Dante's Divine Comedy

“Comedy” is stretching it a bit, as there is no humor whatsoever in this whole trilogy:  Inferno (Hell), Purgatorio (Purgatory), and Paradiso (Heaven).  Dante was a medieval writer from Florence, Italy, who wrote this from 1300-1321, at which point he died.  It wasn’t published until long after his death.  The English translation, which I read (I don’t read Italian, medieval or otherwise) was stuffy.  It’s in verse, which each chapter separated into 33 “cantos”, or chapters.  Even in English, it’s very tough reading.  I had purchased the book as a “bargain sale” from Barnes & Noble; this edition was large, hardbound, and had the impressive woodcut illustrations of Gustave Dore, who was – so it seems – the top illustrator of the nineteenth century; “Paradise Lost” was his major job.

 First Dante descends into Hell, and his guide is the Roman poet, Virgil.  After witnessing the clever and ironic punishments in store for the sinners, he escapes.  Here’s a sad part: along with obvious sinners, the “virtuous pagans” have a separate section here which recognizes that (A) they weren’t “EVIL” (make ironic “quote” marks with your fingers here like Dr. Evil) but (B) didn’t “know Jesus” so couldn’t qualify for anything better than their own room in Hell set aside from all the others.  They were probably more virtuous than many “Christians” who earned the trip to Purgatory.  What’s up with that?  Well, at least Virgil was allowed into Purgatory. 

            Dante here is simply a tourist, just passing through, although the damned can see him and sometimes do talk to him.  However, he doesn’t appear to be in any danger of being kept down here.  Hell is arranged in 9 convenient circles, according to the particular crimes the damned were sent here for.

 The Circles of Hell are:

1.         Limbo.  As mentioned above, the Land of Virtuous Pagans.

2.         Lust.  Horndogs are subject to constant storm

3.         Gluttony.  The pigs lie in slush

4.         Greed.  The damned push heavy weights against each other with their chests

5.         Anger.  The damned fight each other in the River Styx

6.         Heresy.  Entering Dis, a city in Hell, for this portion.  The heretics are trapped in blazing tombs.

7.         Violence.   The damned who were violent against people (outer ring) are immersed in a river of blood and fire; those violent against themselves (suicides) (middle ring) who become thorny bushes, eaten by harpies; and those violent against God (blasphemy)(inner ring), are condemned to fiery desert and rain

8.         Fraud, which is divided into 10 different areas depending on the sub-type of fraud committed: 1) panderers/seducers, 2) flatterers, 3) simony (selling church favors), 4) soothsayers, 5) corrupt politicians, 6) hypocrites, 7) thieves, 8) fraudulent counselors, 9) sowers of discord, 10) falsifiers.  Naturally each of these has its particularly ironic and appropriate form of punishment.

9.         Treachery.  Likewise divided into 4 groups, the 4^th including Judas: 1) against relatives (e.g. Cain), 2) political traitors, 3) traitors to guests, 4) traitors to masters or lords.  Being frozen in a lake of ice (!!!) is the primary form of pain infliction here.

At the center is Satan himself, with three heads and six wings, and chews on Judas.

 Second, Dante is guided by Virgil through Purgatory.  This is where those who are not quite evil, but still have some work to do before qualifying for salvation in Heaven, serve their terms and have their relatively minor sins “purged” before the velvet rope is opened and they wind up, upstairs.

            The ante-chamber is for the excommunicated and the late-repentent (again, no virtuous pagans here).  There are levels corresponding to the seven deadly sins to be purged:

1.         Pride, purged to humility by heavy stones on their backs;

2.         Envy, purged to generosity by wearing cloaks and having their eyes sewn shut (???)

3.         Wrath, blinded by smoke, just as anger blinded them in life

4.         Sloth, ceaselessly engaged, to make up for being lazy

5.         Greed, forced to lie face down,

6.         Gluttony, starved, cannot eat barely reachable fruit (a Sisyphus type fate),

7.         Lust, these people must pass through a wall of fire.   

             As with Hell, here Dante can interact with the souls, though still guided by Virgil, who helps him along and keeps him going.  Dante himself has some purging to do:  seven “P”s are burned on his forehead as he enters, and as he passes through each phase, learns and understands the nature of the sin and the means of atoning therefore (though without actually DOING any of the penance which the others are forced to endure), the P for that sin is erased.
            Finally, at the end, he meets a procession of symbolic creatures in the Garden of Eden: 24 elders, four animals, a chariot, a griffin, three women, four other women, two elders, four humble ones, and an old man (Revelations).  Beatrice shows up and takes over from Virgil.  Dante drinks from the River Lethe, which causes him to forget his sins and the River Eunoe, which restores his good memories.

 Third, is Heaven.  As a pagan, Virgil is ineligible for access to Heaven, so Beatrice (“Peaches”?) is his guide.  Unlike the prior two, which are fairly concrete, as they delve deeper and deeper into Heaven, it turns more and more vague and abstract, which is made considerably more difficult to penetrate thanks to the hideously dense writing style which was barely understandable even in Hell.  Dante manages to make it look…boring.   As we recall from medieval astronomy class, the heavens are set up as a series of concentric circles or spheres.

1.  Moon – those who weren’t consistently good.

2.  Mercury – the ambitious who did good to help their careers, or for fame

3.  Venus – the lovers

4.  The Sun – Wise

5.  Mars – crusaders who died for the faith (??? 72 virgins?  No mention)

6.   Jupiter – good rulers

7.  Saturn – monks

8.   Stars – saints (Uranus not yet discovered)

9.  Inner sphere – Angels

10.  Center – GOD himself, just a huge bright, blinding light of pure but abstract good.

 Famous people.  Unfortunately, much of the “examples” given by Dante are contemporary figures in Italian and European society, e.g. popes and important persons in Florence.  These were celebrities in medieval Italy who are probably only known today mostly because of this book.   More “classical” examples (e.g. Greek or Roman mythology) I could catch.

 Here are the ones I recognized:

Hell (Lust): Cleopatra, Helen of Troy, Achilles, Paris

Hell (Violence): Alexander the Great

Hell (Fraud): Jason, Caiaphas, Muhammad (Islamic prophet – Muslims should be intrigued (!!!) that Dante puts their guy in Hell, of all places!),

Hell (Treachery): Cain & Judas

Purgatory – practically no one

Heaven 2: Emperor Justinian

Heaven 3: Charles Martel

Heaven 4: Thomas Aquinas, King Solomon

Heaven 5: Charlemagne

Heaven 6: David, Trajan, and Constantine

 Actually, Dore’s woodprint illustrations do a remarkable job of describing much of what the impenetrable medieval language does a poor job of explaining.  Unfortunately, I’m not aware of any MODERN translation which takes it a step further than merely going from Italian to English.  In the case of Shakespeare, you can argue that the language itself is too important to mess with, and while the stories are essentially timeless, updating out the classic lines such as “to be or not to be” or “wherefore art thou Romeo” will irreparably damage the plays, especially for ones like “Much Ado About Nothing” where witty wordplay is part of battle between Benedick and Beatrice.  Fine.  Leave Shakespeare alone, just give us some “Modern English” subtitles (For the Renaissance-Impaired) so we can figure out what’s going on.  But Dante deserves to be redone in a more user-friendly fashion, and updated with contemporary (twentieth and twenty-first century) examples to bring those of us who don’t know or care who Guelphs (whether black or white) are, into the picture.