Beyond Time I Stand
Feraco
Myth to Science Fiction
26 October 2009
Canto 1: Data File
• Settings: The Dark Wood, the True
Way, Mount Joy, and the Dark
Wood (return)
• Figures: The Leopard, Lion, and
She-Wolf (Three Beasts); Virgil
• Allusions: The Greyhound, The
Aeneid
• What Happens: Dante tries to
move beyond confusion, but is
defeated by his sins. Divine
intervention sends him on a
different course
Dante
• At this point, Dante is thirty-five,
suffering from a literal midlife
crisis
• It’s not clear whether he’s lost his
morals, or whether his confusion
also lies in his exile from Florence
• Raffa says the source of his
disorientation could be “spiritual,
physical, psychological, moral,
political – [it’s] difficult to
determine at this point”
• In any case, his life isn’t unfolding
the way he thought it would
The Dark Wood: Selva oscura
• While it’s clear that the Wood symbolizes
confusion and loss, we ask ourselves: why
a wood?
– Raffa proposes that Virgil’s use of the forest as
the underworld’s entrance in The Aeneid
inspires it
– There’s also a lot of medieval literary tradition
to look at; knights were always getting lost in
forests in legends
– Augustine had linked sin to a “region of
unlikeness” in his work
– Dante’s also used the forest as a symbol when
describing adolescent confusion in Convivo
– Finally, there’s Plato’s idea of chaotic matter –
unformed, unnamed, unknowable – which
Dante’s readers would have recognized
Mount Joy
• When Dante returns to his
True Way, he sees a little hill
with sunlight shining on it
and, overjoyed by the sight,
rushes forward
• Mount Joy symbolizes
salvation for Dante
• In medieval thought,
abandonment of the "straight
way" usually symbolized
alienation from God
Mount Joy
• Dante also uses the path as a
counterexample to the
degeneration of his city
• To leave the path and lose
one’s way is to waste the
divine gift, and to live a
meaningless life in the
process
• Here, as in many other places,
Dante’s symbols stand for
multiple antecedents
The Leopard
• In some texts, the Leopard
represents Avarice and
Immoderate Desire; in
Ciardi’s translation, it
represents Fraud / Betrayal /
Malice
• It’s the first Beast Dante
encounters on the True Way,
and its associated sins are the
last ones he “recognizes” on
his journey through Hell
The Leopard
• The choice of the Leopard here is
probably inspired by the Bible’s
Jeremiah 5:6: “Wherefore a lion out of
the wood hath slain them, a wolf in the
evening hath spoiled them, a leopard
watcheth for their cities: every one that
shall go out thence shall be taken,
because their transgressions are
multiplied, their rebellions
strengthened”
• The passage refers to the impending
punishment of people who refuse to
repent for their wrongdoings
• Also important to note is the leopard’s
camouflaged hide, symbolizing sin’s
ability to cloak itself
The Lion
• The Lion is a somewhat
simpler figure, with origins
identical to those of the
Leopard (i.e., based on the
Jeremiah passage)
• He’s the second Beast Dante
encounters on the Path
The Lion
• Unlike the Leopard and the
She-Wolf, the Lion’s
associated sins are
consistently translated:
Violence and Ambition
• We see his sins’ “circle” when
Dante reaches the seventh
circle
– The circle itself has three
rounds, suggesting a complex
response to the Lion’s sins
The She-Wolf
• Just switch up the Leopard’s
commentary, and you get the
She-Wolf: In some texts, she
represents Fraud / Betrayal /
Malice, but she embodies
Avarice and Immoderate
Desire here
• She is the last Beast Dante
encounters, and the one he
seems to fear the most
The She-Wolf
• While the She-Wolf also takes her
origins from the Jeremiah passage,
Dante’s use of a wolf would have had
special resonance for Italian readers
• The country’s traditions descended
from the Roman Empire, and the
founders of Rome – the brothers
Romulus and Remus – were supposedly
nursed and raised in the wild by a SheWolf
– As a result, the She-Wolf became associated
with the city
• To see one so corrupted and ravening
here is to remind readers of the
perverse turn Florence has taken as it’s
moved into the “modern age”
The Greyhound
• Dante includes a prophecy in
which a Greyhound that feeds on
good will destroy the She-Wolf
(which sustains itself on man’s
evils)
• It’s not clear who the Greyhound
represents – Ciardi suggests
Cangrande della Scala, a patron
Dante proved particularly fond of
– but Raffa suggests Dante kept
the prophecy vague for a reason
Virgil
• Virgil was a Roman poet who lived
shortly before Christ’s birth; he’s
responsible for some of the
greatest literature in history,
including The Aeneid (which Dante
repeatedly references)
• In one of his other works
(Eclogues), Virgil foretells the
coming of a “wonderchild” –
something medieval Christian
audiences hailed as a prophecy of
Christ’s birth
Virgil
• Virgil is one of the Virtuous
Pagans in this tale, yet he’s also a
conduit for divine guidance
• Without him, Dante doesn’t stand
a chance of getting through Hell
• Virgil’s presence as guide is
therefore neither coincidental nor
superfluous; he’s almost as
important to the narrative as
Dante himself
Canto II: Data File
• Setting: Unclear; all we know
is that Dante and Virgil have
traveled away from the Dark
Wood
• Figures: Beatrice, Lucia, Mary
(Three Blessed Women)
• Allusions: Aeneas, Paul
Canto II: Data File
• Summary: Canto II serves as a
minor footnote in the overall
Inferno, a short expository
sequence in which Dante’s
motivation is confirmed. He
expresses doubt about the
journey ahead, but Virgil
convinces him to abandon his
fear by telling him about how
Beatrice directed him
Three Blessed Women
• Mary is the Virgin Mary, who
symbolizes God’s compassion for
Dante’s plight here
• Saint Lucia, or Lucy of Syracuse,
was a martyr who medieval
Christians associated with vision /
sight
• Finally, Beatrice embodies Divine
Love; we already know why Dante
chose her
• “I' son Beatrice che ti faccio
andare”: I am Beatrice, who
makes you go.
Aeneas and Paul
• Dante mentions both men as a way of
proving via contrast that he’s unfit to
journey into the afterlife
• Raffa: “The apostle Paul claims in the
Bible to have been transported to the
"third heaven" (2 Corinthians 12:2), and
Aeneas visits the underworld in book 6
of Virgil's Aeneid.”
• These two otherworldly travelers are
also associated with Rome, seat of both
the empire and the church.
– Raffa: “Dante, contrary to Augustine and
others, believed the Roman empire in fact
prepared the way for Christianity, with Rome
as the divinely chosen home of the Papacy.”
Canto III: Data File
• Settings: The Gate of Hell, the
Vestibule of Hell, and Acheron
• Figures: Charon, Pope
Celestine V (unidentified)
• Allusions: Acheron + Charon
(The Aeneid)
• Punishable Sin: Opportunism
Canto III: Data File
• Summary: Dante and Virgil pass
the Gate of Hell and are
immediately battered by horrific
cries of suffering. They witness
the punishment of the
Opportunists – those who refused
to choose between good and evil,
deciding instead to shift sides in
an effort to stay on top. The
travelers move past them and
head to Acheron, where Charon
tries to refuse them; as Virgil
forces Charon to do their bidding,
Dante faints, overcome with fear.
The Gate of Hell
I am the way into the city of woe.
I am the way to a forsaken people.
I am the way into eternal sorrow.
Sacred justice moved my architect.
I was raised here by divine omnipotence,
Primordial love and ultimate intellect.
Only those elements time cannot wear
Were made before me, and beyond time I
stand.
Abandon all hope ye who enter here.
Entering the Vestibule
• After noting the presence of
the Holy Trinity as Hell’s
source – the Father (Power),
Son (Wisdom and Intellect),
and Holy Spirit (Love) – Dante
and Virgil encounter their
first sinners
• It’s from this point that
Dante’s system of poetic
justice becomes clear
The Opportunists
• The first to suffer are those who have
been denied entrance to every other
realm of the afterlife – the “fencesitters, wafflers, opportunists, and
neutrals” – as well as fallen angels who
refused to side with God
• This place is entirely invented by Dante,
although Raffa finds some Biblical
inspiration in Revelations to justify its
creation: “But because thou art
lukewarm and neither cold nor hot, I
will begin to vomit thee out of my
mouth.” (3:16)
The Punishment
• The sufferers chase a banner that
floats just out of reach in the
Vestibule’s filthy air
• As they run in endless circles,
they’re set up by wasps and
hornets; the insects sting them
constantly, and the blood and
matter that constantly flows from
their bodies feeds an endless sea
of worms and maggots beneath
their feet
– Check Ciardi’s explanation of the
“symbolic retribution” this area
contains
Pope Celestine V
• The only sinner Dante recognizes –
the one who makes the “Great
Denial” – is never named; most
assume he’s Pope Celestine V
• Raffa: “His refusal to perform the
duties required of the pope (he
abdicated five months after his
election in July 1294) allowed
Benedetto Caetani to become Pope
Boniface VIII, the man who proved
to be Dante's most reviled
theological, political, and personal
enemy.”
Acheron
• After moving past the Opportunists,
Dante and Virgil reach Acheron, the first
of Hell’s great rivers
– Virgil used it in The Aeneid – although it
should be noted that specific bodies of water
weren’t as important to Virgil as they are to
Dante
• In The Inferno, Acheron serves as a
border wall, a boundary separating the
Opportunists from those who belong in
Hell itself; Charon, Hell’s Ferryman,
takes them across, and no mortals are
to enter Hell
• This would seem to pose a problem for
our intrepid poet
Getting Past Charon
• Dante fleshes out Charon’s
physical description more than
Virgil did in The Aeneid, but the
old man basically behaves the
same way in both texts
• In both texts, the solution is the
same: The protagonist’s guide (in
this case, Virgil himself) presents
the “proper credentials” (divine
will) in order to convince Charon
to take them across
• Unlike Aeneas, Dante panics and
faints – and we, like he, wake up on
the other side of Acheron
Canto IV: Data File
• Setting: Our first Circle!
Circle One: Limbo
• Figures: Homer, Horace,
Lucan, Ovid (The Classical
Poets), as well as many, many
others
• Allusions: The Harrowing of
Hell
• Punishable Sin: Paganism*
Canto IV: Data File
• Summary: Dante wakes up and
glimpses Hell for the first time. As
the poets descend into the First
Circle, we’re struck by how
peaceful it seems. Dante meets an
overwhelming array of historical
figures, and glimpses the
astonishing things man can
achieve alone…but then is sobered
by the realization that these great
achievements pale in comparison
to what is possible through God
Limbo
• While Limbo already existed within
Christian thought, Dante’s is much more
densely populated; it essentially houses
the “Greats of the B.C. Era”
• He includes virtuous non-Christian
adults in addition to the moretraditional unbaptized infants; this even
included major figures from the
Hebrew Bible, which medieval Christian
thought held were “liberated” by Christ
during the Harrowing of Hell
• We thus find an astonishing array of
noteworthy figures here, including
many of Rome’s and Greece’s great
heroes, thinkers, and artists – and even
some medieval non-Christians
Harrowing of Hell
• This refers to Christ’s post-crucifixion
descent into Limbo, when he rescued
and brought to heaven ("harrowing"
implies a sort of violent abduction) his
"ancestors" from the Hebrew Bible
• This is only suggested in the Bible, and
the story appears elsewhere in
apocrypha – books related to but not
included in the Bible
• That said, it was popular enough to be
declared church dogma twice (1215 and
1274)
• Raffa: “Dante's version emphasizes the
power – in both physical and
psychological terms – of Christ's raid on
hell.”
Groups Within Limbo
• Since there are far too many
figures to cite and remember
here, we won’t focus on all of them
– It’s best to take a generalized
approach when analyzing the fourth
Canto
• We can divide the ones we want to
study into different groups: The
Classical Poets, The Heroes and
Heroines (Figures from
Trojan/Roman Political History),
and the Philosophers and Thinkers
Heroes and Heroines
• Electra: Daughter of Atlas and mother of
Dardanus, who’d go on to found Troy
• Hector: Led Trojans against Greeks until Achilles
killed him
• Aeneas: He’s the hero of The Aeneid, escaping
Troy as it burned and journeying to Italy (where
he’d begin laying the foundation for the Roman
Empire). His bloodline eventually produced
Julius Caesar, who Dante considered the first
Roman emperor (think Washington)
• Camilla: A virgin warrior-queen who fought
against the Trojans on Italian soil
• Latinus: The king of the forces who fought the
Trojans on Italian soil, Latinus eventually gave
his daughter, Lavinia, to Aeneas in marriage.
• Saladin: He’s grouped in with these figures, but
he also stands apart; he’s a distinguished
Muslim military leader who was widely
respected – even by foes – for his chivalry
Philosophers/Thinkers
• Most of the great thinkers
here were men whose work
largely fit within the church’s
doctrinal framework; they
represent the apex of human
reason, Plato, Socrates, and
Aristotle in particular
• Others included Hippocrates,
Euclid, and Ptolemy
• Aristotle is the master of this
domain
Aristotle
•
Aristotle commanded tremendous respect in the
Middle Ages, so much so that he was known simply as
“the Philosopher”
– This is why Dante has the other philosophers look up to
him
•
Aristotle owed his popularity to the Latin translations
of his original Greek/Arabic works
– Others, such as Plato (Aristotle’s teacher), had only a
couple or even none of their works translated
•
His works covered everything – “the physical
universe, biology, politics, rhetoric, logic, natural
philosophy, metaphysics, and ethics”
– He also tutored Alexander the Great, founded his own
philosophical school, and lent his moral concepts to
Dante’s Hell
• Finally, Aristotle was the most important authority
for two of Dante's favorite Christian thinkers, Albert
the Great and his student Thomas Aquinas
– Both strove to validate the role of reason and to sharpen
its relationship to faith
The Classic Poets
• We see four here: Homer, Horace, Ovid, and
Lucan
– Virgil makes five, and Dante makes six
• Homer leads; he wrote epic poems about the war
between the Greeks and Trojans (The Iliad) and
Ulysses' adventurous return voyage (The
Odyssey).
– Dante hadn’t read his work (it hadn’t been
translated from Greek yet), but the poet was quite
popular among the writers Dante did read, and he
gained knowledge of him through a sort of osmosis
• Horace was most famous for his poem about
poetry (Ars Poetica)
• Ovid's Metamorphoses (mythological tales of
transformations, often based on relations
between gods and mortals) and Lucan's
Pharsalia (treating the Roman civil war between
Caesar and Pompey) gave Dante many of his
Comedy’s non-Virgilean characters and allusions
Canto V: Data File
• Setting: The Second Circle
• Figures: Minos, Paolo, and
Francesca
• Allusions: Dido, Cleopatra,
Helen, Achilles, Paris,
Lancelot, Tristan, and Isolde
• Punishable Sin: Immoderate
Passion
Canto V: Data File
• Summary: The poets venture into
the Second Circle, where they
encounter Minos, the Dread Judge
of all who pass through Hell. He
tries to force them to go back, a la
Charon, but Virgil works his magic
and they pass. We then see the
Lustful, those whose appetites
overwhelmed their sensibilities.
Dante hears the story of Paolo and
Francesca, and he’s so overcome
that he faints yet again.
Love vs. Lust
• The relationship between the two
has always been somewhat
difficult
• Dante juggles “the ennobling
power of attraction toward the
beauty of a whole person and the
destructive force of possessive
sexual desire”
• It’s striking to see those who
abandoned reason so soon after
those who lived for its pursuit; the
contrast between the first two
circles couldn’t be clearer
Love vs. Lust
• Dante seems to distinguish between
those who feel lust and those who act on
it; it may be impossible to control our
hearts, but it is possible to govern our
bodies
• He shows that this line is a very fine one
indeed; interestingly, his ideas echo
Sternberg’s, i.e., that those who tell
stories of romance and desire help
corrode the sensibilities of those who
read them
• This is the first place where an
unrepentented sin is punished in Hell
– Limbo’s not really a place of punishment,
whereas the Vestibule lies outside of Hell
Love vs. Lust
• Its location, however, is appropriately
ambiguous
• On the one hand, its placement marks it
as the “least serious” sin (it’s farthest
from Satan, who lies at the center)
• On the other hand, it’s the first one we
see, and therefore the first thing we
associate with serious wrongdoing
• If anything, Dante presents this
wrongdoing as a war between instinct
and learned behavior, a war those who
end up in the Second Circle lose; some of
the other sins aren’t so “lucky”
Minos
• Minos, like Charon before him, is a remix – a
figure from classical stories who Dante infuses
with new detail and characteristics
• There were two Minoses in classical literature,
both of which ruled over Greece’s Crete, but we
only care about the first one
• The older Minos, son of Zeus and Europa, was
known as the “favorite of the gods” because of
his wisdom and commitment to law
– Once he died, his reputation earned him the
position of supreme judge of the underworld.
– His duty was to hear the testimony of new souls,
and to make sure their accounts aligned with their
destinies
• Minos' long tail, which he wraps around his body
a number of times equal to the soul's assigned
Circle, is Dante's invention
Famous Lovers
• The stories of the lustful souls Dante
identifies in Canto V share certain
elements: romance, beauty, sex, and
death. In all cases, passion overwhelms
these figures or leads directly to their
downfall.
• Dido, for example, was the queen of
Carthage until her lover – Aeneas –
abandoned her in order to continue his
mission (establishing a new society in
Italy). She was so grief-stricken that she
committed suicide
• Cleopatra, the legendarily beautiful
queen of Egypt, committed suicide in
order to keep the man (Octavian) who
defeated her lover (Antony) from
capturing her
Famous Lovers
• Helen of Troy, famed as the most beautiful
woman alive, played a direct role in the
Trojan War’s origins; once she was abducted
by Paris and dragged back to Troy, her
countrymen came after her, and she
betrayed the Trojans by helping the Greeks
carry out their attack
• Achilles was the most formidable Greek
hero among the forces who laid siege to
Troy.
• Tristan was King Mark’s nephew, and Isolde
Mark’s fiancée; the two mistakenly drank a
love potion that had been intended for Mark
and Isolde, and fell completely in love with
one another. Enraged, Mark shot Tristan
through with an arrow, and he then
clutched his lover so tightly that she died in
his arms as well
Francesca and Paolo
• Raffa: “Francesca da Rimini and Paolo Malatesta
are punished together in hell for their adultery:
Francesca was married to Paolo's brother,
Gianciotto ("Crippled John"). Francesca's shade
tells Dante that her husband is destined for
punishment in Caina – the infernal realm of
familial betrayal named after Cain, who killed
his brother Abel – for murdering her and Paolo.
Francesca was the aunt of Guido Novello da
Polenta, Dante's host in Ravenna during the last
years of the poet's life (1318-21). She was
married for political reasons to Gianciotto of
the powerful Malatesta family, rulers of Rimini.
Dante may have actually met Paolo in Florence
(where Paolo was capitano del popolo--a political
role assigned to citizens of other cities--in
1282), not long before he and Francesca were
killed by Gianciotto.”
Francesca and Paolo
• Raffa: “Francesca, according to Boccaccio, was
blatantly tricked into marrying Gianciotto, who
was disfigured and uncouth, when the handsome
and elegant Paolo was sent in his brother's place
to settle the nuptial contract. Angered at
finding herself wed the following day to
Gianciotto, Francesca made no attempt to
restrain her affections for Paolo and the two in
fact soon became lovers. Informed of this
liaison, Gianciotto one day caught them together
in Francesca's bedroom (unaware that Paolo got
stuck in his attempt to escape down a ladder,
she let Gianciotto in the room); when Gianciotto
lunged at Paolo with a sword, Francesca stepped
between the two men and was killed instead,
much to the dismay of her husband, who then
promptly finished off Paolo as well. Francesca
and Paolo, Boccaccio concludes, were buried –
accompanied by many tears – in a single tomb.
Lancelot
• Raffa: “The story of Lancelot and
Guinevere, which Francesca identifies as
the catalyst for her affair with Paolo, was
a French romance popular both in poetry
and in a prose version known as Lancelot
of the Lake. According to this prose text,
it is Queen Guinevere, wife of King Arthur,
who kisses Lancelot, the most valiant of
Arthur's Knights of the Round Table.
Francesca, by giving the romantic
initiative to Paolo, reverses the roles from
the story. To her mind, the entire book
recounting this famous love affair
performs a role similar to that of the
character Galahad, a friend of Lancelot
who helps bring about the adulterous
relationship between the queen and her
husband's favorite knight.”