The Divine Comedy

by Dante Alighieri

  100. they blasphemed God: The souls of the damned are not permitted to repent, for repentance is a divine grace.

  123. they yearn for what they fear: Hell (allegorically Sin) is what the souls of the damned really wish for. Hell is their actual and deliberate choice, for divine grace is denied to none who wish for it in their hearts. The damned must, in fact, deliberately harden their hearts to God in order to become damned. Christ’s grace is sufficient to save all who wish for it.

  133-134. DANTE’S SWOON. This device (repeated at the end of Canto V) serves a double purpose. The first is technical: Dante uses it to cover a transition. We are never told how he crossed Acheron, for that would involve certain narrative matters he can better deal with when he crosses Styx in Canto VII. The second is to provide a point of departure for a theme that is carried through the entire descent: the theme of Dante’s emotional reaction to Hell. These two swoons early in the descent show him most susceptible to the grief about him. As he descends, pity leaves him, and he even goes so far as to add to the torments of one sinner. The allegory is clear: we must harden ourselves against every sympathy for sin.

  Canto IV

  CIRCLE ONE: LIMBO

  The Virtuous Pagans

  Dante wakes to find himself across Acheron. The Poets are now on the brink of Hell itself, which Dante conceives as a great funnel-shaped cave lying below the northern hemisphere with its bottom point at the earth’s center. Around this great circular depression runs a series of ledges, each of which Dante calls a CIRCLE. Each circle is assigned to the punishment of one category of sin.

  As soon as Dante’s strength returns, the Poets begin to cross the FIRST CIRCLE. Here they find the VIRTUOUS PAGANS. They were born without the light of Christ’s revelation, and, therefore, they cannot come into the light of God, but they are not tormented. Their only pain is that they have no hope.

  Ahead of them Dante sights a great dome of light, and a voice trumpets through the darkness welcoming Virgil back, for this is his eternal place in Hell. Immediately the great Poets of all time appear—HOMER, HORACE, OVID, and LUCAN. They greet Virgil, and they make Dante a sixth in their company.

  With them Dante enters the Citadel of Human Reason and sees before his eyes the Master Souls of Pagan Antiquity gathered on a green, and illuminated by the radiance of Human Reason. This is the highest state man can achieve without God, and the glory of it dazzles Dante, but he knows also that it is nothing compared to the glory of God.

  A monstrous clap of thunder broke apart

  the swoon that stuffed my head; like one awakened

  by violent hands, I leaped up with a start.

  And having risen; rested and renewed,

  I studied out the landmarks of the gloom

  to find my bearings there as best I could.

  And I found I stood on the very brink of the valley

  called the Dolorous Abyss, the desolate chasm

  where rolls the thunder of Hell’s eternal cry, so depthless-deep and nebulous and dim

  that stare as I might into its frightful pit

  it gave me back no feature and no bottom.

  Death-pale, the Poet spoke: “Now let us go

  into the blind world waiting here below us.

  I will lead the way and you shall follow.”

  And I, sick with alarm at his new pallor,

  cried out, “How can I go this way when you

  who are my strength in doubt turn pale with terror?”

  And he: “The pain of these below us here,

  drains the color from my face for pity,

  and leaves this pallor you mistake for fear.

  Now let us go, for a long road awaits us.”

  So he entered and so he led me in

  to the first circle and ledge of the abyss.

  No tortured wailing rose to greet us here

  but sounds of sighing rose from every side,

  sending a tremor through the timeless air,

  a grief breathed out of untormented sadness,

  the passive state of those who dwelled apart,

  men, women, children—a dim and endless congress.

  And the Master said to me: “You do not question

  what souls these are that suffer here before you?

  I wish you to know before you travel on

  that these were sinless. And still their merits fail,

  for they lacked Baptism’s grace, which is the door

  of the true faith you were born to. Their birth fell

  before the age of the Christian mysteries,

  and so they did not worship God’s Trinity

  in fullest duty. I am one of these.

  For such defects are we lost, though spared the fire

  and suffering Hell in one affliction only:

  that without hope we live on in desire.”

  I thought how many worthy souls there were

  suspended in that Limbo, and a weight

  closed on my heart for what the noblest suffer.

  “Instruct me, Master and most noble Sir,”

  I prayed him then, “better to understand

  the perfect creed that conquers every error:

  has any, by his own or another’s merit,

  gone ever from this place to blessedness?”

  He sensed my inner question and answered it:

  “I was still new to this estate of tears

  when a Mighty One descended here among us,

  crowned with the sign of His victorious years.

  He took from us the shade of our first parent,

  of Abel, his pure son, of ancient Noah,

  of Moses, the bringer of law, the obedient.

  Father Abraham, David the King,

  Israel with his father and his children,

  Rachel, the holy vessel of His blessing,

  and many more He chose for elevation

  among the elect. And before these, you must know,

  no human soul had ever won salvation.”

  We had not paused as he spoke, but held our road

  and passed meanwhile beyond a press of souls

  crowded about like trees in a thick wood.

  And we had not traveled far from where I woke

  when I made out a radiance before us

  that struck away a hemisphere of dark.

  We were still some distance back in the long night,

  yet near enough that I half-saw, half-sensed,

  what quality of souls lived in that light.

  “O ornament of wisdom and of art,

  what souls are these whose merit lights their way

  even in Hell. What joy sets them apart?”

  And he to me: “The signature of honor

  they left on earth is recognized in Heaven

  and wins them ease in Hell out of God’s favor.”

  And as he spoke a voice rang on the air:

  “Honor the Prince of Poets; the soul and glory

  that went from us returns. He is here! He is here!”

  The cry ceased and the echo passed from hearing;

  I saw four mighty presences come toward us

  with neither joy nor sorrow in their bearing.

  “Note well,” my Master said as they came on,

  “that soul that leads the rest with sword in hand

  as if he were their captain and champion.

  It is Homer, singing master of the earth.

  Next after him is Horace, the satirist,

  Ovid is third, and Lucan is the fourth.

  Since all of these have part in the high name

  the voice proclaimed, calling me Prince of Poets,

  the honor that they do me honors them.”

  So I saw gathered at the edge of light

  the masters of that highest school whose song

  outsoars all others like an eagle’s flight.

  And after they had talked together a while,

  they turned and welcomed me most graciously,


  at which I saw my approving Master smile.

  And they honored me far beyond courtesy,

  for they included me in their own number,

  making me sixth in that high company.

  So we moved toward the light, and as we passed

  we spoke of things as well omitted here

  as it was sweet to touch on there. At last

  we reached the base of a great Citadel

  circled by seven towering battlements

  and by a sweet brook flowing round them all.

  This we passed over as if it were firm ground.

  Through seven gates I entered with those sages

  and came to a green meadow blooming round.

  There with a solemn and majestic poise

  stood many people gathered in the light,

  speaking infrequently and with muted voice.

  Past that enameled green we six withdrew

  into a luminous and open height

  from which each soul among them stood in view.

  And there directly before me on the green

  the master souls of time were shown to me.

  I glory in the glory I have seen!

  Electra stood in a great company

  among whom I saw Hector and Aeneas

  and Caesar in armor with his falcon’s eye.

  I saw Camilla, and the Queen Amazon

  across the field. I saw the Latian King

  seated there with his daughter by his throne.

  And the good Brutus who overthrew the Tarquin:

  Lucrezia, Julia, Marcia, and Cornelia;

  and, by himself apart, the Saladin.

  And raising my eyes a little I saw on high

  Aristotle, the master of those who know,

  ringed by the great souls of philosophy.

  All wait upon him for their honor and his.

  I saw Socrates and Plato at his side

  before all others there. Democritus

  who ascribes the world to chance, Diogenes,

  and with him there Thales, Anaxagoras,

  Zeno, Heraclitus, Empedocles.

  And I saw the wise collector and analyst—

  Dioscorides I mean. I saw Orpheus there,

  Tully, Linus, Seneca the moralist,

  Euclid the geometer, and Ptolemy,

  Hippocrates, Galen, Avicenna,

  and Averroës of the Great Commentary.

  I cannot count so much nobility;

  my longer theme pursues me so that often

  the word falls short of the reality.

  The company of six is reduced by four.

  My Master leads me by another road

  out of that serenity to the roar

  and trembling air of Hell. I pass from light

  into the kingdom of eternal night.

  NOTES

  13 ff. death-pale: Virgil is most likely affected here by the return to his own place in Hell. “The pain of these below” then (line 19) would be the pain of his own group in Limbo (the Virtuous Pagans) rather than the total of Hell’s suffering.

  31 ff. You do not question: A master touch of characterization. Virgil’s amour pro-pre is a bit piqued at Dante’s lack of curiosity about the position in Hell of Virgil’s own kind. And it may possibly be, by allegorical extension, that Human Reason must urge the soul to question the place of reason. The allegorical point is conjectural, but such conjecture is certainly one of the effects inherent in the use of allegory; when well used, the central symbols of the allegory continue indefinitely to suggest new interpretations and shades of meaning.

  53. a Mighty One: Christ. His name is never directly uttered in Hell.

  53. descended here: The legend of the Harrowing of Hell is Apocryphal. It is based on I Peter, iii, 19: “He went and preached unto the spirits in prison.” The legend is that Christ in the glory of His resurrection descended into Limbo and took with Him to Heaven the first human souls to be saved. The event would, accordingly, have occurred in A.D. 33 or 34. Virgil died in 19 B.C.

  102. making me sixth in that high company: Merit and self-awareness of merit may well be a higher thing than modesty. An additional point Dante may well have had in mind, however, is the fact that he saw himself as one pledged to continue in his own times the classic tradition represented by these poets.

  103-105. These lines amount to a stylistic note. It is good style (’l tacere è bello where bello equals “good style”) to omit this discussion, since it would digress from the subject and, moreover, his point is already made. Every great narrator tends to tell his story from climax to climax. There are times on the other hand when Dante delights in digression. (See General Note to Canto XX.)

  106. A GREAT CITADEL. The most likely allegory is that the Citadel represents philosophy (that is, human reason without the light of God) surrounded by seven walls which represent the seven liberal arts, or the seven sciences, or the seven virtues. Note that Human Reason makes a light of its own, but that it is a light in darkness and forever separated from the glory of God’s light. The sweet brook flowing round them all has been interpreted in many ways. Clearly fundamental, however, is the fact that it divides those in the Citadel (those who wish to know) from those in the outer darkness.

  109. as if it were firm ground: Since Dante still has his body, and since all others in Hell are incorporeal shades, there is a recurring narrative problem in the Inferno (and through the rest of the Commedia): how does flesh act in contact with spirit? In the Purgatorio Dante attempts to embrace the spirit of Casella and his arms pass through him as if he were empty air. In the Third Circle, below (Canto VI, 34-36), Dante steps on some of the spirits lying in the slush and his foot passes right through them. (The original lines offer several possible readings of which I have preferred this one.) And at other times Virgil, also a spirit, picks Dante up and carries him bodily.

  It is clear, too, that Dante means the spirits of Hell to be weightless. When Virgil steps into Phlegyas’ bark (Canto VIII) it does not settle into the water, but it does when Dante’s living body steps aboard. There is no narrative reason why Dante should not sink into the waters of this stream and Dante follows no fixed rule in dealing with such phenomena, often suiting the physical action to the allegorical need. Here, the moat probably symbolizes some requirement (The Will to Know) which he and the other poets meet without difficulty.

  THE INHABITANTS OF THE CITADEL. They fall into three main groups:

  1. The heroes and heroines: All of these it must be noted were associated with the Trojans and their Roman descendants. (See note on AENEAS AND THE FOUNDING OF ROME, Canto II.) The Electra Dante mentions here is not the sister of Orestes (see Euripides’ Electra) but the daughter of Atlas and the mother of Dardanus, the founder of Troy.

  2. The philosophers: Most of this group is made up of philosophers whose teachings were, at least in part, acceptable to Church scholarship. Democritus, however, “who ascribes the world to chance,” would clearly be an exception. The group is best interpreted, therefore, as representing the highest achievements of Human Reason unaided by Divine Love. Plato and Aristotle: Through a considerable part of the Middle Ages Plato was held to be the fountainhead of all scholarship, but in Dante’s time practically all learning was based on Aristotelian theory as interpreted through the many commentaries. Linus: the Italian is “Lino” and for it some commentators read “Livio” (Livy).

  3. The naturalists: They are less well known today. In Dante’s time their place in scholarship more or less corresponded to the role of the theoretician and historian of science in our universities. Avicenna (his major work was in the eleventh century) and Averroës (twelfth century) were Arabian philosophers and physicians especially famous in Dante’s time for their commentaries on Aristotle. Great Commentary: has the force of a title, i.e., The Great Commentary as distinguished from many lesser commentaries.

  The Saladin: This is the famous Saladin who was defeated by Richard the Lion-Heart, and whose great qualities as a ruler
became a legend in medieval Europe.

  Canto V

  CIRCLE TWO

  The Carnal

  The Poets leave Limbo and enter the SECOND CIRCLE. Here begin the torments of Hell proper, and here, blocking the way, sits MINOS, the dread and semi-bestial judge of the damned who assigns to each soul its eternal torment. He orders the Poets back; but Virgil silences him as he earlier silenced Charon, and the Poets move on.

  They find themselves on a dark ledge swept by a great whirlwind, which spins within it the souls of the CARNAL, those who betrayed reason to their appetites. Their sin was to abandon themselves to the tempest of their passions: so they are swept forever in the tempest of Hell, forever denied the light of reason and of God. Virgil identifies many among them. SEMIRAMIS is there, and DIDO, CLEOPATRA, HELEN, ACHILLES, PARIS, and TRISTAN. Dante sees PAOLO and FRANCESCA swept together, and in the name of love he calls to them to tell their sad story. They pause from their eternal flight to come to him, and Francesca tells their history while Paolo weeps at her side. Dante is so stricken by compassion at their tragic tale that he swoons once again.