The Divine Comedy

by Dante Alighieri

  no ocean can surpass for rage and fury?”

  No soul of earth was ever as rapt to seek

  its good or flee its injury as I was—

  when I had heard my sweet Lucia speak—

  to descend from Heaven and my blessed seat

  to you, laying my trust in that high speech

  that honors you and all who honor it.’

  She spoke and turned away to hide a tear

  that, shining, urged me faster. So I came

  and freed you from the beast that drove you there,

  blocking the near way to the Heavenly Height.

  And now what ails you? Why do you lag? Why

  this heartsick hesitation and pale fright

  when three such blessed Ladies lean from Heaven

  in their concern for you and my own pledge

  of the great good that waits you has been given?”

  As flowerlets drooped and puckered in the night

  turn up to the returning sun and spread

  their petals wide on his new warmth and light—

  just so my wilted spirits rose again

  and such a heat of zeal surged through my veins

  that I was born anew. Thus I began:

  “Blesséd be that Lady of infinite pity,

  and blesséd be thy taxed and courteous spirit

  that came so promptly on the word she gave thee.

  Thy words have moved my heart to its first purpose.

  My Guide! My Lord! My Master! Now lead on:

  one will shall serve the two of us in this.”

  He turned when I had spoken, and at his back

  I entered on that hard and perilous track.

  NOTES

  13-30. AENEAS AND THE FOUNDING OF ROME.

  Here is a fair example of the way in which Dante absorbed pagan themes into his Catholicism.

  According to Virgil, Aeneas is the son of mortal Anchises and of Venus. Venus, in her son’s interest, secures a prophecy and a promise from Jove to the effect that Aeneas is to found a royal line that shall rule the world. After the burning of Troy, Aeneas is directed by various signs to sail for the Latian lands (Italy) where his destiny awaits him. After many misadventures, he is compelled (like Dante) to descend to the underworld of the dead. There he finds his father’s shade, and there he is shown the shades of the great kings that are to stem from him. (Aeneid, VI, 921 ff.) Among them are Romulus, Julius Caesar, and Augustus Caesar. The full glory of the Roman Empire is also foreshadowed to him.

  Dante, however, continues the Virgilian theme and includes in the predestination not only the Roman Empire but the Holy Roman Empire and its Church. Thus what Virgil presented as an arrangement of Jove, a concession to the son of Venus, becomes part of the divine scheme of the Catholic God, and Aeneas is cast as a direct forerunner of Peter and Paul.

  13. father of Sylvius: Aeneas.

  51-52. I was a soul among the souls of Limbo: See Canto IV, lines 31-45, where Virgil explains his state in Hell.

  78. the heaven of the smallest circle: The Moon. “Heaven” here is used in its astronomical sense. All within that circle is the earth. According to the Ptolemaic system the earth was the center of creation and was surrounded by nine heavenly spheres (nine heavens) concentrically placed around it. The Moon was the first of these, and therefore the smallest. A cross section of this universe could be represented by drawing nine concentric circles (at varying distances about the earth as a center). Going outward from the center these circles would indicate, in order, the spheres ofThe Moon

  Mercury

  Venus

  The Sun

  Mars

  Jupiter

  Saturn

  The Fixed Stars

  The Primum Mobile

  Beyond the Primum Mobile lies the Empyrean.

  97. Lucia (Loo-TCHEE-yah): Allegorically she represents Divine Light. Her name in Italian inevitably suggests “luce” (light), and she is the patron saint of eyesight. By a process quite common in medieval religion, the special powers attributed to Lucia seem to have been suggested by her name rather than her history. (In France, by a similar process, St. Clair is the patroness of sight.)

  102. Rachel: Represents the Contemplative Life.

  A note on “thee” and “thou”: except for the quotations from the souls in Heaven, and for Dante’s fervent declamation to Virgil, I have insisted on “you” as the preferable pronoun form. I have used “thee” and “thou” in these cases with the idea that they might help to indicate the extraordinary elevation of the speakers and of the persons addressed.

  Canto III

  THE VESTIBULE OF HELL

  The Opportunists

  The Poets pass the Gate of Hell and are immediately assailed by cries of anguish. Dante sees the first of the souls in torment. They are THE OPPORTUNISTS, those souls who in life were neither for good nor evil but only for themselves. Mixed with them are those outcasts who took no sides in the Rebellion of the Angels. They are neither in Hell nor out of it. Eternally unclassified, they race round and round pursuing a wavering banner that runs forever before them through the dirty air; and as they run they are pursued by swarms of wasps and hornets, who sting them and produce a constant flow of blood and putrid matter which trickles down the bodies of the sinners and is feasted upon by loathsome worms and maggots who coat the ground.

  The law of Dante’s Hell is the law of symbolic retribution. As they sinned so are they punished. They took no sides, therefore they are given no place. As they pursued the ever-shifting illusion of their own advantage, changing their courses with every changing wind, so they pursue eternally an elusive, ever-shifting banner. As their sin was a darkness, so they move in darkness. As their own guilty conscience pursued them, so they are pursued by swarms of wasps and hornets. And as their actions were a moral filth, so they run eternally through the filth of worms and maggots which they themselves feed.

  Dante recognizes several, among them POPE CELESTINE V, but without delaying to speak to any of these souls, the Poets move on to ACHERON, the first of the rivers of Hell. Here the newly-arrived souls of the damned gather and wait for monstrous CHARON to ferry them over to punishment. Charon recognizes Dante as a living man and angrily refuses him passage. Virgil forces Charon to serve them, but Dante swoons with terror, and does not reawaken until he is on the other side.

  I AM THE WAY INTO THE CITY OF WOE.

  I AM THE WAY TO A FORSAKEN PEOPLE.

  I AM THE WAY INTO ETERNAL SORROW.

  SACRED JUSTICE MOVED MY ARCHITECT.

  I WAS RAISED HERE BY DIVINE OMNIPOTENCE,

  PRIMORDIAL LOVE AND ULTIMATE INTELLECT.

  ONLY THOSE ELEMENTS TIME CANNOT WEAR

  WERE MADE BEFORE ME, AND BEYOND TIME I STAND.

  ABANDON ALL HOPE YE WHO ENTER HERE.

  These mysteries I read cut into stone

  above a gate. And turning I said: “Master,

  what is the meaning of this harsh inscription?”

  And he then as initiate to novice:

  “Here must you put by all division of spirit

  and gather your soul against all cowardice.

  This is the place I told you to expect.

  Here you shall pass among the fallen people,

  souls who have lost the good of intellect.”

  So saying, he put forth his hand to me,

  and with a gentle and encouraging smile

  he led me through the gate of mystery.

  Here sighs and cries and wails coiled and recoiled

  on the starless air, spilling my soul to tears.

  A confusion of tongues and monstrous accents toiled

  in pain and anger. Voices hoarse and shrill

  and sounds of blows, all intermingled, raised

  tumult and pandemonium that still

  whirls on the air forever dirty with it

  as if a whirlwind sucked at sand. And I,

  holding my head in horror, cried:

  “Sweet Spirit
,

  what souls are these who run through this black haze?”

  And he to me: ”These are the nearly soulless

  whose lives concluded neither blame nor praise.

  They are mixed here with that despicable corps

  of angels who were neither for God nor Satan,

  but only for themselves. The High Creator

  scourged them from Heaven for its perfect beauty,

  and Hell will not receive them since the wicked

  might feel some glory over them.” And I:

  “Master, what gnaws at them so hideously

  their lamentation stuns the very air?”

  “They have no hope of death,” he answered me,

  “and in their blind and unattaining state

  their miserable lives have sunk so low

  that they must envy every other fate.

  No word of them survives their living season.

  Mercy and Justice deny them even a name.

  Let us not speak of them: look, and pass on.”

  I saw a banner there upon the mist.

  Circling and circling, it seemed to scorn all pause.

  So it ran on, and still behind it pressed

  a never-ending rout of souls in pain.

  I had not thought death had undone so many

  as passed before me in that mournful train.

  And some I knew among them; last of all

  I recognized the shadow of that soul

  who, in his cowardice, made the Great Denial.

  At once I understood for certain: these were of that retrograde and faithless crew hateful to God and to His enemies.

  These wretches never born and never dead

  ran naked in a swarm of wasps and hornets

  that goaded them the more the more they fled,

  and made their faces stream with bloody gouts

  of pus and tears that dribbled to their feet

  to be swallowed there by loathsome worms and maggots.

  Then looking onward I made out a throng

  assembled on the beach of a wide river,

  whereupon I turned to him: “Master, I long

  to know what souls these are, and what strange usage

  makes them as eager to cross as they seem to be

  in this infected light.” At which the Sage:

  “All this shall be made known to you when we stand

  on the joyless beach of Acheron.” And I

  cast down my eyes, sensing a reprimand

  in what he said, and so walked at his side

  in silence and ashamed until we came

  through the dead cavern to that sunless tide.

  There, steering toward us in an ancient ferry

  came an old man with a white bush of hair,

  bellowing: ”Woe to you depraved souls! Bury

  here and forever all hope of Paradise:

  I come to lead you to the other shore,

  into eternal dark, into fire and ice.

  And you who are living yet, I say begone

  from these who are dead.” But when he saw me stand

  against his violence he began again:

  “By other windings and by other steerage

  shall you cross to that other shore. Not here! Not here!

  A lighter craft than mine must give you passage.”

  And my Guide to him: “Charon, bite back your spleen:

  this has been willed where what is willed must be,

  and is not yours to ask what it may mean.”

  The steersman of that marsh of ruined souls,

  who wore a wheel of flame around each eye,

  stifled the rage that shook his woolly jowls.

  But those unmanned and naked spirits there

  turned pale with fear and their teeth began to chatter

  at sound of his crude bellow. In despair

  they blasphemed God, their parents, their time on earth,

  the race of Adam, and the day and the hour

  and the place and the seed and the womb that gave them birth.

  But all together they drew to that grim shore

  where all must come who lose the fear of God.

  Weeping and cursing they come for evermore,

  and demon Charon with eyes like burning coals

  herds them in, and with a whistling oar

  flails on the stragglers to his wake of souls.

  As leaves in autumn loosen and stream down

  until the branch stands bare above its tatters

  spread on the rustling ground, so one by one

  the evil seed of Adam in its Fall

  cast themselves, at his signal, from the shore

  and streamed away like birds who hear their call.

  So they are gone over that shadowy water,

  and always before they reach the other shore

  a new noise stirs on this, and new throngs gather.

  “My son,” the courteous Master said to me,

  “all who die in the shadow of God’s wrath

  converge to this from every clime and country.

  And all pass over eagerly, for here

  Divine Justice transforms and spurs them so

  their dread turns wish: they yearn for what they fear.

  No soul in Grace comes ever to this crossing;

  therefore if Charon rages at your presence

  you will understand the reason for his cursing.”

  When he had spoken, all the twilight country

  shook so violently, the terror of it

  bathes me with sweat even in memory:

  the tear-soaked ground gave out a sigh of wind

  that spewed itself in flame on a red sky,

  and all my shattered senses left me. Blind,

  like one whom sleep comes over in a swoon,

  I stumbled into darkness and went down.

  NOTES

  7-8. Only those elements time cannot wear: The Angels, the Empyrean, and the First Matter are the elements time cannot wear, for they will last to all time. Man, however, in his mortal state, is not eternal. The Gate of Hell, therefore, was created before man. The theological point is worth attention. The doctrine of Original Sin is, of course, one familiar to many creeds. Here, however, it would seem that the preparation for damnation predates Original Sin. True, in one interpretation, Hell was created for the punishment of the Rebellious Angels and not for man. Had man not sinned, he would never have known Hell. But on the other hand, Dante’s God was one who knew all, and knew therefore that man would indeed sin. The theological problem is an extremely delicate one.

  It is significant, however, that having sinned, man lives out his days on the rind of Hell, and that damnation is forever below his feet. This central concept of man’s sinfulness, and, opposed to it, the doctrine of Christ’s ever-abounding mercy, are central to all of Dante’s theology. Only as man surrenders himself to Divine Love may he hope for salvation, and salvation is open to all who will surrender themselves.

  8. and beyond time I stand: So odious is sin to God that there can be no end to its just punishment.

  9. Abandon all hope ye who enter here: The admonition, of course, is to the damned and not to those who come on Heaven-sent errands. The Harrowing of Hell (see Canto IV, note to l. 53) provided the only exemption from this decree, and that only through the direct intercession of Christ.

  57. who, in his cowardice, made the Great Denial: This is almost certainly intended to be Celestine V, who became Pope in 1294. He was a man of saintly life, but allowed himself to be convinced by a priest named Benedetto that his soul was in danger since no man could live in the world without being damned. In fear for his soul he withdrew from all worldly affairs and renounced the Papacy. Benedetto promptly assumed the mantle himself and became Boniface VIII, a Pope who became for Dante a symbol of all the worst corruptions of the Church. Dante also blamed Boniface and his intrigues for many of the evils that befell Florence. We shall learn in Canto XIX that the fires of
Hell are waiting for Boniface in the pit of the Simoniacs, and we shall be given further evidence of his corruption in Canto XXVII. Celestine’s great guilt is that his cowardice (in selfish terror for his own welfare) served as the door through which so much evil entered the Church.

  80. an old man: Charon. He is the ferryman of dead souls across the Acheron in all classical mythology.

  88-90. By other windings: Charon recognizes Dante not only as a living man but as a soul in grace, and knows, therefore, that the Infernal Ferry was not intended for him. He is probably referring to the fact that souls destined for Purgatory and Heaven assemble not at his ferry point, but on the banks of the Tiber, from which they are transported by an Angel.