Cthulhu in Paradise, or Reflections on Dante and Lovecraft

A bit late, but here I am for the final step of Dante's epic journey, as followed in Richard's read-along. As I explained earlier, my previous readings of The Divine Comedy consisted of a college course that covered Inferno and the first ten cantos of Purgatorio. There was a second one scheduled for the next semester but alas, I couldn't fit it into my schedule. (It was my senior year too.) So while I still had all my notes, as well as some pretty good background for the remainder of Purgatorio, I was left entirely on my own for Paradiso. I even had to find a new translation! For the Dante class we had used the Robert Durling editions for the first two canticles but unfortunately, his Paradiso isn't coming out until December 2010. (Of course I'll be pre-ordering.)

So I relied on the translation by Anthony Esolen instead, which managed to preserve some of the rhyme scheme, and, as an added bonus, included all of Gustave Doré's illustrations! Esolen put all the notes in the back, however, instead of conveniently at the end of each canto. This I found very annoying and ended up not using them at all. So regrettably, there was quite a bit that went over my head but I did my best.

We left off at the close of Purgatorio with Dante and Beatrice in the Earthly Paradise (Eden) at the summit of the Mountain all penitent souls must climb before final transcendence. Dante has been purified and is now ready to rise to his final destination. All three canticles end with images of stars, as the realm of God, the first and last home of humankind.

Whereas Hell had Nine Circles and Purgatory had Seven Terraces (corresponding to the seven deadly sins), Heaven has Nine Spheres surrounding the earth, based on the four cardinal virtues (Prudence, Justice, Temperance, and Fortitude) and the three theological virtues (Faith, Hope, and Love). They are the Moon, Mercury, Venus, the Sun, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, the Fixed Stars, the Primum Mobile. Finally, there is the home of God Himself, the Empyrean, a place composed of pure light and intelligence, the source of all Creation and beyond physical existence. Dante's ascent through each Sphere mirrors the soul's natural inclination to rise and seek what is good or, more particularly, the origin of all good. Recall in Purgatorio the discussion on spiritual and psychological maturity, in which Dante posits that it is humanity's innate desire for happiness and fulfillment that often leads us to sin, especially if we have not been properly taught discernment. This occurred in Canto 16 of Purgatorio, which is also Canto 50 of the entire Comedy, located directly in the middle and thereby indicating its significance to our understanding of Dante's cosmos.

From what I could understood of it, Paradiso is basically Dante expressing, in as many different and eloquent ways as he can, that this place is very bright and full of joy. There are also many, many metaphors involving hunger, nourishment, bows and arrows, and fruits and seeds. (This last one ties in with one of the motifs of Purgatorio, in which the souls are essentially "pregnant" with their new being.) The corruption of the clergy and present-day Florence are still very much present (and the subject of several long rants) but the overall impression is one of everlasting peace and contemplation. In other words, The Divine Comedy leans dangerously toward the "Evil is Cool/Good is Boring" tropes, although Your Mileage May Vary on that one. Paradiso is definitely the most abstract of the three, which is hardly surprising, considering that the whole point of Heaven is that these souls have found ultimate peace and enlightenment and have nothing left to overcome or strive for.

Instead of going over the language, philosophy, political context and so forth, I thought I'd focus instead on what impressed me throughout The Divine Comedy, especially in Paradiso. In my last Dante post I described his images of divinity as "reverse-Lovecraftian." In explanation, let us first begin by recognizing Dante's vision of Heaven as distinctly neo-Platonic. God is the beginning and the end, the birthplace and final resting place of all that is just and worthy. When examined by Saint John on love, Dante contends that,

"Arguments of philosophy," said I,
      "and heavenly authority that descends
      to men on earth, have stamped such love on me;
For good, as it is good, and known as good,
      enkindles love, and lights love all the more
      according to the good it comprehends.
So toward that Being, so superior
      that every other good a man may find
      is only a reflection of His splendor,
More than toward any others the keen mind
      must move in love - when once it should detect
      the truth whereon this argument is built.
He lays this bare before my intellect
      who demonstrates to me the primal love
      of all everlasting substances.
The voice of the true Author, speaking of
      Himself to Moses, also lays it bare,
      saying, "I shall reveal myself all worth to you." (26.25-42)

Much of what Dante sees in Heaven can be expressed in no human language, not even by calling down the power of the Muses or the invoking the glory of Mount Thessalian. The light is simultaneously illuminating and blinding, one of many seeming contradictions made unified, like the idea that three Beings are One (the Trinity) who is both the Alpha and Omega.

Here memory conquers any wit of mine,
      for that cross lightninged forth the form of Christ -
      I find for it no metaphor so fine -
But who takes up his cross and follows Christ
      will pardon what I pass by in this place,
      seeing in that bright tree the light of Christ. (14.103-108)

In fact, language itself, including the elevated language of poetry, is but a mere collection of signs trying to signify and communicate aspects of reality. (I think there's a postmodernist argument in there somewhere. Was it Derrida?) Having risen to the Empyrean Sphere, Dante admits that,

. . . From this pass I must concede
      myself more overcome than ever was
      tragedian or comic at the peak
Of difficulty: as the sun in eyes
      that tremble weakly, so my memory
      of [Beatrice's] sweet smile now robs the intellect
And leaves me at a loss. From the first day
      I saw her face until this vision now,
      my road to song has not been cut away,
But here, as every artist, I must bow
      to my last power, and cease to follow on
      her loveliness by signs in poetry.
Such beauty I must leave to a clarion
      more brilliant than my trumpet to unite
      clear words and arduous truth. . . (30.22-36)

This is where faith comes in, as the individual must place their trust in the inscrutable and unknowable will of the Divine, knowing not where He will take them but only that He acts out of the purest of love. Faith, Dante says in response to Saint Peter's examination,

"is the substance of things hoped for and
      the argument of things not come to light.
      This is its essence, as I understand."
At that I heard, "Your thoughts are just and right,
      if you can tell me why he posits it
      as substance first, then as an argument."
And I responded, "The profundities
      of Heaven I have been generously shown
      are so deeply concealed from human eyes,
Their essence is a matter of faith alone,
      whereon our high hope builds its testament,
      so 'substance' is a proper term, for one;
And from the tenets of faith we draw
      conclusions - with no other sight to see.
      Thus it is justly called an 'argument.'" (24.64-78)

Dante's universe is an ordered one built on hierarchies and universal truths. It stands in opposition to the discordance of Hell, the deviation from the straight path, where language is garbled and the human form (the image of God) is distorted, degraded, and bestial. By conforming to certain beliefs and behaviors, humanity rests assured that a benevolent omniscience has their best interests at heart and will award them once they have moved beyond physical life. Even the unknowable is ultimately good.

In other words, it is the complete opposite of H.P. Lovecraft's cosmic horror stories. The most merciful thing in the world, I think, is the inability of the human mind to correlate all its contents. . . [S]ome day the piecing together of dissociated knowledge will open up such terrifying vistas of reality, and of our frightful position therein, that we shall either go mad from the revelation or flee from the light into the peace and safety of a new dark age. The universe is a vast, sanity-shattering chaos. Humanity is but a newborn species on a measly little planet in one of many dimensions. Humanity is insignificant. There is no such thing as heaven or divinity or nirvana: the being worshiped as a god by that arcane cult is really just a super-evolved extraterrestrial. To even begin to comprehend the unspeakable horrors laid out in the Necronomicon is to start on a slow descent into pure, unadulterated madness. But it's only incidental, really. That Eldritch Abomination didn't even do it on purpose. You're not worth the effort. Your pitifully fragile human mind just can't bridge the deep black gulf of unspeakable terrors from the hideously unimaginable realms of non-Euclidean geometry.


(Actually, too much exposure to most exalted Paradise has a similar effect in the Danteverse. At one point, Beatrice even explains to Dante that she cannot smile at him until his perceptive abilities have been expanded, as the sight would literally destroy him, "like Semele / reduced to ashes by the power of Jove, . . . " [21.6-7]. Later in the canto, Peter Damien says that he and the other souls have stopped singing for the same reason: "Your hearing is as mortal as your eyes" [21.61].)

To understand how two authors from more or less the same background (Western civilization) can articulate such divergent views, one must look at the great developments in Western thought that occurred during the six hundred years that separate them. I did a review a few weeks back on Ingrid Winterbach's To Hell with Cronjé in which I discussed the clash between the traditional and modernist worldviews at the turn of the twentieth century. The era saw many new revelations regarding the evolution of life, the enigma of the human brain, the immensity of our planet's history ("the scale almost ungraspable by the human mind"), and the sheer vastness and mystery of the cosmos. To some, this new science represented a liberation from the metaphysical order imposed upon the universe by the old moralists, philosophers, and theologists. Radical and innovative movements in art, literature, and music were born, inspired by Einstein's theories of space-time, Freud's theories on the primal subconscious, and the speed and ubiquity of technology. Indeed, it has been said that Modernism was the greatest burst of human creativity seen since the Renaissance.

But not everyone embraced cutting-edge culture, as explored in Winterbach's novel with the vehement opposition of the protagonists' religious comrades. (The two main characters are a geologist and a biologist.) As one contemporary, Mabel Dodge, recalled, "The world is full of lost souls, creatures who have lost their moorings, who have broken out of the pattern of established life and are whisked along with no sense of either past or future." In place of the spiritual assurance promised Dante, and most Christians for a long time after him, was constant motion, flux, the inundation of information, and multitudes of questions and controversies raised each time science made a new discovery. Even as late as 1965, Alvin Toffler's Future Shock was arguing that the accelerated rate of change in a "super-industrial" society was disorienting and psychologically destabilizing. (It was Toffler who coined the phrase "information overload.")

But to return to the early twentieth century, this is where Lovecraft comes in as an inverted Dante. I think Lovecraft was definitely responding to what was happening in the culture around him, and "updating" established tropes in fiction and theology to make them relevant to modern readers. Maybe I'm being too negative, but that spiritual faith Dante talked about - that ardent trust in things unseen and the final triumph of a benevolent will - is largely absent today. The belief that goodness (as we understand it) is the ultimate standard of the universe seems so remote. We can't even conceive anymore of the universe as humanocentric, a concept that started going out of style with Copernicus. The unknown doesn't have to be terrifying, as Lovecraft liked to imagine, but, as T.S. Eliot put it, "All our knowledge brings us nearer to our ignorance." Despite its often grim subject matter, The Divine Comedy as a whole seemed suffused with a sense of peace and confidence that added so much to its appeal. Dante's masterpiece is a great cultural artifact as well as a literary treasure and I loved reading it. A special thanks to Richard!

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Inferno:
Cantos 1-8
Cantos 9-17
Cantos 18-26
Cantos 27-34

Purgatorio, Cantos 1-10
Purgatorio, Part the Second

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Purgatorio: Part the Second

We've come to it at last: the end of my lecture notes and coursework from the Dante class I took in college. Since Canto 10 of Purgatorio I've had to forge ahead on my own with only my edition's footnotes as guide. It actually wasn't as difficult as I thought, since I had already started out with a strong foundation. (But don't expect much for Paradiso.) So instead of going canto by canto, as I've done for Inferno and the first 1/3 of Purgatorio, I'm just going to give a general outline of some of Dante's primary themes and ideas.

If Inferno was an exploration of sin and its eternal consequences, then Purgatorio, as its sequel, is an account of how to transcend and move beyond sin. As Richard noted, it's rather instructive in tone but I don't think I'd call it didactic. The methods of purging - which include lugging boulders nonstop (pride), having your eyes sewn shut (envy), and running through flames (lust) - are basically impossible to duplicate in life unless you're a particularly zealous ascetic. I'd say Purgatorio's overall feel is more contemplative. The contrapasso of Inferno was strictly a form of punishment without end. There is no hope in Hell ("abandon hope all ye who enter"), and no love or movement. It is a second death, the place where time has stopped. In Purgatorio, on the other hand, we are asked to consider the relationship between each sin and its corresponding atonement. Although all the souls here are Christians who repented before they died, they are prevented from advancing until they have been purified. What can we do, the canticle asks, to improve ourselves here and now and avoid this stopover that can last centuries?

As I discussed in my last post, Purgatorio shares with Inferno the notion of spiritual change (for better or worse) as physical metamorphosis based on the works of Ovid. But instead of monsters, serpents, and bleeding trees, we have worms becoming butterflies (Canto 10), the acquisition of virtue compared to the training and management of horses (Canto 13), and the desire to grow wings and fly (Canto 27). The metaphor is further expanded to include representations of pregnancy, childbirth, and human growth. Canto 16 (Canto 50 of the whole poem, located directly in the middle of the Comedy) establishes Dante's conception of the relationship between fortune, free will, corruption, and civic virtue. Although our "motions" have their origin in the stars, each human is born with a spark to "know good and evil" that must be properly developed in childhood (73-76).

          "Thus, if the present world has gone astray, in
you is the cause, in you let it be sought, and now I
will be a true spy of it for you.
          From the hand of him who desires it before it
exists, like a little girl who weeps and laughs
childishly,
          the simple little soul comes forth, knowing
nothing except that, set in motion by a happy
Maker, gladly turns to what amuses it.
          Of some lesser good it first tastes the flavor;
there it is deceived and runs after it, if a guide or
rein does not turn away its love.
          Therefore it was necessary to set the law as a
curb; it was necessary to have a king who would
discern the tower at least of the true city.
          The laws are there but who lays hand to them?
No one, because the shepherd that leads can chew
the cud but does not have the cloven hooves;
          therefore the people, who see their guide
striking at the thing that they themselves are
greedy for, feed there and seek no further. (82-102)

In other words, Dante disagrees with the belief that humans are naturally inclined to evil. As creatures of God, we instinctively seek what is good, but our love is often misguided and with maturity must come discernment. Recall that many of the souls in Inferno were there because they made something other than God the final recipient of their highest love: Francesca in the Second Circle (her lover), Pietro delle Vigne in the Seventh Circle (Emperor Frederick II), and Ulysses in Eighth Circle (the glory of discovery at the expense of his and his men's lives). All this reminds me of that famous quote from Chaim Potok's The Chosen, which basically expresses the same idea.

(Also note the metaphor derived from Leviticus 11.2-4, which originally referred to Jewish dietary laws but which Christians interpret allegorically. The clergy are to be clean beasts who chew their cud [meditate on the Scriptures]. Despite their learning, however, they lack the necessary cloven hooves, which means they are actually unclean beasts who shepherd their flock - the Christian community - away from God towards baser things. The secular magistrate should be another source of restraint, via civic virtue and the law, but his role has been usurped by crooked popes. That Church and State must be separate was conceived long before the Enlightenment.)

Virgil later elaborates in Canto 17:

          And he to me: "The love of the good, falling
short of what is right, is here restored; here they
ply and ply again the oar they did ill to slow.
          But that you may yet more clearly understand,
turn your mind to me, and you will take some
good fruit from our delay.
          Neither Creator nor creature ever," he began,
"son, has been without love, whether natural or of
the mind, and this you know.
          Natural love is always unerring, but the other
can err with an evil object or with too much or too
little vigor.
          As long as it is directed to the first Good and
moderates its love of lesser goods, it cannot be a
cause of evil pleasure,
          but when it turns aside to evil, or when with
more eagerness or less than is right it runs after
some good, it employs his creature against the
Creator." (85-102)

Again, note the last few lines, which liken the deluded soul to a child who innocently seeks happiness. Lust and gluttony are downright infantile, as emphasized (according to some commentators) by Canto 23's denunciation of the Florentine women and the wanton display of their breasts. But, if baptism and conversion are forms of rebirth ("born again"), then it can also be said that the souls here in Purgatory are "pregnant" with their new being (like a worm becomes a butterfly emerging from the cocoon).

          We went with careful, slow steps, and I walked
intent on the shades, whom I heard piteously
weeping and lamenting;
          and I happened to hear one ahead of us calling
out, weeping: "Sweet Mary!" as a woman giving
birth will do, . . . (20.16-21)

This image can also be applied to the transformative effect of Christ's sacrifice on earthly society: the Roman poet Statius, an early convert, recalls that "the whole world was pregnant with the / true belief, sown by the messengers of the eternal kingdom" (22.76-78). (His crediting Virgil's poetry with leading him to Christianity also inverts Francesca's blaming of a book for the adulterous affair that damned her.) Meanwhile, the earthquake in Canto 20, explained in the following canto as a soul's ascension to the next terrace, recalls the universe's "birth pangs" in Roman 8.22. Nearing the end of his purgation in Canto 28, Dante's entry into the Earthly Paradise is likened to his original entry into the material world (first birth), as reinforced by his initial inability to see.

Referring back to Canto 17: at that point, Dante and Virgil were located on the Third Terrace, where the wrathful wander in thick smoke that demonstrates the blinding effect of anger (which also connects back to Frederick and Vigne). This fits easily with Purgatorio's continuation of Inferno's association of sin with blindness and immobility, and of light, speech (especially beautiful, ordered speech), and forward/upward movement with hope and salvation. As such, Purgatorio is replete with such images, only this time in the form of spiritual advancement, as opposed to cautionary tales or ever-present peril. As Dante makes his way closer to the mountaintop, his perception of divine light is gradually expanded. Upon encountering an angel in Canto 15,

          . . . when I felt my brow weighed down by the
brightness much more than at first, and the things
unknown amazed me;
          so I raised my hands above the ridge of my
brows and made myself a sunshade, that pares
away excessive light.
          As when from water or a mirror the ray jumps
toward the opposite direction, rising in the same
manner
          as its descent, departing from the fall of a stone
by an equal angle, as experience and science show;
          so it seemed that I was being struck by light
refracted there ahead of me, so that my sight was
quick to flee it. (10-21)

The experience of the light is so heavy that Dante must shield himself to remain in relative darkness. (This passage also draws on neo-Platonic light metaphysics). Purgatorio's overall linking of physical need and physical movement with spiritual need and spiritual movement has its final expression in the arrival of Beatrice, accompanied by a heavenly procession straight out of the Book of Revelations. At first Dante cannot even see her as she is bathed in brightness and hidden behind a veil. The very end of Purgatorio, leading directly to Dante's heavenly ascension, is sort of reverse-Lovecraftian in its inability to fully depict in human language a cosmic reality beyond human comprehension. Instead of the nameless horror we have the inexpressible joy or maybe an "unbearable lightness of being." Instead of describing Beatrice's face, Dante can only ask himself and us:

          O splendor of eternal, living light: who has
become so pale beneath the shadow of Parnassus,
or has drunk so deeply from its well,
          that he would not seem to have a laboring mind,
attempting to portray you as you appeared there,
where, harmonizing, the sky is your only veil,
          when you disclosed yourself to open air?" (31.139-145)

Two cantos later, we're entering Heaven itself.

Now obviously there's a lot more going on in Purgatorio than what I discussed here. I didn't even touch on Statius and the power and glory of poetry or Dante's ideas on the growth of the body and soul from embryo to afterlife or all the trippy stuff that happens in the final few cantos. But Dante has the capacity to cram a single sentence with multiple ideas from and allusions to literature, philosophy, and the Bible, and to fully everything out would fill an entire book and require degrees in multiple disciplines. Hopefully other readers will be able to expand upon what I've written. Now on to Paradiso!

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Inferno:
Cantos 1-8
Cantos 9-17
Cantos 18-26
Cantos 27-34

Purgatorio, Cantos 1-10

Please check back September 3-5 (or thereabouts) for Paradiso and the conclusion of Richard's read-along!

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Purgatorio, Cantos 1-10

A bit late for this leg of Richard's Dante read-along, which was scheduled for August 6-8. I'm still not done with Purgatorio but I do have my class notes for Cantos 1-10. After that I'm on my own for the rest of the Divine Comedy. And to make matters worse, there is no Durling translation yet for Paradiso so I'm not sure which edition I should use.

So anyway, we left off at the end of Inferno with Dante and Virgil emerging from Hell into a starry night.

Some Background:

Hell was an easy downward ascent. Purgatory is a difficult uphill one. It's easier to sin, after all, than to control your impulses and desires and do what's right.

Purgatory answers the need for a middle ground for those who led sinful lives but repented at the end. In Dante's time, the High Middle Ages, this was a relatively new concept and not much work had been done on it.

According to Augustine, love is a weight that can either drag you down or lift you up like fire (Classical tradition held it that Earth was surrounded by a sphere of fire). Dante's journey is a spiritual as well as physical one: he must resist the pull of sin and defect and learn to move beyond them. There is always conflict between head and heart. Humans are torn between the desire for worldly goods and fame and the desire for Heaven and transcendence. In this way Purgatory acts as a place of transition where both Dante and the souls can acquire the awareness of what they lack. It is a world of hope and certainty.

Canto 1

Dante establishes Purgatory as the subject of this book. Because all beauty is banned in Hell and poetry is beauty, Dante is beauty's revival. He evokes Calliope, the Muse of epic poetry, to "arise / somewhat" because he has not yet been elevated to speak of Heaven (8-9). Dante continues his description of the early morning, predawn sky begun at the very end of Inferno, noting the planets and the constellations. The "dead air" of Hell is where time is stopped. Here, the constellations signify Purgatory as a place of movement, love, and hope.

Dante spies a very distinguished old man with a long beard who is illuminated by the stars as though he exemplified the cardinal virtues. He is surprised to see them and wonders if the laws of Hell have been broken or amended to allow people to leave. Virgil has Dante bow to the man and explains that they are on a mission from a lady in Heaven that's been ordained by God. Dante is not dead, he continues, but he wasn't doing so well when I first found him. I have already shown him all the sinners in Hell.

The old man is indirectly identified as Cato, whom Dante believed to be the paragon of Roman virtue and whose suicide at the fall of the Republic was a sacrifice akin to Christ's (which is why he's not in the Seventh Circle of Hell with the other suicides). He is also important politically. Dante wanted to see the decaying Holy Roman Empire restored as the only way to bring back order and justice, especially after the corrupt papacy involved itself too deeply in secular affairs. He hoped its universal rule, akin to that of the old Roman Empire, would replace the perpetually warring states. Still, both Dante and Augustine were aware that certain liberties were stifled under Roman rule, often violently, and likely would be once again under restored rule. But the divine plan is worth it.

Cato stands on the border of this tension. He is an old man who represents rebirth, renewal, and the redemption of the historical world. According to Saint Paul, conversion is the death of the old self and birth of a new one. The top of the Mountain of Purgatory is humanity's ideal destination, as it is closest to Heaven you can be without actually being in Heaven.

Virgil, appealing to Cato's love of liberty and his willingness to die for it, identifies himself as a soul from the First Circle, or Limbo ("me Minos does not bind" [77]). He adds that Cato's former wife Marcia is there too and that she still loves him and "still seems to beg for you" (79). (This refers to the suspended state of the souls in Limbo - they can never move forward.) If you will allow us to go through your "seven realms" (82), Virgil continues, I will praise you to her when I return.

Cato replies that Marcia no longer moves him but he will accept Beatrice's authority. He has no nostalgia or anything else to bind him to the past, and this makes us aware of Virgil's limitations. Cato tells Virgil to get Dante a new belt (the old one was used to summon Geryon) and have him clean up before he meets the angel guard. Still addressing all his remarks to Virgil, Cato proceeds to describe the island of Purgatory. Its softness and flexibility connote humanity.

Once Cato disappears, Dante and Virgil head towards the entrance. They are in a desert or wasteland akin to the one in Exodus. Compare this to the dark wood that opened Inferno - we have progressed from darkness and confusion to the place that preceded the Promised Land. From the land of bondage to the land of freedom.

It is approaching dawn, the beginning of a new day: the rising of the sun, the raising of the sails, the lift of Dante's spirits.

Dante implies that the journey through Hell was a detour from the "straight path" mentioned in Canto 1 of Inferno: they are "like one / returning to the lost path and , until he reaches it, / feels like he walks in vain" (118-120). Virgil uses the dew from the grass to clean Dante's face.

Also, compare lines 130-132 to lines 25-26 of Inferno's Canto 1:

          Then we came on to the deserted shore, which
never saw any man sail its waters who afterwards
experienced return.

And:

          so my spirit, still fleeing, turned back to gaze
again at the pass that has never yet left anyone alive.

Many cantos in Purgatorio will recall similarly-numbered cantos in Inferno.

Canto 2

Dante's continued references to the movements of the sun and the constellations reflect the notion of Purgatory as a place of linear time, which equals motion and hope. The Exodus desert becomes more prominent here as well.

In addition to the body, Dante also mentions the heart. The conflict between the two - the heart wants salvation, redemption, etc while the body weighs it down - will be a major issue in Purgatory. Similarly, the Israelites wandering in the desert often felt the pull of their old familiar life in Egypt. (When I was little our pastor compared it to how we experience the heat of summer and cold of winter - feeling one makes us long for the return of the other no matter what discomfort it caused us in the past.)

Dante sees a blinding white light sailing over the sea so rapidly it doesn't touch the water. Virgil identifies it as an angel of God once the wings become visible. He tells Dante to kneel, fold his hands, and show proper reverence. This angel, says Virgil, "disdains all human means" (31); meaning he does not need oars or sails to power the boat, only his wings. Recall that the word "disdain" was used frequently in Cantos 8-9 of Inferno to refer to Dante's righteous anger, the devils' arrogance, and the heavenly messenger's scorn of that arrogance. The angel beats the air with his feathers to make the boat move. This is opposed to Satan, who beats his wings to freeze the sinners in the Ninth Circle of Hell but remains motionless in the ice.

The spirits sitting in the boat headed to Purgatory are singing about the Jews' liberation from bondage in Egypt. This makes explicit the overall theme of Exodus.

The spirits waiting on the shore are unfamiliar with their surroundings and ask Dante and Virgil if they know how to reach the mountain. Virgil replies that they are also strangers here and that they had arrived via a much harsher path, so that this one seems easy. Dante calls these souls "fortunate" (73).

Dante is recognized by his friend Casella, about whom we know almost nothing other than he might have been a composer. Casella initially thinks Dante is dead too, but Dante corrects him and asks him how he died. Casella implies that he died months ago and has been wandering around the Tiber River, where the souls not condemned to Hell congregate. No reason for the angel's refusal to take him is given, other than that the angel always obeys God's will.

Dante tells Casella that his physical body is weary and requests that Casella console him with his singing if he still remembers how. Casella complies and everyone loves his singing, feeling peaceful and contented. They're so transfixed that Cato appears and yells at them for being negligent of their journey. Apparently, then, Cato's singing represents a form of temptation that can freeze someone in place instead of inspiring them to move forward. He also represents the temptation of nostalgia.

The souls snap out of it and hurry off to the cliffs although they still don't know where they're going. Dante compares them to doves that had been eating contentedly until some danger arrives and scatters them. Dante adds that his and Virgil's departure is also very sudden.

Canto 3

At the foot of the mountain are the excommunicated. Ante-Purgatory is a place of further wait before training/purification can begin. It is similar in this respect to Limbo.

When you are excommunicated, the Pope has removed you from the community of the church. The image of the limb of a mystical body being severed recalls the body metaphors used for politics in Inferno (particularly Cantos 29 and 30).

Manfred, the soul Dante meets here, is the natural son of Emperor Frederick II. He tried but was unable to hold onto his father's power. He was killed in a battle with French and papal troops.

Canto 4

This is where the lazy are purified. The laws of Purgatory are made more explicit: the mountain is more difficult at the bottom than further up. Hell, by contrast, descends, which is easier. Also, only prayers made from Grace can be heard in Heaven, and you can't progress at night. These imposed constraints are necessary for the souls to learn patience and for them to have time to meditate and reflect. Patience counters negligence.

Canto 5

Dante has continued climbing after visiting those who were negligent in their repentance. Because they're generally lazy, only now do they notice that Dante's alive as his physical body forms a shadow. Virgil tells Dante to ignore them and continue walking. People who get too wrapped up in trivial cares, he says, lose sight of the greater goal.

Dante soon hears a chorus of voices singing "Miserere." Because they're not lazy they realize right away that Dante is alive. Two depart from the group to inquire about him. Virgil confirms that Dante is living. The entire group then goes to see Dante but Virgil tells him to just listen and keep walking.

They ask Dante if he recognizes any of them and, if so, to please give them news of the world. This Second Terrace contains souls who met violent ends and repented at the last minute.

Dante doesn't recognize anyone. The notes of my edition say he actually did know two people but his failure to identify them may imply that they're somehow transfigured or he's just feigning ignorance to make a point.

The first soul isn't actually named but it's obvious from his words that he is Iacopo del Cassero, a prominent Fano nobleman whose death was a public scandal. Dante had participated in some of his military campaigns. Iacopo asks Dante to remind his family to pray for him to help him along in Purgatory. He then recalls how he was assassinated in the swamps of Padua by someone from Este. He refers to the Paduans as "Antenori" after Antenor, who is said to have betrayed Troy to the Greeks and founded Padua.

The second soul identifies himself as Buonoconte de Montefeltro, son of Guido de Montefeltro. Buonoconte was killed in the Battle of Campaldino, which established the Florentine dominance of Tuscany. He is upset that his relatives seem to have forgotten him. Dante asks him why is burial place is unknown and what moved his body. Apparently Buonoconte's body was washed away after he was pierced in the throat and fell into the Arno River. He repented at the very last minute and was fought over by an angel and a devil, the latter arguing that a last-minute repentance was not enough. Buonoconte recalls the storm that made the Arno a raging torrent that carried off his body and blames it on evil will.

Dante himself was in this battle. In the Middle Ages, people of certain social classes were required to participate in war. It was fought between the Florentine Guelphs and the Arezzo Ghibellines.

A third soul introduces herself as "Pia; Siena made me, / Maremma unmade me" (133-134). This is echoed in Part III of T.S. Eliot's "The Waste Land": "Highbury bore me. Richmond and Kew / Undid me" (292-293).

Canto 6

Dante is crowded by souls like he is the winner of a dice game surrounded by friends begging for money. Dante recognizes some of them as victims of Tuscan political and clan violence. There is also one Pierre de la Brosse, who was a chamberlain to French King Philip II. He was executed for accusing Queen Marie of Brabant of poisoning Philip's son from a previous marriage. Dante uses his poem to warn Queen Marie that she may end up in a worse place than Purgatory because of this.

Dante finally leaves the souls behind, observing that they are praying for others to pray for them to lessen their time in Purgatory.

Dante recalls an episode in Virgil's The Aeneid in which the unburied Palinurus begs Aeneas to help him across the River Styx in the underworld, only to be rebuked by the Sybil. It seems to me, Dante says, that in this text you (Virgil) specifically deny that prayer can influence the decisions of Heaven. Yet it appears that these souls wish to do just that. Virgil explains that what he wrote was true at the time because God did not listen to pagan prayers before the coming of Christ. But Virgil also tells him to wait for Beatrice's explanation before fulling letting go of his doubts.

Dante then tells Virgil to hurry up because this journey is less difficult than the one through Hell and he is eager to see Beatrice. Virgil replies that it will take more than one day to reach the summit of Purgatory; in the meantime, there is a soul sitting and meditating alone who will give them directions for the quickest route. This soul doesn't respond to Virgil but asks who he and Dante are. When he hears Virgil's accent he is overjoyed to meet a fellow Mantuan and introduces himself as Sordello, an Italian poet who wrote in Latin. He also participated in and profited from Charles of Anjou's invasion of Italy (he was granted several fiefs). He became involved in a scandal when he abducted a lord's wife at the request of her brothers, who feared for her safety.

Dante launches into a lengthy condemnation of Italy for its apparent inability to govern itself, its enslavement to vice and corruption, and constant state of civil war. People in cities "gnaw" at members of their communities whom they should love - recall the idea of the "body politic" in Inferno and how it can be dismembered or become diseased, and also the impersonators chewing on each other in the Eighth Circle. He denounces Florence as a city of hypocrites and sycophants who seek public office only to profit from it and ridicules Florence's claim to be a new Athens.

The era of empire had come to an end by Dante's time. Emperors clashed with popes and both sides used the Bible to justify themselves. Many people were too concerned with local issues to even care for distant imperial authority anymore. While Inferno was concerned with popes, Dante puts many secular leaders in Purgatory for their failure to enforce the Roman laws codified by Byzantine Emperor Justinian in the sixth century BC. The Divine Comedy is also Dante's attempt to make an argument for a strong empire, which is why he wrote in the vernacular - to reach as large an audience as possible. He wanted to open discourse to people who might not be aware of what's going on.

The Garden of Eden is turning into a desert due to lack of leadership. Although history began with Adam and Eve's expulsion - which means that earthly human life is itself a form of exile - Dante feels that the historical world can be like a garden as well. Certain basic communal values can exist. We must take responsibility and see civil power as a service to the community, just as Jesus washed his followers' feet. Narcissism, the love of the self, is both the root of hate and a form of sterility (recall the homosexuals in Canto 15 of Inferno). Everyone claims the right to rule but for Dante, only certain people are divinely appointed. Tyranny is the opposite of just rule.

Canto 7

Dante rests in the Valley of the Princes. It is not an unpleasant place but frightening nightly occurrences serve to remind people who are forgetful. It is a temporary Limbo for those who think they've reached their destination. There is nothing more deceptive than a false sense of self-accomplishment. Your subsequent lack of action (repentance, working towards the greater goal) and lack of responsibility is strictly voluntary.

Virgil is always in an image of Limbo, which is why we're always being reminded of this condition (i.e. the "truncated words" in Canto 9 of Inferno).

But we are more than just the results of our choices. Divine justice is inscrutable - there is always a plan or hope or logic or a meaning to everything that happens. There is always something in us that wants more than earthly fame.

Canto 8

As his first day in Purgatory draws to a close, Dante has identified many kings and emperors from all over Europe. The first few lines also continue the ongoing navigation metaphor that began in Inferno. Limbo can also be seen as a place where rulers delude themselves and think they can get away with neglecting their spiritual and political obligations.

One of the souls stands up and faces east, the direction in which many churches are oriented and to which Christians traditionally pray. He leads the other souls in an evening prayer that reflects standard monastic practice and calls for protection during the night. Only Dante sleeps, however, and the souls in Purgatory are incapable of sin. Thus, the prayer is an act of remembering, not performing.

(All the depictions of Dante sleeping have me wondering what he's been eating all this time. I'd be starving after journeying through all Nine Circles of Hell.)

By addressing the reader directly, Dante is calling attention to the next event: two angels in green robes descend from Heaven. They have fiery swords with the tips cut off. This is a nightly occasion and the souls expect it. The swords allude to the angel sent to guard Eden, which sets this episode up as an inversion of Adam and Eve's expulsion. The color green is often associated with life and vitality.

The angels position themselves so that all the souls are between them. Dante can see their "blond heads" (34) but their faces are too dazzling for him to make out as he has not yet achieved the spiritual maturity to perceive divine images (although he's working on it). Sordello says they come from "Mary's bosom" (37), a reference to Heaven and the loving intercession of the Virgin Mary. Their purpose is to guard from the serpent that comes out every night. This makes Dante nervous. But the souls must be reminded that they are still in an imperfect world.

Sordello suggests that they go down to speak to the souls, who, unlike their counterparts in Hell, are eager to meet Dante. Dante observes that it is getting dark, another indication of normal, passing time.

Dante recognizes the judge Ugolino "Nino" Visconti and is thrilled to see that he is not in Hell. He is the grandson of Count Ugolino whom we encountered in the Ninth Circle. He fled Pisa when Ugolino joined the Ghibellines and lodged a complaint against Cardinal Ruggieri following his grandfather's death. Nino was also a frequent visitor to Florence. Like the others, Nino also thinks Dante is dead at first but Dante explains that he is still in his "first life" (58). (Second life is Heaven and second death is Hell.) Sordello and Nino seem dismayed to hear this. One calls to another soul named Conrad to join them.

Nino requests that Dante tell his nine-year-old daughter Giovanna (who has taken refuge in Florence) to pray for him. He doesn't believe her mother Beatrice loves him anymore because she has "[given] up the white fillets" (74) of widowhood and remarried Galleazzo Visconti, the Ghibelline ruler of Milan. She will be "wretched" and "yearn for them again" (75) because her new husband's death in 1302 will leave her penniless. For a widow to remarry was seen as self-indulgent. Both the viper of the Milan Visconti and the cock of the Pisa Visconti were carved onto Beatrice's tomb in 1334. Dante finds Nino's resentment quite justified.

Dante looks to the sky and notices that three bright stars have replaced the four bright ones he saw earlier. These new stars represent the three theological virtues of hope, faith, and love. Sordello then draws Dante's attention to "our adversary" (103). There is a snake in the grass, similar to the one that tempted Adam and Eve. Dante calls the angels "two celestial hawks" (103), as hawks supposedly hated snakes. The angels approach the serpent, which flees at the sound of their wings.

The new soul addresses Dante. He is Conrad II of the Malaspina family that controlled the region of Lunigiana near Tuscany. Dante deplored family division; the Malaspinas, by contrast, were renown for their solidarity. Conrad may also have fought against Nino in life.

Conrad wishes Dante luck on his trek to the "flowering summit" (114) by referring to God's illumination and Virgil's guidance as a "lam that leads you on high find / sufficient to fuel in your free will" (112-113). He then asks if Dante has news of any of his old territories. Unlike the other souls, he seems unaware of the current state of his family on earth. Dante says that he has never been in the Malaspinas' lands but assures him that they are celebrated throughout Europe. He praises them as morally upright people even in the face of evil and corruption.

Apparently Dante was on very good terms with the Malaspinas. In 1306 he was made the family's representative in a successful peace negotiation; the following year he addressed his Epistle IV to Moroello Malaspina and praised him for his recent hospitality and the liberal atmosphere of his court. Conrad's response indicates that within seven years Dante will know the truth of his own words through direct experience, as the result of some kind of crucial event ("larger nails than the / speech of others" [136-137]). This is another prophecy of Dante's exile.

Canto 8 opens with the image of sailors feeling nostalgic for their homeland and ends with a reference to Dante's exile from a member of the family who will host him. In broader terms, the expulsion from Eden represents the beginning of history. And while the phrase locus amenos refers a pleasant place with the features of a garden (like the Valley of the Princes), Exodus portrays the desert as a land of exile. This dichotomy is always on Dante's mind.

Canto 9

These notes are dated 12/12 so they must be from our very last day of class.

Basically, the souls are taught through art made by God himself. Galeotto (my notes don't specify who he is but I think he was in Inferno somewhere?) once asked how literature mediates our personal and spiritual quests. Dante's love for Beatrice can be thought of as a great mediation. It's about ascent and trying to find the means of ascent. As such, Canto 9 is about the transition from ante-Purgatory to the door of Purgatory proper.

Dante's mention of the Classical figures Philomel and Ganymede is an example of intertextuality. Dante dreams of an eagle and compares it to the one that carried off Ganymede to be Zeus's cup-bearer. Since the eagle is also the image of Christ in the Christian tradition and the symbol of the Roman Empire, it is as though Dante is mixing the debased, earthly, and divine here. The eagle may also be a metaphor for the visionary power of the poet's wit and genius.

Philomel's story is one of metamorphoses, the transformation from human to animal, similar to what we've also seen in Hell. In the the Seventh Circle, for example, the thieves are tormented by and merge with snakes, while in the Eighth Circle the impersonators relentlessly tear at each other with their teeth like rabid beasts. There is also the presence of half-human, half-animal creatures like the centaurs and Minotaur. This motif will continue in Purgatorio.

The threshold of Purgatory has additional abstract meaning. Both Ganymede and Philomel's stories are characterized by dark eroticism so it's uncertain whether Dante is talking about a sensual experience or the sublimation of the soul. Love can lead you to either the straight or crooked way, and this is the border between the two paths (the door, the eagle). This isn't the first ambiguous metaphor we've seen in The Divine Comedy. In Inferno the flame can either engulf a sinner (the "counselors of fraud" in Cantos 26 and 27) or be a prophetic voice or vision. So you have to make sure you read and interpret signs correctly. The eagle that lifts me up can also be the eagle of those erotic pagan tales.

From Philomel and Ganymede Dante moves on to Achilles, the hero of the Trojan War. This stylistic elevation (to epic high poetry) coincides with Dante's newfound confidence upon hearing from Virgil that Lucia had come down from Heaven to carry Dante as he slept.

          Reader, you see well how I am elevating my
matter, and therefore do not marvel if with more
art I bolster it. (70-72)

These lines occur directly in the middle of the canto and divide it in half.

The Gate of Purgatory resembles the Gate of Heaven with Saint Peter. Dante is told not to look back as he passes through. He must continue to move forward, not give into nostalgia, a painful desire that will have you dwelling on the past and creating nothing new. It is a form of sterility (recall the sodomites in the Seventh Circle - remember, they're not necessarily sodomites in the sexual sense).

Dante has seven P's carved into his forehead by the angel. They are said to stand for the three main issues he will be examining as he progresses through Purgatory: Peccatum (sin), Plaga (wound), Penitentia (penitence).

Canto 10

The First Terrace is for the prideful. Dante examines some carved examples of humility, drawn from both the Bible and Classical tradition. If Art is humanity's representation of Nature, these images far surpass any human creation in terms of lifelikeness. In fact, the viewing experience is audio as well as visual.

          The angel who came to earth with the decree of
peace, for many years bewailed with tears, which
opened Heaven after long prohibition,
          appeared before us so truly, carved there in his
gentle bearing, that he did not seem a silent image.
          One would have sworn he was saying,
"Ave!" for imaged there was she who turned the
key to open high Love, . . . (34-42)

Remember that light, visibility, and speech (language) are all linked together. Also recall from Inferno that Nature/Creation is God's own Art.

The prideful souls are carrying stones that have them stooped over in a position Dante compares to the Telamones, the corbels and capitals used in Romanesque and Gothic buildings. Basically, they're human statues that hold weights. As the souls trudge around the Terrace they must view the images of humility, particularly that of the Annunciation. This is the moment when the Virgin displays her submission as a servant of God, who also humbled himself by assuming human form.

The motif of metamorphoses is even stronger here.

          O proud Christians, weary wretches, who, weak
in mental vision, put your faith in backward steps,
          do you not perceive that we are worms born to
form the angelic butterfly that flies to justice
without a shield?
          Why is it that your spirit flies high, since
you are like defective insects, like worms in whom
formation is lacking?
          As to support a ceiling or roof we sometimes
see for corbel a figure that touches knee to breast
          so that what is not real causes discomfort to
be born in whoever sees it: so I saw them to be,
when I looked carefully. (121-135)

Also note that while the spirit wants to ascend, the body is weighed down by sin that prevents both from moving forward.

Coming up: I do my best with the book's notes as my only guide.

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Inferno:
Cantos 1-8
Cantos 9-17
Cantos 18-26
Cantos 27-34

I should have the rest of Purgatorio up shortly. Click here for Richard's post.

Please check back September 3-5 for Paradiso!

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Inferno, Cantos 27-34

Whooo! Home stretch! The final eight cantos of Inferno for Richard's Divine Comedy read-along! So apparently, when you Google "Dante" you mostly get pictures of this guy, the protagonist of the Devil May Cry video games from Japan. Dante is a half-demon, half-human mercenary who specializes in paranormal assignments. Other characters include the beautiful Lucia, highly skilled in the use of ornate daggers, and Dante's evil twin brother Vergil, who embraces his demonic heritage.

Dante is not to be confused with Dante Alighieri (1265-1321), the author of The Divine Comedy. This is a totally different person.

Moving right along. . .

Canto 27

After Ulysses finishes his story, Dante encounters another burning soul who makes a strange roar Dante compares to the righteous anger of the Sicilian Bull towards one who has injured him. This is a story of a trickster being tricked. This particular soul is finding it difficult to speak while on fire but the tip of the flame forms a sort of tongue. He identifies Dante as a fellow Italian and wants to know if his homeland Romagna has found peace or war. He is referring to the conflict between the Guelph and the Ghibelline factions.

Dante tells him that Romagna is never without war but there is no open conflict at the moment. He goes on to discuss the region's seven cities: Cervia, Forli, Verrucchio, Lamone, Santerno, Faenza, and Cesena, who are all suffering under the yoke of various tyrants, mostly members of powerful families twisting the law for their own benefit. He then asks the soul who is he is. The soul replies:

"If I believed that my reply were to a person who
would ever return to the world, this flame would
remain without further shaking;
but since never from this depth has any one
returned alive, if I hear the truth, without fear of
infamy I answer you." (61-66)

This comes from the beginning of "The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock." While Guido talked when he shouldn't have, Prufrock did not speak when he should have. T.S. Eliot was great poet. Dante and I are huge fans of T.S. Eliot.

The soul goes on to say that he is a "man of arms" (67) who became a Franciscan because he believed doing so would absolve him of his misdeeds. This might've worked too, if it wasn't for that Pope Boniface, the "high priest, may evil take / him!" (70-71). The notes to my edition identify him as Guido de Montefeltro, the most successful mercenary captain of his era. Guido adds that he was more sneaky (fraudulent) than outright aggressive (that is, more fox than lion). He was indeed notorious for his ability to manipulate and mislead people. But he eventually grew tired of this life and realized it was wrong. He would have given it up and retired peacefully but then Pope Boniface, the "prince of the new Pharisees" (85), had the nerve to make another war! And not even against the Jews, Muslims, or merchants who did business with the Turks, but against his own fellow Christians!

But of course, Guido's conversion probably wasn't as sincere as he claims it was.

Boniface asked Guido for advice on how to "raze Palestrina to the ground" (100) but Guido didn't believe this guy was for real and stayed silent. In doing so, Boniface was disregarding both his high office and Guido's vows as a Franciscan. Then Boniface assured him that he had the keys to Heaven and that he had henceforth absolved Guido, who believed him. But you cannot absolve someone of a crime they have not yet committed.

In other words, Guido (and Boniface) tried to trick God by fighting against the Church, getting excommunicated, and welcomed back when he became a priest. Like just about everyone in Hell, however, he blames another (Boniface) for his own misdeeds: "and it would have worked." (Recall, for instance, Francisca from the Second Circle blaming a book for her adulterous affair). The reason they're in Hell is because they didn't repent and take responsibility for their own actions. But both Dante and Guido are highly critical of Boniface for interfering with secular affairs and using physical force against other Christians (although Guido, ironically, did the same thing). This recalls Dante's discussion of Constantine in Canto 19 and the separation between office and person.

This canto also continues with the metaphor of life as a sea voyage from Canto 26, and which also appeared in Canto 1 with the image of the shipwreck. Although Guido wasn't nearly as famous as he presents himself, Dante wanted to set up a parallel to Ulysses.

Also: the sinners in the Eighth Circle are sometimes called those who were "violent against art." In this context, "art" refers to any purposeful human activity, be it politics, farming, shipbuilding, etc.

Canto 28

This is the one with Muhammad and the Sowers of Discord in the Ninth Bolgia. I'm going to skip it not because of the present-day controversy but because it contains torture and gore, neither of which sits well with my stomach.

Canto 29

Despite Virgil's warning that they don't have much time, Dante remains to speak with an ancestor his who died unavenged. This violation of chivalric ethos makes him angry with Dante. Virgil says not to bother but Dante is compassionate because he understands the soul's feelings. Recall that Dante discussed revenge earlier in the episode with the Furies outside the gates of Dis. It is a diabolical tyranny of memory, an obsession that imprisons us and precludes forgiveness. Dante was a knight who had been in battle, and here he is juxtaposes chivalry with Christian morality. Contrapasso, the punishment of the souls in Hell, is based on revenge: you do something wrong and are paid in kind. But this is God's job, not ours.

Dante and Virgil move on to the falsifiers in the Tenth Bolgia. Dante meets two Italians and offers them fame in the world of man in exchange for their stories. Griffolino of Arrezzo and Capocchino the Florentine were burned at the stake for heresy but landed here due to their practice of alchemy. This is actually the First Zone of the Tenth Bolgia, which holds the Falsifiers of Metals. The alchemists' production false appearances in a fraudulent attempt to imitate Nature parallels the condemnation of the usurers and sodomites in the Seventh Circle, whose sterile, unproductive work also offended Nature.

Dante has the opportunity here to mock Siena as a foolish. Griffolino says he was executed for claiming he could fly. This demonstrates the animosity Dante has towards other cities for their alleged character.

(Technically there is no hope in Hell but the preservation of one's memory among the living is a hope the damned are nevertheless allowed.)

These souls are strewn about the ground and covered with scabs they constantly scratch at. This goes back the idea that sociopolitical bodies, like human bodies, can become sick and deformed. Pursuant to the concept of contrapasso seen throughout Inferno, the souls' position reflects what they did to themselves and/or to society. Everyone in the Eighth Circle was an alchemist, impersonator, false witness, counterfeiter, hypocrite, and so forth. Their falsifications violated the trust that holds the human community together.

Canto 30

Upon seeing the Second Zone of the Tenth Bolgia of the Eighth Circle, Dante brings up Classical tales of humans whose immense suffering caused them to turn on one another like animals. But that is nothing compared to what he witnesses here: the Falsifiers of Others' Persons tear at one another relentlessly with their teeth. Dante recognizes one Myrrha, who disguised herself as another woman to sleep with her own father. Some of the Falsifiers of Coins, who are mostly in the Third Zone, are mixed in here. Dante speaks with a counterfeiter of Florentine money who is condemned to be wracked with neverending thirst. This soul, Master Adam, also points to two souls in the Fourth Zone, the Falsifiers of Words or Liars. They are the wife of Potiphar, who accused Joseph of trying to seduce her, and a Greek man named Sinon, who knows Master Adam and comes over to pick a fight with him. Dante listens to them for awhile until Virgil asserts that it is demeaning for him to listen to such a petty squabble.

Master Adam, who is lying supine on the ground, is shaped like a lute, a popular instrument in the Middle Ages. He has dropsy, meaning the fluids in his body are stagnant and he can't move. He dreams of streams and fertile lands, which makes him suffer even more. (He also allows Dante to reminisce about his favorite part of Italy, where the Arno River joins the sea near Pisa.) This reflects his practice of falsifying metal coins through use of diluting solutions. Stagnation → illness → death → can't produce life anymore. The stillness of fluid also hearkens back to the sterility and repetition represented as sodomy in the Seventh Circle (Canto 15).

Canto 30 continues the disease motif from Canto 29. Hospitals, where the physically ill go, were religious institutions in the Middle Ages. Since these people's spiritual sickness is manifested in their punishments, the Eighth Circle is akin to a kind of warped hospital. Hell can actually be thought of as a series of bogus arts, according to the definition provided above.

Regarding the case of Myrrha, not only did she pose as someone else, but her act of incest violates the assumption that parent/child sex is wrong, which can be thought of as a form of falsification.

Canto 31

Dante and Virgil have finally approached the great pit at the center of the Eighth Circle, which all the bolgias surround. At first Dante thinks he's looking at tall towers arising from the mist but they're actually giants. Their navels are level with the Eighth Circle but their feet are in the Ninth. Nimrod, who participated in the construction of the Tower of Babel, speaks a string of gibberish. Another giant, Antaeous, takes Dante and Virgil down into the Ninth Circle in two of his enormous hands.

The giants represent human will + rationality + intention + strength. They are emblems of pride: humans who wish to displace God. The story of the Tower of Babel, as alluded to through Nimrod, is about a group of humans who wished to build a tower that could reach Heaven. In other words, they wanted to control what is out of their control. Like Ulysses, they could not accept their limitations.

Canto 32

Dante's reference to Antheon, the mythical poet whose songs moved rocks to form the city of Thebes, demonstrates his inability to describe the very bottom of Hell. He and Virgil have come upon the frozen lake of Cocytus, in which souls are submerged up to their heads, teeth chattering. The First Ring of the Ninth Circle is called Caina and it is for those who betrayed family members. The Ninth Circle overall is for traitors.

There is no motion here, only paralysis and petrification. (Recall Canto 9, when Dante was threatened with being turned to stone.) The deep freeze also speaks to the souls' distance from the warmth of God's love.

Dante accidentally kicks a soul in the cheek and recognizes him as Bocca degli Abati. Dante threatens to tear his hair out before he and Virgil move on to Antenora, the Second Ring, for those who betrayed their homeland or party. Dante sees one soul chomping on another's head. He stops to speak with them, promising to spread the chewer's good name on Earth.

Heeee!
Canto 33

The chewer is eager for "my words [to] be seed to bear the fruits of / infamy for the traitor I gnaw" (7-8). (Recall the lesson on revenge and obsession from Canto 29 - another form of paralysis). He was Count Ugolino and the one on whom he feasts was the Archbishop Ruggiero. They are from Pisa.

Ruggiero betrayed Ugolino's trust and had him killed. Ugolino wants the world to know the extent of the cruelty of his death.

When he was in prison with his small sons (it was actually two sons and two or three grandsons, all of them teens or grown men), Ugolino had a vision of Ruggiero as a hunter stalking a wolf and his cubs. When he awoke, he learned his sons had had the same dream and were terrified. Line 46 has him describing the sound of the door being nailed shut.

From T.S. Eliot's "The Waste Land": "I have heard the key / Turn in the door once and turn once only / We think of the key, each in his prison. . ." QUIT RIPPING HIM OFF, DANTE!

(In all seriousness, though, the Eliot's notes translate line 46 as "And I heard the key turn below in the door / of the horrible tower." The original Italian: "ed io senitii chiavar l'uscio di sotto / all'orribile torre.")

Ugolino was terrified and the look on his face frightened his sons. Over the next few days they starved to death, with Ugolino seeing his pitiful state reflected in the faces of his children. At one point, they asked him to kill them: since he brought them into the world, he can take them out of it. (This happened when Dante was in his twenties.) Ugolino ends his tale and resumes gnawing Ruggiero. Dante is so upset by the cruel death of the innocent sons that he calls for Pisa to be destroyed like Sodom and Gomorrah.

Virgil and Dante continue wandering. Dante observes that "[w]eeping itself prevents weeping there" (94), as the tears form an icy crust that freezes the eyes shut. Dante feels some wind and is confused because he had assumed it was too cold for wind. Virgil says he will soon know the answer. (If Dante is in his physical body and it's so damn - harhar - cold, then why doesn't he seem to be cold?)

A soul calls out to Dante and asks him to remove the ice from his eyes so that he can weep some more. Dante asks for his story in exchange. The soul introduces himself as Brother Alberigo, a member of the leading Guelf family. He had invited over some relatives from whom he had become estranged in a land dispute. At the end of the feast he announced, "Let the fruits come." This signaled the assassins to come out and kill his family members. Alberigo says, "I am / he of the fruits of the evil orchard, and here I receive / a date for every fig" (118-120).

It turns out that Alberigo was still alive when Dante wrote Inferno. This dialogue apparently establishes that his soul is in Hell while his body still lives, possessed by a demon masquerading as him. This may allude to Luke 22.3: "And Satan entered into Judas." Alberigo goes on to say that when a living person commits betrayal, his soul gets sent to the Ninth Circle and a demon assumes control of the body. The spirit next to him in the frozen lake has suffered a similar fate. Alberigo identifies him as Branca Doria, who had invited his father-in-law to dinner and then murdered him and his companions. (Doria apparently outlived Dante, dying in 1325).

Naturally, Dante is incredulous. Doria, he protests, "is not yet dead, and he eats and / drinks and sleeps and wears clothes" (140-141). Referring back to the Evil Claws of Cantos 21-22, Alberigo gives another example, that of Michael Zanche, who hadn't even yet arrived in the bolgia of the barrators when both his body, as well as that of a relative who had aided him in the betrayal, were possessed by devils.

Dante decides not to open Alberigo's eyes for him, as such compassion would be misplaced. He then denounces Genoa.

Canto 34

* drumroll *

SATAN!

Above: Lucifer, newly fallen, in one of Gustave Doré's illustrations of Paradise Lost. Below is Satan in Doré's depiction of the Ninth Circle of Dante's Hell.
Virgil and Dante have entered Judecca, where traitors to lords and benefactors are punished. Virgil says, "The standards of the king of Hell go forth" (towards us) in Latin. Dante thinks he sees a windmill turning in the distance. The wind has grown stronger so he hides behind Virgil.

The traitors here are completely encased in ice and cannot move at all. They lay on the ground in varying positions. No movement, no language, no love, no hope - only petrification.

Dante finally sees Satan, once the most beautiful of the angels but now unspeakably ugly. Unlike the others in Hell he doesn't talk. But Dante and Virgil are able to use him as stairs, so he is useful. Virgil's words echo what he said to Dante in Canto 3 when they were about to enter Hell. His reference to Dis, the infernal city of Cantos 8-10, links it to Satan's body.

Dante's description of his terror recalls the conception of evil as a negative quality; that is, a defect or lack of good, and thus of a lack of being. If Satan is the most evil of all creatures that should mean he possesses the least being. But because he metes out God's divine judgment, that means, paradoxically, that he is also good, which also explains this canto's satiric paralleling of Satan with God and the crucified Christ.

Satan is enclosed in ice up to his chest. His ginormous body reflects his overwhelming pride, just like the giants. But to compare one of the giants to one of Satan's arms is like comparing Dante's size to that of a gnat. Satan has three faces: the front is crimson, the right is yellowish-white, and the left is black (it is "such to see as those who come / from beyond the cataracts of the Nile" [44-45]). Beneath each face is a set of huge webbed wings, like those of a bat (no feathers), which are continually fanning and creating three separate winds. (This reminded me of T.S. Eliot's "Ash Wednesday": "Because these wings are no longer wings to fly / But merely vans to beat the air.") These winds are what freezes all of Cocytus.

All six of Satan's eyes are weeping: tears and bloody slobber drip over his chins. In each mouth he forever chews on a traitor.

The one with the greatest punishment is Judas, who betrayed Jesus. He is headfirst in Satan's mouth. Brutus and Cassius, the other two traitors, had led the conspiracy to kill Julius Caesar, despite being pardoned by him after Rome's civil war. They are in feetfirst. Brutus endures silently, as befitting his beliefs as a Stoic.

These are history's three greatest traitors of all time, according to Dante.

Hey, what about this guy?
Virgil says it's time to leave now because they have seen everything. With Dante hanging onto him, Virgil climbs down Satan's fur. He then climbs back up, leaving Dante to think they are going back into Hell. They then go through an opening in the rock. (Virgil is panting with exhaustion at this point, which makes no sense since he has no body.)

Before we leave, says Dante, could you tell me where the ice is, how Satan came to upside down, and how time has gone by so quickly? Virgil answers that Dante has changed hemispheres and is now under the opposite zenith to that of Jerusalem, where Christ was crucified. Virgil says that this hemisphere once had dry land, like Jerusalem's hemisphere, but then Satan fell down to Hell and water closed over him.

Dante and Virgil follow a hidden path along a hidden stream that leads to a hole in the rock. They emerge from Hell into a starry night.

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Cantos 1-8
Cantos 9-17
Cantos 18-26

Since I didn't have my Durling translation available and had to rely on my old college work, I referred to SparkNotes to help me remembere what happened in what canto (since my notes sometimes got mixed up or only talked about concepts and context). Another great resource are the blogs of one Sebastian Mahfood, who brings up a lot of topics I missed.

A special thanks to Professor Donatella Stocchi-Perucchio for this excellent Dante course! Please also check out my comparison of Dalí and Doré illustrations for Canto 1, which was actually part of our final assignment. (I got A's in everything.)

Schedule:
August 6-8: Purgatorio
September 3-5: Paradiso

Breaking News! Tenth Circle Added to Rapidly Growing Hell

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"Back to the Rivers of Belief," the final track from MCMX a.D. (lyrics)