to fit with the significance of the year 1300.
More than likely, Dante did not fully assess his way of life until
after his exile. The Comedy was a response to the wake-up call his
exile represented; indeed, would he have felt the need, or had the
time, to assess his conduct in such an elaborate manner had he
continued his political career successfully? The Comedy is not
quite a humble man’s repentance: it may also be seen as the work
of a man with great ambitions (not just literary) and a great need,
as a result of his rejection by Florence, to set the record straight
by judgements, some of them tendentious (if not vindictive), that
were traditionally reserved only for God. As Boccaccio said in his
Life of Dante: ‘Fu il nostro poeta… d'animo alto e disdegnoso
molto’ (‘Our poet was…of lofty and very disdainful spirit’).
8-9. The ‘good’ and ‘other things’ Dante found ‘there’ refer to
the whole interrelated redemptive experience of his coming
journey from the dark wood of personal sin through the
punishments of Hell and Purgatory to salvation in Heaven.
11-12. ‘Sleep’ can lead to error and sin. Dante was asleep to
God when he left the ‘truthful way’ behind – ‘I am the way and
the truth and the life’ (John 14:6). ‘Are you still sleeping and
resting? Look, the hour is near, and the Son of Man is betrayed
into the hands of sinners’ (Matthew 26:45). In Aeneid, Book 5,
Aeneas wakes up, prior to reaching the Underworld entrance at
Cumae, to find his ship unpiloted and drifting – errare – towards
the rocks of the Sirens.
13-18. More landscape details. We’re in a valley – ‘the valley of
the shadow of death’ (Psalms 23:4). But what is the hill that
provides some relief? In the Aeneid, Aeneas has to climb a hill to
get to the temple of Apollo, God of the Sun, situated at the
portal to the Underworld. In biblical terms, on one level, the hill
is the Mount of Olives, from where Christ ascended to Heaven
after his resurrection (Acts 1:9-12). It’s also the hill man should
258
NOTES
climb to get to the Light of God – ‘Who may ascend the hill of
the Lord? Who may stand in his holy place?’ (Psalms 24:3). But
it’s a hill Dante can no longer climb: he must take a different
journey (v. 91, and see vv. 113-123 for the itinerary).
17. ‘light beams of the planet’ – the sun was considered a planet
(in the sense of ‘wandering star’) in Dante’s time. Already, in the
first few tercets, we’ve been made aware of the ‘way,’ ‘truth,’ and
‘light’ that is God. It is now the morning of Good Friday.
22-24. The simile here is reminiscent of Aeneas coming to
shore after nearly coming to grief on the rocks of the Sirens.
26-27. ‘Stern discipline awaits him who leaves the path; he who
hates correction will die’ (Proverbs 15:10). Salvation rests in
contrition. The ‘dark wood’ is now a passage (passo) for the
unrepentant on their way to Hell. This almost included Dante
(as Beatrice confirms in Canto 2, 65-66 and Purgatory, Canto 30,
136-138), but he can escape his fate by making a unique journey.
29. We’re now on a desert slope – a moral wilderness or waste
land. Like the Israelites, who escaped their own ‘parlous sea’ into
the desert en route to the Promised Land (Exodus 15:22).
30. If the ‘standing’ foot rather than ‘leading’ foot (the left as
opposed to the right in medieval thinking) is always the lowest
foot, the climb is hard going as you’re dragging it up all the time.
32-60. ‘Therefore a lion from the forest will attack them, a wolf
from the desert will ravage them, a leopard will lie in wait near
their towns’ (Jeremiah 5:6).
Although the animals clearly represent sin barring man’s way
to God, the specific significance of the three animals is less clear.
Firstly, and most likely, they may represent three of the Seven
Deadly Sins – lust (lipard), pride (lion), and avarice (wolf).
Secondly, they could represent the major categories of sin in
Dante’s Hell: the lipard fraud, punished in the Eight and Ninth
Circles; the lion violence, punished in the Seventh Circle; and the
wolf, incontinence, punished in the Second to Fifth Circles. The
259
THE COMEDY: HELL
lipard is the animal needing most explanation. A lipard (lonza) is
a cross between a lion and leopardess. Such a hybrid union was
considered by the medieval mind as stemming from unnatural
lust. For example, in Purgatory, Canto 26, 41, the lustful penitents
cry out the name of Pasiphaë, who was mated by a bull to
produce the Minotaur. On the other hand, the dual nature of the
lipard may favour the explanation that it represents fraud,
particularly as in Canto 16, Geryon, the personification of fraud,
is lured to help the travellers by the use of a cord which Dante
says, retrospectively, he’d used ‘to capture the lipard with the
painted pelt’ (see Canto 16, 106-108). However, interestingly
enough, the First Pocket of the Eight Circle that Geryon takes
them to is the one that holds panders and seducers, who
deceived through lust. Hence, it could be argued that lust has a
two-faced nature too. However, the lipard could also represent
the ‘prostitute’ envy with his fancy coat (see note to Canto 13,
64-66), which is perhaps why Geryon has to be ‘lured’ from the
depths like a fish attracted by a fly. This may lead to a third
explanation: the lion represents pride, the lipard envy, and the
wolf now (see v. 50) the rest of the appetites (incontinence) – in
sum, all the Seven Deadly Sins!
As far as Dante is concerned, it’s the wolf that gives him the
most difficulty, forcing him eventually to abandon his attempt to
climb the hill (vv. 88-96).
37-40. Another temporal reference. The ‘Divine Love’ was
believed to have created the stars during the constellation of
Aries (March 21-April 19). It’s early morning in spring.
65. ‘Miserere’ – ‘Have mercy…’ (Psalm 51:1).
70. ‘sub Julio’ – in the time of Julius Caesar, i.e. 70 B.C. He was
‘late’ because Julius died in 44 B.C., before Virgil had written his
major works.
73-75. Aeneas was the son of Anchises, and the work is of
course the Aeneid. Virgil propagated in the Aeneid an old myth
that the Romans were descended from those Trojans who fled
Troy with Aeneas after the city was burnt down by the Greeks.
260
NOTES
77. The ‘charming mountain,’ the ‘hill’ of v. 13, now seems to
resemble Mt. Purgatory, which is topped by the delights of the
Garden of Eden (Purgatory, Canto 29, 30), the earthly paradise
and stepping stone to Heaven.
85-87. The stylistic relationship between Virgil’s Aeneid and
Dante’s Comedy is clear, but less so between Virgil and Dante’s
earlier work. Dante, however, believed the opposite was true.
100. Incontinence, or avarice, leads to crossover sins.
101-111. The identity of the virtuous ‘hound’ (veltro) that will
drive out incontinence/avarice in Italy is a much-discussed
point, exemplifying as with the three beasts the convoluted
ramifications of Dantean interpretation. Taking into account
similar prophesies in Purgatory and Paradise and Dante’s belief in
a politico-moral saviour for Italy, specifically an imperial one,
the most likely candidate is the much-admired imperial vicargeneral Can Grande della Scala, Ghibelline ruler of Verona
(1311-1329) – who sheltered Dante in exile and to whom Dante
dedicated Paradise – in particular because ‘Can’ = ‘dog’ and
Verona is between Feltre and Montefeltro.
106-108. Camilla, Euryalus, Turnus and Nisus died during the
Latin wars Aeneas fought in establishing a new race in Italy. The
veltro is a new Aeneas with a mission to regenerate the country.
111. Envy, like pride, appears throughout Hell (see ‘Introduction:
The moral structure of Hell’). It also causes other sins.
118-119. ‘those who’re content in the fire’ – those in Purgatory,
whose punishment is temporal. The souls have to go through a
fire on the Seventh Cornice to pass into the Garden of Eden.
121-126. Beatrice (‘worthier soul’) becomes Dante’s guide in the
Garden of Eden and throughout Heaven (see ‘Introduction: The
life of Dante’ for Beatrice). Virgil, because he was not a
Christian but worshipped pagan gods (‘rebelled against his law’),
cannot enter there. His home’s in the benign First Circle, Limbo.
261
THE COMEDY: HELL
Canto 2
1-3. Reminiscent of similar passages in the Aeneid, such as Book
8, 26-27 – ‘Nox erat et terras animalia fessa per omnis/alituum
pecudumque genus sopor altus habebat’ (‘It was night, and over
every land deep sleep held tired creatures, birds and beasts alike’).
It is now Good Friday evening, but unlike Christ Dante still has
doubts (vv. 10-36).
7. More classical touches – the traditional invocation of the poet
for divine inspiration, for which read the Christian God. There
are similar invocations in Purgatory and Paradise.
13-27. Dante saw the colonisation of Italy by Aeneas, and the
subsequent founding of Rome and its empire, as being by God’s
mandate. This allowed Rome then to become the chosen city for
the establishment of the papal authority. The role of Aeneas in
this regard is mentioned in both The Banquet and Monarchy.
According to Singleton, Dante’s use of the words ‘Tu dici’
(‘You say’) in v. 13 and ‘dai tu’ (‘you give’) in v. 25 implies that,
though he believes in a historical Aeneas, his journey to the
Underworld was a poetic fiction. This is not the case with Paul’s
journey, as the Scriptures were revealed truth.
13. ‘sire of Silvius’ – Aeneas was the father of Silvius.
16. ‘All Evil’s Foe’ – God.
20. ‘the Empyrean’ – the final heaven and abode of God (see
the map of Dante’s universe on page 352).
28. St. Paul is the ‘Chosen Vessel’ (Acts 9:15). He went to
Heaven whilst still alive (2 Corinthians 12:2-4) and, reputedly, as
described here, Hell (apocryphal Apocalypse of Paul).
52. ‘the ones suspended’ – the souls in the First Circle (Limbo)
because they are suspended between the punishments of Hell
and Purgatory and the delights of Heaven (see also Canto 4, 45.)
262
NOTES
70. Beatrice does not appear again until Canto 30 in Purgatory.
76-78. The phrase ‘the lesser circles’ heaven’ indicates the
Sphere of the Moon (see the map of Dante’s universe on page
352) because it encompasses two minor spheres of fire and air
below it. These minor spheres also surround the earth, hence,
everything ‘within’ the Sphere of the Moon, in this sense of its
compass, includes earth. So, the tercet seems to mean that
Beatrice’s virtue elevates the human race above its station.
84. ‘the vast place you burn to return to’ – the Empyrean, which
has no limits in space, and is cielo di fiamma (heaven of flame),
that is, metaphorically, Love.
94. ‘a genteel Lady’ – the Virgin Mary, seemingly in the court of
a medieval emperor (see also v. 125 and Canto 1, 124). The
word cortese (‘courtly’) is used three times (vv. 16, 58, 134),
highlighting the medieval value system permeating this canto.
97. ‘Lucy’ – St. Lucy, a symbol of ‘light,’ and patron of Dante.
102. ‘Rachel’ – sister of Leah in Genesis.
105. This perhaps refers to Dante’s change from the troubadourbased style of his early poems to a new, more spiritual style.
107-108. The ‘flood’ probably refers to Canto 1, 24-27, where
the pass is likened to a ‘parlous sea,’ a place no-one leaves alive
(as the ‘pass’ is a symbol, the sea literally has no hold over it).
The fateful pass also fits the situation as Dante is fighting death
during this conversation in the shape of the three beasts.
120. ‘the short route of the lovely mountain’ – straight up the
‘hill’ or ‘charming mountain’ of Canto 1. The longer route is
Dante’s trip through Hell.
124. ‘three such blessed ladies’ – typically, Dante has found
three virtues (the three ladies of love, pity, and kindness) to help
combat the three vices of the three beasts.
263
THE COMEDY: HELL
127-138. Although the dark wood, pass, valley, and desert slope
signify Dante’s moral decline, they’re also a transformational space
for him to resolve his doubts about which way to go.
Canto 3
1-9. Chaucer draws inspiration from Dante for a more benign
inscription above a portal in The Parliament of Fowls:
Thorgh me men goon in-to that blisful place
Of hertes hele and dedly woundes cure;
Thorgh me men goon unto the welle of Grace,
Ther grene and lusty May shal ever endure;
This is the wey to al good aventure;
Be glad, thou reder, and thy sorwe of-caste,
Al open am I; passe in, and hy the faste!
4-6. ‘Lofty Maker’ = God; ‘Divine Power’ = God the Father;
‘Wisdom Supreme’ = God the Son; ‘Primal Love’ = the Holy
Spirit. Based on St. Augustine’s De trinitate.
18. ‘good of the intellect’ – truth, according to Aristotle in
Nicomachean Ethics. God is Truth.
35-36. ’those who lived without disgrace yet without praise’ –
these are the ‘uncommitted,’ who are neither good or bad, so are
stuck following a directionless banner in this vestibule of Hell.
Just such a vestibule exists with similar ‘neutrals’ in the Apocalypse of Paul.
55-57. T. S. Eliot utilised this tercet in The Waste Land:
Under the brown fog of a winter dawn,
A crowd flowed over London Bridge, so many,
I had not thought death had undone so many.
59-60. ‘the shade who made through cowardice the Great
Refusal’ – this is thought to be Pope Celestine V, who abdicated
the papacy in favour of Pope Boniface VIII in 1294. Another
264
Maps
Dante’s Hell
Dante’s universe
List of plates
Dante in the dark wood
The lipard
Beatrice and Virgil
The gateway to Hell
Charon
The honourable folk in Limbo
Minos judging the dead
Paolo and Francesca
Ciacco and the gluttons
Pluto
The avaricious and prodigals
Filippo Argenti and the wrathful
The angel opens the gate of the city of Dis
Farinata
The tomb of Pope Anastasius
The Minotaur
The centaurs
The wood of suicides
The crossing over the fiery sands
Brunetto Latini
Geryon
Evilpockets – the panders and seducers
Evilpockets – the flatterers
Evilpockets – the simonists
The Evilclaws
The Navarrese escapes Harlequin
16
19
27
32
36
43
47
50
57
61
63
69
77
82
88
94
97
103
112
117
131
136
140
144
157
166
THE COMEDY: HELL
The hypocrites
Caiaphas
The thieves and serpents
Agnello and the serpent
Ulysses and Diomedes
Mohammed and Ali
Bertran de Born
The alchemists
Gianni Schicchi attacking Capocchio
The giants
Antaeus places Dante and Virgil in Cocytus
Dante grabs Bocca
Ugolino gnawing Ruggieri
Ugolino and his sons/grandsons in the tower
Satan
Dante and Virgil see the stars
354
171
174
180
186
192
205
209
214
220
229
232
237
240
244
249
255