“Per me si va ne la città dolente,
per me si va ne l'etterno dolore,
per me si va tra la perduta gente.
Giustizia mosse il mio alto fattore;
fecemi la divina podestate,
la somma sapïenza e 'l primo amore.
Dinanzi a me non fuor cose create
se non etterne, e io etterno duro.
Lasciate ogne speranza, voi ch'entrate.”
Queste parole di colore oscuro
vid' ïo scritte al sommo d'una porta;
per ch'io: “Maestro, il senso lor m'è duro.”
Ed elli a me, come persona accorta:
“Qui si convien lasciare ogne sospetto;
ogne viltà convien che qui sia morta.
Noi siam venuti al loco ov' i' t'ho detto
che tu vedrai le genti dolorose
c'hanno perduto il ben de l'intelletto.”
E poi che la sua mano a la mia puose
con lieto volto, ond' io mi confortai,
mi mise dentro a le segrete cose.
Quivi sospiri, pianti e alti guai
risonavan per l'aere sanza stelle,
per ch'io al cominciar ne lagrimai.
Diverse lingue, orribili favelle,
parole di dolore, accenti d'ira,
voci alte e fioche, e suon di man con elle
facevano un tumulto, il qual s'aggira
sempre in quell' aura sanza tempo tinta,
come la rena quando turbo spira.
E io ch'avea d'error la testa cinta,
dissi: “Maestro, che è quel ch'i' odo?
e che gent' è che par nel duol sì vinta?”
Ed elli a me: “Questo misero modo
tegnon l'anime triste di coloro
che visser sanza 'nfamia e sanza lodo.
Mischiate sono a quel cattivo coro
de li angeli che non furon ribelli
né fur fedeli a Dio, ma per sé fuoro.
Caccianli i ciel per non esser men belli,
né lo profondo inferno li riceve,
ch'alcuna gloria i rei avrebber d'elli.”
E io: “Maestro, che è tanto greve
a lor che lamentar li fa sì forte?”
Rispuose: “Dicerolti molto breve.
Questi non hanno speranza di morte,
e la lor cieca vita è tanto bassa,
che 'nvidïosi son d'ogne altra sorte.
Fama di loro il mondo esser non lassa;
misericordia e giustizia li sdegna:
non ragioniam di lor, ma guarda e passa.”
E io, che riguardai, vidi una 'nsegna
che girando correva tanto ratta,
che d'ogne posa mi parea indegna;
e dietro le venìa sì lunga tratta
di gente, ch'i' non averei creduto
che morte tanta n'avesse disfatta.
Poscia ch'io v'ebbi alcun riconosciuto,
vidi e conobbi l'ombra di colui
che fece per viltade il gran rifiuto.
Incontanente intesi e certo fui
che questa era la setta d'i cattivi,
a Dio spiacenti e a' nemici sui.
Questi sciaurati, che mai non fur vivi,
erano ignudi e stimolati molto
da mosconi e da vespe ch'eran ivi.
Elle rigavan lor di sangue il volto,
che, mischiato di lagrime, a' lor piedi
da fastidiosi vermi era ricolto.
E poi ch'a riguardar oltre mi diedi,
vidi genti a la riva d'un gran fiume;
per ch'io dissi: “Maestro, or mi concedi
ch'i' sappia quali sono, e qual costume
le fa di trapassar parer sì pronte,
com' i' discerno per lo fioco lume.”
Ed elli a me: “Le cose ti fier conte
quando noi fermerem li nostri passi
su la trista riviera d'Acheronte.”
Allor con li occhi vergognosi e bassi,
temendo no 'l mio dir li fosse grave,
infino al fiume del parlar mi trassi.
Ed ecco verso noi venir per nave
un vecchio, bianco per antico pelo,
gridando: “Guai a voi, anime prave!
Non isperate mai veder lo cielo:
i' vegno per menarvi a l'altra riva
ne le tenebre etterne, in caldo e 'n gelo.
E tu che se' costì, anima viva,
pàrtiti da cotesti che son morti.”
Ma poi che vide ch'io non mi partiva,
disse: “Per altra via, per altri porti
verrai a piaggia, non qui, per passare:
più lieve legno convien che ti porti.”
E 'l duca lui: “Caron, non ti crucciare:
vuolsi così colà dove si puote
ciò che si vuole, e più non dimandare.”
Quinci fuor quete le lanose gote
al nocchier de la livida palude,
che 'ntorno a li occhi avea di fiamme rote.
Ma quell' anime, ch'eran lasse e nude,
cangiar colore e dibattero i denti,
ratto che 'nteser le parole crude.
Bestemmiavano Dio e lor parenti,
l'umana spezie e 'l loco e 'l tempo e 'l seme
di lor semenza e di lor nascimenti.
Poi si ritrasser tutte quante insieme,
forte piangendo, a la riva malvagia
ch'attende ciascun uom che Dio non teme.
Caron dimonio, con occhi di bragia
loro accennando, tutte le raccoglie;
batte col remo qualunque s'adagia.
Come d'autunno si levan le foglie
l'una appresso de l'altra, fin che 'l ramo
vede a la terra tutte le sue spoglie,
similemente il mal seme d'Adamo
gittansi di quel lito ad una ad una,
per cenni come augel per suo richiamo.
Così sen vanno su per l'onda bruna,
e avanti che sien di là discese,
anche di qua nuova schiera s'auna.
“Figliuol mio,” disse 'l maestro cortese,
“quelli che muoion ne l'ira di Dio
tutti convegnon qui d'ogne paese;
e pronti sono a trapassar lo rio,
ché la divina giustizia li sprona,
sì che la tema si volve in disio.
Quinci non passa mai anima buona;
e però, se Caron di te si lagna,
ben puoi sapere omai che 'l suo dir suona.”
Finito questo, la buia campagna
tremò sì forte, che de lo spavento
la mente di sudore ancor mi bagna.
La terra lagrimosa diede vento,
che balenò una luce vermiglia
la qual mi vinse ciascun sentimento;
e caddi come l'uom cui sonno piglia.
"Through me the way is to the city dolent;
Through me the way is to eternal dole;
Through me the way among the people lost.
Justice incited my sublime Creator;
Created me divine Omnipotence,
The highest Wisdom and the primal Love.
Before me there were no created things,
Only eterne, and I eternal last.
All hope abandon, ye who enter in!"
These words in sombre colour I beheld
Written upon the summit of a gate;
Whence I: "Their sense is, Master, hard to me!"
And he to me, as one experienced:
"Here all suspicion needs must be abandoned,
All cowardice must needs be here extinct.
We to the place have come, where I have told thee
Thou shalt behold the people dolorous
Who have foregone the good of intellect."
And after he had laid his hand on mine
With joyful mien, whence I was comforted,
He led me in among the secret things.
There sighs, complaints, and ululations loud
Resounded through the air without a star,
Whence I, at the beginning, wept thereat.
Languages diverse, horrible dialects,
Accents of anger, words of agony,
And voices high and hoarse, with sound of hands,
Made up a tumult that goes whirling on
For ever in that air for ever black,
Even as the sand doth, when the whirlwind breathes.
And I, who had my head with horror bound,
Said: "Master, what is this which now I hear?
What folk is this, which seems by pain so vanquished?"
And he to me: "This miserable mode
Maintain the melancholy souls of those
Who lived withouten infamy or praise.
Commingled are they with that caitiff choir
Of Angels, who have not rebellious been,
Nor faithful were to God, but were for self.
The heavens expelled them, not to be less fair;
Nor them the nethermore abyss receives,
For glory none the damned would have from them."
And I: "O Master, what so grievous is
To these, that maketh them lament so sore?"
He answered: "I will tell thee very briefly.
These have no longer any hope of death;
And this blind life of theirs is so debased,
They envious are of every other fate.
No fame of them the world permits to be;
Misericord and Justice both disdain them.
Let us not speak of them, but look, and pass."
And I, who looked again, beheld a banner,
Which, whirling round, ran on so rapidly,
That of all pause it seemed to me indignant;
And after it there came so long a train
Of people, that I ne'er would have believed
That ever Death so many had undone.
When some among them I had recognised,
I looked, and I beheld the shade of him
Who made through cowardice the great refusal.
Forthwith I comprehended, and was certain,
That this the sect was of the caitiff wretches
Hateful to God and to his enemies.
These miscreants, who never were alive,
Were naked, and were stung exceedingly
By gadflies and by hornets that were there.
These did their faces irrigate with blood,
Which, with their tears commingled, at their feet
By the disgusting worms was gathered up.
And when to gazing farther I betook me.
People I saw on a great river's bank;
Whence said I: "Master, now vouchsafe to me,
That I may know who these are, and what law
Makes them appear so ready to pass over,
As I discern athwart the dusky light."
And he to me: "These things shall all be known
To thee, as soon as we our footsteps stay
Upon the dismal shore of Acheron."
Then with mine eyes ashamed and downward cast,
Fearing my words might irksome be to him,
From speech refrained I till we reached the river.
And lo! towards us coming in a boat
An old man, hoary with the hair of eld,
Crying: "Woe unto you, ye souls depraved!
Hope nevermore to look upon the heavens;
I come to lead you to the other shore,
To the eternal shades in heat and frost.
And thou, that yonder standest, living soul,
Withdraw thee from these people, who are dead!"
But when he saw that I did not withdraw,
He said: "By other ways, by other ports
Thou to the shore shalt come, not here, for passage;
A lighter vessel needs must carry thee."
And unto him the Guide: "Vex thee not, Charon;
It is so willed there where is power to do
That which is willed; and farther question not."
Thereat were quieted the fleecy cheeks
Of him the ferryman of the livid fen,
Who round about his eyes had wheels of flame.
But all those souls who weary were and naked
Their colour changed and gnashed their teeth together,
As soon as they had heard those cruel words.
God they blasphemed and their progenitors,
The human race, the place, the time, the seed
Of their engendering and of their birth!
Thereafter all together they drew back,
Bitterly weeping, to the accursed shore,
Which waiteth every man who fears not God.
Charon the demon, with the eyes of glede,
Beckoning to them, collects them all together,
Beats with his oar whoever lags behind.
As in the autumn-time the leaves fall off,
First one and then another, till the branch
Unto the earth surrenders all its spoils;
In similar wise the evil seed of Adam
Throw themselves from that margin one by one,
At signals, as a bird unto its lure.
So they depart across the dusky wave,
And ere upon the other side they land,
Again on this side a new troop assembles.
"My son," the courteous Master said to me,
"All those who perish in the wrath of God
Here meet together out of every land;
And ready are they to pass o'er the river,
Because celestial Justice spurs them on,
So that their fear is turned into desire.
This way there never passes a good soul;
And hence if Charon doth complain of thee,
Well mayst thou know now what his speech imports."
This being finished, all the dusk champaign
Trembled so violently, that of that terror
The recollection bathes me still with sweat.
The land of tears gave forth a blast of wind,
And fulminated a vermilion light,
Which overmastered in me every sense,
And as a man whom sleep hath seized I fell.
Modern editions vary in using capital or lower-case letters for this inscription over the gate of hell. Lacking Dante's autograph MS, we can only conjecture. For the view that the model for these words is found in the victorious inscriptions found on Roman triumphal arches, sculpted in capital letters in stone, see Hollander (Allegory in Dante's “Commedia” [Princeton, Princeton University Press, 1969]), p. 300. In this view every condemned sinner is being led back captive to 'that Rome of which Christ is Roman' (Purg. XXXII.102), 'under the yoke' into God's holy kingdom, where he or she will be eternally a prisoner.
For the city as the poem's centering image of political life, the hellish earthly city, resembling Florence, 'which stands for the self and against the common good,' and the heavenly city, an idealized view of imperial Rome, see Joan Ferrante (The Political Vision of the “Divine Comedy” [Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1984]), pp. 41-42. The anaphora, or repetition, of the phrase per me si va, as it comes 'uttered' by the gate of hell itself in the first three verses, has a ring of inevitable doom about it. A student (Charlene Cosman, Princeton '76) once suggested that it also contains a self-conscious gesture on the part of its author: it is through him that we visit this place of woe, suffering, and perdition.
'Justice moved my maker on high.' Dante's verse may seem to violate the Aristotelian/Thomist definition of God as the 'unmoved mover.' Strictly speaking, nothing can 'move' God, who Himself moves all things (even if He can be described in the Bible as feeling anger at humankind, etc.). Dante's apparently 'theologically incorrect' statement shows the importance of his sense of justice as the central force in the universe, so encompassing that it may be seen as, in a sense, God's 'muse,' as well as the primary subject of the poem. The word in its noun form appears fully thirty-five times in the poem (once in Latin at Par. XVIII.91). See Allan H. Gilbert (Dante's Conception of Justice [Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 1925] – but see also Dino Bigongiari's sharply critical review [Essays on Dante and Medieval Culture, ed. Henry Paolucci (New York: The Bagehot Council, 2000 [1964]), pp. 86-91] and Hollander, Dante and Paul's “five words with understanding,” Occasional Papers, No. 1, Center for Medieval and Early Renaissance Texts and Studies [Binghamton, NY: Medieval and Renaissance Texts and Studies, 1992], pp. 40-41).
The three attributes of the Christian God, Power, Wisdom, and Love, are nearly universally recognized as informing these two verses. Hell is of God's making, not an independent 'city' of rebels, but a totally dependent polis of those who had rebelled against their maker. For the post-biblical concept of the Trinity, especially as it was advanced in St. Augustine's De Trinitate, where Father, Son, and Holy Spirit is each identified by one of these attributes, respectively, see G. Fallani, “Trinità” (ED.1976.5), pp. 718-21.
The apparent difficulty of these verses (perhaps reflected in Dante's difficulty in understanding the writing over the gate, Inf. III.12) is resolved once we understand that here 'eternal' is used to mean 'sempiternal,' that is, as having had a beginning in time but lasting ever after. Only God, who is not created but all-creating, may be considered eternal. See Mazzoni (Saggio di un nuovo commento alla “Divina Commedia”: “Inferno” –Canti I-III [Florence: Sansoni, 1967]), pp. 331-36. Mazzoni, in agreement with Bruno Nardi (La caduta di Lucifero e l'autenticità della “Quaestio de aqua et terra” [Torino, S.E.I. (Lectura Dantis Romana): 1959] – now in Nardi, “Lecturae” e altri studi danteschi, ed. R. Abardo [Firenze: Le Lettere, 1990], p. 17), allows this status to three classes of being: angels, prime matter (that is, the potential form of the as yet uncreated world), and the heavenly spheres. For an apt description of Christ's Judgment of the damned, see Matthew 25:41, 25:46: 'Then shall he say also unto them on the left hand, Depart from me, ye cursed, into everlasting fire, prepared for the devil and his angels.... And these shall go away into everlasting punishment: but the righteous into life eternal.'
A curiosity about which there has been only a modicum of speculation results from the closeness of this verse to one in the opening verses of the first scene of the third act of Plautus's comedy Bacchides: 'Pandite atque aperite propere ianuam hanc Orci, opsecro: Nam equidem haud aliter esse duco: quippe quo nemo advenit Nisi quem spes reliquere omnes.' For the first modern discussion see Edward Moore, Studies in Dante, First Series: Scripture and Classical Authors in Dante (Oxford: Clarendon, 1969 [1896]), p. 261n., and now R. Mercuri, “Plauto” (ED.1973.4), p. 555b. For a much earlier citation, see Castelvetro (comm. to Inf. III.9-10). There is general agreement that Dante could not have known the texts of Plautus directly (he does, however, name the Roman playwright at Purg. XXII.98), with the resultant understanding that Dante found the lines cited in one florilegium or another, even if no one has as yet produced such a manuscript in order to confirm this theory.
Are the letters of these words 'dark in hue,' as are the inset carvings over actual gates, begrimed by time (or, as some early commentators urged, because they are hellishly menacing)? Or are they rhetorically difficult, and 'dark' in that respect? The phrase 'rhetorical colors' to indicate the rhetor's stylistic techniques is familiar from classical rhetoric and is found in Dante, e.g., in Vita nuova XXV.7 and XXV.10. (For this usage in Dante see Domenico Consoli, “colore” [ED.1970.2], p. 65b.) Most of the early commentators are drawn, however, to the first hypothesis (dark in color), while several recent ones prefer the latter. Mazzoni (Saggio di un nuovo commento alla “Divina Commedia”: “Inferno” –Canti I-III [Florence: Sansoni, 1967]), pp. 337-42, gives good reasons for favoring the ancient interpretation, opposing the reading offered by Pagliaro (Ulisse: ricerche semantiche sulla “Divina Commedia” [Messina-Florence: D'Anna, 1967]), pp. 762-65. One should also consider the possibility that both meanings are present here. In any case, whichever understanding one chooses, one will have to make a decision consonant with an interpretation of verse 12 (see the note to Inf. III.12).
There is a fairly serious disagreement over the most probable interpretation of the words 'for me their meaning is hard.' Our translation tries to reflect both possibilities, suggesting that one is clearly present, while the second may be only latent. Are the words over the gate of hell (1) threatening to Dante? Or (2) are they hard for him to understand? It seems clear that the traveler is frightened by the dire advice tendered in verse 9, which would have him abandon all hope. Mazzoni (Saggio di un nuovo commento alla “Divina Commedia”: “Inferno” –Canti I-III [Florence: Sansoni, 1967]), pp. 337-42, offers a lengthy gloss to this tercet (vv. 10-12 – see the note to Inf. III.10). It seems impossible not to accept his basic premise, namely that the context of the scene makes the meaning immediate and moral: the traveler is afraid, and Virgil reproves him for his fear (Inf. III.14-15). This understanding is shared by the vast majority of the commentators, with a very few (the Ottimo, Boccaccio, Gregorio Di Siena) arguing for the understanding that the text insists only that Dante finds the meaning of the inscription difficult, and another handful arguing for a deliberately ambiguous meaning. Critics like John Freccero, in his essay 'Infernal Irony: The Gates of Hell' (1983) in (Dante: The Poetics of Conversion, ed. Rachel Jacoff [Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1986], pp. 99-102), argue that the drama played out here is lodged in the difficulty of interpreting. Without opposing that further interpretive dimension of the scene, one should probably insist on a literal understanding that squares with the text. Freccero and others before him (e.g., Vandelli [comm. to Inf. III.12]; Padoan [comm. to Inf. III.12]) have heard the echo of John 6:60: 'Durus est hic sermo' (This is a hard saying). But that context also, while allowing for the question of interpretive failure on the part of the disciples who do not understand what Jesus means when he says that those who eat of his flesh shall live forever, is rounded off by the moral failure of certain disciples (John 6:61; 6:66). For Dante, the seeming banishment of his hope is cause, not so much for distress at his intellectual failure so much as for fear of a punishment compelling enough to grasp – an eternity in hell. See Guiniforto delli Bargigi (comm. to Inf. III.10-12), paraphrasing the protagonist's remark as follows: 'non dico dura, perch'io non la intenda, ma dura è, perocchè dura cosa mi pare udir che io debba entrare in luogo di eterno dolore e lasciar la speranza di uscirne mai fuori, e per questo denota Dante, ch'ei temesse, e Virgilio lo confortò nella particella del testo che seguita.'
The comparison (come persona accorta) lends Virgil authority in two regards: he is aware of Dante's moral shortcomings and he understands the underworld, since he has descended once before (see Inf. IX.22-27; Inf. XXI.63). The scene indeed has a classical precursor, as was noted, among the early commentators, by Boccaccio (comm. to Inf. III.13-15): the Sibyl's reassurance of threatened Aeneas (Aen. VI.261): 'Nunc animis opus, Aenea, nunc pectore firmo.' Mazzoni (Saggio di un nuovo commento alla “Divina Commedia”: “Inferno” –Canti I-III [Florence: Sansoni, 1967]), p. 342, follows the tradition in the commentaries which argues that this tercet reaffirms the moral reading of Inf. III.12, 'Maestro, il senso lor m'è duro.'
The 'good of the intellect' has long been understood as God. See Mazzoni (Saggio di un nuovo commento alla “Divina Commedia”: “Inferno” –Canti I-III [Florence: Sansoni, 1967]), p. 343, citing Par. IV.116, where God is the 'fonte ond' ogne ver deriva' (the source from which all truth derives).
The word segrete here does not mean 'secret' so much as 'cut off from' – see Grabher (comm. to Inf. III.21): 'Segrete conserva la sua forza etimologica (da secerno [Latin 'separate from, cut off']) con immagine netta di separazione; qui: dal mondo e dalla conoscenza degli uomini' (cited by Mazzoni [Saggio di un nuovo commento alla “Divina Commedia”: “Inferno” –Canti I-III (Florence: Sansoni, 1967), p. 345]), i.e., those things that are hidden from the knowledge of mortals.
This first sense impression of the underworld is exclusively aural. We are probably meant to assume that Dante's eyes are not yet accustomed to the darkness of hell. Cf. Inf. IV.25-27 as well as Inf. XI.11, where his olfactory capacity must become used to the stench of nether hell.
This first instance of Dante's weeping is part of a program of the protagonist's development in hell, in which he (very) gradually overcomes the twin temptations to weep for or feel fear at the situation of the sinners in Inferno. See Hollander (Allegory in Dante's “Commedia”), pp. 301-7. In the harsh moral code of the text, sympathy for the damned is always misplaced, if a certain admiration for some of their better qualities is allowed.
The adjective diverse here means either 'different the one from the other' (on the model of the confused languages spoken after the construction of the Tower of Babel) or 'strange,' a meaning for the adjective frequently found in Dante. In our translation we have tried to allow for both meanings. Mazzoni (Saggio di un nuovo commento alla “Divina Commedia”: “Inferno” –Canti I-III [Florence: Sansoni, 1967]), p. 348, gives further evidence for the first interpretation by citing Inf. III.123, where those who die in the wrath of God 'assemble here from every land,' a phrasing that calls attention to differing nationalities and thus suggests a plurality of tongues.
E suon di man con elle. Boccaccio's gloss (comm. to Inf. IX.49-51) to Inf. IX.50, 'battiensi a palme,' which describes the Furies beating their breasts 'come qui [on earth] fanno le femine che gran dolor sentono, o mostran di sentire,' may help unravel this verse as well: the sound is that of hands striking the sinners' own bodies as they beat their breasts, as Boccaccio had already suggested in his gloss to this verse: 'come soglion far le femine battendosi a palme' (Inf. III.27-29). See M. Barbi (Problemi di critica dantesca [Florence: Sansoni, 1934]), p. 267. Others today (e.g., Bosco/Reggio [comm. to Inf. III.27]) allow for two possibilities: the sound results from striking either the body of another or one's own.
A much-debated verse. Here our translation follows Petrocchi (La Commedia secondo l'antica vulgata, Introduzione), pp. 168-69, who reads (error and not orror), even though we agree with Giorgio Brugnoli (“Orror/Error [Inferno III.31],” Studi Danteschi 54 [1982], pp. 15-30), that this is a likely echo of the Aeneid (II.559): 'At me tum primum circumstetit horror.' There are detailed discussions of the debate over the verse in Mazzoni (Saggio di un nuovo commento alla “Divina Commedia”: “Inferno” –Canti I-III [Florence: Sansoni, 1967]), pp. 352-55; in Petrocchi, (La Commedia secondo l'antica vulgata, Inferno, pp. 42-43); and in Maria Simonelli (Lectura Dantis Americana: “Inferno” III [Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1993], pp. 27-30. As Petrocchi says, both readings are acceptable: there is not so much at stake here. Nonetheless, the view of John Taaffe is worth noting (A Comment on the “Divine Comedy” of Dante Alighieri [London, John Murray, 1822]), p. 171: '...I tend to accept [orror] without reserve, not because it is the most intelligible and poetical... on what I take to be the very best possible authority – that of Boccaccio.' (The recovery of Taaffe's all-but-forgotten English commentary to the first eight cantos is a bonus found in Simonelli's discussion.)
For the history of the interpretation of this tercet, now generally understood to indicate the presence in the 'ante-inferno,' or vestibule of hell, of the neutrals, those who never took a side, see Mazzoni (Saggio di un nuovo commento alla “Divina Commedia”: “Inferno” –Canti I-III [Florence: Sansoni, 1967]), pp. 355-67. And, for the existence of exactly such a 'vestibule' in hell in the Visio Pauli see Theodore Silverstein (“Did Dante Know the Vision of St. Paul?” Harvard Studies and Notes in Philology and Literature 19 [1937], pp. 231-47). In Paul's apocryphal Vision (for the most recent text see Silverstein and Anthony Hilhorst, eds., Apocalypse of Paul: A New Critical Edition of Three Long Latin Versions [Geneva: Patrick Cramer, 1997]), there is a river of flame separating 'those who were neither hot nor cold' (Apoc. 3:15-16) from the other sinners.
There has been a lengthy dispute in the commentary tradition as to whether or not Dante has invented the neutral angels or is reflecting a medieval tradition that had itself 'invented' them (since they are not, properly speaking, biblical in origin). This is presented at length by Mazzoni (Saggio di un nuovo commento alla “Divina Commedia”: “Inferno” –Canti I-III [Florence: Sansoni, 1967]), pp. 368-76, who shows that such a tradition did exist and probably helped to shape Dante's conceptualization. On this problem see Nardi, Dal “Convivio” alla “Commedia” (Rome: Istituto Storico Italiano per il Medio Evo, 1992 [1960]), pp. 331-50. See also Freccero's essay 'The Neutral Angels' (1960) in Dante: The Poetics of Conversion, ed. Rachel Jacoff (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1986), pp. 110-18.
To what does the adjective rei ('evil') refer? The neutral angels (v. 38) are the antecedent of the pronoun li in vv. 40 and 41. It seems clear that this is also true with respect to the adjective in v. 42, and thus our translation, 'lest on their account the evil angels gloat.' The sense is that the fallen angels (e.g., those seen on the walls of Dis in canto VIII.82-83) would be able to take pride in their higher situation if the neutral angels were admitted to hell, since they would apparently be lower down even than their rebellious cousins. That the adjective is to be treated as an adjectival noun for 'the wicked,' i.e., the damned in general, is an idea that has only entered commentaries in our own century. It has not won over the more convincing discussants.
For the less-than-defensible notion that alcuna here is a negative (rather than a positive) form of the adjective see Mazzoni (Saggio di un nuovo commento alla “Divina Commedia”: “Inferno” –Canti I-III [Florence: Sansoni, 1967]), pp. 377-79, who defends the positive reading.
Paraphrased: 'Like all the rest, these sinners have no hope of improving their posthumous lot; but their foul condition is such that they are envious of every other class of sinners.'
Misericordia e giustizia ('Mercy and justice') are here to be understood as heaven and hell, neither of which will entertain any report of such vile creatures.
Dante's essential technique for indicating the crucial moral failures of his various groups of sinners is here before us for the first time. The neutrals, who never took a side, are portrayed as an organized crowd following a banner: exactly what they were not in life (e.g., the neutral angels who neither rebelled directly against God nor stood with Him, but who kept to one side). And in this respect the neutrals are punished by being forced to assume a pose antithetic to that which they struck in life. At the same time, the banner that they follow is the very essence of indeterminacy. Not only is there no identifying sign on it, but is not held in the anchoring hand of any standard-bearer; it is a parody of the standard that is raised before a body of men who follow a leader. Elsewhere we will encounter other such symbolic artifacts. In Dante's hell the punishment of sin involves the application of opposites and similarities. Here the sinners do the opposite of what they did (form into an organized group) and the same (follow no fixed purpose). This form of just retribution is what Dante will later refer to as the contrapasso (Inf. XXVIII.142).
The word in rhyme position, indegna, has caused some anxiety. In what way is the banner 'unworthy' of repose? Mazzoni (Saggio di un nuovo commento alla “Divina Commedia”: “Inferno” –Canti I-III [Florence: Sansoni, 1967]), p. 388, proposes understanding the word as having the meaning 'insusceptible.' This banner, by its very nature, seems incapable of ever coming to rest.
The most-debated passage of this canto, at least in the modern era. Many of the early commentators were convinced that this passage clearly intended a biting reference to Pope Celestine V (Pier da Morrone), who abdicated the papacy in 1294 after having held the office for less than four months. He was followed into it by Dante's great ecclesiastical enemy, Pope Boniface VIII, and there are colorful contemporary accounts that would have it that Boniface mimicked the voice of the Holy Spirit in the air passages that led to Celestine's bed chamber, counseling his abdication. Mazzoni (Saggio di un nuovo commento alla “Divina Commedia”: “Inferno” –Canti I-III [Florence: Sansoni, 1967]), pp. 390-415, offers a thorough history of the interpretation of the verse. Two factors led to growing uneasiness with the identification of Celestine: (1) in 1313 he had been canonized, (2) ca. 1346 Francesco Petrarca, in his De vita solitaria, had defended the motives for his abdication. Thus, beginning with the second redaction of the commentary of Pietro di Dante, certainty that the vile self-recuser was Celestine began to waiver. The names of many others have been proposed, including those of Esau and Pontius Pilate. It seems fair to say that there are fatal objections to all of these other candidacies. For strong, even convincing, support for that of Celestine see Giorgio Padoan (“Colui che fece per viltà il gran rifiuto,” Studi Danteschi 38 [1961], pp. 75-128) and Maria Simonelli (Lectura Dantis Americana: “Inferno” III [Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1993]), pp. 41-58. Mazzoni (Saggio di un nuovo commento alla “Divina Commedia”: “Inferno” –Canti I-III [Florence: Sansoni, 1967]), pp. 414-15, ends his lengthy study of the problem opting for (as had Sapegno [comm. to Inf. III.59-60] before him), a generic sinner, unspecified, but standing for all who had made so vile a choice. Yet Mazzoni's own evidence and arguments, as well as Dante's usual procedures, which tend to avoid such indeterminacy, help to convince this reader that it was indeed Celestine that Dante had in mind, as is underlined by his later scathing reference to the event of 'the great refusal' in Inf. XXVII.104-105. Further, Dante tells us that he 'saw and knew' (that is, recognized) this shade: there is nothing indeterminate in such a locution. Nardi's telling objections to Petrocchi's denial that Dante would have put Celestine, canonized in 1313, in hell (Itinerari danteschi [Milan: Franco Angeli, 1994 (1969) pp. 41-59], first published in Studi Romani in 1955) are today found in Dal “Convivio” alla “Commedia,” pp. 315-30.
M. Barbi (Problemi di critica dantesca [Florence: Sansoni, 1934]), p. 203: here cattivi means 'vile ones,' a stronger meaning than the word has sometimes in early (or in modern) Italian.
The second descriptive passage that indicates the condition of these sinners continues the contrapasso (see Inf. XXVIII.142). Now we see that these beings, who lacked all inner stimulation, are stung (stimolati) by noxious insects. Their tears mix with the blood drawn by these wounds only to serve as food for worms. Dante's personal hatred for those who, unlike him, never made their true feelings or opinions known irradiates this canto. There is not a single detail that falls short of the condition of eternal insult.
M. Barbi (Problemi di critica dantesca [Florence: Sansoni, 1934]), p. 261: sciaurati must be understood as 'vile, abbietto, da niente,' as a bitterly negative term with no softness in it. Similarly, the phrase che mai non fur vivi (who never were alive) is darkened by its probable source, cited by several modern commentators (perhaps first by Sapegno [comm. to Inf. III.64], in Revelation 3:1: 'Nomen habes quod vivas, et mortuus es' (you have the name of the living, and are dead), a fitting castigation for Dante to have had in mind for the neutrals.
These verses mark a split between the second and third scenes of the canto, the neutrals and those other sinners, of all kinds, who are destined to begin their travel to their final destinations in Charon's bark. From this point on the action of the canto moves to the near bank of Acheron. The next canto will begin on the other side of the river.
Dante asks two things of his guide, the identity of those gathered at the river's bank and the reason for their apparent eagerness to cross over. His questions seem more or less similar to those he had asked at Inf. III.33, when he wanted to know the identity of the wailing souls who turn out to be the neutrals. On that occasion, Virgil answers him immediately; on this, as we soon see, he is much less forthcoming. See the note, below, to Inf. III.76-78).
Many commentators, beginning perhaps with Trifon Gabriele (comm. to Inf. III.72), followed by his student, Bernardino Daniello (comm. to Inf. III.70-81), cite apposite lines from Virgil (Aen. VI.318-319), Aeneas's inquiry of the Sibyl as to the motives leading the dead to desire to cross Acheron: 'dic,' ait, 'o virgo, quid volt concursus ad amnem? / quidve petunt animae?'
The word costume, which we have translated as 'inner law,' is explained by Sapegno (comm. to Inf. III.73) as 'istinto diventato norma e legge' (an instinct become a norm, even a law).
The 'dim light': Dante's first experience of hell proper was one of utter darkness. Indeed, his first sense impressions of the neutrals are entirely auditory (Inf. III.22-33). Now the character himself assures us that he can see at least a little. 'In this third canto, Dante had to arrive at this solution: after beginning in an absolute darkness that forced him to perceive the external world only through sound, he begins to see once he passes the infernal gate and his eyes adapt to the darkness. Now he speaks of 'dim light,' thus resolving the problem of vision in a world without light, in the world of eternal darkness' (Maria Simonelli [Lectura Dantis Americana: “Inferno” III (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1993)], p. 61).
Virgil's rather clipped response, in marked contrast with his ready response to Dante's question about the identity of the neutrals (Inf. III.34-42), causes Dante to feel ashamed (Inf. III.79-81). The exact reason for Virgil's reproof is a matter of some debate. One might argue that his point is that Dante has gotten ahead of himself. In the first instance, he asked about the nature of those he saw displayed just before him. Now he is anticipating, literally looking ahead, and Virgil warns him against such behavior. Mazzoni (Saggio di un nuovo commento alla “Divina Commedia”: “Inferno” –Canti I-III [Florence: Sansoni, 1967]), pp. 419-22, surveys the dispute, which probably began with Benvenuto da Imola (comm. to Inf. III.76-78). Perhaps the most interesting hypothesis was advanced by Mattalia (comm. to Inf. III.76-78), who argued that Virgil is upset that Dante, who had offered himself as a devoted reader of the Aeneid (Inf. I.82-86), does not recognize this place, so fully described by Virgil in his Sixth Book. Mazzoni (Saggio di un nuovo commento alla “Divina Commedia”: “Inferno” –Canti I-III [Florence: Sansoni, 1967]), pp. 420-21, disagrees, finding this argument over-subtle. We can say that once Virgil is ready to respond, he is courtesy itself (Inf. III.121-129). The point seems to be that he now wants Dante first to observe Charon, whose words and actions will make many things clear, before getting into the details of this scene along the river's edge. Nonetheless, Mattalia's point does seem to have some merit, particularly because Dante's guide mentions the name of the river (Inf. III.78), 'Acheronte.' Had he not wanted to remind Dante of the Virgilian roots of this current experience of an underworld, would he not have merely said, 'the river,' leaving the identification for later? This small moment of interpretive difficulty may stand as but one example of two things: the difficulty of this poem and the extraordinarily subtle exertions it calls forth from its commentators, whether its author always hoped for them or not.
Charon, named twice by Virgil (Aen. VI.299, VI.326), is the 'star' of the moving scene of the crowding dead, buried and unburied, who flock toward the Acheron in the Aeneid (VI.295-330). He is referred to as portitor (VI.298), literally the guardian of the port, but his function in Virgil is to ferry the dead across Acheron. Dante revisits this scene for several details, including the first image in his celebrated simile (vv. 112-113) that awaits us. Unlike the crowds in Virgil, of whom Charon has to separate the buried from the unburied, condemned to wait one hundred years before they can be ferried to the locus their afterlives, in Dante's treatment (vv. 100-111) the souls, having already undergone the Last Judgment (and this scene is probably meant to remind us of that one), are loath to cross to their final resting place, and Charon has to urge them onward physically.
Charon's address to the wicked souls awaiting transport reinforces the hopelessness of this place, which was initially insisted on by the writing over the gate of hell (Inf. III.9), 'lasciate ogne speranza, voi ch'entrate.'
Charon's insistence on Dante's difference – he is alive, the others dead – will find frequent repetition as the protagonist's extraordinary presence in hell is noted by various guardians and damned souls.
For complicating readings of what many have understood as a fairly evident remark, see Mazzoni (Saggio di un nuovo commento alla “Divina Commedia”: “Inferno” –Canti I-III [Florence: Sansoni, 1967]), pp. 425-27. Most today, including Mazzoni, take Charon's formulation to refer to Dante's eventual passage to Purgatory aboard the angel-guided ship that we see in Purgatorio II.41.
Charon, introduced first (Inf. III.82-83) only by his characteristics (in a typical Dantean gesture, making us wonder who this imposing figure might be), is now named, and will be twice more (Inf. III.109; Inf. III.128). This highly specified and insistent naming should make it plain that Dante is serious about proposing the notion that the guardian of hell is derived from the Sixth Book of Virgil's poem. It is fascinating, however, to watch the early commentators, so used to reading any fiction as though it were 'allegorical,' 'dehistoricizing' Charon. For a brief resumé, see Mazzoni (Saggio di un nuovo commento alla “Divina Commedia”: “Inferno” –Canti I-III [Florence: Sansoni, 1967]), pp. 428-31. Among the early commentators Charon is variously understood as 'fleshly desire,' 'disordered love,' 'ancient sinfulness,' 'vice,' 'time,' etc. It is surely better to understand him first and foremost as himself.
These two verses are repeated, word for word, at Inferno V.23-24. This is the longest example of a word-for-word repetition that we find in the entire poem.
Unlike the souls about to be ferried by Charon, some of whom may reach the relative bliss of the Elysian Fields, Dante's sinners have no hope whatsoever of their next life, not even, we may imagine, those guiltless pagans destined for Limbo, where, the reader will be told (Inf. IV.42) by no less an authority than Virgil himself, 'che sanza speme vivemo in disio.'
'The human race, the place, the time, the seed / of their begetting and of their birth.' Our translation is in accord with the literal interpretation of Padoan (comm. to Inf. III.104), against those who understand seme to refer to their ancestors, semenza to their parents. For an apposite citation of Job 3:3 ('Let the day perish wherein I was born, and the night in which it was said: A man child is conceived') see Eugenio Frongia, “Canto III: The Gate of Hell,” in Lectura Dantis: “Inferno,” ed. A. Mandelbaum, A. Oldcorn, and C. Ross (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1998), p. 47.
For Dante's possible reliance, in his description of Charon's eyes, on the Roman d'Enéas, v. 2449 ('roges les oitz come charbons'), see Barbara Spaggiari, “Antecedenti e modelli tipologici nella letteratura in lingua d'oïl,” in I “monstra” nell'“Inferno” dantesco: tradizione e simbologie (Spoleto: Centro italiano di studi sull'alto medioevo, 1997), pp. 134-35.
The verb s'adagia has been variously interpreted, either to mean that the souls delay entering Charon's skiff, or that, once in it, they seat themselves in so self-indulgent a manner as to draw Charon's wrath. See Mazzoni (Saggio di un nuovo commento alla “Divina Commedia”: “Inferno” –Canti I-III [Florence: Sansoni, 1967]), pp. 438-42, for a thorough review of the debate and the evidence in favor of the second reading, based in Virgil (Aen. VI.411-412): 'inde alias animas, quae per iuga longa sedebant, / deturbat laxatque foros,' as was first noted by N. Tommaseo (comm. to Inf. III.109-111).
Where each of the first two cantos has had two major similes (Inf. I.22-27; Inf. I.55-60; Inf. II.37-42; Inf. II.127-132), the third canto reserves its similetic energy for this double simile that describes the final action of the canto, the departure of the sinners in Charon's skiff. It is a commonplace that the third canto is the most 'Virgilian' canto of the Commedia. In fact, study has shown that it has more than twice as many Virgilian citations than any other canto in the poem (see Hollander, “Le opere di Virgilio nella Commedia di Dante,” in Dante e la “bella scola” della poesia: Autorità e sfida poetica, ed. A. A. Iannucci [Ravenna: Longo, 1993], pp. 250-51). This double simile has long been recognized as involving an amalgam of two Virgilian passages, Aeneid VI.309-312 and Georgics II.82. It has also been understood as being the 'controlling simile' for the entire poem, combining pagan and Christian elements: see the article by Margherita Frankel (“Biblical Figurations in Dante's Reading of the Aeneid,” Dante Studies 100 [1982], pp. 13-23).
For the reading 'vede a la terra' and not 'rende a la terra' (as in two MSS), see Petrocchi, La Commedia secondo l'antica vulgata :Intro., p. 53, mainly because of the dependence on the Virgilian passage frequently cited (Georg. II.82): 'miraturque novas frondes').
Several MSS have 'gente' where Petrocchi, La Commedia secondo l'antica vulgata: Intro., pp. 170, 380, and La Commedia secondo l'antica vulgata: Inf., p. 54, favors 'schiera.' His main point is that the lectio difficilior is especially likely here, given that the noun 'gente' has already been used five times in this canto (vv. 3, 17, 33, 56, 71).
Virgil now is willing to answer the question that Dante posed earlier (Inf. III.73-74): divine justice spurs these sinners so that they are eager to cross the river and find their perdition. If there is merit in Mattalia's observation that Virgil had previously been angry with Dante for not understanding that the place before them had been amply described in the Aeneid and thus should have been recognized by the traveler (see the note to Inf. III.76-78), now, we infer, adding this new information, he is ready to speak. On the other hand, the simpler explanation is that the appearance of Charon on the scene was necessary to make his answer meaningful – and that condition has now been met.
For the Aristotelian/Thomist sources of Dante's meteorology, the subterranean winds that cause earthquakes, see Mazzoni (Saggio di un nuovo commento alla “Divina Commedia”: “Inferno” –Canti I-III [Florence: Sansoni, 1967]), pp. 446-52.
Dante's falling into unconsciousness indicates his inability to deal with the overwhelming experience of his crossing into the realm of hell proper, an 'inability' apparently shared by the poet, who simply does not tell us how he crossed the river. The protagonist will suffer a similar lapse at the conclusion of the fifth canto (Inf. V.142).
The question of how Dante crosses Acheron is much debated. The pointed lack of concrete reference to the means by which he is transported is a sign either of the poet's reticence or confusion or of his having set a little problem for his readers. It has become fashionable, on the heels of the lengthy gloss offered by Mazzoni (Saggio di un nuovo commento alla “Divina Commedia”: “Inferno” – Canti I-III [Florence: Sansoni, 1967]), pp. 452-55, to suggest that the poet has deliberately left the issue vague. Wlassics, for instance (“Il canto XV del Purgatorio,” in Filologia e critica dantesca: Studi offerti a Aldo Vallone (Florence: Olschki, 1989), p. 164, enunciates the principle 'if Dante does not tell us, we are not meant to know' with specific reference to this crossing. This reader does not find that an acceptable answer. The moment is too important, surrounded by troubling and excited details, to be dealt with as anything less than a problematic mystery that the poet asks us to solve. Mazzoni does his usual magisterial job in reporting the various theories to account for his transporter (Charon, an angel, Virgil, Beatrice, Lucia, some unnamed supernatural force). But see the countering argument of Hollander, “Dante on Horseback? (Inferno XII, 93-126),” Italica 61 (1984), p. 292: 'We are in fact meant to understand that it is Charon who takes Dante across and that this crux is entirely the result of interpretive over-exertion that has made the self-evident confusing. Charon indeed does wish to refuse Dante passage in his skiff (Inf. III.88-93); to his protestations Virgil responds as follows (Inf. III.94-96): 'Caron, non ti crucciare: / vuolsi così colà dove si puote / ciò che si vuole, e più non dimandare.' Daniello (comm. to Inf. III.95-96) has offered, in my opinion, a sufficient gloss to Virgil's words: 'E qui fanno le parole di Virgilio a Caronte quell'effetto che il mostrar dell'aureo ramo fa della Sibilla...' (Virgil's words have the same effect on Charon that the Sibyl's showing the golden bough had on him). For Charon to be able to resist such a command would involve Dante in a theological or at least a poetic absurdity. Cf. the similar moment at Inf. V.16-24, where Minos likewise would resist Dante's passage through his realm and where Virgil employs the same incantatory phrase that he had uttered in Canto III to achieve the same result.... Would Virgil have uttered the spell again had it not previously proved efficacious? That seems a most doubtful proposition. I believe that Dante's reason for not permitting us to witness the first scene being played out (we are given another version of the scene upon which it is modelled a bit later at Inf. VIII.25-27) is that he found that poetic choice an excessive one, too self-consciously redolent of Aeneas's fanciful entrance into the underworld for him to make evident reference to it at this important moment, the threshold of his Christian afterworld.' If this argument has merit, it accounts for the poet's reticence on poetic grounds. Dante easily could have told us what he wants us to make ourselves responsible for; but that is not his way. Rather, he makes us his partners in taking responsibility for such incredible details as these all through this incredible poem. Virgil may 'explain' the entrance to the underworld with the mechanism of a golden bough and then show his hero crossing Acheron in Charon's skiff; Dante enters hell in the white space between cantos II and III, and then crosses the river in the same blank between III and IV. And, for a similar deliberately reticent description of an action, see the note to Inf. XII.114-115.
Commentary text is copyrighted and reproduced by permission.
Please enter a search term.
“Per me si va ne la città dolente,
per me si va ne l'etterno dolore,
per me si va tra la perduta gente.
Giustizia mosse il mio alto fattore;
fecemi la divina podestate,
la somma sapïenza e 'l primo amore.
Dinanzi a me non fuor cose create
se non etterne, e io etterno duro.
Lasciate ogne speranza, voi ch'entrate.”
Queste parole di colore oscuro
vid' ïo scritte al sommo d'una porta;
per ch'io: “Maestro, il senso lor m'è duro.”
Ed elli a me, come persona accorta:
“Qui si convien lasciare ogne sospetto;
ogne viltà convien che qui sia morta.
Noi siam venuti al loco ov' i' t'ho detto
che tu vedrai le genti dolorose
c'hanno perduto il ben de l'intelletto.”
E poi che la sua mano a la mia puose
con lieto volto, ond' io mi confortai,
mi mise dentro a le segrete cose.
Quivi sospiri, pianti e alti guai
risonavan per l'aere sanza stelle,
per ch'io al cominciar ne lagrimai.
Diverse lingue, orribili favelle,
parole di dolore, accenti d'ira,
voci alte e fioche, e suon di man con elle
facevano un tumulto, il qual s'aggira
sempre in quell' aura sanza tempo tinta,
come la rena quando turbo spira.
E io ch'avea d'error la testa cinta,
dissi: “Maestro, che è quel ch'i' odo?
e che gent' è che par nel duol sì vinta?”
Ed elli a me: “Questo misero modo
tegnon l'anime triste di coloro
che visser sanza 'nfamia e sanza lodo.
Mischiate sono a quel cattivo coro
de li angeli che non furon ribelli
né fur fedeli a Dio, ma per sé fuoro.
Caccianli i ciel per non esser men belli,
né lo profondo inferno li riceve,
ch'alcuna gloria i rei avrebber d'elli.”
E io: “Maestro, che è tanto greve
a lor che lamentar li fa sì forte?”
Rispuose: “Dicerolti molto breve.
Questi non hanno speranza di morte,
e la lor cieca vita è tanto bassa,
che 'nvidïosi son d'ogne altra sorte.
Fama di loro il mondo esser non lassa;
misericordia e giustizia li sdegna:
non ragioniam di lor, ma guarda e passa.”
E io, che riguardai, vidi una 'nsegna
che girando correva tanto ratta,
che d'ogne posa mi parea indegna;
e dietro le venìa sì lunga tratta
di gente, ch'i' non averei creduto
che morte tanta n'avesse disfatta.
Poscia ch'io v'ebbi alcun riconosciuto,
vidi e conobbi l'ombra di colui
che fece per viltade il gran rifiuto.
Incontanente intesi e certo fui
che questa era la setta d'i cattivi,
a Dio spiacenti e a' nemici sui.
Questi sciaurati, che mai non fur vivi,
erano ignudi e stimolati molto
da mosconi e da vespe ch'eran ivi.
Elle rigavan lor di sangue il volto,
che, mischiato di lagrime, a' lor piedi
da fastidiosi vermi era ricolto.
E poi ch'a riguardar oltre mi diedi,
vidi genti a la riva d'un gran fiume;
per ch'io dissi: “Maestro, or mi concedi
ch'i' sappia quali sono, e qual costume
le fa di trapassar parer sì pronte,
com' i' discerno per lo fioco lume.”
Ed elli a me: “Le cose ti fier conte
quando noi fermerem li nostri passi
su la trista riviera d'Acheronte.”
Allor con li occhi vergognosi e bassi,
temendo no 'l mio dir li fosse grave,
infino al fiume del parlar mi trassi.
Ed ecco verso noi venir per nave
un vecchio, bianco per antico pelo,
gridando: “Guai a voi, anime prave!
Non isperate mai veder lo cielo:
i' vegno per menarvi a l'altra riva
ne le tenebre etterne, in caldo e 'n gelo.
E tu che se' costì, anima viva,
pàrtiti da cotesti che son morti.”
Ma poi che vide ch'io non mi partiva,
disse: “Per altra via, per altri porti
verrai a piaggia, non qui, per passare:
più lieve legno convien che ti porti.”
E 'l duca lui: “Caron, non ti crucciare:
vuolsi così colà dove si puote
ciò che si vuole, e più non dimandare.”
Quinci fuor quete le lanose gote
al nocchier de la livida palude,
che 'ntorno a li occhi avea di fiamme rote.
Ma quell' anime, ch'eran lasse e nude,
cangiar colore e dibattero i denti,
ratto che 'nteser le parole crude.
Bestemmiavano Dio e lor parenti,
l'umana spezie e 'l loco e 'l tempo e 'l seme
di lor semenza e di lor nascimenti.
Poi si ritrasser tutte quante insieme,
forte piangendo, a la riva malvagia
ch'attende ciascun uom che Dio non teme.
Caron dimonio, con occhi di bragia
loro accennando, tutte le raccoglie;
batte col remo qualunque s'adagia.
Come d'autunno si levan le foglie
l'una appresso de l'altra, fin che 'l ramo
vede a la terra tutte le sue spoglie,
similemente il mal seme d'Adamo
gittansi di quel lito ad una ad una,
per cenni come augel per suo richiamo.
Così sen vanno su per l'onda bruna,
e avanti che sien di là discese,
anche di qua nuova schiera s'auna.
“Figliuol mio,” disse 'l maestro cortese,
“quelli che muoion ne l'ira di Dio
tutti convegnon qui d'ogne paese;
e pronti sono a trapassar lo rio,
ché la divina giustizia li sprona,
sì che la tema si volve in disio.
Quinci non passa mai anima buona;
e però, se Caron di te si lagna,
ben puoi sapere omai che 'l suo dir suona.”
Finito questo, la buia campagna
tremò sì forte, che de lo spavento
la mente di sudore ancor mi bagna.
La terra lagrimosa diede vento,
che balenò una luce vermiglia
la qual mi vinse ciascun sentimento;
e caddi come l'uom cui sonno piglia.
"Through me the way is to the city dolent;
Through me the way is to eternal dole;
Through me the way among the people lost.
Justice incited my sublime Creator;
Created me divine Omnipotence,
The highest Wisdom and the primal Love.
Before me there were no created things,
Only eterne, and I eternal last.
All hope abandon, ye who enter in!"
These words in sombre colour I beheld
Written upon the summit of a gate;
Whence I: "Their sense is, Master, hard to me!"
And he to me, as one experienced:
"Here all suspicion needs must be abandoned,
All cowardice must needs be here extinct.
We to the place have come, where I have told thee
Thou shalt behold the people dolorous
Who have foregone the good of intellect."
And after he had laid his hand on mine
With joyful mien, whence I was comforted,
He led me in among the secret things.
There sighs, complaints, and ululations loud
Resounded through the air without a star,
Whence I, at the beginning, wept thereat.
Languages diverse, horrible dialects,
Accents of anger, words of agony,
And voices high and hoarse, with sound of hands,
Made up a tumult that goes whirling on
For ever in that air for ever black,
Even as the sand doth, when the whirlwind breathes.
And I, who had my head with horror bound,
Said: "Master, what is this which now I hear?
What folk is this, which seems by pain so vanquished?"
And he to me: "This miserable mode
Maintain the melancholy souls of those
Who lived withouten infamy or praise.
Commingled are they with that caitiff choir
Of Angels, who have not rebellious been,
Nor faithful were to God, but were for self.
The heavens expelled them, not to be less fair;
Nor them the nethermore abyss receives,
For glory none the damned would have from them."
And I: "O Master, what so grievous is
To these, that maketh them lament so sore?"
He answered: "I will tell thee very briefly.
These have no longer any hope of death;
And this blind life of theirs is so debased,
They envious are of every other fate.
No fame of them the world permits to be;
Misericord and Justice both disdain them.
Let us not speak of them, but look, and pass."
And I, who looked again, beheld a banner,
Which, whirling round, ran on so rapidly,
That of all pause it seemed to me indignant;
And after it there came so long a train
Of people, that I ne'er would have believed
That ever Death so many had undone.
When some among them I had recognised,
I looked, and I beheld the shade of him
Who made through cowardice the great refusal.
Forthwith I comprehended, and was certain,
That this the sect was of the caitiff wretches
Hateful to God and to his enemies.
These miscreants, who never were alive,
Were naked, and were stung exceedingly
By gadflies and by hornets that were there.
These did their faces irrigate with blood,
Which, with their tears commingled, at their feet
By the disgusting worms was gathered up.
And when to gazing farther I betook me.
People I saw on a great river's bank;
Whence said I: "Master, now vouchsafe to me,
That I may know who these are, and what law
Makes them appear so ready to pass over,
As I discern athwart the dusky light."
And he to me: "These things shall all be known
To thee, as soon as we our footsteps stay
Upon the dismal shore of Acheron."
Then with mine eyes ashamed and downward cast,
Fearing my words might irksome be to him,
From speech refrained I till we reached the river.
And lo! towards us coming in a boat
An old man, hoary with the hair of eld,
Crying: "Woe unto you, ye souls depraved!
Hope nevermore to look upon the heavens;
I come to lead you to the other shore,
To the eternal shades in heat and frost.
And thou, that yonder standest, living soul,
Withdraw thee from these people, who are dead!"
But when he saw that I did not withdraw,
He said: "By other ways, by other ports
Thou to the shore shalt come, not here, for passage;
A lighter vessel needs must carry thee."
And unto him the Guide: "Vex thee not, Charon;
It is so willed there where is power to do
That which is willed; and farther question not."
Thereat were quieted the fleecy cheeks
Of him the ferryman of the livid fen,
Who round about his eyes had wheels of flame.
But all those souls who weary were and naked
Their colour changed and gnashed their teeth together,
As soon as they had heard those cruel words.
God they blasphemed and their progenitors,
The human race, the place, the time, the seed
Of their engendering and of their birth!
Thereafter all together they drew back,
Bitterly weeping, to the accursed shore,
Which waiteth every man who fears not God.
Charon the demon, with the eyes of glede,
Beckoning to them, collects them all together,
Beats with his oar whoever lags behind.
As in the autumn-time the leaves fall off,
First one and then another, till the branch
Unto the earth surrenders all its spoils;
In similar wise the evil seed of Adam
Throw themselves from that margin one by one,
At signals, as a bird unto its lure.
So they depart across the dusky wave,
And ere upon the other side they land,
Again on this side a new troop assembles.
"My son," the courteous Master said to me,
"All those who perish in the wrath of God
Here meet together out of every land;
And ready are they to pass o'er the river,
Because celestial Justice spurs them on,
So that their fear is turned into desire.
This way there never passes a good soul;
And hence if Charon doth complain of thee,
Well mayst thou know now what his speech imports."
This being finished, all the dusk champaign
Trembled so violently, that of that terror
The recollection bathes me still with sweat.
The land of tears gave forth a blast of wind,
And fulminated a vermilion light,
Which overmastered in me every sense,
And as a man whom sleep hath seized I fell.
Modern editions vary in using capital or lower-case letters for this inscription over the gate of hell. Lacking Dante's autograph MS, we can only conjecture. For the view that the model for these words is found in the victorious inscriptions found on Roman triumphal arches, sculpted in capital letters in stone, see Hollander (Allegory in Dante's “Commedia” [Princeton, Princeton University Press, 1969]), p. 300. In this view every condemned sinner is being led back captive to 'that Rome of which Christ is Roman' (Purg. XXXII.102), 'under the yoke' into God's holy kingdom, where he or she will be eternally a prisoner.
For the city as the poem's centering image of political life, the hellish earthly city, resembling Florence, 'which stands for the self and against the common good,' and the heavenly city, an idealized view of imperial Rome, see Joan Ferrante (The Political Vision of the “Divine Comedy” [Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1984]), pp. 41-42. The anaphora, or repetition, of the phrase per me si va, as it comes 'uttered' by the gate of hell itself in the first three verses, has a ring of inevitable doom about it. A student (Charlene Cosman, Princeton '76) once suggested that it also contains a self-conscious gesture on the part of its author: it is through him that we visit this place of woe, suffering, and perdition.
'Justice moved my maker on high.' Dante's verse may seem to violate the Aristotelian/Thomist definition of God as the 'unmoved mover.' Strictly speaking, nothing can 'move' God, who Himself moves all things (even if He can be described in the Bible as feeling anger at humankind, etc.). Dante's apparently 'theologically incorrect' statement shows the importance of his sense of justice as the central force in the universe, so encompassing that it may be seen as, in a sense, God's 'muse,' as well as the primary subject of the poem. The word in its noun form appears fully thirty-five times in the poem (once in Latin at Par. XVIII.91). See Allan H. Gilbert (Dante's Conception of Justice [Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 1925] – but see also Dino Bigongiari's sharply critical review [Essays on Dante and Medieval Culture, ed. Henry Paolucci (New York: The Bagehot Council, 2000 [1964]), pp. 86-91] and Hollander, Dante and Paul's “five words with understanding,” Occasional Papers, No. 1, Center for Medieval and Early Renaissance Texts and Studies [Binghamton, NY: Medieval and Renaissance Texts and Studies, 1992], pp. 40-41).
The three attributes of the Christian God, Power, Wisdom, and Love, are nearly universally recognized as informing these two verses. Hell is of God's making, not an independent 'city' of rebels, but a totally dependent polis of those who had rebelled against their maker. For the post-biblical concept of the Trinity, especially as it was advanced in St. Augustine's De Trinitate, where Father, Son, and Holy Spirit is each identified by one of these attributes, respectively, see G. Fallani, “Trinità” (ED.1976.5), pp. 718-21.
The apparent difficulty of these verses (perhaps reflected in Dante's difficulty in understanding the writing over the gate, Inf. III.12) is resolved once we understand that here 'eternal' is used to mean 'sempiternal,' that is, as having had a beginning in time but lasting ever after. Only God, who is not created but all-creating, may be considered eternal. See Mazzoni (Saggio di un nuovo commento alla “Divina Commedia”: “Inferno” –Canti I-III [Florence: Sansoni, 1967]), pp. 331-36. Mazzoni, in agreement with Bruno Nardi (La caduta di Lucifero e l'autenticità della “Quaestio de aqua et terra” [Torino, S.E.I. (Lectura Dantis Romana): 1959] – now in Nardi, “Lecturae” e altri studi danteschi, ed. R. Abardo [Firenze: Le Lettere, 1990], p. 17), allows this status to three classes of being: angels, prime matter (that is, the potential form of the as yet uncreated world), and the heavenly spheres. For an apt description of Christ's Judgment of the damned, see Matthew 25:41, 25:46: 'Then shall he say also unto them on the left hand, Depart from me, ye cursed, into everlasting fire, prepared for the devil and his angels.... And these shall go away into everlasting punishment: but the righteous into life eternal.'
A curiosity about which there has been only a modicum of speculation results from the closeness of this verse to one in the opening verses of the first scene of the third act of Plautus's comedy Bacchides: 'Pandite atque aperite propere ianuam hanc Orci, opsecro: Nam equidem haud aliter esse duco: quippe quo nemo advenit Nisi quem spes reliquere omnes.' For the first modern discussion see Edward Moore, Studies in Dante, First Series: Scripture and Classical Authors in Dante (Oxford: Clarendon, 1969 [1896]), p. 261n., and now R. Mercuri, “Plauto” (ED.1973.4), p. 555b. For a much earlier citation, see Castelvetro (comm. to Inf. III.9-10). There is general agreement that Dante could not have known the texts of Plautus directly (he does, however, name the Roman playwright at Purg. XXII.98), with the resultant understanding that Dante found the lines cited in one florilegium or another, even if no one has as yet produced such a manuscript in order to confirm this theory.
Are the letters of these words 'dark in hue,' as are the inset carvings over actual gates, begrimed by time (or, as some early commentators urged, because they are hellishly menacing)? Or are they rhetorically difficult, and 'dark' in that respect? The phrase 'rhetorical colors' to indicate the rhetor's stylistic techniques is familiar from classical rhetoric and is found in Dante, e.g., in Vita nuova XXV.7 and XXV.10. (For this usage in Dante see Domenico Consoli, “colore” [ED.1970.2], p. 65b.) Most of the early commentators are drawn, however, to the first hypothesis (dark in color), while several recent ones prefer the latter. Mazzoni (Saggio di un nuovo commento alla “Divina Commedia”: “Inferno” –Canti I-III [Florence: Sansoni, 1967]), pp. 337-42, gives good reasons for favoring the ancient interpretation, opposing the reading offered by Pagliaro (Ulisse: ricerche semantiche sulla “Divina Commedia” [Messina-Florence: D'Anna, 1967]), pp. 762-65. One should also consider the possibility that both meanings are present here. In any case, whichever understanding one chooses, one will have to make a decision consonant with an interpretation of verse 12 (see the note to Inf. III.12).
There is a fairly serious disagreement over the most probable interpretation of the words 'for me their meaning is hard.' Our translation tries to reflect both possibilities, suggesting that one is clearly present, while the second may be only latent. Are the words over the gate of hell (1) threatening to Dante? Or (2) are they hard for him to understand? It seems clear that the traveler is frightened by the dire advice tendered in verse 9, which would have him abandon all hope. Mazzoni (Saggio di un nuovo commento alla “Divina Commedia”: “Inferno” –Canti I-III [Florence: Sansoni, 1967]), pp. 337-42, offers a lengthy gloss to this tercet (vv. 10-12 – see the note to Inf. III.10). It seems impossible not to accept his basic premise, namely that the context of the scene makes the meaning immediate and moral: the traveler is afraid, and Virgil reproves him for his fear (Inf. III.14-15). This understanding is shared by the vast majority of the commentators, with a very few (the Ottimo, Boccaccio, Gregorio Di Siena) arguing for the understanding that the text insists only that Dante finds the meaning of the inscription difficult, and another handful arguing for a deliberately ambiguous meaning. Critics like John Freccero, in his essay 'Infernal Irony: The Gates of Hell' (1983) in (Dante: The Poetics of Conversion, ed. Rachel Jacoff [Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1986], pp. 99-102), argue that the drama played out here is lodged in the difficulty of interpreting. Without opposing that further interpretive dimension of the scene, one should probably insist on a literal understanding that squares with the text. Freccero and others before him (e.g., Vandelli [comm. to Inf. III.12]; Padoan [comm. to Inf. III.12]) have heard the echo of John 6:60: 'Durus est hic sermo' (This is a hard saying). But that context also, while allowing for the question of interpretive failure on the part of the disciples who do not understand what Jesus means when he says that those who eat of his flesh shall live forever, is rounded off by the moral failure of certain disciples (John 6:61; 6:66). For Dante, the seeming banishment of his hope is cause, not so much for distress at his intellectual failure so much as for fear of a punishment compelling enough to grasp – an eternity in hell. See Guiniforto delli Bargigi (comm. to Inf. III.10-12), paraphrasing the protagonist's remark as follows: 'non dico dura, perch'io non la intenda, ma dura è, perocchè dura cosa mi pare udir che io debba entrare in luogo di eterno dolore e lasciar la speranza di uscirne mai fuori, e per questo denota Dante, ch'ei temesse, e Virgilio lo confortò nella particella del testo che seguita.'
The comparison (come persona accorta) lends Virgil authority in two regards: he is aware of Dante's moral shortcomings and he understands the underworld, since he has descended once before (see Inf. IX.22-27; Inf. XXI.63). The scene indeed has a classical precursor, as was noted, among the early commentators, by Boccaccio (comm. to Inf. III.13-15): the Sibyl's reassurance of threatened Aeneas (Aen. VI.261): 'Nunc animis opus, Aenea, nunc pectore firmo.' Mazzoni (Saggio di un nuovo commento alla “Divina Commedia”: “Inferno” –Canti I-III [Florence: Sansoni, 1967]), p. 342, follows the tradition in the commentaries which argues that this tercet reaffirms the moral reading of Inf. III.12, 'Maestro, il senso lor m'è duro.'
The 'good of the intellect' has long been understood as God. See Mazzoni (Saggio di un nuovo commento alla “Divina Commedia”: “Inferno” –Canti I-III [Florence: Sansoni, 1967]), p. 343, citing Par. IV.116, where God is the 'fonte ond' ogne ver deriva' (the source from which all truth derives).
The word segrete here does not mean 'secret' so much as 'cut off from' – see Grabher (comm. to Inf. III.21): 'Segrete conserva la sua forza etimologica (da secerno [Latin 'separate from, cut off']) con immagine netta di separazione; qui: dal mondo e dalla conoscenza degli uomini' (cited by Mazzoni [Saggio di un nuovo commento alla “Divina Commedia”: “Inferno” –Canti I-III (Florence: Sansoni, 1967), p. 345]), i.e., those things that are hidden from the knowledge of mortals.
This first sense impression of the underworld is exclusively aural. We are probably meant to assume that Dante's eyes are not yet accustomed to the darkness of hell. Cf. Inf. IV.25-27 as well as Inf. XI.11, where his olfactory capacity must become used to the stench of nether hell.
This first instance of Dante's weeping is part of a program of the protagonist's development in hell, in which he (very) gradually overcomes the twin temptations to weep for or feel fear at the situation of the sinners in Inferno. See Hollander (Allegory in Dante's “Commedia”), pp. 301-7. In the harsh moral code of the text, sympathy for the damned is always misplaced, if a certain admiration for some of their better qualities is allowed.
The adjective diverse here means either 'different the one from the other' (on the model of the confused languages spoken after the construction of the Tower of Babel) or 'strange,' a meaning for the adjective frequently found in Dante. In our translation we have tried to allow for both meanings. Mazzoni (Saggio di un nuovo commento alla “Divina Commedia”: “Inferno” –Canti I-III [Florence: Sansoni, 1967]), p. 348, gives further evidence for the first interpretation by citing Inf. III.123, where those who die in the wrath of God 'assemble here from every land,' a phrasing that calls attention to differing nationalities and thus suggests a plurality of tongues.
E suon di man con elle. Boccaccio's gloss (comm. to Inf. IX.49-51) to Inf. IX.50, 'battiensi a palme,' which describes the Furies beating their breasts 'come qui [on earth] fanno le femine che gran dolor sentono, o mostran di sentire,' may help unravel this verse as well: the sound is that of hands striking the sinners' own bodies as they beat their breasts, as Boccaccio had already suggested in his gloss to this verse: 'come soglion far le femine battendosi a palme' (Inf. III.27-29). See M. Barbi (Problemi di critica dantesca [Florence: Sansoni, 1934]), p. 267. Others today (e.g., Bosco/Reggio [comm. to Inf. III.27]) allow for two possibilities: the sound results from striking either the body of another or one's own.
A much-debated verse. Here our translation follows Petrocchi (La Commedia secondo l'antica vulgata, Introduzione), pp. 168-69, who reads (error and not orror), even though we agree with Giorgio Brugnoli (“Orror/Error [Inferno III.31],” Studi Danteschi 54 [1982], pp. 15-30), that this is a likely echo of the Aeneid (II.559): 'At me tum primum circumstetit horror.' There are detailed discussions of the debate over the verse in Mazzoni (Saggio di un nuovo commento alla “Divina Commedia”: “Inferno” –Canti I-III [Florence: Sansoni, 1967]), pp. 352-55; in Petrocchi, (La Commedia secondo l'antica vulgata, Inferno, pp. 42-43); and in Maria Simonelli (Lectura Dantis Americana: “Inferno” III [Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1993], pp. 27-30. As Petrocchi says, both readings are acceptable: there is not so much at stake here. Nonetheless, the view of John Taaffe is worth noting (A Comment on the “Divine Comedy” of Dante Alighieri [London, John Murray, 1822]), p. 171: '...I tend to accept [orror] without reserve, not because it is the most intelligible and poetical... on what I take to be the very best possible authority – that of Boccaccio.' (The recovery of Taaffe's all-but-forgotten English commentary to the first eight cantos is a bonus found in Simonelli's discussion.)
For the history of the interpretation of this tercet, now generally understood to indicate the presence in the 'ante-inferno,' or vestibule of hell, of the neutrals, those who never took a side, see Mazzoni (Saggio di un nuovo commento alla “Divina Commedia”: “Inferno” –Canti I-III [Florence: Sansoni, 1967]), pp. 355-67. And, for the existence of exactly such a 'vestibule' in hell in the Visio Pauli see Theodore Silverstein (“Did Dante Know the Vision of St. Paul?” Harvard Studies and Notes in Philology and Literature 19 [1937], pp. 231-47). In Paul's apocryphal Vision (for the most recent text see Silverstein and Anthony Hilhorst, eds., Apocalypse of Paul: A New Critical Edition of Three Long Latin Versions [Geneva: Patrick Cramer, 1997]), there is a river of flame separating 'those who were neither hot nor cold' (Apoc. 3:15-16) from the other sinners.
There has been a lengthy dispute in the commentary tradition as to whether or not Dante has invented the neutral angels or is reflecting a medieval tradition that had itself 'invented' them (since they are not, properly speaking, biblical in origin). This is presented at length by Mazzoni (Saggio di un nuovo commento alla “Divina Commedia”: “Inferno” –Canti I-III [Florence: Sansoni, 1967]), pp. 368-76, who shows that such a tradition did exist and probably helped to shape Dante's conceptualization. On this problem see Nardi, Dal “Convivio” alla “Commedia” (Rome: Istituto Storico Italiano per il Medio Evo, 1992 [1960]), pp. 331-50. See also Freccero's essay 'The Neutral Angels' (1960) in Dante: The Poetics of Conversion, ed. Rachel Jacoff (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1986), pp. 110-18.
To what does the adjective rei ('evil') refer? The neutral angels (v. 38) are the antecedent of the pronoun li in vv. 40 and 41. It seems clear that this is also true with respect to the adjective in v. 42, and thus our translation, 'lest on their account the evil angels gloat.' The sense is that the fallen angels (e.g., those seen on the walls of Dis in canto VIII.82-83) would be able to take pride in their higher situation if the neutral angels were admitted to hell, since they would apparently be lower down even than their rebellious cousins. That the adjective is to be treated as an adjectival noun for 'the wicked,' i.e., the damned in general, is an idea that has only entered commentaries in our own century. It has not won over the more convincing discussants.
For the less-than-defensible notion that alcuna here is a negative (rather than a positive) form of the adjective see Mazzoni (Saggio di un nuovo commento alla “Divina Commedia”: “Inferno” –Canti I-III [Florence: Sansoni, 1967]), pp. 377-79, who defends the positive reading.
Paraphrased: 'Like all the rest, these sinners have no hope of improving their posthumous lot; but their foul condition is such that they are envious of every other class of sinners.'
Misericordia e giustizia ('Mercy and justice') are here to be understood as heaven and hell, neither of which will entertain any report of such vile creatures.
Dante's essential technique for indicating the crucial moral failures of his various groups of sinners is here before us for the first time. The neutrals, who never took a side, are portrayed as an organized crowd following a banner: exactly what they were not in life (e.g., the neutral angels who neither rebelled directly against God nor stood with Him, but who kept to one side). And in this respect the neutrals are punished by being forced to assume a pose antithetic to that which they struck in life. At the same time, the banner that they follow is the very essence of indeterminacy. Not only is there no identifying sign on it, but is not held in the anchoring hand of any standard-bearer; it is a parody of the standard that is raised before a body of men who follow a leader. Elsewhere we will encounter other such symbolic artifacts. In Dante's hell the punishment of sin involves the application of opposites and similarities. Here the sinners do the opposite of what they did (form into an organized group) and the same (follow no fixed purpose). This form of just retribution is what Dante will later refer to as the contrapasso (Inf. XXVIII.142).
The word in rhyme position, indegna, has caused some anxiety. In what way is the banner 'unworthy' of repose? Mazzoni (Saggio di un nuovo commento alla “Divina Commedia”: “Inferno” –Canti I-III [Florence: Sansoni, 1967]), p. 388, proposes understanding the word as having the meaning 'insusceptible.' This banner, by its very nature, seems incapable of ever coming to rest.
The most-debated passage of this canto, at least in the modern era. Many of the early commentators were convinced that this passage clearly intended a biting reference to Pope Celestine V (Pier da Morrone), who abdicated the papacy in 1294 after having held the office for less than four months. He was followed into it by Dante's great ecclesiastical enemy, Pope Boniface VIII, and there are colorful contemporary accounts that would have it that Boniface mimicked the voice of the Holy Spirit in the air passages that led to Celestine's bed chamber, counseling his abdication. Mazzoni (Saggio di un nuovo commento alla “Divina Commedia”: “Inferno” –Canti I-III [Florence: Sansoni, 1967]), pp. 390-415, offers a thorough history of the interpretation of the verse. Two factors led to growing uneasiness with the identification of Celestine: (1) in 1313 he had been canonized, (2) ca. 1346 Francesco Petrarca, in his De vita solitaria, had defended the motives for his abdication. Thus, beginning with the second redaction of the commentary of Pietro di Dante, certainty that the vile self-recuser was Celestine began to waiver. The names of many others have been proposed, including those of Esau and Pontius Pilate. It seems fair to say that there are fatal objections to all of these other candidacies. For strong, even convincing, support for that of Celestine see Giorgio Padoan (“Colui che fece per viltà il gran rifiuto,” Studi Danteschi 38 [1961], pp. 75-128) and Maria Simonelli (Lectura Dantis Americana: “Inferno” III [Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1993]), pp. 41-58. Mazzoni (Saggio di un nuovo commento alla “Divina Commedia”: “Inferno” –Canti I-III [Florence: Sansoni, 1967]), pp. 414-15, ends his lengthy study of the problem opting for (as had Sapegno [comm. to Inf. III.59-60] before him), a generic sinner, unspecified, but standing for all who had made so vile a choice. Yet Mazzoni's own evidence and arguments, as well as Dante's usual procedures, which tend to avoid such indeterminacy, help to convince this reader that it was indeed Celestine that Dante had in mind, as is underlined by his later scathing reference to the event of 'the great refusal' in Inf. XXVII.104-105. Further, Dante tells us that he 'saw and knew' (that is, recognized) this shade: there is nothing indeterminate in such a locution. Nardi's telling objections to Petrocchi's denial that Dante would have put Celestine, canonized in 1313, in hell (Itinerari danteschi [Milan: Franco Angeli, 1994 (1969) pp. 41-59], first published in Studi Romani in 1955) are today found in Dal “Convivio” alla “Commedia,” pp. 315-30.
M. Barbi (Problemi di critica dantesca [Florence: Sansoni, 1934]), p. 203: here cattivi means 'vile ones,' a stronger meaning than the word has sometimes in early (or in modern) Italian.
The second descriptive passage that indicates the condition of these sinners continues the contrapasso (see Inf. XXVIII.142). Now we see that these beings, who lacked all inner stimulation, are stung (stimolati) by noxious insects. Their tears mix with the blood drawn by these wounds only to serve as food for worms. Dante's personal hatred for those who, unlike him, never made their true feelings or opinions known irradiates this canto. There is not a single detail that falls short of the condition of eternal insult.
M. Barbi (Problemi di critica dantesca [Florence: Sansoni, 1934]), p. 261: sciaurati must be understood as 'vile, abbietto, da niente,' as a bitterly negative term with no softness in it. Similarly, the phrase che mai non fur vivi (who never were alive) is darkened by its probable source, cited by several modern commentators (perhaps first by Sapegno [comm. to Inf. III.64], in Revelation 3:1: 'Nomen habes quod vivas, et mortuus es' (you have the name of the living, and are dead), a fitting castigation for Dante to have had in mind for the neutrals.
These verses mark a split between the second and third scenes of the canto, the neutrals and those other sinners, of all kinds, who are destined to begin their travel to their final destinations in Charon's bark. From this point on the action of the canto moves to the near bank of Acheron. The next canto will begin on the other side of the river.
Dante asks two things of his guide, the identity of those gathered at the river's bank and the reason for their apparent eagerness to cross over. His questions seem more or less similar to those he had asked at Inf. III.33, when he wanted to know the identity of the wailing souls who turn out to be the neutrals. On that occasion, Virgil answers him immediately; on this, as we soon see, he is much less forthcoming. See the note, below, to Inf. III.76-78).
Many commentators, beginning perhaps with Trifon Gabriele (comm. to Inf. III.72), followed by his student, Bernardino Daniello (comm. to Inf. III.70-81), cite apposite lines from Virgil (Aen. VI.318-319), Aeneas's inquiry of the Sibyl as to the motives leading the dead to desire to cross Acheron: 'dic,' ait, 'o virgo, quid volt concursus ad amnem? / quidve petunt animae?'
The word costume, which we have translated as 'inner law,' is explained by Sapegno (comm. to Inf. III.73) as 'istinto diventato norma e legge' (an instinct become a norm, even a law).
The 'dim light': Dante's first experience of hell proper was one of utter darkness. Indeed, his first sense impressions of the neutrals are entirely auditory (Inf. III.22-33). Now the character himself assures us that he can see at least a little. 'In this third canto, Dante had to arrive at this solution: after beginning in an absolute darkness that forced him to perceive the external world only through sound, he begins to see once he passes the infernal gate and his eyes adapt to the darkness. Now he speaks of 'dim light,' thus resolving the problem of vision in a world without light, in the world of eternal darkness' (Maria Simonelli [Lectura Dantis Americana: “Inferno” III (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1993)], p. 61).
Virgil's rather clipped response, in marked contrast with his ready response to Dante's question about the identity of the neutrals (Inf. III.34-42), causes Dante to feel ashamed (Inf. III.79-81). The exact reason for Virgil's reproof is a matter of some debate. One might argue that his point is that Dante has gotten ahead of himself. In the first instance, he asked about the nature of those he saw displayed just before him. Now he is anticipating, literally looking ahead, and Virgil warns him against such behavior. Mazzoni (Saggio di un nuovo commento alla “Divina Commedia”: “Inferno” –Canti I-III [Florence: Sansoni, 1967]), pp. 419-22, surveys the dispute, which probably began with Benvenuto da Imola (comm. to Inf. III.76-78). Perhaps the most interesting hypothesis was advanced by Mattalia (comm. to Inf. III.76-78), who argued that Virgil is upset that Dante, who had offered himself as a devoted reader of the Aeneid (Inf. I.82-86), does not recognize this place, so fully described by Virgil in his Sixth Book. Mazzoni (Saggio di un nuovo commento alla “Divina Commedia”: “Inferno” –Canti I-III [Florence: Sansoni, 1967]), pp. 420-21, disagrees, finding this argument over-subtle. We can say that once Virgil is ready to respond, he is courtesy itself (Inf. III.121-129). The point seems to be that he now wants Dante first to observe Charon, whose words and actions will make many things clear, before getting into the details of this scene along the river's edge. Nonetheless, Mattalia's point does seem to have some merit, particularly because Dante's guide mentions the name of the river (Inf. III.78), 'Acheronte.' Had he not wanted to remind Dante of the Virgilian roots of this current experience of an underworld, would he not have merely said, 'the river,' leaving the identification for later? This small moment of interpretive difficulty may stand as but one example of two things: the difficulty of this poem and the extraordinarily subtle exertions it calls forth from its commentators, whether its author always hoped for them or not.
Charon, named twice by Virgil (Aen. VI.299, VI.326), is the 'star' of the moving scene of the crowding dead, buried and unburied, who flock toward the Acheron in the Aeneid (VI.295-330). He is referred to as portitor (VI.298), literally the guardian of the port, but his function in Virgil is to ferry the dead across Acheron. Dante revisits this scene for several details, including the first image in his celebrated simile (vv. 112-113) that awaits us. Unlike the crowds in Virgil, of whom Charon has to separate the buried from the unburied, condemned to wait one hundred years before they can be ferried to the locus their afterlives, in Dante's treatment (vv. 100-111) the souls, having already undergone the Last Judgment (and this scene is probably meant to remind us of that one), are loath to cross to their final resting place, and Charon has to urge them onward physically.
Charon's address to the wicked souls awaiting transport reinforces the hopelessness of this place, which was initially insisted on by the writing over the gate of hell (Inf. III.9), 'lasciate ogne speranza, voi ch'entrate.'
Charon's insistence on Dante's difference – he is alive, the others dead – will find frequent repetition as the protagonist's extraordinary presence in hell is noted by various guardians and damned souls.
For complicating readings of what many have understood as a fairly evident remark, see Mazzoni (Saggio di un nuovo commento alla “Divina Commedia”: “Inferno” –Canti I-III [Florence: Sansoni, 1967]), pp. 425-27. Most today, including Mazzoni, take Charon's formulation to refer to Dante's eventual passage to Purgatory aboard the angel-guided ship that we see in Purgatorio II.41.
Charon, introduced first (Inf. III.82-83) only by his characteristics (in a typical Dantean gesture, making us wonder who this imposing figure might be), is now named, and will be twice more (Inf. III.109; Inf. III.128). This highly specified and insistent naming should make it plain that Dante is serious about proposing the notion that the guardian of hell is derived from the Sixth Book of Virgil's poem. It is fascinating, however, to watch the early commentators, so used to reading any fiction as though it were 'allegorical,' 'dehistoricizing' Charon. For a brief resumé, see Mazzoni (Saggio di un nuovo commento alla “Divina Commedia”: “Inferno” –Canti I-III [Florence: Sansoni, 1967]), pp. 428-31. Among the early commentators Charon is variously understood as 'fleshly desire,' 'disordered love,' 'ancient sinfulness,' 'vice,' 'time,' etc. It is surely better to understand him first and foremost as himself.
These two verses are repeated, word for word, at Inferno V.23-24. This is the longest example of a word-for-word repetition that we find in the entire poem.
Unlike the souls about to be ferried by Charon, some of whom may reach the relative bliss of the Elysian Fields, Dante's sinners have no hope whatsoever of their next life, not even, we may imagine, those guiltless pagans destined for Limbo, where, the reader will be told (Inf. IV.42) by no less an authority than Virgil himself, 'che sanza speme vivemo in disio.'
'The human race, the place, the time, the seed / of their begetting and of their birth.' Our translation is in accord with the literal interpretation of Padoan (comm. to Inf. III.104), against those who understand seme to refer to their ancestors, semenza to their parents. For an apposite citation of Job 3:3 ('Let the day perish wherein I was born, and the night in which it was said: A man child is conceived') see Eugenio Frongia, “Canto III: The Gate of Hell,” in Lectura Dantis: “Inferno,” ed. A. Mandelbaum, A. Oldcorn, and C. Ross (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1998), p. 47.
For Dante's possible reliance, in his description of Charon's eyes, on the Roman d'Enéas, v. 2449 ('roges les oitz come charbons'), see Barbara Spaggiari, “Antecedenti e modelli tipologici nella letteratura in lingua d'oïl,” in I “monstra” nell'“Inferno” dantesco: tradizione e simbologie (Spoleto: Centro italiano di studi sull'alto medioevo, 1997), pp. 134-35.
The verb s'adagia has been variously interpreted, either to mean that the souls delay entering Charon's skiff, or that, once in it, they seat themselves in so self-indulgent a manner as to draw Charon's wrath. See Mazzoni (Saggio di un nuovo commento alla “Divina Commedia”: “Inferno” –Canti I-III [Florence: Sansoni, 1967]), pp. 438-42, for a thorough review of the debate and the evidence in favor of the second reading, based in Virgil (Aen. VI.411-412): 'inde alias animas, quae per iuga longa sedebant, / deturbat laxatque foros,' as was first noted by N. Tommaseo (comm. to Inf. III.109-111).
Where each of the first two cantos has had two major similes (Inf. I.22-27; Inf. I.55-60; Inf. II.37-42; Inf. II.127-132), the third canto reserves its similetic energy for this double simile that describes the final action of the canto, the departure of the sinners in Charon's skiff. It is a commonplace that the third canto is the most 'Virgilian' canto of the Commedia. In fact, study has shown that it has more than twice as many Virgilian citations than any other canto in the poem (see Hollander, “Le opere di Virgilio nella Commedia di Dante,” in Dante e la “bella scola” della poesia: Autorità e sfida poetica, ed. A. A. Iannucci [Ravenna: Longo, 1993], pp. 250-51). This double simile has long been recognized as involving an amalgam of two Virgilian passages, Aeneid VI.309-312 and Georgics II.82. It has also been understood as being the 'controlling simile' for the entire poem, combining pagan and Christian elements: see the article by Margherita Frankel (“Biblical Figurations in Dante's Reading of the Aeneid,” Dante Studies 100 [1982], pp. 13-23).
For the reading 'vede a la terra' and not 'rende a la terra' (as in two MSS), see Petrocchi, La Commedia secondo l'antica vulgata :Intro., p. 53, mainly because of the dependence on the Virgilian passage frequently cited (Georg. II.82): 'miraturque novas frondes').
Several MSS have 'gente' where Petrocchi, La Commedia secondo l'antica vulgata: Intro., pp. 170, 380, and La Commedia secondo l'antica vulgata: Inf., p. 54, favors 'schiera.' His main point is that the lectio difficilior is especially likely here, given that the noun 'gente' has already been used five times in this canto (vv. 3, 17, 33, 56, 71).
Virgil now is willing to answer the question that Dante posed earlier (Inf. III.73-74): divine justice spurs these sinners so that they are eager to cross the river and find their perdition. If there is merit in Mattalia's observation that Virgil had previously been angry with Dante for not understanding that the place before them had been amply described in the Aeneid and thus should have been recognized by the traveler (see the note to Inf. III.76-78), now, we infer, adding this new information, he is ready to speak. On the other hand, the simpler explanation is that the appearance of Charon on the scene was necessary to make his answer meaningful – and that condition has now been met.
For the Aristotelian/Thomist sources of Dante's meteorology, the subterranean winds that cause earthquakes, see Mazzoni (Saggio di un nuovo commento alla “Divina Commedia”: “Inferno” –Canti I-III [Florence: Sansoni, 1967]), pp. 446-52.
Dante's falling into unconsciousness indicates his inability to deal with the overwhelming experience of his crossing into the realm of hell proper, an 'inability' apparently shared by the poet, who simply does not tell us how he crossed the river. The protagonist will suffer a similar lapse at the conclusion of the fifth canto (Inf. V.142).
The question of how Dante crosses Acheron is much debated. The pointed lack of concrete reference to the means by which he is transported is a sign either of the poet's reticence or confusion or of his having set a little problem for his readers. It has become fashionable, on the heels of the lengthy gloss offered by Mazzoni (Saggio di un nuovo commento alla “Divina Commedia”: “Inferno” – Canti I-III [Florence: Sansoni, 1967]), pp. 452-55, to suggest that the poet has deliberately left the issue vague. Wlassics, for instance (“Il canto XV del Purgatorio,” in Filologia e critica dantesca: Studi offerti a Aldo Vallone (Florence: Olschki, 1989), p. 164, enunciates the principle 'if Dante does not tell us, we are not meant to know' with specific reference to this crossing. This reader does not find that an acceptable answer. The moment is too important, surrounded by troubling and excited details, to be dealt with as anything less than a problematic mystery that the poet asks us to solve. Mazzoni does his usual magisterial job in reporting the various theories to account for his transporter (Charon, an angel, Virgil, Beatrice, Lucia, some unnamed supernatural force). But see the countering argument of Hollander, “Dante on Horseback? (Inferno XII, 93-126),” Italica 61 (1984), p. 292: 'We are in fact meant to understand that it is Charon who takes Dante across and that this crux is entirely the result of interpretive over-exertion that has made the self-evident confusing. Charon indeed does wish to refuse Dante passage in his skiff (Inf. III.88-93); to his protestations Virgil responds as follows (Inf. III.94-96): 'Caron, non ti crucciare: / vuolsi così colà dove si puote / ciò che si vuole, e più non dimandare.' Daniello (comm. to Inf. III.95-96) has offered, in my opinion, a sufficient gloss to Virgil's words: 'E qui fanno le parole di Virgilio a Caronte quell'effetto che il mostrar dell'aureo ramo fa della Sibilla...' (Virgil's words have the same effect on Charon that the Sibyl's showing the golden bough had on him). For Charon to be able to resist such a command would involve Dante in a theological or at least a poetic absurdity. Cf. the similar moment at Inf. V.16-24, where Minos likewise would resist Dante's passage through his realm and where Virgil employs the same incantatory phrase that he had uttered in Canto III to achieve the same result.... Would Virgil have uttered the spell again had it not previously proved efficacious? That seems a most doubtful proposition. I believe that Dante's reason for not permitting us to witness the first scene being played out (we are given another version of the scene upon which it is modelled a bit later at Inf. VIII.25-27) is that he found that poetic choice an excessive one, too self-consciously redolent of Aeneas's fanciful entrance into the underworld for him to make evident reference to it at this important moment, the threshold of his Christian afterworld.' If this argument has merit, it accounts for the poet's reticence on poetic grounds. Dante easily could have told us what he wants us to make ourselves responsible for; but that is not his way. Rather, he makes us his partners in taking responsibility for such incredible details as these all through this incredible poem. Virgil may 'explain' the entrance to the underworld with the mechanism of a golden bough and then show his hero crossing Acheron in Charon's skiff; Dante enters hell in the white space between cantos II and III, and then crosses the river in the same blank between III and IV. And, for a similar deliberately reticent description of an action, see the note to Inf. XII.114-115.
Commentary text is copyrighted and reproduced by permission.
Please enter a search term.
“Per me si va ne la città dolente,
per me si va ne l'etterno dolore,
per me si va tra la perduta gente.
Giustizia mosse il mio alto fattore;
fecemi la divina podestate,
la somma sapïenza e 'l primo amore.
Dinanzi a me non fuor cose create
se non etterne, e io etterno duro.
Lasciate ogne speranza, voi ch'entrate.”
Queste parole di colore oscuro
vid' ïo scritte al sommo d'una porta;
per ch'io: “Maestro, il senso lor m'è duro.”
Ed elli a me, come persona accorta:
“Qui si convien lasciare ogne sospetto;
ogne viltà convien che qui sia morta.
Noi siam venuti al loco ov' i' t'ho detto
che tu vedrai le genti dolorose
c'hanno perduto il ben de l'intelletto.”
E poi che la sua mano a la mia puose
con lieto volto, ond' io mi confortai,
mi mise dentro a le segrete cose.
Quivi sospiri, pianti e alti guai
risonavan per l'aere sanza stelle,
per ch'io al cominciar ne lagrimai.
Diverse lingue, orribili favelle,
parole di dolore, accenti d'ira,
voci alte e fioche, e suon di man con elle
facevano un tumulto, il qual s'aggira
sempre in quell' aura sanza tempo tinta,
come la rena quando turbo spira.
E io ch'avea d'error la testa cinta,
dissi: “Maestro, che è quel ch'i' odo?
e che gent' è che par nel duol sì vinta?”
Ed elli a me: “Questo misero modo
tegnon l'anime triste di coloro
che visser sanza 'nfamia e sanza lodo.
Mischiate sono a quel cattivo coro
de li angeli che non furon ribelli
né fur fedeli a Dio, ma per sé fuoro.
Caccianli i ciel per non esser men belli,
né lo profondo inferno li riceve,
ch'alcuna gloria i rei avrebber d'elli.”
E io: “Maestro, che è tanto greve
a lor che lamentar li fa sì forte?”
Rispuose: “Dicerolti molto breve.
Questi non hanno speranza di morte,
e la lor cieca vita è tanto bassa,
che 'nvidïosi son d'ogne altra sorte.
Fama di loro il mondo esser non lassa;
misericordia e giustizia li sdegna:
non ragioniam di lor, ma guarda e passa.”
E io, che riguardai, vidi una 'nsegna
che girando correva tanto ratta,
che d'ogne posa mi parea indegna;
e dietro le venìa sì lunga tratta
di gente, ch'i' non averei creduto
che morte tanta n'avesse disfatta.
Poscia ch'io v'ebbi alcun riconosciuto,
vidi e conobbi l'ombra di colui
che fece per viltade il gran rifiuto.
Incontanente intesi e certo fui
che questa era la setta d'i cattivi,
a Dio spiacenti e a' nemici sui.
Questi sciaurati, che mai non fur vivi,
erano ignudi e stimolati molto
da mosconi e da vespe ch'eran ivi.
Elle rigavan lor di sangue il volto,
che, mischiato di lagrime, a' lor piedi
da fastidiosi vermi era ricolto.
E poi ch'a riguardar oltre mi diedi,
vidi genti a la riva d'un gran fiume;
per ch'io dissi: “Maestro, or mi concedi
ch'i' sappia quali sono, e qual costume
le fa di trapassar parer sì pronte,
com' i' discerno per lo fioco lume.”
Ed elli a me: “Le cose ti fier conte
quando noi fermerem li nostri passi
su la trista riviera d'Acheronte.”
Allor con li occhi vergognosi e bassi,
temendo no 'l mio dir li fosse grave,
infino al fiume del parlar mi trassi.
Ed ecco verso noi venir per nave
un vecchio, bianco per antico pelo,
gridando: “Guai a voi, anime prave!
Non isperate mai veder lo cielo:
i' vegno per menarvi a l'altra riva
ne le tenebre etterne, in caldo e 'n gelo.
E tu che se' costì, anima viva,
pàrtiti da cotesti che son morti.”
Ma poi che vide ch'io non mi partiva,
disse: “Per altra via, per altri porti
verrai a piaggia, non qui, per passare:
più lieve legno convien che ti porti.”
E 'l duca lui: “Caron, non ti crucciare:
vuolsi così colà dove si puote
ciò che si vuole, e più non dimandare.”
Quinci fuor quete le lanose gote
al nocchier de la livida palude,
che 'ntorno a li occhi avea di fiamme rote.
Ma quell' anime, ch'eran lasse e nude,
cangiar colore e dibattero i denti,
ratto che 'nteser le parole crude.
Bestemmiavano Dio e lor parenti,
l'umana spezie e 'l loco e 'l tempo e 'l seme
di lor semenza e di lor nascimenti.
Poi si ritrasser tutte quante insieme,
forte piangendo, a la riva malvagia
ch'attende ciascun uom che Dio non teme.
Caron dimonio, con occhi di bragia
loro accennando, tutte le raccoglie;
batte col remo qualunque s'adagia.
Come d'autunno si levan le foglie
l'una appresso de l'altra, fin che 'l ramo
vede a la terra tutte le sue spoglie,
similemente il mal seme d'Adamo
gittansi di quel lito ad una ad una,
per cenni come augel per suo richiamo.
Così sen vanno su per l'onda bruna,
e avanti che sien di là discese,
anche di qua nuova schiera s'auna.
“Figliuol mio,” disse 'l maestro cortese,
“quelli che muoion ne l'ira di Dio
tutti convegnon qui d'ogne paese;
e pronti sono a trapassar lo rio,
ché la divina giustizia li sprona,
sì che la tema si volve in disio.
Quinci non passa mai anima buona;
e però, se Caron di te si lagna,
ben puoi sapere omai che 'l suo dir suona.”
Finito questo, la buia campagna
tremò sì forte, che de lo spavento
la mente di sudore ancor mi bagna.
La terra lagrimosa diede vento,
che balenò una luce vermiglia
la qual mi vinse ciascun sentimento;
e caddi come l'uom cui sonno piglia.
"Through me the way is to the city dolent;
Through me the way is to eternal dole;
Through me the way among the people lost.
Justice incited my sublime Creator;
Created me divine Omnipotence,
The highest Wisdom and the primal Love.
Before me there were no created things,
Only eterne, and I eternal last.
All hope abandon, ye who enter in!"
These words in sombre colour I beheld
Written upon the summit of a gate;
Whence I: "Their sense is, Master, hard to me!"
And he to me, as one experienced:
"Here all suspicion needs must be abandoned,
All cowardice must needs be here extinct.
We to the place have come, where I have told thee
Thou shalt behold the people dolorous
Who have foregone the good of intellect."
And after he had laid his hand on mine
With joyful mien, whence I was comforted,
He led me in among the secret things.
There sighs, complaints, and ululations loud
Resounded through the air without a star,
Whence I, at the beginning, wept thereat.
Languages diverse, horrible dialects,
Accents of anger, words of agony,
And voices high and hoarse, with sound of hands,
Made up a tumult that goes whirling on
For ever in that air for ever black,
Even as the sand doth, when the whirlwind breathes.
And I, who had my head with horror bound,
Said: "Master, what is this which now I hear?
What folk is this, which seems by pain so vanquished?"
And he to me: "This miserable mode
Maintain the melancholy souls of those
Who lived withouten infamy or praise.
Commingled are they with that caitiff choir
Of Angels, who have not rebellious been,
Nor faithful were to God, but were for self.
The heavens expelled them, not to be less fair;
Nor them the nethermore abyss receives,
For glory none the damned would have from them."
And I: "O Master, what so grievous is
To these, that maketh them lament so sore?"
He answered: "I will tell thee very briefly.
These have no longer any hope of death;
And this blind life of theirs is so debased,
They envious are of every other fate.
No fame of them the world permits to be;
Misericord and Justice both disdain them.
Let us not speak of them, but look, and pass."
And I, who looked again, beheld a banner,
Which, whirling round, ran on so rapidly,
That of all pause it seemed to me indignant;
And after it there came so long a train
Of people, that I ne'er would have believed
That ever Death so many had undone.
When some among them I had recognised,
I looked, and I beheld the shade of him
Who made through cowardice the great refusal.
Forthwith I comprehended, and was certain,
That this the sect was of the caitiff wretches
Hateful to God and to his enemies.
These miscreants, who never were alive,
Were naked, and were stung exceedingly
By gadflies and by hornets that were there.
These did their faces irrigate with blood,
Which, with their tears commingled, at their feet
By the disgusting worms was gathered up.
And when to gazing farther I betook me.
People I saw on a great river's bank;
Whence said I: "Master, now vouchsafe to me,
That I may know who these are, and what law
Makes them appear so ready to pass over,
As I discern athwart the dusky light."
And he to me: "These things shall all be known
To thee, as soon as we our footsteps stay
Upon the dismal shore of Acheron."
Then with mine eyes ashamed and downward cast,
Fearing my words might irksome be to him,
From speech refrained I till we reached the river.
And lo! towards us coming in a boat
An old man, hoary with the hair of eld,
Crying: "Woe unto you, ye souls depraved!
Hope nevermore to look upon the heavens;
I come to lead you to the other shore,
To the eternal shades in heat and frost.
And thou, that yonder standest, living soul,
Withdraw thee from these people, who are dead!"
But when he saw that I did not withdraw,
He said: "By other ways, by other ports
Thou to the shore shalt come, not here, for passage;
A lighter vessel needs must carry thee."
And unto him the Guide: "Vex thee not, Charon;
It is so willed there where is power to do
That which is willed; and farther question not."
Thereat were quieted the fleecy cheeks
Of him the ferryman of the livid fen,
Who round about his eyes had wheels of flame.
But all those souls who weary were and naked
Their colour changed and gnashed their teeth together,
As soon as they had heard those cruel words.
God they blasphemed and their progenitors,
The human race, the place, the time, the seed
Of their engendering and of their birth!
Thereafter all together they drew back,
Bitterly weeping, to the accursed shore,
Which waiteth every man who fears not God.
Charon the demon, with the eyes of glede,
Beckoning to them, collects them all together,
Beats with his oar whoever lags behind.
As in the autumn-time the leaves fall off,
First one and then another, till the branch
Unto the earth surrenders all its spoils;
In similar wise the evil seed of Adam
Throw themselves from that margin one by one,
At signals, as a bird unto its lure.
So they depart across the dusky wave,
And ere upon the other side they land,
Again on this side a new troop assembles.
"My son," the courteous Master said to me,
"All those who perish in the wrath of God
Here meet together out of every land;
And ready are they to pass o'er the river,
Because celestial Justice spurs them on,
So that their fear is turned into desire.
This way there never passes a good soul;
And hence if Charon doth complain of thee,
Well mayst thou know now what his speech imports."
This being finished, all the dusk champaign
Trembled so violently, that of that terror
The recollection bathes me still with sweat.
The land of tears gave forth a blast of wind,
And fulminated a vermilion light,
Which overmastered in me every sense,
And as a man whom sleep hath seized I fell.
Modern editions vary in using capital or lower-case letters for this inscription over the gate of hell. Lacking Dante's autograph MS, we can only conjecture. For the view that the model for these words is found in the victorious inscriptions found on Roman triumphal arches, sculpted in capital letters in stone, see Hollander (Allegory in Dante's “Commedia” [Princeton, Princeton University Press, 1969]), p. 300. In this view every condemned sinner is being led back captive to 'that Rome of which Christ is Roman' (Purg. XXXII.102), 'under the yoke' into God's holy kingdom, where he or she will be eternally a prisoner.
For the city as the poem's centering image of political life, the hellish earthly city, resembling Florence, 'which stands for the self and against the common good,' and the heavenly city, an idealized view of imperial Rome, see Joan Ferrante (The Political Vision of the “Divine Comedy” [Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1984]), pp. 41-42. The anaphora, or repetition, of the phrase per me si va, as it comes 'uttered' by the gate of hell itself in the first three verses, has a ring of inevitable doom about it. A student (Charlene Cosman, Princeton '76) once suggested that it also contains a self-conscious gesture on the part of its author: it is through him that we visit this place of woe, suffering, and perdition.
'Justice moved my maker on high.' Dante's verse may seem to violate the Aristotelian/Thomist definition of God as the 'unmoved mover.' Strictly speaking, nothing can 'move' God, who Himself moves all things (even if He can be described in the Bible as feeling anger at humankind, etc.). Dante's apparently 'theologically incorrect' statement shows the importance of his sense of justice as the central force in the universe, so encompassing that it may be seen as, in a sense, God's 'muse,' as well as the primary subject of the poem. The word in its noun form appears fully thirty-five times in the poem (once in Latin at Par. XVIII.91). See Allan H. Gilbert (Dante's Conception of Justice [Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 1925] – but see also Dino Bigongiari's sharply critical review [Essays on Dante and Medieval Culture, ed. Henry Paolucci (New York: The Bagehot Council, 2000 [1964]), pp. 86-91] and Hollander, Dante and Paul's “five words with understanding,” Occasional Papers, No. 1, Center for Medieval and Early Renaissance Texts and Studies [Binghamton, NY: Medieval and Renaissance Texts and Studies, 1992], pp. 40-41).
The three attributes of the Christian God, Power, Wisdom, and Love, are nearly universally recognized as informing these two verses. Hell is of God's making, not an independent 'city' of rebels, but a totally dependent polis of those who had rebelled against their maker. For the post-biblical concept of the Trinity, especially as it was advanced in St. Augustine's De Trinitate, where Father, Son, and Holy Spirit is each identified by one of these attributes, respectively, see G. Fallani, “Trinità” (ED.1976.5), pp. 718-21.
The apparent difficulty of these verses (perhaps reflected in Dante's difficulty in understanding the writing over the gate, Inf. III.12) is resolved once we understand that here 'eternal' is used to mean 'sempiternal,' that is, as having had a beginning in time but lasting ever after. Only God, who is not created but all-creating, may be considered eternal. See Mazzoni (Saggio di un nuovo commento alla “Divina Commedia”: “Inferno” –Canti I-III [Florence: Sansoni, 1967]), pp. 331-36. Mazzoni, in agreement with Bruno Nardi (La caduta di Lucifero e l'autenticità della “Quaestio de aqua et terra” [Torino, S.E.I. (Lectura Dantis Romana): 1959] – now in Nardi, “Lecturae” e altri studi danteschi, ed. R. Abardo [Firenze: Le Lettere, 1990], p. 17), allows this status to three classes of being: angels, prime matter (that is, the potential form of the as yet uncreated world), and the heavenly spheres. For an apt description of Christ's Judgment of the damned, see Matthew 25:41, 25:46: 'Then shall he say also unto them on the left hand, Depart from me, ye cursed, into everlasting fire, prepared for the devil and his angels.... And these shall go away into everlasting punishment: but the righteous into life eternal.'
A curiosity about which there has been only a modicum of speculation results from the closeness of this verse to one in the opening verses of the first scene of the third act of Plautus's comedy Bacchides: 'Pandite atque aperite propere ianuam hanc Orci, opsecro: Nam equidem haud aliter esse duco: quippe quo nemo advenit Nisi quem spes reliquere omnes.' For the first modern discussion see Edward Moore, Studies in Dante, First Series: Scripture and Classical Authors in Dante (Oxford: Clarendon, 1969 [1896]), p. 261n., and now R. Mercuri, “Plauto” (ED.1973.4), p. 555b. For a much earlier citation, see Castelvetro (comm. to Inf. III.9-10). There is general agreement that Dante could not have known the texts of Plautus directly (he does, however, name the Roman playwright at Purg. XXII.98), with the resultant understanding that Dante found the lines cited in one florilegium or another, even if no one has as yet produced such a manuscript in order to confirm this theory.
Are the letters of these words 'dark in hue,' as are the inset carvings over actual gates, begrimed by time (or, as some early commentators urged, because they are hellishly menacing)? Or are they rhetorically difficult, and 'dark' in that respect? The phrase 'rhetorical colors' to indicate the rhetor's stylistic techniques is familiar from classical rhetoric and is found in Dante, e.g., in Vita nuova XXV.7 and XXV.10. (For this usage in Dante see Domenico Consoli, “colore” [ED.1970.2], p. 65b.) Most of the early commentators are drawn, however, to the first hypothesis (dark in color), while several recent ones prefer the latter. Mazzoni (Saggio di un nuovo commento alla “Divina Commedia”: “Inferno” –Canti I-III [Florence: Sansoni, 1967]), pp. 337-42, gives good reasons for favoring the ancient interpretation, opposing the reading offered by Pagliaro (Ulisse: ricerche semantiche sulla “Divina Commedia” [Messina-Florence: D'Anna, 1967]), pp. 762-65. One should also consider the possibility that both meanings are present here. In any case, whichever understanding one chooses, one will have to make a decision consonant with an interpretation of verse 12 (see the note to Inf. III.12).
There is a fairly serious disagreement over the most probable interpretation of the words 'for me their meaning is hard.' Our translation tries to reflect both possibilities, suggesting that one is clearly present, while the second may be only latent. Are the words over the gate of hell (1) threatening to Dante? Or (2) are they hard for him to understand? It seems clear that the traveler is frightened by the dire advice tendered in verse 9, which would have him abandon all hope. Mazzoni (Saggio di un nuovo commento alla “Divina Commedia”: “Inferno” –Canti I-III [Florence: Sansoni, 1967]), pp. 337-42, offers a lengthy gloss to this tercet (vv. 10-12 – see the note to Inf. III.10). It seems impossible not to accept his basic premise, namely that the context of the scene makes the meaning immediate and moral: the traveler is afraid, and Virgil reproves him for his fear (Inf. III.14-15). This understanding is shared by the vast majority of the commentators, with a very few (the Ottimo, Boccaccio, Gregorio Di Siena) arguing for the understanding that the text insists only that Dante finds the meaning of the inscription difficult, and another handful arguing for a deliberately ambiguous meaning. Critics like John Freccero, in his essay 'Infernal Irony: The Gates of Hell' (1983) in (Dante: The Poetics of Conversion, ed. Rachel Jacoff [Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1986], pp. 99-102), argue that the drama played out here is lodged in the difficulty of interpreting. Without opposing that further interpretive dimension of the scene, one should probably insist on a literal understanding that squares with the text. Freccero and others before him (e.g., Vandelli [comm. to Inf. III.12]; Padoan [comm. to Inf. III.12]) have heard the echo of John 6:60: 'Durus est hic sermo' (This is a hard saying). But that context also, while allowing for the question of interpretive failure on the part of the disciples who do not understand what Jesus means when he says that those who eat of his flesh shall live forever, is rounded off by the moral failure of certain disciples (John 6:61; 6:66). For Dante, the seeming banishment of his hope is cause, not so much for distress at his intellectual failure so much as for fear of a punishment compelling enough to grasp – an eternity in hell. See Guiniforto delli Bargigi (comm. to Inf. III.10-12), paraphrasing the protagonist's remark as follows: 'non dico dura, perch'io non la intenda, ma dura è, perocchè dura cosa mi pare udir che io debba entrare in luogo di eterno dolore e lasciar la speranza di uscirne mai fuori, e per questo denota Dante, ch'ei temesse, e Virgilio lo confortò nella particella del testo che seguita.'
The comparison (come persona accorta) lends Virgil authority in two regards: he is aware of Dante's moral shortcomings and he understands the underworld, since he has descended once before (see Inf. IX.22-27; Inf. XXI.63). The scene indeed has a classical precursor, as was noted, among the early commentators, by Boccaccio (comm. to Inf. III.13-15): the Sibyl's reassurance of threatened Aeneas (Aen. VI.261): 'Nunc animis opus, Aenea, nunc pectore firmo.' Mazzoni (Saggio di un nuovo commento alla “Divina Commedia”: “Inferno” –Canti I-III [Florence: Sansoni, 1967]), p. 342, follows the tradition in the commentaries which argues that this tercet reaffirms the moral reading of Inf. III.12, 'Maestro, il senso lor m'è duro.'
The 'good of the intellect' has long been understood as God. See Mazzoni (Saggio di un nuovo commento alla “Divina Commedia”: “Inferno” –Canti I-III [Florence: Sansoni, 1967]), p. 343, citing Par. IV.116, where God is the 'fonte ond' ogne ver deriva' (the source from which all truth derives).
The word segrete here does not mean 'secret' so much as 'cut off from' – see Grabher (comm. to Inf. III.21): 'Segrete conserva la sua forza etimologica (da secerno [Latin 'separate from, cut off']) con immagine netta di separazione; qui: dal mondo e dalla conoscenza degli uomini' (cited by Mazzoni [Saggio di un nuovo commento alla “Divina Commedia”: “Inferno” –Canti I-III (Florence: Sansoni, 1967), p. 345]), i.e., those things that are hidden from the knowledge of mortals.
This first sense impression of the underworld is exclusively aural. We are probably meant to assume that Dante's eyes are not yet accustomed to the darkness of hell. Cf. Inf. IV.25-27 as well as Inf. XI.11, where his olfactory capacity must become used to the stench of nether hell.
This first instance of Dante's weeping is part of a program of the protagonist's development in hell, in which he (very) gradually overcomes the twin temptations to weep for or feel fear at the situation of the sinners in Inferno. See Hollander (Allegory in Dante's “Commedia”), pp. 301-7. In the harsh moral code of the text, sympathy for the damned is always misplaced, if a certain admiration for some of their better qualities is allowed.
The adjective diverse here means either 'different the one from the other' (on the model of the confused languages spoken after the construction of the Tower of Babel) or 'strange,' a meaning for the adjective frequently found in Dante. In our translation we have tried to allow for both meanings. Mazzoni (Saggio di un nuovo commento alla “Divina Commedia”: “Inferno” –Canti I-III [Florence: Sansoni, 1967]), p. 348, gives further evidence for the first interpretation by citing Inf. III.123, where those who die in the wrath of God 'assemble here from every land,' a phrasing that calls attention to differing nationalities and thus suggests a plurality of tongues.
E suon di man con elle. Boccaccio's gloss (comm. to Inf. IX.49-51) to Inf. IX.50, 'battiensi a palme,' which describes the Furies beating their breasts 'come qui [on earth] fanno le femine che gran dolor sentono, o mostran di sentire,' may help unravel this verse as well: the sound is that of hands striking the sinners' own bodies as they beat their breasts, as Boccaccio had already suggested in his gloss to this verse: 'come soglion far le femine battendosi a palme' (Inf. III.27-29). See M. Barbi (Problemi di critica dantesca [Florence: Sansoni, 1934]), p. 267. Others today (e.g., Bosco/Reggio [comm. to Inf. III.27]) allow for two possibilities: the sound results from striking either the body of another or one's own.
A much-debated verse. Here our translation follows Petrocchi (La Commedia secondo l'antica vulgata, Introduzione), pp. 168-69, who reads (error and not orror), even though we agree with Giorgio Brugnoli (“Orror/Error [Inferno III.31],” Studi Danteschi 54 [1982], pp. 15-30), that this is a likely echo of the Aeneid (II.559): 'At me tum primum circumstetit horror.' There are detailed discussions of the debate over the verse in Mazzoni (Saggio di un nuovo commento alla “Divina Commedia”: “Inferno” –Canti I-III [Florence: Sansoni, 1967]), pp. 352-55; in Petrocchi, (La Commedia secondo l'antica vulgata, Inferno, pp. 42-43); and in Maria Simonelli (Lectura Dantis Americana: “Inferno” III [Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1993], pp. 27-30. As Petrocchi says, both readings are acceptable: there is not so much at stake here. Nonetheless, the view of John Taaffe is worth noting (A Comment on the “Divine Comedy” of Dante Alighieri [London, John Murray, 1822]), p. 171: '...I tend to accept [orror] without reserve, not because it is the most intelligible and poetical... on what I take to be the very best possible authority – that of Boccaccio.' (The recovery of Taaffe's all-but-forgotten English commentary to the first eight cantos is a bonus found in Simonelli's discussion.)
For the history of the interpretation of this tercet, now generally understood to indicate the presence in the 'ante-inferno,' or vestibule of hell, of the neutrals, those who never took a side, see Mazzoni (Saggio di un nuovo commento alla “Divina Commedia”: “Inferno” –Canti I-III [Florence: Sansoni, 1967]), pp. 355-67. And, for the existence of exactly such a 'vestibule' in hell in the Visio Pauli see Theodore Silverstein (“Did Dante Know the Vision of St. Paul?” Harvard Studies and Notes in Philology and Literature 19 [1937], pp. 231-47). In Paul's apocryphal Vision (for the most recent text see Silverstein and Anthony Hilhorst, eds., Apocalypse of Paul: A New Critical Edition of Three Long Latin Versions [Geneva: Patrick Cramer, 1997]), there is a river of flame separating 'those who were neither hot nor cold' (Apoc. 3:15-16) from the other sinners.
There has been a lengthy dispute in the commentary tradition as to whether or not Dante has invented the neutral angels or is reflecting a medieval tradition that had itself 'invented' them (since they are not, properly speaking, biblical in origin). This is presented at length by Mazzoni (Saggio di un nuovo commento alla “Divina Commedia”: “Inferno” –Canti I-III [Florence: Sansoni, 1967]), pp. 368-76, who shows that such a tradition did exist and probably helped to shape Dante's conceptualization. On this problem see Nardi, Dal “Convivio” alla “Commedia” (Rome: Istituto Storico Italiano per il Medio Evo, 1992 [1960]), pp. 331-50. See also Freccero's essay 'The Neutral Angels' (1960) in Dante: The Poetics of Conversion, ed. Rachel Jacoff (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1986), pp. 110-18.
To what does the adjective rei ('evil') refer? The neutral angels (v. 38) are the antecedent of the pronoun li in vv. 40 and 41. It seems clear that this is also true with respect to the adjective in v. 42, and thus our translation, 'lest on their account the evil angels gloat.' The sense is that the fallen angels (e.g., those seen on the walls of Dis in canto VIII.82-83) would be able to take pride in their higher situation if the neutral angels were admitted to hell, since they would apparently be lower down even than their rebellious cousins. That the adjective is to be treated as an adjectival noun for 'the wicked,' i.e., the damned in general, is an idea that has only entered commentaries in our own century. It has not won over the more convincing discussants.
For the less-than-defensible notion that alcuna here is a negative (rather than a positive) form of the adjective see Mazzoni (Saggio di un nuovo commento alla “Divina Commedia”: “Inferno” –Canti I-III [Florence: Sansoni, 1967]), pp. 377-79, who defends the positive reading.
Paraphrased: 'Like all the rest, these sinners have no hope of improving their posthumous lot; but their foul condition is such that they are envious of every other class of sinners.'
Misericordia e giustizia ('Mercy and justice') are here to be understood as heaven and hell, neither of which will entertain any report of such vile creatures.
Dante's essential technique for indicating the crucial moral failures of his various groups of sinners is here before us for the first time. The neutrals, who never took a side, are portrayed as an organized crowd following a banner: exactly what they were not in life (e.g., the neutral angels who neither rebelled directly against God nor stood with Him, but who kept to one side). And in this respect the neutrals are punished by being forced to assume a pose antithetic to that which they struck in life. At the same time, the banner that they follow is the very essence of indeterminacy. Not only is there no identifying sign on it, but is not held in the anchoring hand of any standard-bearer; it is a parody of the standard that is raised before a body of men who follow a leader. Elsewhere we will encounter other such symbolic artifacts. In Dante's hell the punishment of sin involves the application of opposites and similarities. Here the sinners do the opposite of what they did (form into an organized group) and the same (follow no fixed purpose). This form of just retribution is what Dante will later refer to as the contrapasso (Inf. XXVIII.142).
The word in rhyme position, indegna, has caused some anxiety. In what way is the banner 'unworthy' of repose? Mazzoni (Saggio di un nuovo commento alla “Divina Commedia”: “Inferno” –Canti I-III [Florence: Sansoni, 1967]), p. 388, proposes understanding the word as having the meaning 'insusceptible.' This banner, by its very nature, seems incapable of ever coming to rest.
The most-debated passage of this canto, at least in the modern era. Many of the early commentators were convinced that this passage clearly intended a biting reference to Pope Celestine V (Pier da Morrone), who abdicated the papacy in 1294 after having held the office for less than four months. He was followed into it by Dante's great ecclesiastical enemy, Pope Boniface VIII, and there are colorful contemporary accounts that would have it that Boniface mimicked the voice of the Holy Spirit in the air passages that led to Celestine's bed chamber, counseling his abdication. Mazzoni (Saggio di un nuovo commento alla “Divina Commedia”: “Inferno” –Canti I-III [Florence: Sansoni, 1967]), pp. 390-415, offers a thorough history of the interpretation of the verse. Two factors led to growing uneasiness with the identification of Celestine: (1) in 1313 he had been canonized, (2) ca. 1346 Francesco Petrarca, in his De vita solitaria, had defended the motives for his abdication. Thus, beginning with the second redaction of the commentary of Pietro di Dante, certainty that the vile self-recuser was Celestine began to waiver. The names of many others have been proposed, including those of Esau and Pontius Pilate. It seems fair to say that there are fatal objections to all of these other candidacies. For strong, even convincing, support for that of Celestine see Giorgio Padoan (“Colui che fece per viltà il gran rifiuto,” Studi Danteschi 38 [1961], pp. 75-128) and Maria Simonelli (Lectura Dantis Americana: “Inferno” III [Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1993]), pp. 41-58. Mazzoni (Saggio di un nuovo commento alla “Divina Commedia”: “Inferno” –Canti I-III [Florence: Sansoni, 1967]), pp. 414-15, ends his lengthy study of the problem opting for (as had Sapegno [comm. to Inf. III.59-60] before him), a generic sinner, unspecified, but standing for all who had made so vile a choice. Yet Mazzoni's own evidence and arguments, as well as Dante's usual procedures, which tend to avoid such indeterminacy, help to convince this reader that it was indeed Celestine that Dante had in mind, as is underlined by his later scathing reference to the event of 'the great refusal' in Inf. XXVII.104-105. Further, Dante tells us that he 'saw and knew' (that is, recognized) this shade: there is nothing indeterminate in such a locution. Nardi's telling objections to Petrocchi's denial that Dante would have put Celestine, canonized in 1313, in hell (Itinerari danteschi [Milan: Franco Angeli, 1994 (1969) pp. 41-59], first published in Studi Romani in 1955) are today found in Dal “Convivio” alla “Commedia,” pp. 315-30.
M. Barbi (Problemi di critica dantesca [Florence: Sansoni, 1934]), p. 203: here cattivi means 'vile ones,' a stronger meaning than the word has sometimes in early (or in modern) Italian.
The second descriptive passage that indicates the condition of these sinners continues the contrapasso (see Inf. XXVIII.142). Now we see that these beings, who lacked all inner stimulation, are stung (stimolati) by noxious insects. Their tears mix with the blood drawn by these wounds only to serve as food for worms. Dante's personal hatred for those who, unlike him, never made their true feelings or opinions known irradiates this canto. There is not a single detail that falls short of the condition of eternal insult.
M. Barbi (Problemi di critica dantesca [Florence: Sansoni, 1934]), p. 261: sciaurati must be understood as 'vile, abbietto, da niente,' as a bitterly negative term with no softness in it. Similarly, the phrase che mai non fur vivi (who never were alive) is darkened by its probable source, cited by several modern commentators (perhaps first by Sapegno [comm. to Inf. III.64], in Revelation 3:1: 'Nomen habes quod vivas, et mortuus es' (you have the name of the living, and are dead), a fitting castigation for Dante to have had in mind for the neutrals.
These verses mark a split between the second and third scenes of the canto, the neutrals and those other sinners, of all kinds, who are destined to begin their travel to their final destinations in Charon's bark. From this point on the action of the canto moves to the near bank of Acheron. The next canto will begin on the other side of the river.
Dante asks two things of his guide, the identity of those gathered at the river's bank and the reason for their apparent eagerness to cross over. His questions seem more or less similar to those he had asked at Inf. III.33, when he wanted to know the identity of the wailing souls who turn out to be the neutrals. On that occasion, Virgil answers him immediately; on this, as we soon see, he is much less forthcoming. See the note, below, to Inf. III.76-78).
Many commentators, beginning perhaps with Trifon Gabriele (comm. to Inf. III.72), followed by his student, Bernardino Daniello (comm. to Inf. III.70-81), cite apposite lines from Virgil (Aen. VI.318-319), Aeneas's inquiry of the Sibyl as to the motives leading the dead to desire to cross Acheron: 'dic,' ait, 'o virgo, quid volt concursus ad amnem? / quidve petunt animae?'
The word costume, which we have translated as 'inner law,' is explained by Sapegno (comm. to Inf. III.73) as 'istinto diventato norma e legge' (an instinct become a norm, even a law).
The 'dim light': Dante's first experience of hell proper was one of utter darkness. Indeed, his first sense impressions of the neutrals are entirely auditory (Inf. III.22-33). Now the character himself assures us that he can see at least a little. 'In this third canto, Dante had to arrive at this solution: after beginning in an absolute darkness that forced him to perceive the external world only through sound, he begins to see once he passes the infernal gate and his eyes adapt to the darkness. Now he speaks of 'dim light,' thus resolving the problem of vision in a world without light, in the world of eternal darkness' (Maria Simonelli [Lectura Dantis Americana: “Inferno” III (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1993)], p. 61).
Virgil's rather clipped response, in marked contrast with his ready response to Dante's question about the identity of the neutrals (Inf. III.34-42), causes Dante to feel ashamed (Inf. III.79-81). The exact reason for Virgil's reproof is a matter of some debate. One might argue that his point is that Dante has gotten ahead of himself. In the first instance, he asked about the nature of those he saw displayed just before him. Now he is anticipating, literally looking ahead, and Virgil warns him against such behavior. Mazzoni (Saggio di un nuovo commento alla “Divina Commedia”: “Inferno” –Canti I-III [Florence: Sansoni, 1967]), pp. 419-22, surveys the dispute, which probably began with Benvenuto da Imola (comm. to Inf. III.76-78). Perhaps the most interesting hypothesis was advanced by Mattalia (comm. to Inf. III.76-78), who argued that Virgil is upset that Dante, who had offered himself as a devoted reader of the Aeneid (Inf. I.82-86), does not recognize this place, so fully described by Virgil in his Sixth Book. Mazzoni (Saggio di un nuovo commento alla “Divina Commedia”: “Inferno” –Canti I-III [Florence: Sansoni, 1967]), pp. 420-21, disagrees, finding this argument over-subtle. We can say that once Virgil is ready to respond, he is courtesy itself (Inf. III.121-129). The point seems to be that he now wants Dante first to observe Charon, whose words and actions will make many things clear, before getting into the details of this scene along the river's edge. Nonetheless, Mattalia's point does seem to have some merit, particularly because Dante's guide mentions the name of the river (Inf. III.78), 'Acheronte.' Had he not wanted to remind Dante of the Virgilian roots of this current experience of an underworld, would he not have merely said, 'the river,' leaving the identification for later? This small moment of interpretive difficulty may stand as but one example of two things: the difficulty of this poem and the extraordinarily subtle exertions it calls forth from its commentators, whether its author always hoped for them or not.
Charon, named twice by Virgil (Aen. VI.299, VI.326), is the 'star' of the moving scene of the crowding dead, buried and unburied, who flock toward the Acheron in the Aeneid (VI.295-330). He is referred to as portitor (VI.298), literally the guardian of the port, but his function in Virgil is to ferry the dead across Acheron. Dante revisits this scene for several details, including the first image in his celebrated simile (vv. 112-113) that awaits us. Unlike the crowds in Virgil, of whom Charon has to separate the buried from the unburied, condemned to wait one hundred years before they can be ferried to the locus their afterlives, in Dante's treatment (vv. 100-111) the souls, having already undergone the Last Judgment (and this scene is probably meant to remind us of that one), are loath to cross to their final resting place, and Charon has to urge them onward physically.
Charon's address to the wicked souls awaiting transport reinforces the hopelessness of this place, which was initially insisted on by the writing over the gate of hell (Inf. III.9), 'lasciate ogne speranza, voi ch'entrate.'
Charon's insistence on Dante's difference – he is alive, the others dead – will find frequent repetition as the protagonist's extraordinary presence in hell is noted by various guardians and damned souls.
For complicating readings of what many have understood as a fairly evident remark, see Mazzoni (Saggio di un nuovo commento alla “Divina Commedia”: “Inferno” –Canti I-III [Florence: Sansoni, 1967]), pp. 425-27. Most today, including Mazzoni, take Charon's formulation to refer to Dante's eventual passage to Purgatory aboard the angel-guided ship that we see in Purgatorio II.41.
Charon, introduced first (Inf. III.82-83) only by his characteristics (in a typical Dantean gesture, making us wonder who this imposing figure might be), is now named, and will be twice more (Inf. III.109; Inf. III.128). This highly specified and insistent naming should make it plain that Dante is serious about proposing the notion that the guardian of hell is derived from the Sixth Book of Virgil's poem. It is fascinating, however, to watch the early commentators, so used to reading any fiction as though it were 'allegorical,' 'dehistoricizing' Charon. For a brief resumé, see Mazzoni (Saggio di un nuovo commento alla “Divina Commedia”: “Inferno” –Canti I-III [Florence: Sansoni, 1967]), pp. 428-31. Among the early commentators Charon is variously understood as 'fleshly desire,' 'disordered love,' 'ancient sinfulness,' 'vice,' 'time,' etc. It is surely better to understand him first and foremost as himself.
These two verses are repeated, word for word, at Inferno V.23-24. This is the longest example of a word-for-word repetition that we find in the entire poem.
Unlike the souls about to be ferried by Charon, some of whom may reach the relative bliss of the Elysian Fields, Dante's sinners have no hope whatsoever of their next life, not even, we may imagine, those guiltless pagans destined for Limbo, where, the reader will be told (Inf. IV.42) by no less an authority than Virgil himself, 'che sanza speme vivemo in disio.'
'The human race, the place, the time, the seed / of their begetting and of their birth.' Our translation is in accord with the literal interpretation of Padoan (comm. to Inf. III.104), against those who understand seme to refer to their ancestors, semenza to their parents. For an apposite citation of Job 3:3 ('Let the day perish wherein I was born, and the night in which it was said: A man child is conceived') see Eugenio Frongia, “Canto III: The Gate of Hell,” in Lectura Dantis: “Inferno,” ed. A. Mandelbaum, A. Oldcorn, and C. Ross (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1998), p. 47.
For Dante's possible reliance, in his description of Charon's eyes, on the Roman d'Enéas, v. 2449 ('roges les oitz come charbons'), see Barbara Spaggiari, “Antecedenti e modelli tipologici nella letteratura in lingua d'oïl,” in I “monstra” nell'“Inferno” dantesco: tradizione e simbologie (Spoleto: Centro italiano di studi sull'alto medioevo, 1997), pp. 134-35.
The verb s'adagia has been variously interpreted, either to mean that the souls delay entering Charon's skiff, or that, once in it, they seat themselves in so self-indulgent a manner as to draw Charon's wrath. See Mazzoni (Saggio di un nuovo commento alla “Divina Commedia”: “Inferno” –Canti I-III [Florence: Sansoni, 1967]), pp. 438-42, for a thorough review of the debate and the evidence in favor of the second reading, based in Virgil (Aen. VI.411-412): 'inde alias animas, quae per iuga longa sedebant, / deturbat laxatque foros,' as was first noted by N. Tommaseo (comm. to Inf. III.109-111).
Where each of the first two cantos has had two major similes (Inf. I.22-27; Inf. I.55-60; Inf. II.37-42; Inf. II.127-132), the third canto reserves its similetic energy for this double simile that describes the final action of the canto, the departure of the sinners in Charon's skiff. It is a commonplace that the third canto is the most 'Virgilian' canto of the Commedia. In fact, study has shown that it has more than twice as many Virgilian citations than any other canto in the poem (see Hollander, “Le opere di Virgilio nella Commedia di Dante,” in Dante e la “bella scola” della poesia: Autorità e sfida poetica, ed. A. A. Iannucci [Ravenna: Longo, 1993], pp. 250-51). This double simile has long been recognized as involving an amalgam of two Virgilian passages, Aeneid VI.309-312 and Georgics II.82. It has also been understood as being the 'controlling simile' for the entire poem, combining pagan and Christian elements: see the article by Margherita Frankel (“Biblical Figurations in Dante's Reading of the Aeneid,” Dante Studies 100 [1982], pp. 13-23).
For the reading 'vede a la terra' and not 'rende a la terra' (as in two MSS), see Petrocchi, La Commedia secondo l'antica vulgata :Intro., p. 53, mainly because of the dependence on the Virgilian passage frequently cited (Georg. II.82): 'miraturque novas frondes').
Several MSS have 'gente' where Petrocchi, La Commedia secondo l'antica vulgata: Intro., pp. 170, 380, and La Commedia secondo l'antica vulgata: Inf., p. 54, favors 'schiera.' His main point is that the lectio difficilior is especially likely here, given that the noun 'gente' has already been used five times in this canto (vv. 3, 17, 33, 56, 71).
Virgil now is willing to answer the question that Dante posed earlier (Inf. III.73-74): divine justice spurs these sinners so that they are eager to cross the river and find their perdition. If there is merit in Mattalia's observation that Virgil had previously been angry with Dante for not understanding that the place before them had been amply described in the Aeneid and thus should have been recognized by the traveler (see the note to Inf. III.76-78), now, we infer, adding this new information, he is ready to speak. On the other hand, the simpler explanation is that the appearance of Charon on the scene was necessary to make his answer meaningful – and that condition has now been met.
For the Aristotelian/Thomist sources of Dante's meteorology, the subterranean winds that cause earthquakes, see Mazzoni (Saggio di un nuovo commento alla “Divina Commedia”: “Inferno” –Canti I-III [Florence: Sansoni, 1967]), pp. 446-52.
Dante's falling into unconsciousness indicates his inability to deal with the overwhelming experience of his crossing into the realm of hell proper, an 'inability' apparently shared by the poet, who simply does not tell us how he crossed the river. The protagonist will suffer a similar lapse at the conclusion of the fifth canto (Inf. V.142).
The question of how Dante crosses Acheron is much debated. The pointed lack of concrete reference to the means by which he is transported is a sign either of the poet's reticence or confusion or of his having set a little problem for his readers. It has become fashionable, on the heels of the lengthy gloss offered by Mazzoni (Saggio di un nuovo commento alla “Divina Commedia”: “Inferno” – Canti I-III [Florence: Sansoni, 1967]), pp. 452-55, to suggest that the poet has deliberately left the issue vague. Wlassics, for instance (“Il canto XV del Purgatorio,” in Filologia e critica dantesca: Studi offerti a Aldo Vallone (Florence: Olschki, 1989), p. 164, enunciates the principle 'if Dante does not tell us, we are not meant to know' with specific reference to this crossing. This reader does not find that an acceptable answer. The moment is too important, surrounded by troubling and excited details, to be dealt with as anything less than a problematic mystery that the poet asks us to solve. Mazzoni does his usual magisterial job in reporting the various theories to account for his transporter (Charon, an angel, Virgil, Beatrice, Lucia, some unnamed supernatural force). But see the countering argument of Hollander, “Dante on Horseback? (Inferno XII, 93-126),” Italica 61 (1984), p. 292: 'We are in fact meant to understand that it is Charon who takes Dante across and that this crux is entirely the result of interpretive over-exertion that has made the self-evident confusing. Charon indeed does wish to refuse Dante passage in his skiff (Inf. III.88-93); to his protestations Virgil responds as follows (Inf. III.94-96): 'Caron, non ti crucciare: / vuolsi così colà dove si puote / ciò che si vuole, e più non dimandare.' Daniello (comm. to Inf. III.95-96) has offered, in my opinion, a sufficient gloss to Virgil's words: 'E qui fanno le parole di Virgilio a Caronte quell'effetto che il mostrar dell'aureo ramo fa della Sibilla...' (Virgil's words have the same effect on Charon that the Sibyl's showing the golden bough had on him). For Charon to be able to resist such a command would involve Dante in a theological or at least a poetic absurdity. Cf. the similar moment at Inf. V.16-24, where Minos likewise would resist Dante's passage through his realm and where Virgil employs the same incantatory phrase that he had uttered in Canto III to achieve the same result.... Would Virgil have uttered the spell again had it not previously proved efficacious? That seems a most doubtful proposition. I believe that Dante's reason for not permitting us to witness the first scene being played out (we are given another version of the scene upon which it is modelled a bit later at Inf. VIII.25-27) is that he found that poetic choice an excessive one, too self-consciously redolent of Aeneas's fanciful entrance into the underworld for him to make evident reference to it at this important moment, the threshold of his Christian afterworld.' If this argument has merit, it accounts for the poet's reticence on poetic grounds. Dante easily could have told us what he wants us to make ourselves responsible for; but that is not his way. Rather, he makes us his partners in taking responsibility for such incredible details as these all through this incredible poem. Virgil may 'explain' the entrance to the underworld with the mechanism of a golden bough and then show his hero crossing Acheron in Charon's skiff; Dante enters hell in the white space between cantos II and III, and then crosses the river in the same blank between III and IV. And, for a similar deliberately reticent description of an action, see the note to Inf. XII.114-115.
Commentary text is copyrighted and reproduced by permission.
Please enter a search term.
Copyright | © 2024 Trustees of Dartmouth College. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.
