Dante
Alighieri (1265-1321)
The greatest Italian poet and one of the most important
writers of European literature. Dante is best known for the epic
poem COMMEDIA, c. 1310-14, later named LA DIVINA COMMEDIA. It
has profoundly affected not only the religious imagination but
all subsequent allegorical creation of imaginary worlds in
literature. Dante spent much of his life traveling from one city
to another. This had perhaps more to do with the restless times
than his wandering character or fixation on the Odyssey.
However, his Commedia can also be called a spiritual travel
book. Dante's idea was to make the world of his poem a mirror of
the world of the Christian God of his era. He thought that
Thomas Aquinas had effected the final reconciliation between
Aristotle's philosophy and Christian faith. Commedia was Dante's
tribute to this system.
Inferno --
Canto I
The Three
Beasts, Virgil
Halfway
through the journey we are living
I found
myself deep in a darkened forest,
For I had
lost all trace of the straight path.
Ah how hard
it is to tell what it was like,
5 How wild the forest
was, how dense and rugged!
To think of
it still fills my mind with panic.
So bitter it
is that death is hardly worse!
But to
describe the good discovered there
I here will tell the
other things I saw.
10 I cannot say clearly how I
entered there,
So drowsy
with sleep had I grown at that hour
When first I
wandered off from the true way.
But when I
had reached the base of a hill,
There at the
border where the valley ended
15 That had cut my heart to the
quick with panic,
I looked up
at the hill and saw its shoulder
Mantled
already with the planet's light
That leads
all people straight by every road.
With that my
panic quieted a little
20 After lingering on in the
lake of my heart
Through the
night I had so grievously passed.
And like a
person who with panting breath
Struggles
ashore out of the wide ocean
Only to
glance back at the treacherous surf,
25 Just so my mind, racing on ahead,
Turned back
to marvel at the pass no one
Ever before
had issued from alive.
After resting
awhile my worn-out body,
I pressed on
up the wasted slope so that
30 I always had one firm foot on the
ground.
But look!
right near the upgrade of the climb
Loomed a
fleet and nimble-footed leopard
With coat
completely covered by dark spots!
He did not
flinch or back off from my gaze,
35 But blocking the path that lay
before me,
Time and
again he forced me to turn around.
The hour was
the beginning of the morning,
And the sun
was rising with those stars
That first
attended it when divine Love
40 Set these lovely creations round
in motion,
So that the
early hour and the pleasant season
Gave me good
reason to keep up my hopes
Of that
fierce beast there with his gaudy pelt.
But not so
when — to add now to my fears —
45 In front of me I caught sight of a
lion!
He appeared
to be coming straight at me
With head
held high and furious for hunger,
So that the
air itself seemed to be shaking.
And then a
wolf stalked, ravenously lean,
50 Seemingly laden with such endless
cravings
That she had
made many live in misery!
She caused my
spirits to sink down so low,
From the
dread I felt in seeing her there,
I lost all
hope of climbing to the summit.
55 And just as a man, anxious for big
winnings,
But the time
comes instead for him to lose,
Cries and
grieves the more he thinks about it,
So did the
restless she-beast make me feel
When, edging
closer toward me, step by step,
60 She drove me back to where the sun
is silent.
While I was
falling back to lower ground,
Before my
eyes now came a figure forward
Of one grown
feeble from long being mute.
When I saw
him in that deserted spot,
65 "Pity me!" I shouted out to him,
"Whoever you
are, a shade or living man."
"Not a man,"
he answered. "Once a man,
Of parents
who had come from Lombardy;
Both of them
were Mantuans by birth.
70 "I was born late in Julius's reign
And dwelt at
Rome under the good Augustus
In the period
of false and lying gods.
"A poet I
was, and I sang of the just
Son of
Anchises who embarked from Troy
75 After proud Ilium was burned to
ashes.
"But why do
you turn back to so much grief?
Why not bound
up the delightful mountain
Which is the
source and font of every joy?"
"Are you then
Virgil and that wellspring
80 That pours forth so lush a stream
of speech?"
Shamefacedly
I responded to him.
"O glory and
light of all other poets,
May the long
study and the profound love
That made me
search your work come to my aid!
85 "You are my mentor and my chosen
author:
Alone you are
the one from whom I have taken
The beautiful
style that has brought me honor.
"Look at the
beast that drove me to turn back!
Rescue me
from her, celebrated sage,
90 For she causes my veins and pulse
to tremble."
"You are
destined to take another route,"
He answered,
seeing me reduced to tears,
"If you want
to be clear of this wilderness,
"Because this
beast that forces you to cry out
95 Will not let anyone pass by her
way
But harries
him until she finally kills him.
"By nature
she is so depraved and vicious
That her
greedy appetite is never filled:
The more she
feeds, the hungrier she grows.
100 "Many the animal she has mated with,
And will with
more to come, until the Greyhound
That shall
painfully slaughter her arrives.
"He shall not
feast on property or pelf
But on
wisdom, love, and manliness,
105 And he shall be born between Feltro and
Feltro.
"He shall
save low prostrated Italy
For which
Nisus, Turnus, and Euryalus,
And the
virgin Camilla died of wounds.
"He shall
hunt the beast through every town
110 Until he chases her back down to hell
From which
envy first had thrust her forth.
"I think and
judge it best for you, then,
To follow me,
for I will be your guide,
Directing you
to an eternal place
115 "Where you shall listen to the
desperate screams
And see the
spirits of the past in torment,
As at his
second death each one cries out;
"And you
shall also see those who are happy
Even in
flames, since they hope to come,
120 Whenever that may be, among the
blessed.
"If you still
wish to ascend to the blessed,
A soul
worthier than I shall guide you:
On my
departure I will leave you with her.
"For the
Emperor who rules there above,
125 Since I lived in rebellion to his law,
Will not
permit me to enter his city.
"Everywhere
his kingdom comes: there he reigns,
There his
heavenly city and high throne.
Oh happy the
one elected to go there!"
130 And I said to him, "Poet, I entreat
you,
By the God
whom you have never known,
So may I flee
from this and from worse evil,
"Lead me to
the place you just described
That I may
come to see Saint Peter's gate
135 And those you say are deeply
sorrowful."
Then he moved on and I
walked straight behind.
Notes
1 It was Good Friday morning in 1300, a Jubilee year proclaimed by Pope
Boniface VIII. Since Dante was born in 1265, he is now
thirty-five old, halfway through the biblical span of seventy
years.
17 In the Ptolemaic system, the sun is a planet.
32 The allegorical meaning of the three beasts is not clear. One
tradition maintains that the leopard is probably symbolic of
fraud; the lion (l .45) of violence; and the she-wolf (l. 49) of
incontinence. Since these make up the three chief divisions of
hell, the poet first encounters them in reverse order.
64 Virgil (70-19 B. C.), born in the time of Julius Caesar, is the author
of the Aeneid which describes Aeneas, son of Anchises,
journeying through the underworld (Book VI) before battling to
found Rome. Camilla, Turnus, etc. (ll. 107-08) are characters in
the poem.
101 The Greyhound may refer to Dante's patron Can Grande della Scala,
lord of Verona, which lies between two towns of Feltro in
Northern Italy. Another interpretation considers the appearance
of the Greyhound as the second coming of Christ who will deliver
humankind from evil (the she-wolf).
115-120 In these lines the poet is anticipating his journey through hell,
purgatory, and paradise.
124 Virgil refers to himself as a rebel of the Emperor's (God's) laws
since he was not consciously aware of Christ as the Redeemer of
humanity (see Canto IV, and Purgatorio XXII).
BY
Suma V S
