From Dante’s Divine Comedy, excerpts from the Inferno, Purgatorio and the Paradiso
The Dark Wood of Error (“Inferno,” Canto 1)
Midway in our life's journey, I went astray
from the straight road and woke to find myself
alone in a dark wood. How shall I say
3
what wood that was! I never saw so drear,
so rank, so arduous a wilderness!
Its very memory gives a shape to fear.
6
Death could scarce be more bitter than that place!
But since it came to good, I will recount
all that I found revealed there by God's grace.
9
How I came to it I cannot rightly say,
so drugged and loose with sleep had I become
when I first wandered there from the True Way.
12
But at the far end of the valley of evil
whose maze had sapped my very heart with fear!
I found myself before a little hill
15
and lifted up my eyes. Its shoulders glowed
already with the sweet rays of that planet
whose virtue leads men straight on every road,
18
and the shining strengthened me against the fright
whose agony had wracked the lake of my heart
through all the terrors of that piteous night.
21
Just as a swimmer, who with his last breath
flounders ashore from perilous seas, might turn
to memorize the wide water of his death—
24
so did I turn, my soul still fugitive
from death's surviving image, to stare down
that pass that none had ever left alive.
27
And there I lay to rest from my heart's race
till calm and breath returned to me. Then rose
and pushed up that dead slope at such a pace
30
each footfall rose above the last. And lo!
almost at the beginning of the rise
I faced a spotted Leopard, all tremor and flow
33
and gaudy pelt. And it would not pass, but stood
so blocking my every turn that time and again
I was on the verge of turning back to the wood.
36
This fell at the first widening of the dawn
as the sun was climbing Aries with those stars
that rode with him to light the new creation.
39
Thus the holy hour and the sweet season
of commemoration did much to arm my fear
of that bright murderous beast with their good omen.
42
Yet not so much but what I shook with dread
at sight of a great Lion that broke upon me
raging with hunger, its enormous head
45
held high as if to strike a mortal terror
into the very air. And down his track,
a She-Wolf drove upon me, a starved horror
48
ravening and wasted beyond all belief.
She seemed a rack for avarice, gaunt and craving.
Oh many the souls she has brought to endless grief!
51
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She brought such heaviness upon my spirit
at sight of her savagery and desperation,
I died from every hope of that high summit.
54
And like a miser—eager in acquisition
but desperate in self-reproach when Fortune's wheel
turns to the hour of his loss—all tears and attrition
57
I wavered back; and still the beast pursued,
forcing herself against me bit by bit
till I slid back into the sunless wood.
60
And as I fell to my soul's ruin, a presence
gathered before me on the discolored air,
the figure of one who seemed hoarse from long silence.
63
At sight of him in that friendless waste I cried:
“Have pity on me, whatever thing you are,
whether shade or living man.” And it replied:
66
“Not man, though man I once was, and my blood
was Lombard, both my parents Mantuan.
I was born, though late, sub Julio, and bred
69
in Rome under Augustus in the noon
of the false and lying gods. I was a poet
and sang of old Anchises' noble son
72
who came to Rome after the burning of Troy.
But you—why do you return to these distresses
instead of climbing that shining Mount of Joy
75
which is the seat and first cause of man's bliss?”
“And are you then that Virgil and that fountain
of purest speech?” My voice grew tremulous:
78
“Glory and light of poets! now may that zeal
and love's apprenticeship that I poured out
on your heroic verses serve me well!
81
For you are my true master and first author,
the sole maker from whom I drew the breath
of that sweet style whose measures have brought me honor.
84
See there, immortal sage, the beast I flee.
For my soul's salvation, I beg you, guard me from her,
for she has struck a mortal tremor through me.”
87
And he replied, seeing my soul in tears:
“He must go by another way who would escape
this wilderness, for that mad beast that fleers*
90
before you there, suffers no man to pass.
She tracks down all, kills all, and knows no glut,
but, feeding, she grows hungrier than she was.
93
She mates with any beast, and will mate with more
before the Greyhound comes to hunt her down.
He will not feed on lands nor loot, but honor
96
and love and wisdom will make straight his way.
He will rise between Feltro and Feltro, and in him
shall be the resurrection and new day
99
of that sad Italy for which Nisus died,
and Turnus, and Euryalus, and the maid Camilla.
He shall hunt her through every nation of sick pride
102
till she is driven back forever to Hell
whence Envy first released her on the world.
Therefore, for your own good, I think it well
105
you follow me and I will be your guide
and lead you forth through an eternal place.
There you shall see the ancient spirits tried
108
in endless pain, and hear their lamentation
as each bemoans the second death of souls.
Next you shall see upon a burning mountain
111
souls in fire and yet content in fire,
knowing that whensoever it may be
they yet will mount into the blessed choir.
114
To which, if it is still your wish to climb,
a worthier spirit shall be sent to guide you.
With her shall I leave you, for the King of Time,
117
who reigns on high, forbids me to come there
since, living, I rebelled against his law.
He rules the waters and the land and air
120
and there holds court, his city and his throne.
Oh blessed are they he chooses!” And I to him:
“Poet, by that God to you unknown,
123
lead me this way. Beyond this present ill
and worse to dread, lead me to Peter's gate
and be my guide through the sad halls of Hell.”
126
And he then: “Follow.” And he moved ahead
in silence, and I followed where he led.
Notes to “Inferno” (Canto 1)
line 1 midway in our life's journey: The biblical life span is three-score years and ten. The action opens in Dante's thirty-fifth year, i.e., 1300.
line 17 that planet: The sun. Ptolemaic astronomers considered it a planet. It is also symbolic of God as He who lights man's way.
line 31 each footfall rose above the last: The literal rendering would be: “So that the fixed foot was ever the lower.” “Fixed” has often been translated “right” and an ingenious reasoning can support that reading, but a simpler explanation offers itself and seems more competent: Dante is saying that he climbed with such zeal and haste that every footfall carried him above the last despite the steepness of the climb. At a slow pace, on the other hand, the rear foot might be brought up only as far as the forward foot. This device of selecting a minute but exactly centered detail to convey the whole of a larger action is one of the central characteristics of Dante's style.
lines 33, 44, 48 Leopard, Lion, She-Wolf: These three beasts are undoubtedly taken from Jeremiah 5.6. Many additional and incidental interpretations have been advanced for them, but the central interpretation must remain as noted. They foreshadow the three divisions of Hell (incontinence, violence, and fraud) that Virgil explains at length in Canto 11, 16–111. I am not at all sure but what the She-Wolf is better interpreted as Fraud and the Leopard as Incontinence. Good arguments can be offered either way.
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lines 38–39 Aries … that rode with him to light the new creation: The medieval tradition had it that the sun was in Aries at the time of the Creation. The significance of the astronomical and religious conjunction is an important part of Dante's intended allegory. It is just before dawn of Good Friday 1300 when he awakens in the Dark Wood. Thus his new life begins under Aries, the sign of creation, at dawn (rebirth), and in the Easter season (resurrection). Moreover the moon is full and the sun is in the equinox, conditions that did not fall together on any Friday of 1300. Dante is obviously constructing poetically the perfect Easter as a symbol of his new awakening.
line 69 sub Julio: In the reign of Julius Caesar.
lines 95–98 the Greyhound … Feltro and Feltro: Almost certainly refers to Can Grande della Scala (1290–1329), a great Italian leader born in Verona, which lies between the towns of Feltre and Montefeltro.
lines 100–101 Nisus, Turnus, Euryalus, Camilla: All were killed in the war between the Trojans and the Latians when, according to legend, Aeneas led the survivors of Troy into Italy. Nisus and Euryalus (Aeneid IX) were Trojan comrades-in-arms who died together. Camilla (Aeneid XI) was the daughter of the Latian king and one of the warrior women. She was killed in a horse charge against the Trojans after displaying great gallantry. Turnus (Aeneid XII) was killed by Aeneas in a duel.
line 110 the second death: Damnation. “This is the second death, even the lake of fire.” (Revelation 20.14)
lines 118–119 forbids me to come there since, living, etc.: Salvation is only through Christ in Dante's theology. Virgil lived and died before the establishment of Christ's teachings in Rome, and therefore cannot enter Heaven.
line 125 Peter's gate: The gate of Purgatory. (See “Purgatorio” 9, 76 ff.) The gate is guarded by an angel with a gleaming sword. The angel is Peter's vicar (Peter, the first pope, symbolized all popes; i.e., Christ's vicar on earth) and is entrusted with the two great keys.
Some commentators argue that this is the gate of Paradise, but Dante mentions no gate beyond this one in his ascent to Heaven. It should be remembered, too, that those who pass the gate of Purgatory have effectively entered Heaven.
The three great gates that figure in the entire journey are: the gate of Hell (Canto 3, 1–11), the gate of Dis (Canto 8, 79–113, and Canto 9, 86–87), and the gate of Purgatory, as above.
The Ninth Circle of Hell (“Inferno,” Canto 34)
“On march the banners of the King of Hell,”
my Master said. “Toward us. Look straight ahead:
can you make him out at the core of the frozen shell?”
3
Like a whirling windmill seen afar at twilight,
or when a mist has risen from the ground—
just such an engine rose upon my sight
6
stirring up such a wild and bitter wind
I cowered for shelter at my Master's back
there being no other windbreak I could find.
9
I stood now where the souls of the last class
(with fear my verses tell it) were covered wholly:
they shone below the ice like straws in glass.
12
Some lie stretched out; others are fixed in place
upright, some on their heads, some on their
soles; another, like a bow, bends foot to face.
15
When we had gone so far across the ice
that it pleased my Guide to show me the foul creature
which once had worn the grace of Paradise,
18
he made me stop, and, stepping aside, he said:
“Now see the face of Dis! This is the place
where you must arm your soul against all dread.”
21
Do not ask, Reader, how my blood ran cold
and my voice choked up with fear. I cannot write it:
this is a terror that cannot be told.
24
I did not die, and yet I lost life's breath:
imagine for yourself what I became,
deprived at once of both my life and death.
27
The Emperor of the Universe of Pain
jutted his upper chest above the ice;
and I am closer in size to the great mountain
30
the Titans make around the central pit,
than they to his arms. Now starting from this part,
imagine the whole that corresponds to it.
33
If he was once as beautiful as now
he is hideous, and still turned on his Maker,
well may he be the source of every woe!
36
With what a sense of awe I saw his head
towering above me! for it had three faces:
one was in front, and it was fiery red,
39
the other two, as weirdly wonderful,
merged with it from the middle of each shoulder
to the point where all converged at the top of the skull;
42
the right was something between white and bile;
the left was about the color that one finds
on those who live along the banks of the Nile.
45
Under each head two wings rose terribly,
their span proportioned to so gross a bird:
I never saw such sails upon the sea.
48
They were not feathers—their texture and their form
were like a bat's wings—and he beat them so
that three winds blew from him in one great storm:
51
it is these winds that freeze all Cocytus. [The final pit of Hell.]
He wept from his six eyes, and down three chins
the tears ran mixed with bloody froth and pus.
54
In every mouth he worked a broken sinner
between his rake-like teeth. Thus he kept three
in eternal pain at his eternal dinner.
57
For the one in front the biting seemed to play
no part at all compared to the ripping: at times
the whole skin of his back was flayed away.
60
“That soul that suffers most,” explained the Guide,
“is Judas Iscariot, he who kicks his legs
on the fiery chin and has his head inside.
63
Of the other two, who have their heads thrust forward
the one who dangles down from the black face
is Brutus: note how he writhes without a word.
66
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And there, with the huge and sinewy arms, is the soul
of Cassius. But the night is coming on
and we must go, for we have seen the whole.”
69
Then, as he bade, I clasped his neck, and he,
watching for a moment when the wings
were opened wide, reached over dexterously
72
and seized the shaggy coat of the king demon;
then grappling matted hair and frozen crusts
from one tuft to another, clambered down.
75
When we had reached the joint where the great thigh
merges into the swelling of the haunch,
my Guide and Master, straining terribly,
78
turned his head to where his feet had been
and began to grip the hair as if he were climbing;
so that I thought we moved toward Hell again.
81
“Hold fast!” my Guide said, and his breath came shrill
with labor and exhaustion. “There is no way
but by such stairs to rise above such evil.”
84
At last he climbed out through an opening
in the central rock, and he seated me on the rim;
then joined me with a nimble backward spring.
87
I looked up, thinking to see Lucifer
as I had left him, and I saw instead
his legs projecting high into the air.
90
Now let all those whose dull minds are still vexed
by failure to understand what point it was
I had passed through, judge if I was perplexed.
93
“Get up. Up on your feet,” my Master said.
“The sun already mounts to middle tierce,
and a long road and hard climbing lie ahead.”
96
It was no hall of state we had found there,
but a natural animal pit hollowed from rock
with a broken floor and a close and sunless air.
99
“Before I tear myself from the Abyss,”
I said when I had risen, “O my Master,
explain to me my error in all this:
102
where is the ice? and Lucifer—how has he
been turned from top to bottom: and how can the sun
have gone from night to day so suddenly?”
105
And he to me: “You imagine you are still
on the other side of the center where I grasped
the shaggy flank of the Great Worm of Evil
108
which bores through the world—you were while I climbed down,
but when I turned myself about, you passed
the point to which all gravities are drawn.
111
You are under the other hemisphere where you stand;
the sky above us is the half opposed
to that which canopies the great dry land.
114
Under the mid-point of that other sky
the Man who was born sinless and who lived
beyond all blemish, came to suffer and die.
117
You have your feet upon a little sphere
which forms the other face of the Judecca. [Named for Judas Iscariot.]
There it is evening when it is morning here.
120
And this gross Fiend and Image of all Evil
who made a stairway for us with his hide
is pinched and prisoned in the ice-pack still.
123
On this side he plunged down from heaven's height,
and the land that spread here once hid in the sea
and fled North to our hemisphere for fright;
126
and it may be that moved by that same fear,
the one peak that still rises on this side
fled upward leaving this great cavern here.”
129
Down there, beginning at the further bound
of Beelzebub's dim tomb, there is a space
not known by sight, but only by the sound
132
of a little stream descending through the hollow
it has eroded from the massive stone
in its endlessly entwining lazy flow.
135
My Guide and I crossed over and began
to mount that little known and lightless road
to ascend into the shining world again.
138
He first, I second, without thought of rest
we climbed the dark until we reached the point
where a round opening brought in sight the blest
141
and beauteous shining of the Heavenly cars.
And we walked out once more beneath the Stars.
Notes to “Inferno” (Canto 34)
line 1 On march the banners of the King: The hymn (“Vexilla regis prodeunt”) was written in the sixth century by Venantius Fortunatus, Bishop of Poitiers. The original celebrates the Holy Cross, and is part of the service for Good Friday to be sung at the moment of uncovering the cross.
line 17 the foul creature: Satan.
line 38 three faces: Numerous interpretations of these three faces exist. What is essential to all explanations is that they be seen as perversions of the qualities of the Trinity.
line 54 bloody froth and pus: The gore of the sinners he chews which is mixed with his slaver.
line 62 Judas: His punishment is patterned closely on that of the Simoniacs whom Dante describes in Canto 19.
line 67 huge and sinewy arms: The Cassius who betrayed Caesar was more generally described in terms of Shakespeare's “lean and hungry look.” Another Cassius is described by Cicero (Catiline III) as huge and sinewy. Dante probably confused the two.
line 68 the night is coming on: It is now Saturday evening.
line 82 his breath came shrill: Cf. Canto 23, 85, where the fact that Dante breathes indicates to the Hypocrites that he is alive. Virgil's breathing is certainly a contradiction.
line 95 middle tierce: In the canonical day tierce is the period from about six to nine a.m. Middle tierce, therefore, is seven-thirty. In going through the center point, they have gone from night to day. They have moved ahead twelve hours.
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line 128 the one peak: The Mount of Purgatory.
line 129 this great cavern: The natural animal pit of line 98. It is also “Beelzebub's dim tomb,” line 131.
line 133 a little stream: Lethe. In Classical mythology, the river of forgetfulness, from which souls drank before being born. In Dante's symbolism it flows down from Purgatory, where it has washed away the memory of sin from the souls who are undergoing purification. That memory it delivers to Hell, which draws all sin to itself.
line 143 Stars: As part of his total symbolism Dante ends each of the three divisions of the Commedia with this word. Every conclusion of the upward soul is toward the stars, God's shining symbols of hope and virtue. It is just before dawn of Easter Sunday that the Poets emerge—a further symbolism.
From The Vision of God (“Paradiso,” Canto 33)
O Light Eternal fixed in Itself alone,
by Itself alone understood, which from Itself
loves and glows, self-knowing and self-known;
126
that second aureole which shone forth in Thee,
conceived as a reflection of the first—
or which appeared so to my scrutiny—
129
seemed in Itself of Its own coloration
to be painted with man's image. I fixed my eyes
on that alone in rapturous contemplation.
132
Like a geometer wholly dedicated
to squaring the circle, but who cannot find,
think as he may, the principle indicated—
135
so did I study the supernal face.
I yearned to know just how our image merges
into that circle, and how it there finds place;
138
but mine were not the wings for such a flight.
Yet, as I wished, the truth I wished for came
cleaving my mind in a great flash of light.
141
Here my powers rest from their high fantasy,
but already I could feel my being turned—
instinct and intellect balanced equally
144
as in a wheel whose motion nothing jars—
by the Love that moves the Sun and the other stars.
Notes to “Paradiso” (Canto 33)
lines 130–144 seemed in Itself of Its own coloration … instinct and intellect balanced equally: The central metaphor of the entire Comedy is the image of God and the final triumphant in Godding of the elected soul returning to its Maker. On the mystery of that image, the metaphoric symphony of the Comedy comes to rest.
In the second aspect of Triple-unity, in the circle reflected from the first, Dante thinks he sees the image of mankind woven into the very substance and coloration of God. He turns the entire attention of his soul to that mystery, as a geometer might seek to shut out every other thought and dedicate himself to squaring the circle. In II Convivio II, 14, Dante asserted that the circle could not be squared, but that impossibility had not yet been firmly demonstrated in Dante's time and mathematicians still worked at the problem. Note, however, that Dante assumes the impossibility of squaring the circle as a weak mortal example of mortal impossibility. How much more impossible, he implies, to resolve the mystery of God, study as man will.
The mystery remains beyond Dante's mortal power. Yet, there in Heaven, in a moment of grace, God revealed the truth to him in a flash of light—revealed it, that is, to the God-enlarged power of Dante's emparadised soul. On Dante's return to the mortal life, the details of that revelation vanished from his mind but the force of the revelation survives in its power on Dante's feelings.
So ends the vision of the Comedy and yet the vision endures, for ever since that revelation, Dante tells us, he feels his soul turning ever as one with the perfect motion of God's love.
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