^^^^^^^^^^
DANTE ALIGHIERI:  THE AUTHOR AND HIS TIMES

  Have you ever spent long hours fantasizing some horrible
punishment for a person who has done something bad to you?  The
torture must be perfect:  painful, yet relating somehow to the
specific wrong the person has done you. 

  Carry that fantasy to another level.  Imagine everyone, past
and present, good and bad, getting, finally, exactly what he or
she deserves. 

  Back in the early 1300s in Italy, a man carried through with
that fantasy--on paper, of course.  He literally told everyone
where to go, Hell, Purgatory, or Heaven, and went on to design
specific punishments or rewards based on the life each person
led.  He laid them all end to end and then made himself a
character (actually a not-too-bright lost soul) who walks the
entire length of the universe. 

  The work is called the Divine Comedy.  The author is Dante
Alighieri. 

  Dante was born in Florence, Italy, in 1265.  This would be
one of those meaningless, soon forgotten facts if it were not so
significant for the works Dante produced.  It happened to be the
wrong place at the wrong time. 

  At the time of Dante's birth, Florence was a prosperous
city-state, full of greedy merchants, dedicated scholars, and
warring political factions.  The two most influential families
in Florence were the Guelphs and the Ghibellines.  The Guelphs
were supporters of the Pope and the Ghibellines supported the
German emperor, who claimed power in Italy.  Shortly before
Dante was born, the Ghibellines were ousted from power, and the
Guelphs, with whom Dante's family was associated, took power. 

  Dante began his own political career in 1295 when the Guelphs
were firmly established and many of the Ghibellines were still
in exile.  At that time, however, a split began in the Guelphs;
the two sides became known later as the Whites and the Blacks.
The crisis came to a head in 1300 when the Whites, who were in
power, decided to prosecute the Blacks who had gone to Rome to
ask the Pope to intervene on their behalf.  (Remember, the
Guelphs had backed the Pope--he owed them a favor.) Dante was
one of the six White leaders responsible for this decision.  In
1301, the next year, the Blacks staged a successful coup and the
White leaders, including Dante, were sent into exile.  In 1302,
charged with graft, hostility against the Pope, and a long list
of other crimes, in his absence Dante was sentenced to death--if
he was ever caught in Florence again. 

  Consequently, Dante never returned to his home city.  This
exile also meant that Dante's fortunes, which were not as large
as his family had once held, were confiscated.  He spent the
remainder of his life living at the expense and generosity of
friends.  He died in Ravenna in 1321. 

  Dante's private life is less well defined than his public
affairs.  He was betrothed to Gemma Donati in 1277 (remember he
would have been twelve then!) whom he later married.  There were
three children:  Jacopo, Pietro, and Antonia.  (Some of the
historians mention a fourth, Giovanni.) When Dante's sons were
fourteen, they also had to join their father in exile.  Both
Jacopo and Pietro later wrote about the Divine Comedy.  Antonia
entered a convent and took the name Sister Beatrice. 

  Dante wrote the Divine Comedy while he was in exile.  He
finished the first part, the Inferno, in 1314 and the final
cantos of the Paradiso in 1320.  The title of the entire work is
The Comedy of Dante Alighieri, Florentine by Citizenship, Not by
Morals. 

  Dante was a man who lived, who saw political and artistic
success, and who was in love.  He was also a man who was
defeated, who felt the danger and humiliation of exile, and who
was no stranger to the cruelty and treachery possible in people.
Dante felt that he was the victim of a grave injustice.  He also
suffered serious self-doubts--natural for a man in exile and
eternally dependent.  Remembering all this about Dante, we can
see his work as the sum of all these experiences and his answers
to the basic human questions:  What is man?  Why does he act as
he does?  What is Good and what is Evil?  When it so often looks
like "Good guys finish last," why should anyone be good? 

  You are probably saying, "So what?" at this point.  But
trying to understand a work of literature is often a lot like
trying to understand other people.  You have to figure out where
they are coming from and what makes them tick.  Dante comes from
a medieval Roman Catholic background, and that is extremely
important for the Divine Comedy. 

  What if a reader is not a Catholic or a Christian?  What
about a 20th-century reader who doesn't know medieval history?
Can that person still understand the poem, or will the religious
and medieval aspects get in the way?  Obviously, we can't
promise there will never be a problem, but the work has been
read all over the world for centuries. 

  After all, when you read science fiction, you accept that
certain aliens may have certain amazing powers, or that a
particular planet has different scientific laws than we have on
earth.  Science fiction authors use those unusual, supernatural
possibilities as elements of their plots.  So, too, Dante uses
the concepts and symbols accepted in his age and his religion as
elements around which to structure his story.  You don't have to
believe they are true in order to appreciate how they work in
the poem.  Let's examine some of the concepts Dante inherited
from 14th-century Italy's way of thinking. 

  One feature of Dante's vision of the universe is the concept
of polarities:  two extreme opposites, between which people were
pulled.  To Dante, many aspects of his world were polar in
nature: 

  1.  There was a power struggle between the Church and State,
represented by the Pope and the German emperor. 

  2.  There was a struggle for intellectual authority between
theology (the study of religion and the Bible) and philosophy
(which included science and mathematics).  Dante himself was a
heavy borrower from both sides and quoted such diverse sources
as the Greek philosophers Aristotle and Plato, or the Christian
thinkers St.  Augustine and St.  Thomas Aquinas. 

  3.  Man was considered to fall halfway between the animals
and the angels, and was therefore torn between the brutish and
the angelic sides of his nature. 

  4.  Dante also felt that writing should reflect a balance
between the ideas and the realities of a man's life, so we see
him moving between two different aesthetic approaches in his
poetry:  personal realism and symbolism in allegory.  Dante also
challenged the accepted practice, which was to write about ideas
in Latin and more mundane matters in the vernacular language
(for him, Italian).  He wrote the Comedy in Italian. 

  Dante's religion told him there were three worlds in the
afterlife:  Hell, Purgatory, and Heaven.  How does someone go
about describing what no one has ever seen--life after death?
Where are these places and what are they like?  To answer these
questions, Dante borrowed from science and, again, the religion
of his day. 

  For Dante, both the physical and the spiritual worlds were
set up as a hierarchy, leading up to God.  Basically, what this
means is that everything starts with God and exists in layers
radiating outwards from Him. 

  Dante's idea of the physical universe follows the design of
the astronomer Ptolemy, who taught that the earth is the center
of the universe and that the following nine levels surround and
rotate around the earth: 

  1.  Moon 

  2.  Mercury 

  3.  Venus 

  4.  Sun 

  5.  Mars 

  6.  Jupiter 

  7.  Saturn 

  8.  Starry Heaven 

  9.  Crystalline Heaven (prime mobile) 

  Surrounding all and immobile is the Empyrean, home of God. 

  On the spiritual level, Dante's universe is set up so that
the more God-like you are, the closer your eternal resting place
will be to Him.  Hell, then, is in the center of the earth, the
farthest point from God.  Purgatory is a mountain on the earth
and Heaven is close to God. 

  Dante called his work simply the Comedy; later readers added
the word divine because the work deals with God and Satan, sin
and the afterlife.  The Inferno is Dante-the-pilgrim's journey
through Hell.  The scenes he encounters there are as bizarre as
anything we might see in a horror film or science fiction
fantasy.  There's a huge cast of characters, drawn from the
Bible, from Greek mythology, and from the Italian politics of
Dante's own day. 

  The poem is more than a supernatural travelogue, however.  As
you will see, it is also a journey through the human spirit,
from the depths of evil to the heights of enlightenment. 

^^^^^^^^^^
DIVINE COMEDY:  THE INFERNO:  THE PLOT 

  The story line of the Inferno, quite simply, is Dante's
journey through Hell.  He starts at the top and walks through to
the bottom.  The specifics, who he meets and what he sees, are
discussed in the section of this guide called The Story. 

  If you look at the map of Dante's Hell, you will get some
idea of the major divisions and what kind of sinners are
contained in each division. 

^^^^^^^^^^
DIVINE COMEDY:  THE INFERNO:  A MAP OF DANTE'S
HELL 

  VESTIBULE:  Uncommitted 

  Acheron 

  CIRCLE I:  Limbo 

  CIRCLE II:  Lustful 

  CIRCLE III:  Gluttonous 

  CIRCLE IV:  Hoarders and Spendthrifts 

  CIRCLE V:  Styx 

  Wrathful and Sullen 

^^^^^^^^^^
DIVINE COMEDY:  THE INFERNO:  WALL OF DIS 

  CIRCLE VI:  Heretics 

  CIRCLE VII:  Phlegethon 

  Violent against Neighbors 

  Violent against Self 

  Violent against God, Nature and Art 

  Cliff of the Abyss 

  CIRCLE VIII:  Malbowges 

  i.  Panderers and Seducers 

  ii.  Flatterers 

  iii.  Simoniacs 

  iv.  Sorcerers 

  v.  Barrators 

  vi.  Hypocrites 

  vii.  Thieves 

  viii.  Counselors of Fraud 

  ix.  Sowers of Discord 

  x.  Falsifiers 

^^^^^^^^^^
DIVINE COMEDY:  THE INFERNO:  WALL OF GIANTS 

  CIRCLE IX:  Cocytus 

  Caina:  Traitors to Kin 

  Antenora:  Traitors to Country 

  Ptolomea:  Traitors to Guests 

  Judecca:  Traitors to Masters 

^^^^^^^^^^
DIVINE COMEDY:  THE INFERNO:  SATAN 

  The overview, listed in chart form below, is intended to help
you keep track of where you are geographically as you go through
the individual Cantos. 

  Reading through the overviews and looking at the map is good
preparation for what you are about to read.  It can also serve
as a refresher in your review, reminding you of what was
where. 

^^^^^^^^^^
DIVINE COMEDY:  THE INFERNO:  AN OVERVIEW OF EVENTS
IN THE INFERNO 

  Section of Hell Corresponding Canto(s) 

  and its Sinners 

  Canto I:  Dante is Lost in the Dark 

  Wood 

  Canto II:  Virgil explains how he was 

  sent to be Dante's guide. 

  Vestibule Canto III:  Dante reads the 

  Acheron (first inscription over the gateway of 

  river of Hell) Hell and meets Charon, the 

  gate-keeper of Hell. 

  Circle I:  Limbo Canto IV:  Dante visits the home of 

  the Virtuous Pagans. 

  Circle II:  Lustful Canto V:  Dante meets two lovers, 

  Paolo and Francesca. 

  Circle III:  Gluttonous Canto VI:  Dante sees the
Gluttonous 

  mauled by Cerberus, the watchdog of 

  Hell. 

  Circle IV:  Hoarders and Canto VII:  These teams of sinners 

  Spendthrifts roll huge rocks against each other. 

  River Styx Canto VIII:  Phylegas ferries Dante 

  Circle V:  Wrathful and across; Dante is accosted by a 

  Sullen sinner. 

  Wall of Dis Canto IX:  The Furies threaten to show 

  Dante and Virgil the dreaded head 

  of Medusa; Dante and Virgil are 

  stopped by the Fallen Angels. 

  Circle VI:  Heretics Canto X:  Dante speaks to a Heretic in 

  his burning coffin. 

  Canto XI:  Virgil explains the 

  geography of Hell to Dante. 

  Circle VII:  Phlegethon Canto XII:  Dante sees the Violent 

  (river of blood) boiled in blood. 

  Violent against Neighbors Canto XIII:  Dante speaks with a 

  suicide housed in a thorny tree. 

  Violent against Themselves Canto XIV:  The sinners writhe on
the 

  Burning Sands. 

  Violent against God, Nature, Canto XV:  Dante's former
teacher 

  and Art predicts Dante's future. 

  Abyss Canto XVI:  Dante and Virgil search 

  for help down the cliff. 

  Canto XVII:  The monster Geryon moves 

  the poets to the Nether Hell II. 

  Circle VIII:  Malbowges Canto XVIII:  Dante sees the
Panderers 

  (Sins of Fraud) and Seducers whipped and the 

  bowge i:  Panderers and Flatterers wallowing in a trench of 

  Seducers excrement. 

  bowge ii:  Flatterers 

  bowge iii:  Simoniacs Canto XIX:  The sinners suffer a 

  perverse upside-down baptism. 

  bowge iv:  Sorcerers Canto XX:  Dante cries over the 

  twisted sinners and is rebuked by 

  Virgil. 

  bowge v:  Barrators Canto XXI:  Dante sees the Barrators 

  plunged in boiling pitch. 

  Canto XXII:  A Barrator tricks a 

  demon-guard and causes confusion. 

  bowge vi:  Hypocrites Canto XXIII:  Hypocrites walk in 

  lead-lined cloaks. 

  bowge vii:  Thieves Canto XXIV:  Dante sees a Thief 

  reduced to ashes by an attacking 

  snake. 

  Canto XXV:  The Thieves suffer strange 

  metamorphoses. 

  bowge viii:  Counselors Canto XXVI:  Counselors of Fraud
are 

  of Fraud wrapped in sheets of flame. 

  Canto XXVII:  One of the sinners, 

  Ulysses, tells his story. 

  bowge ix:  Sowers of Canto XXVIII:  Dante sees these 

  Discord sinners hacked apart. 

  bowge x:  Falsifiers Canto XXIX:  The Falsifiers are 

  stricken with hideous diseases. 

  Canto XXX:  Virgil rebukes Dante for 

  enjoying a fight between two 

  sinners. 

  Wall of Giants Canto XXXI:  Dante sees the Giants and 

  is lifted into the bottom of the 

  Pit by one of them. 

  Circle IX:  Lake of Cocytus Canto XXXII:  The Traitors are
frozen 

  in the lake; Dante accidentally 

  Traitors to Kin kicks one. 

  Traitors to Country Canto XXXIII:  Dante sees one sinner 

  chewing another and hears a 

  Traitors to Guests horrible story of treachery. 

  Traitors to Masters Canto XXXIV:  Dante sees the triple- 

  faced Satan chewing on Judas, 

  Cassius, and Brutus. 

^^^^^^^^^^
DIVINE COMEDY:  THE INFERNO:  DANTE 

  Why does Dante use himself as a character?  You have probably
seen this form before, where a narrator will tell the story of a
journey or a struggle that he took part in after the journey is
finished.  Joseph Conrad used it in a lot of his works.
Jonathan Swift used it in Gulliver's Travels.  What it allows is
perspective.  The reader gets a blow-by-blow account of the
trip, with the added benefit of a narrator who has had time to
think it over, analyze it, and make sense of it.  The reader
gets to watch the same character both as an often naive
observer-participant and as an older, wiser narrator who can
offer insight and meaning. 

  Dante has a journey to undertake in the Divine Comedy--he has
to walk the entire universe, no less.  Like the rest of us,
Dante has to have a reason to start on his journey.  In Canto I,
he finds himself lost in the Dark Wood.  And he is lost because
he hasn't been paying attention to where he was going.  Dante is
more than physically lost.  He is spiritually a soul who has
wandered from the right road:  Dante is a sinner, under the
influence of one of the Seven Deadly Sins: 

  1.  Pride 

  2.  Envy 

  3.  Wrath 

  4.  Acedia 

  5.  Avarice 

  6.  Gluttony 

  7.  Lust 

  Dante is guilty of the middle one, acedia.  Some dictionaries
give "sloth" or "laziness" as a meaning for acedia, but it is
more than physical laziness.  Acedia is moral laziness, inertia
of the soul and will. 

  What is the best way to overcome laziness?  Right--do
something.  Dante must compensate for his laziness by making the
journey. 

  Through Dante's journey, we can see Dante's concept of sin.
For him, all sin is basically a freezing of the will against
love and grace of God.  Some readers have compared this freezing
of the will to an addiction, where the addict so craves his
drug, his gambling, or his cigarette, that he has lost all will
to stop.  He also can't see--or doesn't want to see--the
self-destructive path he is on. 

  Because Dante's specific sin is acedia, he must actively
pursue the right way, the way to heaven and God.  We find out as
soon as Dante begins that this will not be an easy journey.  It
will require a DEVOUT LABOR.  It won't be enough to desire the
goal; he must make an effort of the will, every step along the
way. 

  In the Inferno, Dante the traveler is a sleepy bumbler--not a
fool exactly, but a man in need of a great deal of supervision
and instruction.  Why would the author use himself like this? 

  Dante the pilgrim is the image of every sinner struggling to
understand the nature of sin, the potential for sin within the
human spirit, and the result of choosing sin.  In this role, we
watch Dante struggle to make the physical, intellectual, and
spiritual commitments necessary to complete the journey.  We
watch the change from an ignorant and lazy Dante in the journey
to the divinely inspired (so some claim) narrator who has
completed it. 

  Through the change, we see not only the range and complexity
of the trip through Hell and sin, but the way through.  If Dante
can do it, so can we. 

^^^^^^^^^^
DIVINE COMEDY:  THE INFERNO:  VIRGIL 

  If you were going to climb a mountain, you would probably
find someone who had climbed that particular mountain before to
guide you, right?  It would only make sense to have someone
point out the most dangerous places and tell you how he or she
solved each problem along the way, rather than to attempt the
climb alone, proud and blind, and then fall.  For the first part
of his journey, Dante needed a guide who knew something about
Hell, who knew something about the epic form, and who could
think differently from most.  Luckily, he got the perfect guide:
Virgil. 

  1.  VIRGIL WAS A GUIDE TO THE EPIC FORM. 

  Historically, Virgil was a Roman poet who created a
mythological beginning for the Roman Empire in his poem, the
Aeneid.  The hero of the poem, Aeneas, was a Trojan who survived
the final sacking of Troy in the Trojan war by escaping with his
father, his son, and some loyal men.  They set off in ships to
found a new Troy, which became Rome.  The expedition was, like
Dante's own "journey" in the Comedy, divinely inspired and aided
(by Virgil's pagan gods).  But Dante felt there was even more
significance than that to Virgil's theme.  The Roman Empire not
only spread peace and stability; it was eventually responsible
for the spread of Christianity.  Although it was not biblical,
Dante probably saw the Aeneid as a very important myth for
Christians. 

  2.  VIRGIL WAS A GUIDE WHO KNEW HELL. 

  In Book VI of the Aeneid, Aeneas travels into the underworld
to speak to his father, Anchises.  Dante takes many of his
images of Hell from this section of the Aeneid.  Because Virgil
created the literary Hell, Dante chooses him as a guide through
his Hell. 

  3.  VIRGIL WAS A GUIDE THROUGH THE SPIRIT WORLD. 

  Virgil had a reputation as a "White Magician, one capable of
manipulating spirits.  In several places of the Inferno, you
will see him use this power to conjure.  He got this reputation
from several sections of his writing which, in Dante's time,
were looked at as mystical predictions from a pagan author of
the coming of Christ. 

  4.  VIRGIL STANDS FOR HUMAN REASON. 

  Virgil becomes in the Inferno the symbol of human reason.
Early in the poem, Virgil tells Dante that he is there because
Heaven wanted him there and that he can take Dante only part of
the way.  (Virgil can't enter Heaven or see God because he
lacked a faith in God; he was a pagan.) Someone "more worthy"
will take Dante to God.  Most critics interpret this as saying
that man's reason is finite, while God is infinite.  Man's
reason and philosophy will get him started on the right way, but
the ultimate way to God is guided by a higher power. 

^^^^^^^^^^
DIVINE COMEDY:  THE INFERNO:  BEATRICE 

  Anyone hooked on romantic love stories will love the story of
Beatrice.  Who she was historically is not nearly as interesting
as who she became for Dante, yet the two are closely
connected. 

  In Florence, Beatrice was a member of the Portinari family, a
family more wealthy and socially prominent than Dante's.
Actually, Dante saw her only several times in his life.  Her
marriage, to a man older and richer than Dante was, like most,
arranged for her.  She died at age 24 in 1290. 

  Dante tells the story of his Beatrice in an earlier poem, the
Vita Nuova.  He claims that he saw her for the first time when
he was nine and fell passionately in love with her.  Precocious,
wouldn't you say?  He did not see her again until he was
eighteen.  (Multiples of three have mystical significance for
Dante.) She smiled at him this time. 

  In keeping with all traditions of courtly love, Dante never
actually aspired to have what we would consider a relationship
with Beatrice.  For him, she was the embodiment of the
spiritually pure, Platonic love.  Although Dante only glimpsed
Beatrice several times after he was eighteen (and was betrothed
and probably married himself), he claims that Beatrice inspired
his very thoughts.  When she died, Dante suffered a deep
depression. 

  When she reappears in the Divine Comedy, she is mother,
maiden, muse, and saint.  She is in Heaven, top-rank, with
direct communication with the Virgin Mary.  It is Beatrice who
sends Virgil to help Dante find his way to Heaven and to her.
She doesn't appear directly in the Inferno, but will be his
guide through Heaven and to God.  What Beatrice becomes for
Dante is both the Lady of courtly love and the inspiring saint
of the Church, the ideal of body and soul. 

  This may sound incredible to us today.  But Dante had a far
less personal, more spiritual concept of love than we see on
soap operas or read in romance novels.  Instead of physical
desire and passion, Dante's love was connected to spiritual
perfection and the way to goodness and God.  Beatrice was not an
object to be loved but an inspiration to a larger love and
eternal grandeur.  Now that's romantic. 

^^^^^^^^^^
DIVINE COMEDY:  THE INFERNO:  SETTING 

  Dante's Inferno deals specifically with Hell.  We each have
our own idea of the worst possible way to spend eternity.  The
differences come from differences in values, dislikes, fears,
experiences, etc.  When Dante created his Hell, he wanted
somehow to get at all the differences and yet present a coherent
pattern, Sin was sin, but the same punishment just would not do
for everyone.  How could he create a pattern that handled each
sin uniquely and yet clearly defined sin? 

  1.  Structurally, Hell is another one of these medieval
hierarchies.  Hell is a huge, funnel-shaped pit that occupies
the center of the earth directly below Jerusalem and the rest of
the northern hemisphere.  The pit is divided into nine circles
and a vestibule (a kind of waiting room).  Each circle contains
souls who committed a particular kind of sin.  (See the map in
The Plot section of this guide.) 

  2.  Philosophically, Hell is structured around Dante's
concept of sin.  Man has free will.  Everyone gets, ultimately,
what he chooses.  As we go through Hell with Dante, we will see
that the inhabitants had insisted on sin and that their
punishments and suffering are very often simply a continuation
of the sin they had chosen. 

  Dante makes distinctions between three basic kinds of sin:
Incontinence (loss of self-control), Violence, and Fraud.  The
sins of Incontinence are the least offensive to God and,
consequently, they're placed closest to him near the surface of
the earth.  As the sins get worse, they're placed farther from
God.  The sins of Fraud, the most offensive, are placed closest
to the center of the earth.  Satan occupies the very center of
the earth. 

  3.  Hell is not only a geographical place, but also a
representation of the potential for sin and evil within every
individual human soul.  As Dante travels through Hell, he sees
sinners in increasingly more hideous and disgusting situations.
For Dante, each situation is an image of the quality of any soul
that is determined to sin in that particular way.  He also
suggests with his hierarchical arrangement, that the descent
into sin can be a gradual process, that sinners might easily
slip down into more serious sins from less serious states.
(Those of you who go on to read the other parts of the Comedy
will notice that the intensity of sin grows as we descend in
Hell, but the scale of virtues climbs up Mount Purgatory and
ascends to Heaven.) 

  Dante isn't telling us anything we don't already know.  How
easy is it to slip off a diet, out of an exercise routine, or a
study pattern?  How difficult is it to maintain enough
self-discipline to keep on the path until we reach the goal?
Hell is the picture of the end result of those who, spiritually,
let it slide. 

^^^^^^^^^^
DIVINE COMEDY:  THE INFERNO:  THEMES 

  Great undertakings fascinate us because they take courage:
attempts to climb Mount Everest, marathon races, expeditions to
the Arctic and the moon.  Some poets attempt to capture the
essence of a single moment or feeling in a poem.  Dante,
however, attempts nothing less than to present a vision of the
entire universe, throughout all time and space, and the perfect
pattern behind it.  In this universe he places his
contemporaries, historical figures, and mythological beings,
defining them according to the choices they made on earth,
showing them individually in situations that suggest the
conditions of their souls.  He also includes himself as an
ignorant pilgrim trying to find himself by groping his way
through and making sense of this monumental whole. 

  Those of us who have been told by writing teachers to "limit
the topic to something manageable" are probably wondering why
Dante didn't limit his topic.  He does include a lot of
seemingly unrelated concepts, characters, and events.  He does,
however, try to make clear why it is all there.  One of Dante's
major themes is that: 

  1.  The whole world, ultimately, has meaning, reason, and
order. 

  2.  The source of the meaning, reason, and order is God's
Divine Plan. 

  3.  The Divine Order is both knowable and achievable. 

  Thus, the way to Heaven is clearly marked, and each of us has
a chance to find it--if we want. 

  In order to show this, Dante wanted a poem that would be not
only a map of all human possibilities, but an explanation of the
eternal consequences of each choice a person could make.  He
wanted to present the grandeur and dignity of God's creation but
also all the possible ways that man may reject it.  The Inferno
is the map of the ways that God is rejected; we shouldn't forget
that it is counterbalanced in the whole poem by the Paradiso,
where God's ultimate glory really shines forth. 

  Dante has a monumental task--to show that the will to find
God and the way to find God, are open to everyone.  Some critics
try to explain how Dante does this by comparing his poem to a
Gothic cathedral:  both have wide, sturdy bases, yet, through
careful structuring, they constantly show themselves reaching
for Heaven, toward God. 

  As we said earlier, Dante saw three parts of the universe
(Hell, Purgatory, and Heaven) arranged in concentric circles.
Using this structure, 

  1.  Dante presents life on earth:  lots of people and lots of
choices. 

  2.  Instead of seeing these men in their historical context,
Dante puts them in order according to the eternal consequences
of the lives they chose to lead. 

  3.  The order they're placed in, and the nature of their
situations within that order, give us an ethical map.  (For
instance, in the Inferno, Dante walks from the least offensive
sin to the most offensive sin.) 

  4.  From the ethical map, Dante shows us the general
principles on which he believed God's plan is based. 

  5.  Once we see the general principles, we have a way of
knowing the eternal significance of any specific earthly human
act. 

  Thus, the way to Heaven is marked, step by step. 

^^^^^^^^^^
DIVINE COMEDY:  THE INFERNO:  SYMBOLISM AND
ALLEGORY 

  Suppose you're watching a detective movie, where the "good
guys" are trying to solve an ugly crime.  Suddenly, you start to
get a feeling that this is more than just an action-packed
adventure.  This crime is connected to all crimes.  The "bad
guys" stand for all the evil in the world.  And the detective
hero isn't just solving a case--he's showing us what happens
when good confronts evil.  That's an allegory. 

  An allegory is a story that has one meaning on the literal
level, and another on a symbolic or metaphoric level as well.
Very often in an allegory the characters represent abstract
concepts.  The action works out a moral, by showing how the
concept "characters" interact. 

  Is Dante's work an allegory?  How would we know?  He says it
is in a letter to his patron, Can Grande della Scala.  (Some
critics have questioned whether the document is authentic, but
most recognize it as genuine.) In that letter, Dante claims he
wrote the Comedy with four intended levels of meaning:
narrative, allegorical, moral, and anagogical. 

  If we look at Dante's quest as he moves up in the hierachical
structures, we can see these levels of interpretation unfold. 

  Level Movement between two poles (quest) 

  Narrative Dante makes a literal journey from 

  Hell to Heaven. 

  Allegorical Dante moves from a state of sin to 

  salvation.  Dante moves from a will 

  frozen by acedia to an openness to 

  the grace and love of God. 

  Moral Dante moves from simple perception of 

  sin and punishment to an 

  understanding of what sin is, and 

  what it does to the soul.  Because 

  he understands sin, he also comes 

  to understand and desire the will 

  of salvation. 

  Anagogical Dante moves from the worldly to the 

  spiritual ideal.  This is the 

  spiritual or mythical level in 

  which Dante sees and is reunited 

  with the One, the sublime. 

  Naturally, each reader must decide for himself or herself
which of these levels of meaning is clear.  Which meanings are
important to you?  For example, on the first reading, maybe only
the literal level makes sense.  The anagogical level we suggest
is probably the most abstract and impossible to see unless you
read the entire Comedy.  The scholars who have studied Dante
intensely ask us not to be intimidated by the complexity, just
try to watch for it and appreciate it, like a marvelous
clockwork spinning many wheels all at once. 

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DIVINE COMEDY:  THE INFERNO:  LANGUAGE AND STYLE 

  The Inferno contains some very graphic, grotesque, and even
obscene language and imagery.  Sinners wallow in a river of
excrement; demons pass wind to sound like bugles.  Yet the poem
is epic, grand--and about God.  Why does Dante do this? 

  Historically, Dante was one of the first artists to use both
low style (bawdy language, grotesque images) and high style
(elevated poetic language and themes) in the same work.  He was
also the first to write a major epic poem in his native
language, Italian, rather than in the more academically
acceptable Latin. 

  One explanation for this is that Dante used his language and
style as another way of organizing his work, to guide the reader
through.  Dante's mixed styles reflect the truth he is trying to
present.  Dante saw a connection between the mundane, street
world and the elevated, spiritual world.  Dante the pilgrim has
to travel through the murky, disgusting depths of Hell before he
can reach Heaven; so too the reader must work his or her way
through physical images of sin and punishment before he or she
can reach a theoretical understanding of sin's nature and the
divine order that gives each his eternal place.  In other words,
Dante uses a mixture of language styles to lead the reader to
his more abstract meanings and themes. 

  It may be difficult, when you're reading a translation, to
get all the nuances of style that Dante included.  Also, it's
hard for us in the 20th century to remember that this language
seemed shocking or slangy in the 14th century, because it's
completely acceptable in literature today.  Keep reminding
yourself, though, that Dante was one of the pioneers in using
"street" language in literature. 

  Also, Dante's style reflects his interest in polarities.  Two
extremes of language--coarse and refined--continually pull the
reader in different directions.  A formal "high style" of
writing is polarized with a casual, colloquial "low style."
Partly, this creates the variety that is important to Dante, to
show how many possibilities there are in his quest.  It also
exerts a tension that keeps the poem moving, never resting with
one level of meaning--just as Dante the pilgrim can never rest
until his quest is finished. 

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DIVINE COMEDY:  THE INFERNO:  FORM 

  The form of the Inferno derives from the fact that it is a
comedy and an epic and involves a quest. 

  1.  THE COMEDY 

  From what you have read so far, you can see that the Inferno
is not all that funny and are probably wondering why it is part
of the Divine Comedy.  We think of comedy in terms of TV
situation comedies where a problem situation is presented in the
first few minutes of the program and is resolved by the end of
the episode.  Actually, comedy as a form has a successful
ending.  The hero of a dramatic comedy wants something and
certain people and/or elements are stopping him from getting it.
The Canadian literary critic Northrop Frye says that the
obstacles to a hero's goals make up the action of the comedy;
overcoming the obstacles is the comic resolution.  The Divine
Comedy is about Dante's attempt to get to Heaven, to Beatrice,
and to God.  Because he is successful at overcoming the
obstacles within himself and the obstacles along his way, the
poem is called the Comedy. 

  2.  THE EPIC 

  Some of you have read epic poems; perhaps the Iliad, the
Odyssey, or Beowulf.  From them you know the basic points of
definition.  An epic is a long narrative poem of grand scale
involving superhuman heros upon whom the nation or even the
world depends.  An epic usually is written in elevated or very
formal language, has an invocation of the Muses, and begins in
medias res, in the middle of the action.  Is the Divine Comedy
an epic? 

  In the broader application of the term, it is.  It does begin
in medias res, but is not always written in elevated language.
(See the preceding section on Dante's language and style.) The
scale of the poem is clearly epic, since it includes the entire
universe.  The hero, though he does accomplish his challenging
task, cannot be superhuman and still convey Dante's major theme
that God and Heaven are accessible to all of us.  Whether the
world depends on Dante or not becomes an issue on this thematic
level.  On a literal level, Dante's success or failure won't
affect anyone.  But on a metaphoric or allegorical level,
Dante's successful journey points the way to Heaven for the rest
of mankind.  Whether we decide the Divine Comedy is an epic or
not, the poem does have epic characteristics. 

  3.  THE QUEST 

  The motif of a mythical hero's quest is familiar to many of
you.  The hero becomes separated from the people and/or the
place of his birth, becomes aware of a need or a problem, takes
a dangerous journey to an unknown place to win either a prize or
knowledge to help him resolve the problem, and returns to save
the people.  The Aeneid and the Odyssey are based on a hero's
quest. 

  Dante the character is a questing pilgrim, lost and eager to
find the way to salvation and to Heaven.  He becomes separated,
lost in the Dark Wood, and journeys through the entire universe.
From what, you ask, does he save the world?  What huge
contribution does he make?  Again, on the literal level, none.
On other levels of meaning, however, he brings back the
understanding and the inspiration that make it possible for him
to be the author of the Divine Comedy and to show people the way
to heaven.  How Dante does this is more clearly explained above
in the section on symbolism and allegory. 

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DIVINE COMEDY:  THE INFERNO:  STRUCTURE 

  The numbers three, nine, and ten recur often in the Divine
Comedy and have special significance. 

  -There are 3 parts to the Comedy:  Inferno, Purgatorio, and
Paradiso. 

  -There are 33 cantos (verse chapters) in each part. 

  -Including one canto of introduction, there are 100 cantos
altogether. 

  -Each canto is written in terza rima, stanzas of three lines
with the first and third lines rhyming and the second line
rhyming with the first line of the next stanza. 

  -There are 3 basic kinds of sin:  Incontinence, Violence, and
Fraud. 

  -There are nine circles of Hell, with the Vestibule making 10
levels.  (Purgatory and Heaven are subdivided in much the same
numerical way.) 

  The numbers are another way Dante creates significance or
meaning.  Three is the number of the Trinity--Father, Son, and
Holy Spirit.  Nine is the square of three.  Adding one for the
unity of the Trinity gives ten, considered a "perfect" number in
medieval thinking.  One hundred is the square of ten.  Dante,
writing of God, perfection, and the ideal unity of the universe,
structures his poem around these numbers.  This may seem like an
elaborate, artificial game to you, but it wasn't for Dante.
These numbers had mystical significance.  And because Dante was
writing about God's complex design, he wanted to make his poem
have an appropriately complex design to match. 

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DIVINE COMEDY:  THE INFERNO:  CANTO I 

  Most epic poems begin in medias res, in the middle of things,
and the Inferno is no exception.  As a matter of fact, Dante is
in the middle of several things.  One, he finds himself in the
middle of the Dark Wood--lost.  Second, he is in the middle of
his life, "Midway this way of life..." This much he tells us
before it becomes clear that he's not just "lost" in any simple
ordinary sense.  He turns to go back the way he came, up a
mountain, but his way is blocked by three animals:  a leopard, a
lion, and a she-wolf.  He flees from the animals back down the
mountain and comes across the shade of Virgil who offers to take
him by another path. 

  Animals?  The ghost of a Roman poet?  Where is Dante that he
can't go back the way he came?  Why does Virgil, of all possible
people, happen to be there?  Looking back for evidence, we find
that Dante gives us one more clue.  He tells us the reason why
he was lost:  he was drowsy and inattentive. 

  We can put it all together this way.  Dante is lost in his
quest for salvation.  He has strayed from the "right road"
because of his sin, acedia, or moral laziness.  Because he has
not been attentive to the active pursuit of good, he has lost
the way.  He can't go back the way he came because that is the
way of sin.  He is in the middle of a moral mess.  Virgil is
there to help Dante find his way out. 

  NOTE:  The critics have many explanations for the animals.
Some think that the animals represent the three kinds of sin:
the leopard representing the sins of incontinence, the lion the
sins of violence, and the she-wolf the sins of fraud.  Still
other critics think that the beasts represent the sins of
pleasure, ambition, and greed, respectively.  Others see the
beasts as symbolic of the forces at work in the political world
of Dante:  the leopard representing Florentine politics, the
lion representing the French desire to rule in Italy, and the
she-wolf representing the Papacy and its involvement in
political affairs.  Whatever meaning is true (and it could be
all of them), the animals stand in Dante's way and Virgil is
there to help. 

^^^^^^^^^^
DIVINE COMEDY:  THE INFERNO:  CANTO II 

  The sun is setting on this Good Friday evening and Dante,
after a brief time with Virgil, begins to lose heart.  He tells
Virgil that he is neither Virgil's far-journeying hero, nor St.
Paul, the converted disciple who travelled widely, spreading
Christ's teachings.  Virgil tells Dante quite frankly that he is
a coward and that he should be aware of the special notice he is
being given in Heaven.  Dante learns that Beatrice visited
Virgil in Hell and asked him, tearfully, to help Dante find his
way, and she did so at the prompting of St.  Lucy and the Virgin
herself.  Spurred by the tale of Beatrice's goodness and tears
on his behalf, Dante resumes his journey with zest and feelings
of dedication. 

  It is not an accident that Dante is making his journey on the
weekend before Easter.  Christ died on Good Friday and was
buried until his resurrection on Easter Sunday.  During that
time, he is said to have descended into Hell and Purgatory.
Christ's resurrection freed sinners from eternal condemnation;
to be freed from his own sin, sloth, Dante too must descend
through sin and understand its nature and its effects on the
soul.  In this we see the beginnings of one of Dante's themes,
the necessity for all those who wish salvation to make a like
journey. 

  The Virgin Mary, who gave birth to God in Christ, is often
seen as the symbol of Divine Grace, the power granted by God
that directs the soul on its quest.  St.  Lucy is the patron
saint of all those with weak sight.  Beatrice is Dante's special
inspiration.  He may not feel worthy of her attention, but when
this ideal of body and soul beckons, how can Dante refuse? 

^^^^^^^^^^
DIVINE COMEDY:  THE INFERNO:  CANTO III 

  "Lay down all hope, you that go in by me." So goes the last
line of the ominous message over the lintel of the gateway to
Hell.  Dante's reaction is as you'd expect:  he is terrified.
The message serves to set the tone of seriousness for the quest,
and to make it clear that Dante's journey, despite the helpers
and the guides, will be a dangerous one.  If it weren't, would
anyone want to read about it? 

  The entire message of the lintel, too, begins to tell what
Dante the pilgrim must learn on his journey.  Hell was made by
the power, the wisdom, and the love of God.  This probably
sounds paradoxical.  If we keep in mind, however, that God
created man with free will, we see Hell has to exist to give
people a choice with that free will.  Men are free to turn away
from love and wisdom; they are free to be satisfied with less
than eternal enlightenment and happiness.  Hell is that choice.
The message is clearly written over the doorway.  Dante will not
understand the message in this way until he has made the journey
through.  Possibly we, too, will come back at the end of our
reading to see a clearer, richer meaning in the lintel's
message. 

  And so the poets enter Hell.  Dante's senses are assaulted.
The sights and sounds of confusion, disharmony, and lack of
dignity and distinction astound him.  He begs Virgil to identify
these wretched souls who run, tormented by swarms of hornets and
wasps.  Virgil tells Dante that these are the souls of the
Opportunists, those who, on earth, could not take a stand on any
issue.  Here, too, are the angels who did not fight with either
Michael (God's general) or with Lucifer (the rebel Satan) in the
battle of Heaven.  Hell does not want to claim these souls or to
confuse them with those who made a choice, even if it was the
wrong choice.  Heaven would not sully itself.  And so those who
would not choose in life are goaded forever in this Vestibule of
Hell. 

  Looking ahead, Dante sees the bank of a wide stream crowded
with souls eager to cross.  This is the river Acheron, the first
river in Hell.  The name Acheron and the boatman who is ferrying
his way across, Charon, come from Greek mythology.  Charon, old
and shaggy, his eyes rimmed with fire, screams at Dante and
Virgil that Dante will have to find another way across the
river:  Charon's skiff will not bear the weight of a living
soul.  The sound of Charon's bawlings and the sight of the
multitude of shades sliding down the banks, and cursing all it
is possible to curse, combine with the shock of a slight
earthquake to undo Dante.  He faints. 

  NOTE:  In a first reading of any poem, a reader is generally
looking for a sense of the meaning and not studying such
subtleties as the kind of language and sentence structure that a
poet uses.  Dante's style and language are such a large part of
his structure, meaning, and themes, however, that even a
beginning reader will want to give it some attention. 

  Hell is ugly.  Dante makes us feel the ugliness with the
imagery that appeals to all our senses.  In this canto, Dante
emphasizes the volume and the dissonance of the shrieks of the
sinners goaded by the wasps.  We see the sinners sliding down
the muddy banks; we hear them screaming curses.  We feel the
thud of Charon's oars on the backs of the lingerers.  The final
sensory outrage is the shaking of the earth. 

  Different translations will vary, but most translations of
this canto have many inverted sentences and are filled with
harsh, guttural words.  Read the passages about Charon out loud.
Is it hard to read?  Is it fluid or choppy? 

  Dante makes his language create his meaning.  When Dante
wants to describe a particularly grotesque aspect, his language
will match his subject.  Look for a continuation of this in
other places. 

^^^^^^^^^^
DIVINE COMEDY:  THE INFERNO:  CANTO IV 

  Dante awakens from his swoon near the edge of the actual pit
of Hell.  Together, he and Virgil enter the First Circle, Limbo.
Dante is somewhat disturbed to hear that all those born before
Christ, including Virgil, are assigned to this place.  He
questions Virgil closely on this point and discovers that when
Christ descended into Hell after his crucifixion, He did take
such men as Noah, Moses, David, and Abraham with Him to Heaven.
But since that time, no one has changed position. 

  In the middle of this conversation, a voice hails the return
of Virgil.  Virgil presents to Dante the shades of the classical
writers Homer, Horace, Ovid, and Lucan, and Dante is pleased to
be a sixth in the presence of such great minds.  Dante also sees
the resting shades of Socrates, Plato, Ptolemy, and many
others. 

  NOTE:  Why are such notable people in Hell?  It hardly seems
fair that they should be here simply because they were born
before Christ.  We can better understand Limbo if we remember,
again, the many levels of meaning in the Inferno.  On an
allegorical level, the sinners cease to be important as
historical figures and instead become representations of various
conditions of the human spirit. 

  Limbo is not a place of torment.  It resembles the Elysian
Fields of Virgil's Aeneid where Aeneas meets his father.  The
Virtuous Pagans housed here are certainly not evil.  What
failings they have are the failings of human reason alone.  In
other words, these shades represent the condition of the spirit
that lacks faith; the failure of such a spirit is the failure to
imagine better. 

  Another thing we should notice before going on is the mild
rebuke that Virgil gives Dante.  Virgil reminds Dante that he
has not asked for an identification of the shades.  This will
not be the last time that Dante gets in trouble for such
negligence.  Is Virgil just being a nag? 

  Dante's physical journey through Hell is only part of his
journey; he is also journeying, allegorically, through the
depths of the potential evil within the soul.  It will not be
enough for him to see where and how each sin is punished.  He
must understand what each sin did to the soul, how it twisted
the spirit away from God.  To understand the whole concept of
sin, he must understand each particular along the way.  Virgil
must point out each hurdle or lapse in the moral and allegorical
journeys just as he points out the geographical difficulties of
the literal journey.  So, like a good teacher, he nags a bit. 

^^^^^^^^^^
DIVINE COMEDY:  THE INFERNO:  CANTO V 

  Everyone loves the story of forbidden love, including Dante
(who, remember, was denied even a private conversation with his
Beatrice).  Giving in to the wrong love is Dante's idea of the
least offensive sin.  Once inside of Hell, the Lustful are the
first sinners that Dante sees. 

  Virgil and Dante descend to the Second Circle and encounter
Minos, the judge of Hell.  Minos wraps his tail around himself,
as many coils as the number of descents each shade is to make,
while the shade pours out a confession of all his wrongs.  When
Minos sees Dante, he screams that they should not be deceived by
the wide open door and refuses to let them pass.  Virgil quiets
Minos by telling him his hindrance is in vain, and then he leads
Dante past Minos to view the sinners guilty of Lust, the first
of the sins of incontinence. 

  Those shades are swept around on a whirlwind, driven and
wailing.  As they whip past the poets, Virgil points out the
shades of the famous lovers:  Cleopatra, Helen, Paris, and
Tristan among others.  Dante, although stunned by the sights and
sounds, asks to speak to two shades who ride the winds holding
hands, Paolo and Francesca da Rimini.  How did they come to be
caught in this whirlwind? 

  NOTE:  Dante's readers would have been familiar with this
story.  Francesca was the wife of Paolo's brother, Gianciotto.
This marriage, like many of that day, was a political union not
a love match; Gianciotto was as deformed as Paolo was beautiful.
All that Francesca tells Dante is how she and her brother-in-law
fell in love.  In innocence, Paolo and Francesca spent one
afternoon reading the romance of Lancelot and Guinevere.  Their
eyes met, they kissed, and "they read no more that day."
Francesca's story so moves the tender-hearted Dante that he
faints. 

  No other canto of the entire Comedy has inspired such
attention and artistic interpretation as this canto has.  The
lovers' story is very beautiful and very sad.  Why are they in
Hell?  They died when Gianciotto found the lovers together and
stabbed them both.  Yet their love and the passion are so
understandable--is the punishment fair? 

  Francesca is not punished so much for the act as for the
failing.  She fails a larger kind of love.  In Hell, she is
bound forever to a shade without possibility of growth or
change.  She could have chosen the love which leads to God and
forms eternal bonds with glory and perfection.  But her love for
Paolo's beauty blinded her to the possibility of choosing
love. 

  We should also look carefully at the excuse that Francesca
offers.  It is naive but believable, In this first circle of
sin, it represents the first consent of the soul to sin.  It is
easy, human, almost forgivable.  Perhaps Dante is trying to
demonstrate how easy the first step into sin is.  We are aware
of the consequences of the lovers' choice.  But if we hadn't
seen them in Hell, we might not understand this step as a sin,
as a weakness of will, as a wrong choice of brief passion over
eternal glory. 

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DIVINE COMEDY:  THE INFERNO:  CANTO VI 

  Dante awakens from his faint to a cold, ceaseless rain and an
earth that smells of rot and decay.  He is in the Third Circle
where the Gluttonous wallow in the drenched earth and are mauled
by the vile, triple-headed Cerberus, traditional guardian of
Hell.  The shades squirm, scream, and writhe to escape the
inescapable monster, who also threatens Dante and Virgil.
Virgil picks up handfuls of the slime and throws them in the
mouths of Cerberus, and the poets hurry past. 

  Dante speaks to a fellow Florentine who has been nicknamed
Ciacco, which means "pig." Ciacco tells Dante of some of the
events that are to happen in Florence before Virgil moves Dante
along.  While they travel on, Dante asks Virgil whether the
suffering he has encountered will grow more intense or will
lessen after the Judgment Day.  Virgil replies that the souls
will become "more perfect," which is usually explained as a
belief that the souls will be united to their bodies at that
time. 

  NOTE:  Most readers find Francesca and Paolo sad and Ciacco
rather repulsive.  The sin has moved from one of mutual
indulgence to solitary self-indulgence; the image of the soul
has moved from one buffeted by passion to one alone and
groveling.  The use of Cerberus reinforces the image of the
uncontrolled appetite that is common to all the sins of
incontinence. 

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DIVINE COMEDY:  THE INFERNO:  CANTO VII 

  At the entrance of the Fourth Circle, Virgil and Dante are
threatened by Pluto, mythological god of the underworld.  Much
as he did with Minos and the other figures who challenge their
passage, Virgil quickly shuts up the beast with a word about the
nature of their quest.  In this circle, Dante sees two groups of
sinners rolling huge rocks against each other, turning and
wheeling back again.  These opposing groups are the Hoarders and
the Spendthrifts, who are by definition incompatible with each
other and full of mutual antagonism.  The sight prompts Dante to
ask Virgil about Luck, and Virgil takes the time to explain some
aspects of divine providence to Dante. 

  The poets come upon the second of the rivers in Hell, the
river Styx.  Dante sees mud-stained and discontented shades in
the river.  They are beating and tearing at each other with
fists, heads, bodies, and all.  Virgil explains that these are
the souls of the Wrathful, those who could not control their
anger.  Under the surface of the river lie the Sullen; their
sulky murmurs of anger bubble to the top. 

  This Fourth Circle contains the last of the sins of
Incontinence.  The image of the Hoarders and Spendthrifts
demonstrates how futile such irrational appetites are.  In the
group of the Wrathful, we can see how the sins of incontinence
have defiled the soul.  When we move from a vision of Paolo and
Francesca, mutually sharing their sin and fate, to the Wrathful
who furiously lust to inflict pain on each other, we see the
instability and the repulsiveness of the decline into sin. 

  It is from this literal and allegorical point of view that
Dante and Virgil see the walls that surround the Nether Hell,
the city of Dis. 

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DIVINE COMEDY:  THE INFERNO:  CANTO VIII 

  Picture Dante and Virgil walking along the murky marsh of the
river Styx until they can see the gate to the fiery walls which
surround the city of Dis, the beginning of the Nether (Lower)
Hell I.  A signal light comes from the top of the tower and a
boatman sets forth across the river to fetch Dante and Virgil.
Phylegas, who in Greek mythology set fire to Apollo's temple, is
the boatman.  He fumes at the knowledge that Virgil and Dante
are not sinners who have come for placement, but he does ferry
them across. 

  The boat, precariously positioned because of Dante's weight,
sets out across the grimy water.  A head appears in the mud and
challenges Dante's passage "before his time." Dante recognizes
the shade as Filippo Argenti, a fellow Florentine.  When Dante
tells Filippo to remain and rot in the slime, Filippo grabs the
boat.  Virgil casts him off and turns to embrace Dante with a
most unusual blessing:  "Blessed is the womb that bore thee."
Dante wishes that he could see Filippo at the hands of some of
the Wrathful.  While the poets watch, Filippo is beaten and
mauled by a gang of fellow sinners. 

  This can be a very confusing passage.  It looks like Virgil
is encouraging Dante to be cruel and un-Christian.  The line he
chooses comes from Christ himself and suggests that Dante's
reaction has brought him closer to his goal.  This is the first
time that Dante has not pitied the sinners; it is the first time
he was repulsed by them.  Allegorically, Dante sees for the
first time how vile and degrading sin, in the image of the
sinner, really is.  For this step, Dante is rewarded.
Immediately after this episode, however, Dante's quest gets very
difficult. 

  The poets draw near to the gate of the city of Dis and Dante
loses heart.  Phylegas lets them off near the gate where they
are met by some of the Fallen Angels, those that fought with
Lucifer in the battle of Heaven.  They challenge Dante and
refuse him passage while he is still alive.  They also tell
Virgil to let Dante find the way back himself.  When he hears
this, Dante begs Virgil to quit and to allow them to go back
together, quickly.  Virgil tells Dante to take heart--their
passage is guaranteed from above, and Virgil will not abandon
him.  Virgil does, however, leave Dante for a brief private
meeting with the Fallen Angels.  While Dante quivers in fear, he
sees the gate slammed in Virgil's face.  Virgil returns to Dante
with assurances that they will win entry and that help is on the
way. 

  NOTE:  You are probably wondering why the entrance to Dis is
so impassable.  What is the significance of the Fallen Angels?
What threat do they pose?  On one level, it makes a good story.
Another way to look at it comes from its juxtaposition with the
reward Dante has just received from Virgil. 

  Dante is just beginning to understand the nature of sin and
how it blinds the soul and binds the will.  Virgil is Dante's
teacher and guide, a provider of light.  The Fallen Angels, in
their attempts to separate Virgil and Dante, are deniers of
light, if you will.  They represent the loss of reason that is
part of the will to sin.  Had the Fallen Angels been successful
in separating Virgil and Dante, this would have been the end of
the guidance of reason, and Dante, literally and figuratively,
would have been lost. 

  Virgil's faltering in this situation suggests that humanism
alone, represented by Virgil, often underestimates the power of
evil and is confused by the will to evil.  The Nether Hell gate
is the passage point from the sins of Incontinence to the sins
of Violence.  To deal with this more potent sin, help from a
source higher than reason, namely Heaven, must intercede. 

^^^^^^^^^^
DIVINE COMEDY:  THE INFERNO:  CANTO IX 

  Dante is very confused by Virgil's rejection at the gates of
Dis and asks, tactfully, whether Virgil actually knows what he
is doing.  Virgil assures Dante that he has made the trip
before.  Dante loses track of what Virgil is saying when he sees
above him the horrible shades of the Furies.  The Furies, or the
Erinyes, were, in Greek mythology, the avenging goddesses who
haunted and tormented those who had committed great crimes,
particularly murder in the family.  The sight of the
snake-haired beasts and the sounds of their shrieking make Dante
clutch Virgil in fright.  They scream, "Fetch Medusa," the
legendary Gorgon whose face turns men to stone.  Because Dante
is still alive, he could literally be petrified by this sight.
Virgil cries instructions to Dante; he should turn and cover his
eyes.  Not trusting Dante, Virgil places his own hands over
Dante's hands and eyes. 

  Thus blinded momentarily, Dante hears and feels what seems to
be an earthquake.  Virgil bids him to look across the marsh.
Through the mist, Dante sees a Messenger of Heaven coming
forward.  The angry messenger reaches the gate, opens it with a
touch and chastises the Fallen Angels for trying to prevent what
has already been ordained in Heaven.  The messenger leaves
without speaking to Virgil or Dante.  The poets enter the gate
and find themselves in a strange cemetery.  The tombstones are
all upturned, and the graves are filled with fire. 

  NOTE:  Again, reason, in the figure of Virgil, is not enough
to fulfill Dante's quest.  As the two poets pass through this
gate, they are entering a deeper, more powerful realm of sin.
The sinners in the Nether Hell are not those souls who have a
weak will, little self-control, or a limited vision.  The souls
here have actively chosen sin.  They are violent and threatening
to Dante because that is the condition of the spirit of one who
chooses violence, destruction, and perversion.  Dante must see
this condition of the spirit for what it is if he is ever to
fully understand sin, thus saving himself from it.  Virgil is
uncertain, so, it will take everything Dante's got to make it
through. 

  Most critics agree that the Furies are the image of fruitless
remorse that does not lead to repentance.  Medusa can be seen as
the power of the irrational, which can freeze the free will and
even separate the will from reason.  She can also be seen as the
image of the despair which hardens the heart, making repentance
impossible.  Literally and symbolically these are formidable
adversaries. 

  The Divine Messenger steps in to assist reason (Virgil) in
the face of the irrational in much the same way that Virgil
helps Dante physically and intellectually in the places that are
tough going.  Students should notice here that those inspired by
Heaven--Virgil, Beatrice, the Messenger--are very ready to
assist Dante's quest, while the sinners and those who are the
images of sin only inhibit Dante's progress and do damage to
each other.  This motif will become even clearer as Dante
descends farther into Hell. 

^^^^^^^^^^
DIVINE COMEDY:  THE INFERNO:  CANTO X 

  The cemetery in which Dante and Virgil find themselves is the
Sixth Circle of Hell, the home of the Heretics.  Dante is hailed
by Farinata degli Uberti, a Florentine who was hated by Dante's
ancestors for his part in a particularly brutal ambush.  Dante
is frightened to hear himself beckoned from one of these tombs
and clings to Virgil, who turns him around to talk to the shade.
Before the conversation has gone very far, another shade rises
to a sitting position in the same tomb to ask about his son.
This is Cavalcante dei Cavalcanti whose son, Guido, was
Farinata's son-in-law, and a poet-friend of Dante.  Dante refers
to Guido in the past tense, and Cavalcante, misunderstanding
Dante's response, thinks his son is dead.  At this, he swoons
back into the tomb.  As if he were not interrupted at all,
Farinata continues to justify his actions to Dante.  Dante
leaves the pair with a message for Cavalcante that his son is
still alive and sets off again with Virgil, for it is getting
late. 

  NOTE:  You are probably wondering why Dante has included such
details as Florentine politics and parental devotion in this
canto, or in the whole poem for that matter.  Dante, over and
over, is trying to show that the pain of Hell is the pain of the
particular sin that was chosen.  Both Farinata and Cavalcante
are specific manifestations of a larger sin; they are both
heretics. 

  For Dante, heresy was intellectual stubbornness.  These
sinners knew what the Church taught but preferred their own
interpretation.  They did not trust what should or could be
trusted.  Both men continue in Hell to pursue, blindly and
stubbornly, their own limited visions.  By putting these
seemingly unconnected men and conversations together in one
tomb, Dante demonstrates the self-centered pride and isolation
of heresy. 

  Note, too, how the punishment fits the sin.  The unbending
pride is housed in an unyielding iron tomb; the contempt for the
right way is punished in scathing flames. 

^^^^^^^^^^
DIVINE COMEDY:  THE INFERNO:  CANTO XI 

  When Dante and Virgil reach the brink of the Seventh Circle,
the stink so overpowers Dante that he falls behind a rock for
relief.  Virgil takes this recess time to explain the structure
of Hell.  Because of the allegorical nature of the poems
structure, the geography lesson will also be an ethics lesson. 

  Dante's concept of ethics comes primarily from the Greek
philosopher Aristotle who saw three types of wrong behavior:
uncontrolled appetite (Incontinence); perverted appetite
(Bestiality); and the abuse of human faculties, especially that
of reason (Malice).  Dante blends these classical ethical
categories with the specifically Christian sins of nonbelief
(paganism) and wrong-belief (heresy) to devise his scheme of the
pit. 

^^^^^^^^^^
DIVINE COMEDY:  THE INFERNO:  CANTO XII 

  Virgil and Dante have walked to the edge of the plain housing
the tombs of the Heretics.  They find themselves facing a sheer
precipice.  Virgil leads Dante to a place where a large pile of
rocks makes the precipice passable.  At this point, they
encounter the Minotaur, half man and half bull, and must find a
way past him.  Virgil taunts the monster with a reference to
Theseus who, in the Greek legends, slew him in the upper world.
The poets take advantage of the monster's raging fury to slip
past him down the rocks to the edge of Phlegethon, the river of
boiling blood.  This is Circle Seven, where the Violent are
punished.  Phlegethon boils those who were Violent against their
neighbors. 

  Before they even step off the rocks, Dante and Virgil are
challenged by the guardians of the river, the centaurs, who are
half horse and half man.  The centaur Chiron, the legendary
tutor of such Greek heroes as Achilles and Theseus, speaks to
the poets and asks if, indeed, Dante is still living.  Chiron
employs Nessus, the centaur who fell in love with Hercules' wife
and tricked her into poisoning Hercules, to carry Virgil and
Dante across the river. 

  Virgil points out to Dante that the river is not of the same
depth all around.  In the deeper part, those who committed their
lives to violence--the conqueror Alexander the Great, the Greek
god of frenzied revelry Dionysius--are boiled.  Those who were
less violent are boiled to a lesser degree, as the river is only
ankle deep in some parts.  It is at this point that Nessus tells
the poets to cross. 

  NOTE:  What do the two kinds of mythological monsters in this
canto have in common?  Each is a compound of man and beast.  The
Minotaur is part man and part bull; the centaurs are part horse
and part man.  As guardians to the first circle of the sins of
violence, they suggest to us that such sins spring from the
perversion of the human spirit, to the point that animal
passions outdo human reason.  In the myth, the Minotaur was the
product of lust, pride, and deceit.  Annually he devoured the
sacrifice of seven boys and seven girls until he was defeated by
Theseus.  Here, the monster cannot do his job because he is
caught in a blind rage.  These monsters reinforce the transition
from the sins of incontinence, loss of control, to the sins of
violence, the lust for destruction. 

^^^^^^^^^^
DIVINE COMEDY:  THE INFERNO:  CANTO XIII 

  In our day and age, suicide is sometimes viewed as romantic.
You therefore may have to adjust your thinking to Dante's in
this canto about the Suicides.  Modern readers, who understand
suicide as a psychological symptom, often have a hard time with
the harsh punishment that Dante inflicts upon these sinners.
Before judging him harshly, try to see this sin and punishment
in terms of his total concept. 

  Once Nessus has departed, Dante and Virgil walk into a forest
of dry, thorny trees.  The ugly, shrieking Harpies sit on these
trees. 

  NOTE:  The Harpies, the bird-women guardians of the Wood of
the Suicides, are another example of the half-human, half-beast
monster from mythology that Dante chooses as the image of the
sins of Violence.  In Virgil's Aeneid, the Harpies attack Aeneas
and his men when they land on the Strophades, stealing and
defiling their food.  Thus, as the image of the will to destroy,
they guard and torment the souls of those who denied and
rejected life on earth. 

  The poets hear a wailing but Dante can't see anyone who might
be making the sound.  Virgil bids Dante to break off a branch
from one of these trees.  Dante does as he is told and is
terrorized by the result.  Blood and words pour from the place
where he has plucked the branchlet.  The tree asks Dante why he
has torn away its bones. 

  Virgil answers for the stricken Dante.  He begs forgiveness
from the wounded soul, explaining that he asked Dante to tear
away a branch in order to see for himself what he might not have
believed if he were simply told.  Virgil also tells the soul
that if he speaks with Dante, Dante might be able to explain his
sin when he returns to earth. 

  This is the Wood of the Suicides.  The tree-embedded soul is
Pier delle Vigne, once counselor to Frederick II.  Accused of
treason and conspiracy, he tells Dante, he took his own life
rather than live with shame.  The shade goes on to tell Dante
how the souls of the Suicides come to be in the leafless trees.
When a soul is forced from its body in the violence of suicide,
Minos sends it down to the Seventh Circle.  The soul, wherever
it lands, falls into the ground, sprouts, and grows into a
sapling and then a tree.  The Harpies feed on the leaves and
branches, causing great pain.  After the Judgment Day, when all
sinners' bodies are reunited with their souls, the bodies of the
Suicides will hang from the thorns of the trees. 

  As Dante and Virgil wait for more words from the Suicide,
they hear the crashing sounds of a hunt.  Two naked shades come
running toward them, chased by a pack of black dogs. 

  These are the Profligates, those who squandered the source of
their sustenance in life.  It makes sense that they share the
same ring as the Suicides:  both denied themselves the life they
were intended.  These Profligates are different from the
Spendthrifts in Circle Four.  The Profligates willfully
destroyed the social order that provides for the continuation of
life; the Spendthrifts are guilty of simple extravagance.  For
example, Jacomo, the soul who was torn apart by the ravaging
bitches, had a habit of burning down the houses of his workers
for the fun of it.  Today, rock groups who smash their
instruments on stage and wreck their hotel rooms would certainly
end up here; they aren't just extravagant, they're willfully
destructive. 

  One of the Profligate shades, Jacomo of Saint Andrea, tries
to take refuge in a thick bush, but the pursuers tear into the
bush and grab the sinner, ripping him apart and carrying away
the pieces.  The Suicide embodied in that bush has been
inadvertently wounded; he yells questions of "My me?" after the
pack.  This Suicide, who tells Dante and Virgil only that he is
Florentine and has hanged himself, begs the poets to gather the
scattered leaves and branches near the base of his bush before
leaving. 

  Try to see Dante's image of sin and his concept of Divine
Order in the image he has chosen for the Suicides.  Again, Dante
feels that sin is chosen with free will; eternal placement is
simply a continuation of whatever was chosen during life.
Suicides chose to separate body from soul and are, thus,
eternally separated, even when other shades will regain their
bodies.  They chose a violent separation and are continually
preyed upon by the violent Harpies.  They chose to defile a form
given by God and are continually defiled in form.  They denied
the purpose of Christ's crucifixion, and their bodies will be
crucified forever.  One thing that cannot be denied, however, is
the eternal life of the spirit.  Just as Dante must make this
arduous journey because his laziness has threatened his eternal
life, so the Suicides must continue to live, are forced to
sprout and grow branches.  This spiritual life cannot be denied.
Man is free only to choose its form. 

  You may still think that Dante is cruel to those whom life
has treated cruelly enough, but you have to admit that he is
consistent in his application.  You will see, too, that Dante
puts his friends as well as his enemies in Hell.  (One is coming
up in Canto XV.) Apparently he doesn't want to put his own
feelings before the Divine Order. 

^^^^^^^^^^
DIVINE COMEDY:  THE INFERNO:  CANTO XIV 

  Dante and Virgil gather the leaves and branches of the
nameless Suicide before finding their way to the edge of the
wood.  Here they find a wide moat of sand on which herds of
souls lie flat or hunched.  All of them writhe, trying to avoid
great sheets of flame that fall continually on the sand.  Dante
questions Virgil about the place and is answered vehemently by
Capaneus who, in the war against Thebes, boasted that not even
Jove could stop him.  Virgil warns Capaneus that, since he won't
quiet his blasphemy, he will suffer even more. 

  Careful not to step onto the Burning Sands, the poets walk at
the edge until they come to a horrible, bubbling red brook with
banks of stone.  Virgil explains the source of this stream and
its path.  Dante asks questions about the sources and paths of
all the rivers in Hell, which pleases Virgil.  He explains some
and tells Dante that he will shortly see the rest for himself.
They head for a safe crossing place across the Burning Sands. 

  NOTE:  The river Phlegethon, the Wood of the Suicides, and
the Burning Sands are all part of the punishment for the various
ways that man can be violent.  The sands are sterile, as were
the trees of the Suicides.  Those that are violent against God,
Nature, and Art make sterile what should be fruitful.  The wrath
of the flames of fire are reminiscent of the wrath shown by God
in the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah. 

^^^^^^^^^^
DIVINE COMEDY:  THE INFERNO:  CANTO XV 

  Walking across the dike that crosses Phlegethon, Dante and
Virgil see a group of shades running past, taking careful note
of them and of each other.  These are the Sodomites, the
sexually unnatural.  One of the pack recognizes Dante and puts
his hand out to him.  Dante peers at the burned and scarred
shade and recognizes Brunetto Latini, a Florentine scholar and
author.  Brunetto asks Dante how he happened to be there and
tells him that, if he had not died so soon, he would have helped
Dante achieve his fame.  Brunetto also prophesies ill for Dante:
"For thy good deeds will be thine enemy." Dante tells Brunetto
that his fatherly image and his teachings remain with Dante
still.  Then Brunetto has to return to the perpetual running to
which he is condemned. 

  Brunetto was Dante's intellectual mentor.  His books embodied
medieval philosophy and intellectual order.  It is obvious from
this canto that Dante had a great deal of affection and respect
for him.  Dante put not only his enemies in Hell, but also any
of his friends whom he felt God would condemn.  He wouldn't put
his own judgment against the principles of God's judgment, but
at the same time he wouldn't downplay or reject the sincere
respect he held for valuable contributions that may pass between
men. 

  The perpetual running of the shades here parallels the
drifting of the Lustful in Canto V.  The Sodomites are violent
against nature, according to Dante, and have perverted the
natural powers of the body.  They must run after that which they
have denied.  Many of you may have objections to Dante's feeling
of sin here; it's good to keep in mind the values of the time
when it was written. 

^^^^^^^^^^
DIVINE COMEDY:  THE INFERNO:  CANTO XVI 

  Dante and Virgil continue along the rock path over Phlegethon
until they are within earshot of where the river runs over a
huge cliff.  Before they reach the edge, Dante sees and speaks
to several well-known Florentine politicians.  The men can't
stop the incessant running to which they are condemned so they
form themselves into a wheel, each watching Dante very carefully
while they speak.  The men ask particulars of Florence; Dante
gives them a depressing report. 

  When they have finished talking, Dante and Virgil proceed to
the edge of the cliff.  Virgil asks Dante to take off the rope
belt that he is wearing.  Dante promptly does so, telling the
reader that at one point he had hoped to catch the leopard with
it.  Virgil throws the girdle over the cliff.  Dante thinks to
himself that some strange creature will probably appear out of
the depths in response to this signal.  Virgil, apparently
reading Dante's thoughts, replies that that is exactly what is
to happen.  Dante begs the reader to believe what he scarcely
could, that out of the mists appeared the head of some strange
beast. 

  NOTE:  There are many interpretations of the source and
purpose of the rope and its use as a signal.  Dante does say
that he hoped to catch the leopard with it; perhaps we can see
this as a step in Dante's allegorical journey.  The sins of
Incontinence, symbolized by the leopard, are left behind and
Dante's defenses against them are freed for other uses. 

^^^^^^^^^^
DIVINE COMEDY:  THE INFERNO:  CANTO XVII 

  Dante would have made great movies because he had a wonderful
sense of visual drama.  As Virgil and Dante stand near the edge
of the cliff, the monster Geryon comes up over the edge in
response to Virgil's signal.  In Greek mythology, this monster
had three heads and a human form.  Here, however, he has the
face of a benign man, the claws of a beast, and the tail of a
reptile.  His multifaceted and deceptive form make him a perfect
image of Fraud, which is the corruption of appetite, will, and
intellect. 

  While Virgil negotiates passage down the cliff with Geryon,
he sends Dante to view a group of shades that sit on the edge of
the Burning Sands, the Usurers.  These sinners flap their arms,
gesturing to keep away from the burning flames that sweep over
them.  Around each neck is a purse.  It may seem odd to a reader
that the Usurers share the same ring as the Sodomites, until
Dante's feeling about making use of God's gifts of nature
becomes clear.  The Suicides refused life; the Profligates
refused to honor the materials that sustain life; the Sodomites
make sterile what is supposed to be fertile (the human body);
the Usurers make fertile what is supposed to be sterile--money.
To live from the labors of others, and to have luxuries at the
expense of their basic needs, is their sin.  (When you finish
paying your student loans, you might try creating your own
punishment for the Usurers.) 

  When Dante returns to Virgil, Virgil tells Dante to grab hold
of Geryon's shoulders, and he will transport the pair down to
the next circle.  Dante makes a show of his bravery but implores
Virgil to grab hold of him for safety.  Virgil does so, telling
Dante he will sit behind him to prevent Dante from suffering any
mischief from the monster's tall.  Geryon turns, descends the
cliff, and shakes off the poets at the bottom. 

  NOTE:  If you will remember Dante's difficulty getting
through the gates of Dis, you might see some parallels here.
Going through the gates meant passage from the first kind of
sin, Incontinence, to a more serious kind, Violence.  The steep
walls of the Abyss represent passage from the sins of Violence
to the most offensive kind of sin, Fraud.  It seems that when
the poets make a change of such significance, even Virgil has to
get some assistance.  Keep your eyes open for one more place
where this is so. 

^^^^^^^^^^
DIVINE COMEDY:  THE INFERNO:  CANTO XVIII 

  We have all been swindled at one time or another, and nothing
makes us angrier than to know that we have been swindled by
someone that we trusted.  Dante now devotes half of Hell to the
description and punishment of the different ways that people
swindle others. 

  Circle Eight, where Dante and Virgil find themselves after
Geryon deposits them, is called the Malbowges.  Shaped like a
stone funnel, or an amphitheater, as one critic describes it, it
consists of ten trenches dug into the rock with a stone path
bridging the trenches.  In each trench, one of the kinds of
simple fraud is punished. 

  NOTE:  Fraud, for Dante, is the most offensive sin, for it is
the perversion for sinful purposes of the one quality that
separates man from other earthly creatures--intellect.  The
sinner must think to plan his deception.  In Dante's malbowges,
you will see how fraud causes the disintegration of every kind
of human relationship, both personal and social.  You might pay
special attention to the recurring image of a city in
corruption.  When sexual favors, political offices, religious
offices, authority, money, and the very language itself are
fraudulent, the order and trust that allows men to live and work
together is gone. 

  In the first of the trenches, bowge i, Dante sees two streams
of naked sinners running in opposite directions from one
another, whipped by demons.  These are the Panderers and
Seducers.  Dante recognizes Venedico Caccianemico, who
supposedly sold his own sister to another man's lust.  He speaks
to him briefly but the demon's lash abruptly sends the sinner
prancing again with the rest.  Virgil points out to Dante the
shade of Jason who is punished for his seductions of Hysiphle
and Medea in the Greek legends. 

  The next image is perfect.  Everyone has someone to add to
this crowd.  Moving to the bridge that arches over bowge ii,
Dante hears whimpering and coughing and the slapping of hands.
Looking over, he sees the foul trench of the Flatterers.  The
banks of this trench are encrusted with scum; the fume rising to
the bridge is horribly offensive.  The trench is filled with
Flatterers, who are wallowing in the actual excrement that they
spewed metaphorically, in the form of words, on earth. 

  Dante looks for someone he might recognize and finds one
whose head is thickly plastered with merd.  When the sinner
challenges Dante, asking why he stares more at him than at the
others, Dante tells Allessio Intermini that he has seen him
"dry-headed" on earth. 

  Virgil draws Dante's attention to another sinner, Thais, who
alternately rises and crouches in the pool, each time repeating
her famous line, a harlot's flattering lie.  Our attention is
probably drawn to her because she is more than a trafficker in
flesh.  She had defiled the language, as have all the
inhabitants of this circle, defiling the possibility of
communication between people. 

  NOTE:  Dante's language is particularly vulgar in this canto
and his descriptions are grotesque.  Some translations refine
the language more than others, but the level of coarseness is
unmistakeable.  You might be asked to leave class or the dinner
table if you used it.  So why does Dante use such graphic
descriptions here and other places farther down in Hell? 

  As we said before, Dante uses language that matches his
subject.  The subject here is the depths of degradation possible
to the sinner in his sin.  Dante can't very well give a
spiritual description, so he translates his concept into a
physical description.  Dante means no insult or lack of
seriousness when he employs such low-style language.  He simply
means to communicate exactly what each sin is and what the
consequences of choosing that sin are.  You are what you do. 

^^^^^^^^^^
DIVINE COMEDY:  THE INFERNO:  CANTO XIX 

  Dante and Virgil continue on the path to bowge iii.  Dante
sees the trench filled with burning feet extending from holes in
the ground.  As Dante watches the kicking feet, he notices that
one sinner thrashes particularly hard.  When he asks Virgil
about it, Virgil suggests that they go down into the bowge and
let the sinner identify himself. 

  Dante speaks to the shade, Pope Nicholas III, who mistakenly
thinks he is being addressed by Pope Boniface VIII.  Dante
corrects the misconception and lectures the Pope on the abuses
of the Papacy, which makes the shade writhe and kick even
harder.  Virgil rewards Dante for this attack with an embrace
and carries him out of the moat to the path.  Apparently Dante
is making some headway on his allegorical journey (at least
until the next canto). 

  The inverted graves contain the Simoniacs, those who sold
religious offices and favors.  There is, apparently, one hole
for all the Popes.  As each who so abused the office dies, he
forces the Popes who sinned in this way before him deeper into
the hole and takes the place of his immediate predecessor. 

  NOTE:  This is a strange punishment, but Dante gives us some
help in trying to understand it.  The image of the punishment
is, again, the image of symbolic retribution.  In a medieval
baptismal font, the priest stands in a hole to pour water over
the head of a person being welcomed to the Church.  This is the
first sacrament, that which opens the way to Heaven.  Here is
the inversion:  the officer of the Church is embedded head first
with feet aflame, welcomed to Hell for pursuing earthly power
more than heavenly power. 

^^^^^^^^^^
DIVINE COMEDY:  THE INFERNO:  CANTO XX 

  Arriving at bowge iv, Dante sees sinners so twisted that they
face the back of their bodies.  Their eyes are filled with
tears.  These are the Sorcerers, the Fortune Tellers.  Among
them are Tiresias, the famous Greek prophet; Amphiaraus, one of
the Seven against Thebes who foresaw his own death; and Manto,
daughter of Tiresias.  Seeing them, Dante weeps.  Virgil
chastises Dante severely for this sympathetic reaction, telling
him that, "Here pity, or here piety, must die..." In other
words, Dante, by showing pity at the results of God's judgment,
is showing both an unreadiness to understand the true nature of
sin and an arrogance at judging God's judgment.  Dante pulls
himself together as Virgil catalogs the sinners in this
trench. 

  You are probably wondering why Dante is so moved by this
particular punishment.  We can only guess that Dante grieves
over the twisted human forms.  The Sorcerers themselves face
backwards because they tried to see the future; their eyes are
filled with tears so that those who tried to usurp God's power
to penetrate the future can no longer even see in front of
themselves.  Dante's reaction and the rebuke from Virgil show
that Dante's vision, too, is not clear enough for him to see
beyond the immediate and the physical to the source and the
reason beyond, the Divine Order of God. 

^^^^^^^^^^
DIVINE COMEDY:  THE INFERNO:  CANTO XXI 

  This and the next are probably the funniest cantos in the
Inferno.  They are like off-color satiric comedy.  While you are
reading, think whom you would like to reduce to such ridiculous
stupidity. 

  Talking of various things, Virgil and Dante walk down the
stone path until they come to bowge v, which is particularly
dark.  Looking into the bowge, Dante sees huge bubbles boiling
up in a stream of sticky pitch.  Virgil yells a warning and
yanks Dante to a safer place to watch a huge demon approach,
carrying a sinner over his shoulder.  The demon hurls the sinner
into the pitch, into the care of other demons who gleefully prod
him with hooks while he stews.  Virgil tells Dante to stay
hidden behind a rock while he negotiates passage with the
demons. 

  Virgil must curb the threatening demons with strong words
before he is granted a conference with one appointed as
spokesman.  Virgil tries to intimidate the demon, who is not
very cooperative, by letting him know this is a divine mission
to show another person the depths and horrors of Hell.  When the
demon agrees to let them pass, Virgil calls Dante from his
hiding place in the rocks.  The demons tease and threaten Dante
with pokes and prods.  Dante cowers beside Virgil, who is
hearing from the demons that the bridge on the path they are on
is down and has been since the earthquake which followed the
crucifixion of Christ.  The spokesman does offer a demon-escort
team to show the poets the way around part of the circle to
another path. 

  Dante doesn't make any attempts to hide his fear and doubt,
and is told by Virgil not to be afraid of the noise, which is
meant for the sinners.  The demons line up to be dismissed by
their spokesman-leader and stick their tongues out at him in
unison.  He turns, bends over, and sends them off with a fart
that sounds as loud as a bugle salute. 

  NOTE:  The journey with the demons will continue in the next
canto, but an explanation of the image and the unusual tone is
probably appropriate here.  Dante spends two entire cantos on
this sin.  He also treats it with a tone of savage satire that
is not evident in other places in the Inferno, even as the sins
grow worse.  Dante was banished from Florence for Barratry or
Graft, and so his particular interest in this sin is
understandable.  (Barratry can mean either the sale of public
office or persistent hassling by law suits.) 

  Money sticks to the palms of Grafters, and so the image of
sticky pitch is appropriate.  The demons are probably parodies
of various Florentine officials who were responsible for Dante's
exile.  The grossness of the demons, particularly the final
salute, might be part of Dante's revenge on those people who
ruined his life.  (Don't the guardians look more ridiculous than
the sinners in this canto?) 

  Almost every critic felt it was necessary to say something
about these cantos.  Some call cantos XXI and XXII the "Gargoyle
cantos." Remember the comparison of the Comedy to a Gothic
cathedral that we made in the introduction?  These two cantos
would be the grotesque corner gargoyles on the beautiful whole,
if we were to continue this metaphor.  Other critics explain the
cantos in terms of Dante's intent to separate the blasphemous
and profane in nether Hell II from the merely obscene above.
Despite the differences in opinion, it is interesting to note
that so many critics felt compelled to justify the existence of
these bawdy cantos within the intensely serious poem. 

^^^^^^^^^^
DIVINE COMEDY:  THE INFERNO:  CANTO XXII 

  Dante and Virgil set off with their escort of demons.  Dante
sees the sinners surface slightly in the river of pitch, and
then hide at the sight of the demons who try to fork them out.
One of the Barrators does not duck fast enough and is hooked by
one of the demons.  The demons torment him for a while.  Hoping
to gain his freedom, the sinner offers to lure others from the
moat to where the demons will have more luck finding them.  The
demons agree, but the sinner takes advantage of their momentary
lapse of attention to dive back into the pitch and escape.  Two
of the demons, furious at being duped, begin to fight each other
so viciously that they both end up in the pitch.  The poets,
fearing the unpredictable wrath of the demons, leave quickly and
continue on their way. 

  You can see here that, as orderly and contained as Hell might
appear, there is no justice, order, or discipline in Hell's
ranks.  When the guards themselves turn on each other with
savagery, you see all at once the nature of this place, the
untrustworthiness of the fraudulent, and Dante's feelings about
the lack of integrity and dignity of the Florentine officials
who banished him.  You will also see here, as well as farther
down in Hell, why Dante is often called the "master of the
disgusting." 

^^^^^^^^^^
DIVINE COMEDY:  THE INFERNO:  CANTO XXIII 

  The poets do well to fear that they will be chased by the
demons so bent on anger.  Dante barely has mentioned this
apprehension when they see two demons coming after them.  Virgil
scoops Dante up like a baby to his breast, and they flee down
the upper bank of bowge vi.  When Virgil sets Dante down on the
bottom of this circle, Dante can see the pursuing demons on the
cliffs overhead. 

  When Dante finally feels safe enough to turn his attention to
this new bowge, he sees sinners decked with paint and walking in
slow, slow steps.  Each of these sinners, the Hypocrites, wears
a long hooded cloak that hides his identity.  The cloaks hide
the sinners just as they sought to hide their true intentions or
feelings beneath a bright facade on earth.  Dante begs Virgil to
look for a recognizable sinner so he can question him about the
robes.  Hearing the voice, a shade far in back of the crowd
tells Dante to slow down so he can catch up and speak to him.
Dante waits and is approached by two jovial Friars, Catalano and
Loderingo, who explain that the cloaks are lined with lead so
heavy that they are very difficult to carry and balance. 

  The conversation is cut short when Dante sees one shade
crucified on the ground with three stakes forced through him.
The Friars explain that this is Caiaphas, the high priest of the
Jews, who counseled the Pharisees that Jesus should be
sacrificed as a public expediency.  For this, he is crucified
where all the Hypocrites with their leaden cloaks must walk over
him, thus forcing him, as chief hypocrite, to bear the weight of
the hypocrisy of the world. 

  Dante and Virgil find they have been given bad directions by
the demons.  The Friars tell them that the bridge is down but
that they could scale the rocks to the spur ahead, and from
there continue with the journey.  Virgil leaves in a huff; Dante
follows. 

^^^^^^^^^^
DIVINE COMEDY:  THE INFERNO:  CANTO XXIV 

  The path the Friars indicated is far more difficult than
Dante imagined.  He and Virgil must scale the rocky wall,
measuring each move and heaving their weight to the next
foothold.  Virgil does most of the hoisting and Dante does most
of the panting, so when the poets do reach the top and Dante
sits down to rest, Virgil criticizes his laziness.  Dante,
ashamed, tells Virgil that he is resolute.  They climb the steep
arch of the seventh bridge, again no small task, and Dante hears
voices from the trench below.  He asks Virgil if they can cross
over this bridge and climb down the far wall into bowge vii to
inspect what they can't see from above in the darkness.  As he
does whenever Dante makes any move to understand actively what
he is experiencing, Virgil readily agrees. 

  The trench is like something from a nightmare.  It is filled
with a mass of serpents and reptiles, swarming and repulsive.
Over this mass run naked men, whose hands are tied behind with
snakes that curl and loop through the loins of the men.  Dante
sees a shade run by; a snake darts up and stings the sinner on
the neck.  Immediately the sinner bursts into flames, burns, and
crumbles to ash.  Just as rapidly, the forms grow again out of
the ashes, stunned and bewildered with the pain. 

  Virgil approaches the sinner and asks who he is and what he
has done to deserve such a fate.  Vanni Fucci identifies himself
as a Thief cast here because he stole the treasury of the
sacristy.  (History tells of additional sides to Vanni Fucci.
He escaped, allowing an innocent man to be jailed for a year for
the crime he had committed before Fucci's accomplices were
hanged.) Vanni Fucci tells Dante that his worst shame is having
Dante find him here and goes on to give Dante a threatening
prophecy of events in Florence, with hope that the news hurts
Dante. 

^^^^^^^^^^
DIVINE COMEDY:  THE INFERNO:  CANTO XXV 

  Vanni Fucci, in his rage, gives "the figs," an obscene
gesture, to God, is immediately aswarm with serpents, and flees.
Cacus, a centaur, also encircled with snakes and carrying a
fire-breathing dragon on his back, chases the wretched Thief. 

  The next scene would be a real challenge to a movie maker or
a special-effects artist.  The imagination it displays is
astounding.  As the attention of the poet is drawn to the
arrival of three sinners, Dante feels he has to beg the reader
to believe the description of the next series of events. 

  A six-legged worm leaps, catches one of the Thieves with all
of his legs, and takes the sinner's face in his mouth.  Dante
watches in awe as the two forms melt into one perverse form, so
wretched that it defies description.  The melded monstrosity
moves slowly out of sight as a lizard scampers into view.  It
faces one of the sinners, leaps, and takes a huge bite out of
the sinner's throat.  From both the wound and the lizard's mouth
smoke emerges and the streams of smoke blend.  As they do, the
two forms begin a very strange metamorphosis, each shriveling or
sprouting where necessary to deform and reform as the other, the
man becoming the lizard and the lizard the man.  Dante swears
that, although he was bewildered by the scene, the description
is accurate. 

  NOTE:  Because the main tool of the thief is his hands, the
hands of the Thieves are bound.  Because the Thieves made no
distinction between what's yours and what's mine, they are
deprived of any distinct form.  Because stealing has such
reptilian sneakiness, the Thieves continually exchange shapes
with reptiles, and then attack other Thieves to rid themselves
of their reptilian forms.  The punishment is certainly
understandable for those who chose to ignore the ownership of
goods, which, in Dante's age, were considered extensions of the
owner himself. 

^^^^^^^^^^
DIVINE COMEDY:  THE INFERNO:  CANTO XXVI 

  Dante takes a satiric swipe at Florence before getting back
to the story of his journey.  He says that he has seen five of
that city's members in the ring of the Thieves.  He also
suggests that more evil will come to Florence as a result of her
sins. 

  The poets climb up the rocky spur to the next bridge, which
arches over bowge viii, containing the souls of the Counselors
of Fraud.  Dante describes what looks to him like a mass of
fireflies.  As he gets closer, he peers intently and gathers
that each flame walking on the bottom of the bowge contains a
sinner.  Seeing him study the scene with such fervor, Virgil
affirms what Dante has already guessed.  For Dante's quest, this
is a good sign.  He is beginning to see for himself what has
needed explanation before. 

  Dante does ask Virgil to identify two shades who occupy the
same flame.  Virgil explains that they are Ulysses and Diomede.
At once Dante asks if he might speak with them.  He tells Virgil
that he is aware that he cannot approach them himself and
implores Virgil to intercede. 

  NOTE:  We'll have to remember a little classical legend to
understand this exchange.  Ulysses (you may know him as
Odysseus) and Diomede were Greeks who fought against Troy in the
Trojan War.  Ulysses was the creator of the Trojan Horse, the
deciding factor against the Trojans.  Aeneas, the hero of
Virgil's epic, was a surviving Trojan who fled the sacking of
Troy and set off to found a new Troy, namely Rome; Virgil, being
a Roman, would therefore be a descendant of the enemy, and
Dante, an Italian, was also a distant descendant of the defeated
Trojans. 

  Dante knows if he speaks to the Greeks in Italian, they will
ignore him.  Virgil, however, being the White Magician, and
aided here by divine assistance, can compel the spirits to
speak. 

  When the twin sepulchered spirits approach, Virgil uses the
formula for conjuration to make the two spirits stop and tell
their story.  It is interesting that the spirits do not speak to
the poets.  Rather, Ulysses tells his story as though he has
been programmed and has told it many times before.  Several
explanations have been offered for this.  Perhaps because
Ulysses' sin has been the abuse of the power of the tongue, the
shade can no longer have control over his speech.  Nevertheless,
Ulysses' speech is moving.  True, he deceived his men by
convincing them to sail to the ends of the earth with him, but
he cannot disguise the glorious hunger for adventure that
motivated him.  Even this low in Hell, Dante allows his own
sympathy to surface, though he accepts God's judgment. 

  The Counselors of Fraud have abused the gifts they have been
given by God, particularly the gifts of genius and speech.
Dante should have lived to see our advertising or our political
conventions.  (Dante himself says in this canto that he, a poet,
must take special care not to abuse the same gifts.) Because
these sinners have deceived other men and hidden their motives,
they are hidden.  The flame serves two purposes:  one, to
suggest the destruction that the sinners have caused and, two,
to parody in the tongues of flame the gift of tongues that has
been defiled. 

^^^^^^^^^^
DIVINE COMEDY:  THE INFERNO:  CANTO XXVII 

  When the Greek spirit finishes his recitation, Virgil
dismisses the shades.  Another tall flame approaches making a
strange sound.  As the sounds are transmitted up the flame, they
become intelligible to the poets.  This flame contains the soul
of Guido da Montefeltro of Romagna.  Dante gives him a summary
of recent happenings, none of which is good news to the shade.
It is again noticeable here that, although all the shades seem
to be able to foresee the future and are aware of things in the
distant past, the present and the recent past are denied them.
This might be one of the ways that Dante creates an "eternal
present" as his concept of eternity.  After the shade has heard
the news, he tells Dante his own story. 

  NOTE:  Guido was an influential and intelligent Ghibelline
soldier who had resigned to become a Franciscan monk and save
his soul.  At the Pope's insistence, he got involved in a
dispute between the reigning Pope, Boniface VIII, and another
powerful family who had retreated to a large castle.  Guido
negotiated and persuaded the family to leave the castle to
accept a fair treaty being offered by the Pope.  They did.  The
Pope promptly destroyed the castle. 

  It seems unfair that Guido should suffer, and he does tell
Dante that St.  Francis came to rescue his soul when he died,
but St.  Francis was stopped by one of the Black Angels.  Though
the Pope had absolved Guido beforehand, Guido never repented
after his deed.  The Black Angel tells St.  Francis that
absolution is not valid when the sinner is intending to commit
the sin.  And so Minos gave Guido eight coils of his tail and
here he is. 

^^^^^^^^^^
DIVINE COMEDY:  THE INFERNO:  CANTO XXVIII 

  How much worse can Hell get?  Dante begins the next canto
with a direct address to you, the reader.  He says the next
sight, bowge ix, which houses the Sowers of Discord, is so awful
that he is not sure any words will describe it.  He claims if
all the wounded in a long list of battles were to display their
wounds and pieces and blood, the sight would not be as horrible
as the one he meets here. 

  The sinners are continually cut apart by a demon with a
bloody sword.  After each wounding, the sinner must travel
around the circle, dragging his own severed part.  As the sinner
proceeds, the parts heal and he returns full circle, only to be
hacked apart again.  The severing sword is a fairly obvious
symbolic retribution for those who have used their intellect to
separate those meant to be united.  Each suffers according to
the severity of the sin. 

  Dante sees one sinner cut down the middle.  Don't read this
section before eating, because Dante spares none of the details
or the coarse language as he describes the exposed digestive
tract and all its now-dangling parts.  This is Muhammad (or
Mahomet), the leader of the schism between Christianity and
Islam.  In front of him is his son-in-law, Ali, whose head is
split open.  These are Sowers of Religious Discord.  It is not
hard to guess Dante's opinion of this religious group from the
description he offers.  (Obviously not very ecumenical, Dante
wrote from strict Catholic doctrine.) Muhammad tells Dante the
particulars of this punishment and offers a warning to Fra
Dolcino, a supposed schismatic still alive on earth. 

  Dante sees another mutilated sinner.  On this one, the nose
has been cut off, the ear lopped off, and the gullet pierced.
This is Pier da Medicina, and his wounds indicate his intrigues
in Romagna:  the ear of the eavesdropper, the nose of the snoop,
and the throat of the liar.  Pier is one of the Sowers of Civil
Discord.  He speaks to Dante and asks him to take the message of
what he has seen to earth.  While speaking, he shows Dante the
now-mute Curio, tongue hacked from his head for advising Julius
Caesar to cross the Rubicon.  Mosca dei Lamberti, severed hands
held up and covering his face with bloody clots, enters the
conversation.  Dante greets him with a wish for a death to all
of Mosca's family.  (If you think Dante is cruel to this sinner,
wait a few cantos.) 

  Dante the author intercedes once again to warn you that the
next description sounds so unbelievable that he might be tempted
to doubt his own judgment, if he were not under such powerful
care.  He claims that he can still see the sinner running toward
him, swinging his head in his hand like a lantern.  When the
sinner, Bertrand de Born, reaches the bridge, he tosses his head
up in the air so it can talk to Dante, who is standing on the
bridge.  Bertrand tells Dante his head has been severed because
he counseled a son to overthrow his father. 

  NOTE:  What would Dante have thought of the blood-and-guts in
our movies and television shows?  Dante is graphically violent,
but for the purpose of showing how repulsive man can become.
Can we so clearly justify the extent of the violence in our
entertainment? 

^^^^^^^^^^
DIVINE COMEDY:  THE INFERNO:  CANTO XXIX 

  Dante lingers on the edge of bowge ix, looking for one of his
relatives, Geri del Bello.  Virgil tells Dante to leave him to
his punishment and to put his mind on higher matters.  As they
walk, Virgil tells Dante that, while Dante was talking to the
other Sowers of Discord, Geri del Bello passed and made
threatening gestures toward Dante. 

  The poets come to the last bowge where the Falsifiers are
stricken with diseases and afflictions of all the senses.  The
noise causes Dante to cover his ears.  Some are lying, hardly
able to move.  Two are propped against each other, back to back,
each viciously scratching himself, peeling off flakes of himself
like scales from a fish.  When Dante speaks to them, they
identify themselves as Griffilino D'Arezzo and Capocchio.
Although each was also guilty of other sins on earth, they are
placed here because this is the circle were the most offensive
of their sins, alchemy, is punished. 

  These sinners falsified goods.  For that, all their senses
and their bodies are made impure, made sick.  Other kinds of
Falsifiers will be mentioned in the next canto, but you should
notice that this is the last sin of the Malbowges.  The
Malbowges began with the Panderers and Seducers, those who sold
the sexual relationship, and ends with those who deceive others
in the products they produce.  Think of how you feel when you
pay good money for a book or a record, only to find it's a cheap
rip-off.  Wouldn't you like to see the people responsible get
kicked down to bowge x? 

  NOTE:  Looking at this circle, we can see a degeneration of
the spirit, which now recognizes no obligation to be honest in
any of its relationships with other men.  All the means of
communication--speech, Church, State, even money itself--are
corrupted.  Dante makes clear the state of the spirit by
continuing the image of the city, now in its terminal stages of
disease. 

^^^^^^^^^^
DIVINE COMEDY:  THE INFERNO:  CANTO XXX 

  Just as Capocchio finishes telling Dante his story, two
horrible spirits come racing through the bowge and grab
Capocchio.  One sinks his teeth into Capocchio's neck and they
drag him away.  Griffilino explains that these shades are Myrrha
and Gianni Schicchi. 

  NOTE:  Myrrha was a woman who disguised herself and slipped
into her father's bed.  When he discovered the trick, he
threatened to kill her.  Instead, she fled and turned herself
into a myrtle tree, from which Adonis was later born.  Gianni
Schicchi pretended to be a recently dead man in order to dictate
a new will for that man, which would be favorable to a friend
and himself.  These sinners are the Imposters, the Falsifiers of
Person. 

  When the pair of sinners departs, Dante sees another sinner
who lies distorted, bloated, and parched.  The sinner asks Dante
why he walks free of punishment.  This is Master Adam who
reportedly counterfeited so many gold coins that he jeopardized
the currency of Tuscany.  For this he was burned; here he
continues to burn with an eternal thirst that prevents him from
thinking of anything else, except the revenge he would impart on
his fellow sinners. 

  Dante asks Master Adam about another pair of sinners who
appear to be rolled together and strangely immobile.  Master
Adam tells Dante that they haven't moved since he arrived and
identifies one as Sinon of Troy, the Greek spy who persuaded the
Trojans to open the gates to the Trojan Horse.  Just then, Sinon
rises and belts Master Adam so hard on the belly that it sounds
like a drum.  Master Adam responds with an arm square across the
face of Sinon.  The two argue back and forth so furiously that
Dante becomes grossly intent on the argument.  Virgil rebukes
Dante, telling him that if he keeps watching, he will risk an
argument with Virgil.  Dante is terribly ashamed, speechless.
Virgil gently accepts Dante's unspoken apology, telling Dante
that to enjoy such a sight is vulgar. 

  Although Dante's quest is to order his experience and to
understand why each sin is punished the way it is and where it
is, enjoying the punishment is not part of the job.  Dante has
to learn to be repulsed by sin and to understand that each sight
he sees is the image of a soul so frozen in sin that he has
forgone change, Heaven, and God.  Virgil rebukes Dante for
concentrating on the grotesqueness of the individual and not
seeing him in terms of the essential rightness of God's Divine
Order. 

^^^^^^^^^^
DIVINE COMEDY:  THE INFERNO:  CANTO XXXI 

  Virgil and Dante climb the path in semidarkness and head
toward the pit that houses Satan.  In the darkness, Dante thinks
he sees a series of towers and asks Virgil what city they are
approaching.  Virgil tells Dante he will see more clearly as
they get closer; then he decides it is best to tell Dante about
what he is to see before he becomes too frightened.  When they
reach the wall of the well, he tells Dante he will see the
Giants and the Titans who fought the gods, frozen to their
navels in the ice. 

  Despite Virgil's warnings, Dante becomes more and more
frightened as the sight becomes clearer.  Nevertheless, Dante
has the presence of mind to think that it was wise that Nature
stopped making Giants, for a thinking mind joined to such
strength and malice would be too much for a man to defend
himself against. 

  One of the huge monsters begins to howl in a language Dante
does not understand.  Virgil explains that this Giant is Nimrod,
who was responsible, according to the myths, for the Tower of
Babel. 

  The poets continue to walk and come upon another Giant who is
not only frozen in the earth but has a chain wound around him
five times, binding the left hand in front of him and the right
hand in back.  (The left hand symbolizes evil, while the right
hand is supposed to be good.) When Dante learns from Virgil that
this is Ephialtes, who was killed by Apollo in the battle
against the gods, Dante asks if they might not see Briareus, his
famous fellow-fighter with fifty heads and one hundred arms.
Virgil tells Dante that Briareus is too far away, yet describes
him as twice as fierce as Ephialtes and bound in the same way.
Instead, the poets seek Antaeus, who is not bound to the earth
because he did not fight the gods. 

  At this point, Ephialtes begins to thrash about so hard that
Dante says he would have feared for his life had he not
remembered the Giant was chained.  The poets find Antaeus, who
responds to Virgil's flattery and the promise that Dante will
make him famous on earth.  He gently lifts the poets and places
them down on the surface of the frozen lake, Cocytus, the bottom
of the pit of Hell. 

  NOTE:  You may ask why Dante has the Giants guarding this,
the very bottom of Hell.  It's a good question.  Possibly they
represent the possibility of power without the controlling
influence of love and reason.  The Giants are very proud.
Notice Antaeus' response to Virgil's flattery.  Most of them
revolted against the gods and thus share or represent Satan's
place as the one who revolted against God.  Unloosed, these
Giants would reduce to uncontrollable chaos the order that God
has created.  As representatives of the basic earth-primitive
forces in the human spirit, we see that Dante feels they must be
contained, or else the world would be run by the forces of
stupidity, vanity, violence, and treachery. 

^^^^^^^^^^
DIVINE COMEDY:  THE INFERNO:  CANTO XXXII 

  Just as you are wondering what could possibly be at the
bottom of Hell, Dante now apologizes in advance for any
inability to describe what he sees.  It's small wonder that he
has doubts.  This is the Ninth Circle, where the most loathesome
of the sinners, Traitors, are frozen into Cocytus.  Two images,
that of the lake and that of freezing, work to create Dante's
final picture of the soul who has turned ultimately from God. 

  The lake is the collection of all the sin, refuse, and
defilement that descends from earth, from Hell, and from the
river Lethe, which runs through Purgatory and washes the purged
sins back to Cocytus.  It is, therefore, the center or the core
of sin.  The ice clearly portrays the painful numbness of the
sinners and the immobility of their souls, now locked in by
cruelty and treachery.  Together, these images present the
inversion and perversion of the qualities of the Celestial City
in this place in the universe farthest from God. 

  As Dante is turning around to look, Virgil warns him not to
trample the heads of the sinners.  The heads of the sinners,
bowed, teeth uncontrollably chattering, discolored from the
cold, protrude from the ice.  This first region in Cocytus is
Caina, named for Cain, who in the Bible, slew his brother over
an inheritance.  Here the Traitors against Kin are frozen with
enough freedom to allow their heads to bow and tears to run
unobstructed.  (If you are thinking this is unimportant,
remember the last time you got a pain behind your eye from
eating ice cream too fast.  Do you want to spend an eternity
like that?) 

  Dante takes in the whole vision and returns to the sight at
his feet, two souls frozen breast to breast so that, it seems to
Dante, their hair has grown together.  Dante speaks to the two
and they raise their heads to answer.  As a consequence, the
cold freezes their tears and locks their heads together.  In
fury, the two sinners butt their heads against each other and
rock madly.  Another sinner, who is frozen nearby and has lost
two ears to frostbite, asks Dante why he is looking so hard at
the pair.  He goes on to identify them as Napoleone and
Allessandro degli Alberti, brothers who killed each other in a
quarrel over politics and their inheritance.  The reporting
sinner also draws Dante's attention to other inhabitants of
Caina, Focaccia and Sassol Mascheroni, before identifying
himself as Camiscion de Pazzi whose sins, he says, will seem
less cruel when seen beside those committed by other members of
his family.  (Camiscion murdered a kinsman who was a traitor to
his country, a White Guelph who surrendered for a bribe a castle
he was supposed to defend.) 

  Walking and thinking about the unforgettable sight, Dante
inadvertently kicks one of the Traitors in the face and gets a
shrill rebuke.  Dante begs Virgil, who is hurrying ahead, to
wait just a moment.  He has a hunch he knows this sinner.  Dante
asks the still-cursing sinner who he is.  The sinner responds by
asking who Dante thinks he is, to go through kicking people in
the face.  Dante again tries to get the sinner to identify
himself by promising him fame on earth.  The sinner replies that
he wants just the opposite and that Dante shows a lack of wit
when he tries that approach in this region of Hell.  (This
region is Antenora, named for Antenor, who supposedly betrayed
Troy to the Greeks.  Traitors against their Country are cast
here.) 

  Readers who remember the compassionate Dante who fainted at
the story of Francesca and Paolo in the First Circle of Hell are
shocked at the response Dante now gives this sinner.  Dante
grabs him by the hair and threatens to pull it out, tuft by
tuft, if he doesn't identify himself.  Again, the sinner refuses
even to look at Dante, telling him that he can strip his head a
thousand fruitless times.  Enraged, Dante yanks a handful of
hair from the scalp.  The shade yelps, which provokes another
sinner, Buoso da Duera, to chastise him for barking out and
disturbing everyone; he calls out the sinner's name, Bocca degli
Abati.  Dante, hearing Bocca's name, calls him a filthy traitor
and assures him that his name will be known.  Responding, Bocca
tells Dante not to forget the story of the chatterbox who
informed on him. 

  The sinners like to tell on each other, but are very
reluctant to identify themselves.  Thus, they continue the cruel
and selfish treachery that landed them there. 

  NOTE:  Is Dante too cruel to Bocca?  You will have to decide
that for yourself.  The Traitors are cruel; maybe they should be
treated cruelly.  Dante's cruelty, on the allegorical level,
looks like a successful reaction to a terrible sin.  Can we see
Dante's anger as part of the repulsion he feels at sin?  When
you see someone who has done something cruel and deceitful to
another person, aren't you angry at him even though he didn't do
a thing to you? 

  Dante leaves Bocca and comes upon one of the most horrible
sights in Hell, two sinners frozen together, one gnawing the
skull and brain of the other.  Dante begs the sinner to tell him
who he is and why he is condemned to this hateful display of
rage. 

^^^^^^^^^^
DIVINE COMEDY:  THE INFERNO:  CANTO XXXIII 

  What is more repulsive than cannibalism?  Picture this final
scene of human depravity.  Dante speaks to the two sinners in
the filthy ice.  One lifts his head from his feast, wipes the
blood and brains from his chin on the remaining hair of the
skull he has been chewing, and then answers.  What could these
sinners have done that is so disgusting as to deserve this
punishment? 

  The two are Roger (Ruggieri degli Abaldini) and Ugolino
(Count Ugolino della Gherardesca) who were involved in a plot
and counterplot to seize power.  Ugolino and his grandson, Nino,
were rival heads of families.  In order to get rid of Nino,
Ugolino allied himself with Archbishop Roger.  Once Nino was out
of power, Roger turned on Ugolino.  Ugolino, his two sons, and
two of his grandsons were imprisoned in a tower for months.
After this long imprisonment, Ugolino woke one morning to the
sound of the tower doors being nailed shut.  The family was left
to starve. 

  Dante knows how to throw in an emotional clincher to sway a
jury!  Ugolino tell Dante that when he bit his hand to stop from
crying, one of the boys mistook the gesture as one of hunger and
offered up his own flesh to Ugolino.  Horrible as Ugolino's fate
is, we must wish an even worse fate on Roger, who caused
Ugolino's tragedy.  Ugolino renews his savage chewing. 

  NOTE:  Roger and Ugolino are the last of the pairs of
sinners.  If you think back, you'll remember several notable
pairs:  Paolo and Francesca, Ulysses and Diomede, Farinata and
Cavalcante.  Why does Dante use them?  Are there any special
ties here? 

  First comparison works.  You can say a lot about a person
simply by placing him, literally or figuratively, next to
another.  (Think of how many similes and metaphors you have had
to identify over the years.) The lines that introduce the
stories of Paolo and Francesca and of Roger and Ugolino are
drawn from the same passage of Virgil.  As we have been noticing
all along, Dante seems to have left nothing to chance, so this
is probably not an accident.  The lovers are in the First
Circle; the traitors are in the last. 

  Reinforcing the comparison, Dante emphasizes this final image
of mutual sin.  Remember how Francesca wept as she told her
story, took the blame for the mutual sin, and, even in Hell, saw
beauty in Paolo?  Although they had sinned, there is still love
and trust.  Looking at Roger and Ugolino--the starver serving as
food for cannibalism, the hatred that seems to grow with each
mouthful--we see the end of any possible human relationship.
This truly is Dante's image of sin as a devouring passion for
destruction. 

  The final sinners whom Dante encounters in his journey
through Hell are the Treacherous against Guests and Host.  They
are frozen face up in the ice of the last ring of Cocytus, which
is Ptolemea, named for Ptolomeus, who slaughtered his
father-in-law at a banquet.  You are probably wondering why this
is the most serious wrong.  After all, you see horrible
kidnappings and murders in the papers all the time.  What makes
this sin so wrong?  Some of you may even remember this sin as a
major issue in Macbeth and in the history of the House of Atreus
in the Aeschylus trilogy, the Oresteia. 

  For the only explanation we can offer, look back at Dante's
concept of the universe, especially at the idea of hierarchy.
Stability and order are based on each person and each thing
staying in his proper place and doing well with his particular
responsibilities.  To threaten or plot against the leaders of
any society is a capital crime because it threatens the order
and security of the entire group.  In Dante's time, with society
structured in a far more hierarchical, far less democratic way,
the sin must have seemed even worse. 

  Here Dante speaks to Friar Albergio, who deceived and
slaughtered his brother.  Dante promises, in return for the
man's story, to undo the ice which forms from the pools of tears
the prone sinner weeps, forcing the sinner to weep inwardly.
After hearing the friar's story, and seeing Branca d'Oria
pointed out, Dante refuses to remove the ice and calls such
churlishness "a courtesy." 

  NOTE:  Two things bother students immensely here.  One,
Branca d'Oria is still alive, yet his soul is in Hell.  This
doesn't seem to fit with Dante's whole concept of free will as
the source of eternal placement.  Couldn't the man repent, start
making amends, and be sent to Purgatory?  If we remember that
this poem is at least partly allegory, we might be able to
explain this as an image of the soul in the depths of sin.  It
is so frozen away from God and into the will to sin that it
probably can't find its way even to begin repentance.  In other
words, Dante might be trying to suggest a condition of the
spirit rather than an actual happening or point of doctrine. 

  The other thing that students find hard to buy is Dante's
refusal to remove the ice from the Friar's eyes after he
promises to do so.  Is this simple cruelty?  It looks as though
Dante is doing exactly what the sinners are being punished
for--being insincere and untrustworthy.  Before we judge, let's
raise a question.  Can you be kind and fair to everyone on
earth?  Would or could you be fair to a Hitler?  Fairness is
based on mutual trust; sinners this treacherous can't be
trusted.  In this place of treachery, there is no place for
honesty.  Even Virgil had to flatter the Giants to get here.
Also, if we remember that part of Dante's journey is the moral
and allegorical journey to understand exactly what sin is, we
can see his cruelty as progress.  Dante now sees sin for the
perversion that it is and is learning to guard himself against
it. 

^^^^^^^^^^
DIVINE COMEDY:  THE INFERNO:  CANTO XXXIV 

  How do you picture Satan?  Is he an active tempter as in
Milton's Paradise Lost, Goethe's Faust, or Marlowe's Dr.
Faustus?  Here Satan appears as the end of Dante's image of sin
frozen in the wastes of the world. 

  Dante looks up from the ice that holds completely submerged
sinners (this is Judecca, home of the Traitors against God and
Leader, named after the Bible's Judas) to see a huge, shadowy
form.  A blast of wind is so severe that Dante has to hide
behind Virgil to escape it.  When Dante looks again, he sees
what he won't even try to explain:  Satan. 

  Satan is huge.  Some critics who have calculated the
mathematical clues in the Inferno measure him somewhere between
1000 and 1500 feet long.  Satan is frozen to his chest in the
ice but his three sets of wings are free to beat.  Ironically,
Satan beats these wings in a furious eternal attempt to escape,
but it is these wings that keep him frozen in the one place in
the universe farthest from God.  Satan has three faces (red,
yellow, and black) and each chews on a sinner.  The sinner in
the middle, head first in Satan's mouth, is continually stripped
of his flesh by Satan's clawing hands.  This is Judas, the
apostle who betrayed Christ and set in motion the crucifixion.
In the other two mouths are Julius Caesar's assassins, Brutus
and Cassius. 

  NOTE:  Readers of Shakespeare's Julius Caesar are probably
protesting heavily at this point.  Our interpretation of Cassius
and Brutus is colored heavily by the play and our own democratic
principles.  Dante probably had no special affection for Julius
Caesar as a person, but looked at him as the founder of the
Roman Empire which, in Dante's eyes, made possible the spread of
Christianity.  Cassius and Brutus are punished like this for
treason against the Roman Empire and for breaking a sworn oath
of allegiance to Caesar. 

  Satan himself is the image of a perverse or an inverted
Trinity.  The Trinity has three separate beings, Father, Son,
and Holy Spirit, which are united in one being (the major
mystery of the Trinity); Satan is one being divided into
three--three faces, three sets of wings, three colors, etc.
Whereas the power of the Trinity can elevate and draw all things
toward Itself, Satan's futile beatings only freeze him more
solidly where he is.  Satan is frozen into the scum of the
universe (see Canto XXXII for the description) while God is the
source of all light, warmth, love, and so on. 

  After Dante takes this all in, Virgil reminds Dante that they
still have to get past Satan.  This could be a problem.  They
time their move and, while the wings are unfurled and lifted,
rush in, grab the fur of Satan, and begin the descent.  At least
Virgil does; Dante is clinging to his back.  At the hip joint,
Virgil turns and starts to climb up.  Panting with the effort,
Virgil reaches a place where the rock forms a small ledge.  He
puts Dante on the ledge and crawls out himself.  Dante looks up,
expecting to see Satan's head and Hell, but sees instead his
legs and, at a distance, the morning sky. 

  You science majors should have this all figured out.  Dante
needs Virgil to explain how they seemed to turn around, but
didn't, and how they could leave Hell in the evening, travel no
more than half an hour, and arrive in the morning.  The answer
is that they have passed the center of gravity.  Virgil had to
turn and climb up the legs because Satan's hip joint was at that
center of gravity.  As regards the time, Virgil explains that
the morning sun Dante sees is the sun of the southern
hemisphere, which is twelve hours behind the sun of the northern
hemisphere they have left on the other side of Hell.  It is now
Holy Saturday morning again. 

  Virgil gives Dante one more instruction:  "Up on thy legs."
The two start to follow a small stream, the Lethe, which drains
from Mount Purgatory, where they are headed.  Although your
journey through the Inferno is completed, Dante has Purgatory
and Heaven yet to travel. 

^^^^^^^^^^
DIVINE COMEDY:  THE INFERNO:  GLOSSARY OF ITALIAN
CHARACTERS 

  Many of the characters in Dante's Hell are familiar to us
from the Bible or from classical mythology.  One other category
of Dante's sinners, however, is drawn from the Italian politics
of Dante's own time.  The most important of these are listed
below, along with where they are placed in Hell and where they
appear in the poem. 

  ALESSIO INTERMINEI A flatterer from Lucca whom Dante
recognizes in Circle VIII, bowge ii.  (Canto XVIII) 

  BERTRAND DE BORN Having counseled to separate a prince from
his father the king, he is condemned to have his head separated
from his body eternally.  He is in Circle VIII, bowge ix, as a
Sower of Civil Discord.  (Canto XXVIII) 

  BOCCA DEGLI ABATI In Circle IX, Antenora, is a Traitor to
Country.  He quarrels with Dante for trampling on his head,
which is frozen into the ice, and refuses to tell the poet his
name.  (Canto XXXII) 

  BRANCA D'ORIA A man whose soul has been consigned to Circle
IX, Ptolomea, with the other Traitors to Guests, even before his
body up on earth has died.  (Canto XXXIII) 

  BRUNETTO LATINI A Florentine scholar and author who was
Dante's mentor, is placed in Circle VII with the Sodomites.
(Canto XV) 

  CAMISCION DE PAZZI A White Guelph like Dante, he has murdered
a kinsman, and thus is placed in Caina, with the Traitors to Kin
in Circle IX.  However, since the kinsman he murdered was a
traitor to his country, Camiscion claims his sin was less cruel
than it seems.  (Canto XXXII) 

  CAPPOCHIO An alchemist placed with the Falsifiers in Circle
VIII bowge x.  (Canto XXIX) 

  CAVALCANTE DEI CAVALCANTI The son-in-law of Farinata degli
Uberti (see below), is entombed with him eternally.
Cavalcante's son, GUIDO, was a poet and a friend of Dante's.
Cavalcante is a Heretic, in Circle VI.  (Canto X) 

  CIACCO A Florentine, whose name means "pig," he is placed in
Circle III, for the Gluttonous.  He offers Dante some
predictions about Florentine politics, and begs to be remembered
to folks at home.  (Canto VI) 

  FARINATA DEGLI UBERTI A Florentine and an enemy of Dante's
ancestors.  He is the father-in-law of Cavalcante dei Cavalcanti
(see above).  A Heretic, Farinata is in Circle VI.  (Canto X) 

  FILIPPO ARGENTI A wrathful Florentine, is in Circle V, the
River Styx.  (Canto VIII) 

  FRANCESCA DA RIMINI The beautiful lady who fell in love with
her brother-in-law Paolo (see below).  She is whirled around
with the Lustful in Circle I.  (Canto V) 

  FRIAR ALBERGIO Frozen in the ice in Circle IX, Ptolomea.  He
slaughtered his brother, and is placed lower than the Traitors
to Kin, among the Traitors to Guests.  The Friar's body may
still be alive up on earth.  (Canto XXXIII) 

  GERI DEL BELLO A relative of Dante's.  His violent death has
not yet been avenged up on earth.  He is in Circle VIII, bowge
ix, with other Sowers of Discord.  (Canto XXIX) 

  GIANNI SCHICCHI Impersonated a dead man in order to pass off
a will that he himself would benefit from.  He is placed in
Circle VIII, bowge x, as an Imposter, a Falsifier.  (Canto
XXX) 

  GRIFFILINO D'AREZZO An alchemist placed in Circle VIII, bowge
x, as a Falsifier.  He mentions that the sin for which he
died--basically disappointing his wealthy lord--was not as grave
as the sin for which he is punished here.  (Canto XXIX) 

  GUIDO DA MONTEFELTRO Ghibelline soldier who became a
Franciscan monk to save his soul.  He helped Pope Boniface VIII
betray a political family.  Although the Pope guaranteed
absolution to Guido, he never truly repented and was therefore
sent down to Circle VIII, bowge viii, with the Counselors of
Fraud.  (Canto XXVII) 

  JACOMO OF SAINT ANDREA A Profligate eternally hunted in
Circle VII.  (Canto XIII) 

  MASTER ADAM A Tuscan counterfeiter, placed with the
Falsifiers in Circle VIII, bowge x.  (Canto XXX) 

  NAPOLEONE AND ALLESSANDRO DEGLI ALBERTI Two brothers who
killed each other in a quarrel for their inheritance.  In Circle
IX, in Caina, these Traitors to Kin are frozen eternally
together.  (Canto XXXII) 

  PAOLO DA RIMINI One of the pair of adulterous lovers (see
Francesca, above) in Circle I, for the Lustful.  (Canto V) 

  PIER DA MEDICINA A political intriguer from Romagna.  He is
in Circle VIII, bowge ix, as a Sower of Civil Discord.  (Canto
XXVIII) 

  PIER DELLA VIGNE Counselor to Frederick II.  He committed
suicide when court gossips turned his lord against him.  He is
in the Wood of the Suicides, in Circle VII.  (Canto XIII) 

  RUGGIERI DEGLI ABALDINI or ROGER The archbishop who
treacherously imprisoned his ally, Count Ugolino, in a tower.
He is in Circle IX, Antenora, with other Traitors to their
Country.  (Canto XXXIII) 

  UGOLINO DELLA GHERARDESCA A nobleman who, allied with
Archbishop Ruggieri, toppled the head of a rival family from
power.  Ruggieri then turned on Ugolino, locking him up to
starve in a tower with his sons.  Some say Ugolino was finally
driven to eat one of his dead sons to survive.  Down in Circle
IX, in Antenora, he eternally chews on Ruggieri's head in
revenge.  (Canto XXXIII) 

  VANNI FUCCI A bitter, resentful Tuscan.  He is consigned to
Circle VIII, bowge vii, with the Thieves, because he robbed the
treasure from a sacristy.  He belligerently gives Dante an
obscene gesture.  (Cantos XXIV-XXV) 

  VENEDICO CACCIANEMICO A Bolognese who sold his sister,
Ghisolabella, to a rich nobleman.  He has ended up in Circle
VIII, bowge i, with the Panderers.  (Canto XVIII) 

^^^^^^^^^^
DIVINE COMEDY:  THE INFERNO:  ON BEATRICE 

  She is an invention, but an archtypal one, appealing to the
deepest emotions, which was not only to be the focus of Dante's
own religious idealism but was also, in a less calculable way,
to affect ideas of the relationship between art, religion,
saintliness and womanhood permanently.  Though made so early in
his career she is in a sense Dante's most original and profound
creation. 

  George Holmes, Dante, 1980 

^^^^^^^^^^
DIVINE COMEDY:  THE INFERNO:  THE SUPREME WORK OF
THE MIDDLE AGES? 

  The Divine Comedy is classically referred to as the epitome,
the supreme expression of the Middle Ages.  If by this is meant
that many typically medieval attitudes are to be found in it, it
is true:  the reasoning is scholastic, the learning, the
mysticism are those of the author's time.  But if from such a
statement one is to infer (as is frequently done) that the poem
is a hymn to its times, a celebration and a glorification of
them, as Virgil's Aeneid was of Rome, then nothing could be more
misleading.  The Comedy is a glorification of the ways of God,
but it is also a sharp and great-minded protest at the ways in
which men have thwarted the divine plan.  This plan, as Dante
conceived it, was very different from the typically medieval
view, which saw the earthly life as "a vale of tears," a period
of trial and suffering, an unpleasant but necessary preparation
for the after-life where alone man could expect to enjoy
happiness.  To Dante such an idea was totally repugnant.  He
glorified in his God-given talent, his well disciplined
faculties, and it seemed inconceivable to him that he and
mankind in general should not have been intended to develop to
the fullest their specifically human potential.  The whole
Comedy is pervaded by his conviction that man should seek
earthly immortality by his worthy actions here, as well as
prepare to merit the life everlasting. 

  Archibald T.  MacAllister, 

  Introduction to John Ciardi's translation 

  of The Inferno, 1954 

^^^^^^^^^^
DIVINE COMEDY:  THE INFERNO:  THE INEXHAUSTIBILITY
OF DANTE 

  The supreme art of poetry is not to assert meaning but to
release it by the juxtaposition of poetic elements.  Form, in
its interrelations, is the most striking element.  Because in
any extended poetic structure these juxtapositions when looked
at from different points of vantage, that release of meaning is
subject to endless meaningful reinterpretation.  The
inexhaustibility of The Divine Comedy is a consequence of this
structural quality.  It is for that reason that no one can ever
finish reading it.  There will always be a new way of viewing
the elements.  But if no man can finish the poem, any man can
begin it and be the richer for having begun.  The present
imperfect gloss--skimming though it be--is really about all one
needs to start with.  And having started, all he needs is to pay
attention.  The poem itself is the rest of the way, and the way
is marked. 

  John Ciardi, 

  "How to Read Dante," 1961 

^^^^^^^^^^
DIVINE COMEDY:  THE INFERNO:  DANTE'S ALLEGORY 

  The greatest mistake consists in measuring Dante's allegory
on the same terms as all other allegories:  that is, as an idea
which is dressed up, a concept in figurative terms.  It is
precisely the contrary.  Dante moves from earth to heaven, from
human to divine....  He refuses to make of his figures merely
the symbols of ideas, as if they had no reality in themselves.
But for him, form has a reality precisely because it is a
symbol; thus, inasmuch as it signifies something, it is such as
it is; and art is the portrayal of this something, by which
every form lives in its allegorical essence, not as a garment
but rather in its authentic reality.  It is not Grace which
becomes Beatrice; it is Beatrice who lives in her essential form
of divine Grace.  It is clear that we have here an absolute
reversal of the concept of allegory.  Whoever does not
understand this cannot understand Dante. 

  Luigi Pirandello, 

  Dante:  A Collection of Critical Essays, 1965. 

^^^^^^^^^^
DIVINE COMEDY:  THE INFERNO:  DANTE'S LANGUAGE 

  If we start from his predecessors, Dante's language is a
well-nigh incomprehensible miracle.  There were great poets
among them.  But, compared with theirs, his style is so
immeasurably richer in directness, vigor, and subtlety, he knows
and uses such an immeasurably greater stock of forms, he
expresses the most varied phenomena and subjects with such an
immeasurably superior assurance and firmness, that we come to
the conclusion that this man used his language to discover the
world anew. 

  Erich Auerbach, Mimesis, 1953 

^^^^^^^^^^
DIVINE COMEDY:  THE INFERNO:  THE JOURNEY 

  If this journey to God begins in the figure of an Exodus, and
then leaves that figure, to return to it after a long descent
through Hell, the reason for this is clearly a matter worthy of
attention.  What we have here, in its simplest statement, is a
first attempt to climb that fails, then a long descent that
returns the wayfarer to a second attempt that succeeds.  Can
this configuration of event in the journey beyond be pointing to
the truth that it is necessary for us to descend that we may
ascend (this being, in the moral allegory, our journey)? 

  Charles Singleton, 

  Dante:  A Collection of Critical Essays, 1965. 

^^^^^^^^^^
DIVINE COMEDY:  THE INFERNO:  WHO WAS OFFENDED BY
DANTE? 

  The Comedy, among other things, is a didactic poem of
encyclopedic dimensions, in which the physico-cosmological, the
ethical, the historical political order of the universe is
collectively presented; it is, further, a literary work which
imitates reality and in which all imaginable spheres of reality
appear:  past and present, sublime grandeur and vile vulgarity,
history and legend, tragic and comic occurrences, man and
nature; finally, it is the story of Dante's--i.e., one single
individual's--life and salvation, and thus a figure of the story
of mankind's salvation in general.  Its dramatis personae
included figures from antique mythology, often (but not always)
in the guise of fantastic demons; allegorical personifications
and symbolic animals stemming from late antiquity and the Middle
Ages; bearers of specific significations chosen from among the
angels, the saints, and the blessed in the hierarchy of
Christianity; Apollo, Lucifer and Christ, Fortuna and Lady
Poverty, Medusa as an emblem of the deeper circles of Hell, and
Cato of Utica as the guardian of Purgatory.  Yet, in respect to
an attempt at the elevated style, all these things are not so
new and problematic as is Dante's undisguised incursions into
the realm of real life neither selected nor preordained by
aesthetic criteria.  And, indeed, it is this contact with real
life which is responsible for all the verbal forms whose
directness and rigor--almost unknown in the elevated
style--offended classicistic taste. 

  Erich Auerbach, Mimesis, 1953 

  THE END