Dennis R. Garver
ENG. 201 – 06
December 10, 2009
Abandon Every Hope, You Who Enter Here
Dante Alighieri use of the epic simile in his work the Inferno attunes and draws in the reader,
allowing for a very personal attachment to the graphic and all too Christian appropriate punishments of
the various sins of mankind in his nine circles of hell. In the opening, canto, he sets the tone of his work
with the sobering simile “and as a seafarer, who has escaped from the storm to the shore, turns with
wearied breath to the turbulent waters and gazes, so I, still fleeing in my mind, turned back to look at the
pass which no one before had ever left alive.” (p – 1409) This simile bears a striking similarity to the
Homeric saga of Odysseus landing on the island of the Phaiakians, and serves to show the exhausting
experience and feeling of dread that lies ahead for both our epic hero’s on their journeys of destiny. Dante
then continues on his epic journey with an immediate confrontation with another set of tone setters in the
forms of a leopard, a lion, and a ravenous she-wolf. Dante losses all hope of escape “and as a gambler
who gladly wins, but when the time comes for him to lose, weeps and is saddened in all his thoughts,” (p
– 1409) as he is forced to retreat into the dark wood. Both of these similes establish in the mind of the
reader the dark feeling of foreboding and set the stage for the continuing confrontations which will plague
and so greatly enrich Dante’s decent into Hell.
While lost and confused in the dark wood, Dante is approached by the shade of the Roman poet
Virgil. Virgil has been dispatched by three holy women, among them Beatrice who is basically Dante’s
guardian angel. Virgil becomes Dante’s guide and companion as they pass through the gates of Hell,
which are inscribed with the haunting inscription “Abandon Every Hope, You Who Enter Here” and enter
the outlying region of Hell. As Virgil leads, the duo comes to the river, Acheron, where they meet the
ferryman Charon, “the demon with eyes like glowing coals.” Upon encountering the crowd of people
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waiting to cross, Dante employs a simile which is very telling of the recurring themes of nature and
especially birds, which he will utilize throughout his work. This simile also further enhances the dark
tone and demonstrates the inherently evil quality that Dante projects onto mankind.
“As in the autumn the leaves fall one after the other, until the branch sees all its spoils upon the
ground, so, the evil seed of Adam fell to that shore, one by one, and at signals, as the falcon does
at its recall. Thus they go over the dark water.” (p – 1420)
There is a flash, and an earthquake, which renders Dante unconscious. Upon awakening, Dante finds
himself in Limbo, the first circle of Hell. With Virgil in the lead, the pair continues on their journey of
discovery.
In the first circle of Hell, Dante encounters the eternal residence of his companion and all the
other spirits who were unfortunate enough to have lived and died before the Christian era. It is during an
encounter with the world’s best poets that Dante
is honored to be accepted into a circle of six of
the best writers of the time. It is interesting to
note that Dante does not use any similes at this
stage of Hell’s punishments. It is not until he
descends into the second circle that similes are
utilized again and then in a much milder tone.
But first, our heroes encounter the monster Minos
lurking at the threshold of the second circle of
Hell. It is this creature whom assigns the condemned souls to their level of punishment by curling his tail
around them in a corresponding number of turns to the level they must descend into Hells dismal depths.
Once past this beast, it is here in the second circle where the lustful are punished; Dante fires off a volley
of bird similes in rapid succession. It is through the imagery of the various similes that Dante sets the
tone and grave intensity of his portrayal of the sinner’s apt punishments. Dante has sympathy and
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understanding for the lustful; so, he utilizes starlings, cranes, and doves as the subjects of his similes to
give a light and airy feeling to the punishment of the lustful.
“As doves summoned by their desire, with wings raised and firm, sail through the air, borne on to
their sweet nest by their will alone, so those spirits moved from the band where Dido is, coming
to us through the malignant air, so responsive were they to my affectionate cry.” (p – 1427)
Through this simile Dante imparts to the reader a real sense of compassion towards the lustful and
therefore reduces the feeling of suffering for this sin. At the end of canto IV, Dante actually faints from
pity of the sinners weeping.
The gluttons are next up on Dante’s tour of Hell’s eternal torments in the third circle. It is here
where the sinners must lie in mud and endure a rain of filth and excrement while being tormented with the
insatiable sound of the howling, snarling, and
barking of the three headed beast, Cerberus.
Virgil feeds the beast dirt and Dante employs a
very interesting simile to explain the reaction
of Cerberus.
“As a barking dog, longing for food,
grows quiet after he has seized it, since
he thinks only of eating, so did those
filthy heads of the demon Cerberus who thunders over the shades, making them wish they were
deaf.” (p – 1430)
With this simile Dante employs a very common analogy which anyone who has ever spent much time
around K-9s can appreciate. It is through this type of common experience the author draws the reader
into his story and makes it real for them, thus increasing the emotional impact of his imagery.
In the fourth circle of Hell, the avaricious and the prodigal charge at one another with giant rocks
in an endless struggle for dominance. Dante uses another reference from Homer combined with a violent
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picture of an ocean tempest to make his point of the dynamic clash in this level of Hell. “As the waves
above Charybdis break against each other as they meet, so in this place the souls must clash.” This simile
pictures the violence and turmoil which one will witness as a great storm rages at sea, which is again, a
very common experience to anyone who has been near a coast and experienced a large storm front
making landfall. Hurricane survivors have said that the smells, sights, and sounds of the raging storm are
something which is strongly etched into their psyches for all times. So, anyone who has had such
experiences, upon reading this simile, will be immediately drawn into the passage with all of their
profound memories reinforcing and magnifying the drama of Dante’s imagery.
The river Styx is a part of the fifth circle of Hell. It is here where the wrathful must spend
eternity in its swampy fetid cesspool of a bank struggling with one another hoping for just a moment of
relief. While the Sullen lie just beyond the bank, beneath the Styx’s water, eternally choking on its mud.
Dante and Virgil now encounter the
boatman Phlegyas, as he glides across the
river in his swift ferry of the damned. The
simile is used to describe the boatman’s
approach, will definitely be of great
attunement to any archers who may be
reading this passage. “Never did a
bowstring drive an arrow which sped so
quickly through the air as a little boat I saw then.” (p – 1436) After a short bit of bantering back and
forth, the boatman agrees to take our epic heroes on to the walls of the city of Dis, which separates the
upper regions of Hell from the lower domains of the twice cursed souls who suffer damnation there.
The demons which stood watch at the cities gates refused to allow our heroes entry, so, an angel
was dispatched from on high to ensure the continued success of Dante’s quest. It is here where one of the
most graphic and notable pairs of similes is shown to enforce the awesome power of God on high. Dante
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is here utilizing his reader’s piety towards God to demonstrate the true power and importance of his
journey. Dante is assuming that all of his readers are going to be good members of the Roman Catholic
Church and are therefore God fearing Christians, which is what gives the following passage its intense
power over the reader.
“And now over the turbid waters came a crash full of terror at which both the shores trembled, a
sound like that of a whirlwind made violent by
conflicting currents which hits the forest without
restraint, shatters, beats down, and sweeps away
the boughs. Behind a cloud of dust it moves on
fiercely, and makes the beasts and shepherds
flee. My master freed my eyes and said; now
direct your sight over that ancient foam to where
the mist is thickest. As frogs before their enemy the snake scatter through the water until each
squat on the bottom, so I saw more than a thousand ruined spirits fleeing before one [an angel]
who, with dry feet, passed over the Styx.” (p – 1441)
The sheer power and authority of the angelic messenger forces the city gates open and our epic heroes
continue on their journey to the sixth circle of damnation.
The heretics are punished in the sixth circle of Hell and Dante must linger here to become
accustomed to the smell of the burning river of blood that lies just below in the seventh circle. During his
stay, Dante encounters a rival political leader by the name of Farinata and has an informative time dealing
with Italian politics, but there is not much simile usage. The next interesting simile occurs at the deep
valley wall at the first ring of the seventh circle of Hell, where the legendary Minotaur is encountered. In
order for our heroes to slip past the raging beast, Virgil drives him into a blind rage by mentioning the
causes of his death. “As a bull that breaks loose at the moment when it receives a mortal blow and cannot
go straight, but plunges here and there, so I saw the Minotaur stagger.” (p – 1451) The beasts fall allows
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our heroes to enter into the first ring of the seventh circle where those souls whom were violent to others
are forced to spend their eternity in a boiling river of blood. It is here that our duo confronts the Centaurs.
After much negotiation, the Centaurs agree to lead our heroes to a bridge that still crosses the burning
river, but there is deception in the offing. After a chase, our main characters find themselves in the
second ring where the suicides are punished by becoming trees. It is here where a really graphic simile is
used, which anyone who has ever thrown a green log on a hot fire has undoubtedly experienced. “As a
green log, burning at one end, drips from the other and hisses with the steam that escapes, so from the
broken branch words and blood came out together;” (p -1456) In this very simple passage, Dante has
managed to take what is probably a very common and universal experience at burning wood and morphed
it into a sinners very graphic suffering thusly pulling in the unsuspecting reader. Dante then follows this
experience with a very rapid use of three similes to help intensify the Harpies feeding on the damned and
the hell hounds running down a sinner. Dante’s apt utilization of simile continues through the rest of the
seventh circle as they encounter the blasphemers, the sodomites who are tortured on a desert of burning
sand, and finally the usurers who are perched on the edge of an abyss close to falling into the circle of
fraud below as they bicker amongst themselves.
Virgil and Dante are now standing on the precipice overlooking a great abyss which they must
cross to gain entry to the eighth circle of Hell. Virgil takes the
cord, which has been around Dante’s waist and throws it off
into the chasm and then waits. Dante then utilizes a series of
similes to describe to the reader what happens next. “As a
swimmer rises after going down to loosen an anchor caught by
a rock or something else hidden in the sea who stretches forth
his arms and draws up his feet.” (p – 1470) Dante describes
the raising of the monster Geryon. As this simile describes,
the beast is much like a man, but also has the body of a reptile
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with a pointed tail and hairy paws. “As skiffs sometimes lie along the shore partly in the water and partly
on land” (p – 1471) is how Dante describes the great beasts landing at the feet of our heroes. Through the
use of similes utilizing common and familiar ideas, Dante is able to describe this fabulous creation to his
readers in a way that they can understand and visualize this unique creature in their mind’s eye. Virgil
mounts the back of this great swimming creature and then summons Dante to join him. At this point, all
of Dante’s courage leaves him and as he climbs aboard he cannot even speak.
“As one who has the chill of the quartan fever so close that his nails are already blue, and who
shivers merely at the sight of shade, so I became…. I placed myself on those big shoulders. See
that you hold me, I wished to say, but my voice did not come out as I thought.” (p – 1473)
Dante here again utilizes a universally known and understood condition to pull his readers into his own
state of being. Dante describes himself as if a high fever from illness has left him week and powerless to
describe his level of fear. Once again, this is something all people can understand and identify with.
Dante and Virgil once across the great abyss are now confronted with the eighth circle of Hades
known as Malebolge, or the evil pockets (or pouches). Its name refers to the circles division into ten
various areas separated by great folds of earth. It is here where the various sinners such as, the panderers
and seducers, the flatterers and simoniacs, the astrologist or diviners, followed by the barraters all receive
their varied and just punishments. It is in canto XXIII that a very telling set of similes appears just before
our heroes encounter the hypocrites in the sixth pouch, which shows not only a strong use of family to
help the readers relate to our heroes, but also demonstrates the strong bonds and feelings that our heroes
have developed for each other.
“He had not finished giving this counsel when I saw the demons not far away coming with wings
extended to seize us. My guide suddenly took hold of me and, as a mother who is awakened by a
noise and sees close to her the burning flames, who takes her son and flees, caring more for him
than for herself, and who does not stop even long enough to put on any clothes, so, down from the
edge of the hard bank, lying on his back, my guide slid over the rock which walls one side of the
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ditch. Water never ran so fast through a sluice to turn a millwheel, at the moment when it is
closest to the paddles, as my master went down over the bank, carrying me upon his breast, not as
a companion, but as a son.” (p – 1495)
Having just narrowly escaped the winged demons and their hooks, our heroes continue through the final
four pouches of the eighth circle of Hell. Here they encounter the hypocrites, and then the thieves that
must spend their horrifying eternity in the seventh pouch trapped in a pit of vipers. The thieves become
vipers themselves through a mind numbing process
which Dante describes in great detail utilizing a nature
simile followed in quick succession by two more
universally understood ones.
“Ivy never clung to a tree so tightly as the
horrible beast entwined the others members in
its own; then they grew together and exchanged
their color as if they had been hot wax, nor did
either one or the other appear as before. Thus a
dark hue moves ahead of a flame over a sheet of
paper, as the whiteness dies away before it
becomes black.” (p – 1503)
Only through the use of a simile could one ever hope to describe this eerie transformation which really
defies description. As it is truly best left to the individual’s fertile imagination when properly stimulated
in just the way that Dante accomplished it here to fully deliver the appropriate shock and awe. In the
eighth pouch of the eighth circle, Dante speaks to the ghost of Odysseus who has been condemned to the
hell of spiritual theft for his deception of the Trojan horse. Then in the ninth pouch, the souls of sowers
of scandal and schism walk in a circle with wounds that open and then close over and over again. Finally
in the tenth pouch the falsifiers suffer from horrible diseases.
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The ninth circle of Hell is reached through the giants’ well with the help of the giant Antaeus who
picks up our heroes and deposits them in the lowest region of the abyss. In Caina, which is the first ring
of the ninth circle, the betrayers of kin stand frozen up to their necks in the lake of ice. The second ring is
known as Antenora, which is reserved for those sinners who have betrayed their country and party and
stand frozen to the head in ice. In the third ring of Ptolomea, where those who betrayed their own guests
are frozen on their backs with their tears making ice that covers their eyes in painful agony. The fourth
ring known as Judecca, is home to those condemned to full submersion in the icy deep for the betrayal of
their benefactors. Finally our hero’s journey is close to its end as they approach Lucifer, who is also
plunged waist deep into the ice. Satan’s three heads are each chewing one of the greatest sinners of all
times: Judas, the betrayer of Christ, and Cassius and Brutus the betrayers of Julius Caesar. Virgil leads
Dante as they climb down and then up the body of the devil holding on to great tufts of frozen hair, as
they pass through the center of the Earth. Eventually our heroes reach the river Lethe and travel along it
until they emerge back on Tara Firma.
Note
All illustrations are from:
The Gustav Dore Collection
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