Inferno.
The first part of Dante Alighieri's 14th-century epic poem "Divine Comedy", followed by Purgatorio and Paradiso.
In 1857, Inferno is illustrated by Gustave Doré's seventy four wood engravings.
I'm dumping all of them.
Gustave Doré
(6 January 1832 – 23 January 1883)
Overview of Inferno.
Dante's Inferno with english translation can be found here:
http://oll.libertyfund.org/titles/2308
I'm adding a commentary for each pic from CliffsNotes and Wiki, as english is not my native language.
Hope you'll enjoy it
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The poem starts on Maundy Thursday (Christian holy day falling on the Thursday before Easter) in the year 1300.
In the middle of the journey of his life (35yo), Dante finds himself lost in a dark wood, and he cannot find the straight path. He cannot remember how he wandered away from his true path that he should be following, but he is in a fearful place, impenetrable and wild.
He looks up from this dismal valley and sees the sun shining on the hilltop.
Analysis: For Dante, Man must always be aware intellectually of his own need to perform the righteous act. Therefore, Sin is a perversion of the intellect. Thus, when Dante finds himself in a "dark wood," he is speaking allegorically for any man who is not constantly conscious of the "right path." If every waking moment is not consciously devoted to morality, Man can find himself in a dark wood.
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After resting for a moment, he begins to climb the hill towards the light, but he is suddenly confronted by a leopard, which blocks his way and he turns to evade it.
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Then a hungry lion appears more fearful than the leopard.
But a "she-wolf" comes forward and drives Dante back down into the darkness of the valley.
Just as Dante begins to feel hopeless in his plight, a figure approaches him. It has difficulty speaking, as though it had not spoken for a long time. At first Dante is afraid, but then implores it for help, whether it be man or spirit. It answered: "not a man now, but once I was." It is the shade of Virgil, who wrote the Aeneid, and lived in the times of the "lying and false gods."
Dante hails Virgil as his master and the inspiration for all poets. When Virgil hears how Dante was driven back by the "she-wolf," he tells Dante that he must go another way because the she-wolf snares and kills all things. However, Virgil prophesies that someday, a marvelous greyhound, whose food is wisdom, love, and courage, will come from the nation between "Feltro and Feltro," and save Italy, chasing the she-wolf back to Hell.
Virgil commands Dante to follow him and see the horrible sights of the damned in Hell, the hope of those doing penance in Purgatory, and if he so desires, the realm of the blessed in Paradise. Another guide will take him to this last realm, which Dante cannot (or may not) enter. Dante readily agrees, and the two poets begin their long journey.
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It is now the evening of Good Friday, as the two poets approach the entrance to Hell.
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But Dante wonders if he is truly worthy to make the journey: He recalls that Aeneas, and also St. Paul, made the journey, and he feels unworthy to be included in this noble group.
Virgil reproves Dante for being afraid and assures him that there is great concern for him among angelic spirits, mainly Beatrice, Dante's beloved, who is now in Heaven. Virgil relates how the Virgin Mary's messenger, St. Lucia, sent Beatrice to instruct Virgil to help Dante rediscover the "Right Path" from the Dark Woods. Virgil says that Beatrice wept as she pleaded, and Virgil eagerly obeyed her instructions and rescued Dante, so they are ready to begin their journey.
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Virgil tells Dante to have courage always because the three ladies of Heaven — Virgin Mary, St. Lucia, and Beatrice — all care for him. Dante is reassured and tells Virgil to lead on and he will follow.
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Dante passes through the gate of Hell, which bears an inscription ending with the phrase:
"Lasciate ogne speranza, voi ch'intrate"
"Abandon all hope, ye who enter here."
Dante does not fully understand the meaning of the inscription and asks Virgil to explain it to him. Virgil says that Dante must try to summon his courage and tells him that this is the place that Virgil told him previously to expect: the place for the fallen people, those who have lost the good of intellect.
The poets enter the gate and the initial sights and sounds of Hell at once assail Dante; he is moved deeply and horrified by the sight of spirits in deep pain. The unending cries make Dante ask where they come from, and Virgil replies that these are the souls of the uncommitted, who lived for themselves, and of the angels who were not rebellious against God nor faithful to Satan. Neither Heaven nor Hell would have them, and so they must remain here with the selfish, forever running behind a banner and eternally stung by hornets and wasps. Worms at their feet eat the blood and tears of these beings.
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Dante wants to learn more about these souls, but Virgil moves him along to the beach of Acheron where the ferryman, Charon, tells Dante to leave because Dante is still living and does not belong there. Charon tells Dante to take a lighter craft from another shore. Virgil reprimands Charon, saying that it is willed, and what is willed must happen: "So it is wanted there where the power lies".
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Charon speaks no more, but by signs, and pushing, he herds the other spirits into the boat. The boatman strikes with his oars any soul that hesitates. The boat crosses, but before it lands, the opposite shore is again crowded with condemned souls. Virgil tells Dante to take comfort in Charon's first refusal to carry him on the boat, because only condemned spirits come this way.
As Virgil finishes his explanation, a sudden earthquake, accompanied by wind and flashing fire from the ground, terrifies Dante to such a degree that he faints and does not awaken until he is on the other side.
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Dante wakes to a clap of thunder. He has been in a deep sleep for some time, so his eyes are rested. He finds himself across the Acheron and on the brink of a deep abyss from which he hears the "thunder of Hell's eternal cry." Virgil asks Dante to follow him, but Dante is wary because Virgil is deathly pale. Virgil explains that his pallor is due to pity, not fear.
The poets enter the first circle of Hell — Limbo — the place where virtuous pagans reside. Virgil explains that these shades (souls) are only here because they were born without the benefit of Christianity, either due to being born before Christ, or because the soul was an unbaptized child. Dante asks if any soul was ever redeemed from Limbo, and Virgil tells him that the "Mighty One" came once and took a number of souls to Heaven.
Analysis: Between Hell proper, the place of punishment, and the vestibule, Dante places the circle of Limbo, devoted to those people who had no opportunity to choose either good or evil in terms of having faith in Christ. This circle is occupied by the virtuous pagans, those who lived before Christ was born, and by the unbaptized.
Many of the shades in Limbo are not really sinners, but people who were born before Christianity. These virtuous pagans live forever in a place of their creation.
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The two poets have been walking during this conversation, and they pass by the wood of Limbo. Dante sees a fire ahead and realizes that figures of honor rest near it. He asks Virgil why these souls are honored by separation from the other spirits, and Virgil replies that their fame on Earth gained them this place.
A voice hails Virgil's return, and the shades of Homer, Horace, Ovid, and Lucan approach the two poets. Virgil tells Dante their names and then turns away to talk with them. After a time, the group salutes Dante, saying they regard him as one of their number. The entire group moves ahead, talking about subjects that Dante does not disclose, and they come to a castle with seven walls surrounded by a small stream.
Dante and Virgil then pass over the stream, go through the seven gates, and reach a green meadow. Dante recognizes the figures of authority dwelling there, and as the poets stand on a small hill, Dante gives the names of rulers, philosophers, and others who are there and regrets that he does not have time to name them all. Prominent among the philosophers are Socrates, Plato, Cicero, Seneca, and "the master of those who know" (Aristotle). Dante and Virgil leave this quiet place and come to one where there is no light.
Analysis: Allegorically, the fact that these pagans lived a highly virtuous, ethical, or moral life and are still in Limbo implies that no amount of humanistic endeavor and no amount of virtue, knowledge, ethics, or morality can save or redeem a person who hasn't had faith in Christ. Likewise, if an individual has faith in Christ, they must be openly baptized and in a state of grace to avoid Limbo. For Dante, good works, virtue, or morality count for nothing if a person hasn't acknowledged Christ as the redeemer.
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Dante and Virgil descend to the second circle, this one smaller than the first. This is the actual beginning of Hell where the sinners are punished for their sins. Beyond the first circle, all of those condemned for active, deliberately willed sin are judged to one of the lower eight circles by the serpentine Minos, the mythological king of Crete.
Dante witnesses Minos, a great beast, examining each soul as it stands for judgment.
Minos hears the souls confess their sins, and then wraps his tail around himself to determine the number of the circle where the sinner belongs.
Minos tells Dante to beware of where he goes and to whom he turns. Minos cautions Dante against entering, but Virgil silences him, first by asking him why he too questions Dante (as Charon did), and then by telling him, in the same words he used to tell Charon, that it was willed, and what is willed must occur.
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Dante beholds a place completely dark, in which there is noise worse than that of a storm at sea. Lamenting, moaning, and shrieking, the spirits are whirled and swept by an unceasing storm. Dante learns that these are the spirits doomed by carnal lust.
Dante condemns these "carnal malefactors"[9] for letting their appetites sway their reason. They are the first ones to be truly punished in Hell.
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In this circle, Dante sees Semiramis, Dido, Cleopatra, Helen of Troy, Achilles, Paris, Tristan, and many others who were overcome by sexual love during their life.
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Dante then asks particularly to speak to two sinners who are together, Francesca da Rimini and Paolo Malatesta, and Virgil tells him to call them to him in the name of love. They come, and one thanks Dante for his pity and wishes him peace, and she then tells their story.
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She reveals first that her husband who murdered them will be punished for his fratricide in Caïna, within the ninth circle. With bowed head, Dante tells Virgil he is thinking of the "sweet thoughts and desires" that brought the lovers to this place. Calling Francesca by name, he asks her to explain how she and her lover were lured into sin.
Francesca replies that a book of the romance of Lancelot and Guinevere caused their downfall. She and her husband's brother Paolo Malatesta were alone, reading it aloud, and so many parts of the book seemed to tell of their own love. They kissed, and the book was forgotten but then they died a violent death at the hands of her husband, Giovanni. "We read no more that day".
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During her story, the other spirit weeps bitterly, and Dante is so moved by pity that he also weeps and faints.
Analysis: Dante thought of Hell as a place where the sinner deliberately chose his or her sin and failed to repent. This is particularly true of the lower circles, which include malice and fraud. In the example of Francesca and Paolo, however, Francesca did not deliberately choose adultery; hers was a gentle lapsing into love for Paolo, a matter of incontinence, and a weakness of will. Only the fact that her husband killed her in the moment of adultery allowed her no opportunity to repent, and for this reason, she is condemned to Hell.
Francesca is passionate, certainly capable of sin, and certainly guilty of sin, but she represents the woman whose only concern is for the man she loves, not her immortal soul. She found her only happiness, and now her misery, in Paolo's love. Her love was her heaven; it is now her hell.
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Dante awakens in the third circle of Hell, the circle of the Gluttons. A stinking slush falls from the sky and collects on the ground where naked shades howl and roll in the mire.
Cerberus, the three-headed monster, stands over those sunk deep in the slush. He barks furiously and claws and bites all within reach. These spirits howl in the rain and attempt to evade the monster. Seeing the two travelers, Cerberus turns on them and requires a concession for each of his three mouths before he permits passage. Cerberus is silenced only when Virgil throws handfuls of the reeking dirt and slime into his three mouths.
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The poets make their way across the swamp, walking occasionally on the shades, which seem to have no corporeal bodies. One Glutton sits up from the mire and addresses Dante. The shade is Ciacco, the Hog, and claims to be from Florence and to know Dante. The two speak, and Dante feels sorry for Ciacco's fate.
Dante expresses his sympathy, and then asks Ciacco the fate of Florence and why it is so divided. Ciacco foretells a future war and the defeat and expulsion of one party. He concludes his prophecy, and Dante asks where he can find certain good citizens of Florence. Ciacco tells him that they are much further down in Hell because they committed crimes far worse than his, and that Dante will see them if he travels deeper into Hell. Ciacco then swoons and falls unconscious into the muck.
Analysis: The glutton is a person with an uncontrolled appetite, who deliberately, in his or her own solitary way, converted natural foods into a sort of god, or at least an object of worship. Therefore, the glutton's punishment is a reversal, and instead of eating the fine delicate foods and wines of the world, he or she is forced to eat filth and mud. Instead of sitting in his or her comfortable house relishing all the sensual aspects of good food and good wine and good surroundings, he or she lies in the foul rain.
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Dante and Virgil enter the fourth circle, the circle for the Wasters and the Hoarders, and are stopped by the raging Plutus (either Pluto the classical ruler of the underworld or Plutus the Greek deity of wealth), but Virgil then chastises Plutus who collapses and falls to the ground letting the poets pass.
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Those whose attitude toward material goods deviated from the appropriate mean are punished in the fourth circle. They include the avaricious or miserly (including many "clergymen, and popes and cardinals"), who hoarded possessions, and the prodigal, who squandered them.
Their punishment is that they are rolling enormous weights at one another, the Wasters shouting, "Why do you hoard?" and the Hoarders shouting, "Why do you waste?" After they clash, the souls hurry their weights back again, only to repeat the action, all the while screaming.
Virgil discourses on the nature of Fortune, who raises nations to greatness and later plunges them into poverty
Analysis: The Hoarders and the Wasters are housed together, constantly fighting against their opposite, never to win, just as they couldn't win on Earth.
Virgil's discussion of Dame Fortune explains why these sinners are placed below the Gluttons. Dame Fortune is one of God's chosen ministers, who doles out luck and misfortune in a preordained manner. The Hoarders and Wasters, however, believed that they could outrun her; thus they believed that they could outrun God.
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Virgil reminds Dante that time has passed quickly and that they must descend to another circle, the fifth circle. They cross to the other bank and find a fountain of strange, dark water, which flows in a stream down through a crack in the rock. Following this stream to the foot of the rocks, they come to the marsh called Styx.
In the Styx, Dante finds people immersed in mud, the wrathful, striking one another with hands, feet, and head, as well as biting one another. Virgil tells him that he is looking at souls destroyed by anger, and that more lie under the waters of Styx, making bubbles with each cry. Virgil repeats their words, which cannot be fully understood. The souls talk of the sullenness of their lives, when they should've been happy in the light of the sun, and that they now live sullen forever. The poets circle the filthy marsh and at last come to a high tower that has no name.
Analysis: The Styx is called a marsh; in mythology it was a river (the river of Hate), one of the five rivers of Hades, and its boatman was Charon. Dante rather fully describes the source of the Styx.
The Styx serves a double purpose. It separates upper Hell from nether Hell, and it also functions as the circle for the Wrathful. Because the wrathful people were hateful during their lifetime, they now reside in a river of hate. These people are divided into three categories. There are three different kinds of wrath: the actively wrathful, the sullen (who kept wrath inside and are choking below the surface), and the vindictive.
First is open and violent hatred, and their punishment is that they strike out at each other in almost any fashion; the second type of hatred is the slow, sullen hatred. The punishment for this type is that they choke on their own rage, gurgling in the filth of Styx, unable to express themselves because they become choked on their own malevolent hatred. Finally, the vindictive strike out at others.
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The poets are approaching the great tower when two flames shoot from its top, and immediately, another flame replies from the other side of the marsh of Styx. Soon after the signal, a boatman, Phlegyas, arrives, eager to take more damned souls deeper into Hell. The sight of the poets angers Phlegyas, however, and he begins raging. Virgil chastises him, and the poets enter the boat.
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As the boat makes its way to the other side of the swamp, a soul rises from the slime and accosts Dante. The soul is Dante's Florentine enemy, Filippo Argenti, one of the Wrathful in the marsh (when Dante was forced to leave Florence, Argenti took all his property). Dante and Argenti exchange words, and Dante wishes that Argenti receive further punishment. Virgil praises Dante for his comment, and says that Dante will get his wish. Shortly, other shades descend upon Argenti and tear him to bits.
Analysis: Dante's character is indeed changing, as his reaction to Argenti (wishing him to suffer beyond what he already suffers among the throng of Wrathful) shows this change. By wishing Argenti more harm, Dante behaves wrathfully, just as the sinners in the marsh behave. Nevertheless, Virgil praises Dante highly for this behavior. Dante no longer feels pity for the sinners.
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The boat approaches the shore, and Dante sees the City of Dis where the fires of Hell glow. Phlegyas lets the poets off the boat, and they are immediately accosted by a group of shades that question Dante's appearance in their realm. The shades refuse to let Dante pass, though they say that Virgil may enter but not return to his own circle. Dante is afraid that he will never be allowed to leave Hell, and he cries to Virgil to remedy the situation. Virgil goes alone to the gate of the City to see if he can open it. He returns unsuccessful in his task, but assures Dante that a Great One is on his way to open the gate.
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Dante, waiting outside of the gate to the City of Dis, is afraid. The poets have a few minutes to talk, and Virgil tells Dante of the time when the sorceress Erichtho summoned out a spirit from the lowest circle of Hell. Virgil reassures Dante, again, that no one can stop their journey and asks him to remain where he is, because Virgil will not abandon him.
However, the conversation is short because the angels rush back and slam the gates shut. Virgil returns to Dante, sighing because the fallen angels bar the way. However, Virgil tells Dante that an angel from Heaven will descend to open the gates.
Virgil listens intently for the arrival of the angel because he can't see through the heavy mist. He regrets that he and Dante couldn't enter the gates by themselves, but they were promised help, though it seems long delayed. Dante is alarmed and asks his guide, in a roundabout way, if anyone from the upper circles has ever made this descent. Virgil answers that he was once sent to summon a shade from the circle of Judas, far below here, so he knows the way well.
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Three Furies (Alecto, Megaera, and Tisiphone) spring into view, saying that they should summon Medusa to turn Dante to stone. Virgil cautions Dante to hide his eyes against the beast, placing his own hands over Dante's eyes.
A noise like a hurricane causes the poets to look toward Styx, and they see a figure crossing without touching the marsh. Spirits rush away from him, and he moves his left hand before him to dispel the fog of the marsh.
Dante recognizes the heavenly messenger, and Virgil asks him to remain quiet and bow down. The angry messenger reaches the gate, which opens at the touch of his wand. He then reproves the insolent angels for trying to stop what is willed in Heaven and reminds them of the injuries suffered by Cerberus when he was dragged to the upper world.
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The poets enter the gate into the sixth circle where Heretics such as Epicureans (who say "the soul dies with the body") are trapped. Dante sees a countryside of sorrow, a huge graveyard with uneven tombs covering the plain. The tombs are raised to a red heat by flames outside of every wall. Moaning and sounds of torment come from the open tombs.
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A shade rises from a tomb and recognizes Dante's Tuscan accent. Dante is at once surprised and afraid, but Virgil urges him to speak to the shade. Dante approaches the tomb and learns that the shade is Farinata, Dante's political enemy. Dante and Farinata exchange a dialogue that is simultaneously hostile and respectful. In the middle of their dialogue, another shade rises from the tomb that also recognizes Dante. This shade asks why his son is not with Dante, and Dante replies that it is because the shade's son held Dante's guide in scorn. Dante uses the past tense, "held," and the shade asks Dante if his son is dead. Dante hesitates, and the shade, believing that his son is dead, swoons back into the burning tomb.
Farinata, still standing in the tomb, continues his argument as if no interruption occurred. Farinata prophesizes that, "the face of her who reigns in Hell shall not/be fifty times rekindled in its course/before you learn what griefs attend that art." The two discuss the reasons for the split between the White and Black Guelph parties. Dante asks Farinata why shades can predict the future and Farinata answers that shades can know the past and see into the future, but have no awareness of what happens in the present. Farinata says that the ability to know the past and see the future is the light that the King of All (God) grants the shades.
Dante regrets that he didn't get to tell the other shade that his son is not dead, and asks Farinata to give word to him. Dante returns to Virgil looking downtrodden due to Farinata's prophesy, and Virgil tells him that the Sweet Lady (Beatrice) will make the situation clearer for Dante later. The poets bear left, passing deeper into the city with the flaming walls.
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The poets descend further and come to a group of broken boulders, behind which they rest a bit so that they can become accustomed to the foul stink that rises from the lower circles. Dante sees a headstone with an inscription, "I guard Anastasius, once Pope, he whom Photinus led from the straight road."
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While resting for a moment, Virgil begins explaining the structure of Hell, especially that of lower Hell. Virgil explains that there are other, smaller circles, which comprise the last three circles beyond the wall that begins the sixth circle.
Circle VII, the next circle, is comprised of three smaller circles: one circle for Violence against Persons and their goods, another circle for Violence against Themselves (suicides), and the final circle for Violence against God, Art, and Nature. Virgil goes into detail about who resides in which circle and for what sins. It is growing late and they must leave for the descent into the next circle.
The poets enter round one of Circle VII and must navigate a steep passage of broken rocks. Its entry is guarded by the Minotaur where it responds to the sight of Dante and Virgil by biting itself. Virgil states Dante is not his hated enemy and Theseus is. This causes the Minotaur to charge them as Dante and Virgil swiftly enter the seventh circle.
Thankyou..
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The seventh circle is divided into three rings:
Outer ring: This ring houses the violent against people and property. The murderers and plunderers are immersed in Phlegethon, a river of boiling blood and fire. The souls in it are standing in a depth according to their sin — the worse the sin, the deeper they stand in the river. The Centaurs, commanded by Chiron and Pholus, patrol the ring. Should a soul try to leave the river, one of thousands of Centaurs will shoot it with an arrow but only so as to drive it back into the proper depth of the river.
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Chiron moves his beard aside with an arrow and notes that Dante must be alive since he moves things that he touches, such as rocks when he walks. Virgil gives Chiron an explanation about their journey and asks that one of the Centaurs guide them to a shallow place in the river of blood where Dante can cross, riding on the Centaur's back. Chiron volunteers Nessus, another of the Centaurs. Nessus explains that the souls boiling in the river of blood were people that were kings of bloodshed and despoilment.
Nessus leaves the poets at the other side of the bank and goes back the way he came.
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Virgil and Dante now enter into a pathless wood. This is a dismal wood of strange black leaves, misshapen branches, and poisonous branches barren of fruit. The Harpies nest here, feeding on the branches of the gnarled trees.
Virgil explains that this is the second round of the seventh circle, where Dante will see things that will cause him to doubt Virgil's words.
Middle ring: In this ring are suicides and profligates. The suicides – the violent against self – are transformed into gnarled thorny bushes and trees and then fed upon by Harpies.
Analysis: The meaning of the punishment of the suicides is evident: In Hell, those who on Earth deprived themselves of their bodies are deprived of human form. At the Last Judgment the suicides will rise, like all the other souls, to claim their bodies, but they will never wear them. Their bodies will remain suspended on the trees that enclose the spirits of their owners.
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Dante has already heard cries, but he cannot find where they come from and in confusion stops where he is. He believes that Virgil knows his thoughts: The spirits making such an outcry are hiding among the trees. Virgil tells him only to break off any branch, and he will see that he is mistaken in his thought.
Dante pulls a small branch off from a large thorn tree, and a voice asks Dante: "Why dost thou break and tear me?" Blood comes from the tree, and with it the voice, which asks if Dante has no pity. The voice continues, saying that all of these trees were once men and that Dante should have mercy upon them. Dante drops the branch, and Virgil tells the tree-spirit that if Dante had believed what Virgil had once written, this would not have happened. Since Dante could not believe, Virgil had asked him to pull off the branch, though it grieved Virgil to wound the spirit.
In compensation for this wound, Virgil asks the spirit to tell Dante his story so that he may repeat it when he returns to Earth. The spirit, moved by his words, tells his story.
He, as minister to Frederick II, was absolutely faithful and honest to him, but the envy of the court (they could not bribe him) turned Frederick against him. Because he could not bear to lose this trust, in sorrow he killed himself. He swears that he was faithful to the end and asks Dante to tell his true story when he returns to the upper world.
The imprisoned spirit explains that when the soul is torn from the body by suicide, it is sent by Minos to the seventh circle, where it falls to the ground, sprouts, and grows. The Harpies eat its leaves, giving it great pain. The spirits will all be called to the Last Judgment and will reclaim the mortal bodies forsaken by them. However, they will never regain their immortal souls that they took from themselves and will remain forever trapped in this strange wood.
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The two poets now hear a noise like a hunt crashing through a forest, and two spirits appear. The second flings himself into a bush, but is quickly caught and torn apart by the pursuing hounds that carry him off.
Dante and Virgil approach the bush, which is complaining loudly that the fleeing spirit gained nothing by choosing it for a hiding place. Virgil asks this spirit who he was, but in answering, it first asks that they gather up all the leaves which have been torn off in the hunt and then says only that he was a citizen of Florence who hanged himself on his own door transom.
The other residents of this ring are the profligates, who destroyed their lives by destroying the means by which life is sustained – i.e., money and property. They are perpetually chased and mauled by ferocious dogs. The destruction wrought upon the wood by the profligates' flight and punishment as they crash through the undergrowth causes further suffering to the suicides, who cannot move out of the way.
Analysis: The naked men pursued and torn to pieces by hounds are Spendthrifts, reckless squanderers, who did not actually take their own lives, but destroyed themselves by destroying the means of life. The difference between these sinners and the Spendthrifts of the fourth circle is that the earlier cases arise from weakness, and the later cases from a deliberate act of the will.
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Dante gathers the leaves and returns them to the bush, and the poets pass to the other edge of the wood. Here is the beginning of a desolate plain, and Dante looks fearfully about him. Many souls are on this plain, some lying down, some crouching, and some wandering restlessly. Flakes of fire fall on this desert, making it burn and increasing the pain of these spirits. They try to save themselves from this rain of fire by waving it away with their hands.
Inner ring: Here are the violent against God (blasphemers) and the violent against nature (sodomites and, as explained in the sixth circle, usurers). All reside in a desert of flaming sand with fiery flakes raining from the sky, a fate similar to Sodom and Gomorrah. The blasphemers lie on the sand, the usurers sit, and the sodomites wander about in groups.
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Dante sees the classical warrior Capaneus there, who for blasphemy against Zeus was struck down with a thunderbolt during the Siege of Thebes. Capaneus scorned God when living and scorns him still. For his defiance and heresy, he is confined here for eternity.
The poets walk in silence at the perimeter of the sand until they come to a small rill, a little brook of red water, reminding Dante of a stream in Florence that prostitutes use. Dante wants to know about the stream, and Virgil tells him that the stream begins in Crete with the tears of an ancient giant that flow down into the hollow of the mountain's pit where he lives. These tears form the source for the rivers in Hell: the Acheron, the Phlegethon, and the Styx. Dante is surprised to come to this stream, and Virgil explains that because of their course, the poets have not made a full circle yet and new things that Dante sees should not surprise him.
Dante asks about Phlegethon and of Lethe, a river that Virgil forgot to mention. Virgil explains that they have already passed the Phlegethon (the river of boiling blood) and that they will see the Lethe in another circle. He explains that the Lethe is the river where remorseful spirits wash away their guilt, the River of Forgetfulness. Virgil tells Dante to follow him closely along the edge of the stream, so that they can safely cross the burning plain.
The poets then leave the plains, and Dante is warned to follow the edge of the stream closely to avoid the fire of the burning desert.
Godly thread, please continue.
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Dante converses with two Florentine sodomites from different groups. One of them is Dante's mentor, Brunetto Latini; Dante is very surprised and touched by this encounter.
Dante and Brunetto begin walking, with Dante up on the high bank and Brunetto at his hem. Dante explains how his journey though Hell came to be, and Brunetto praises Dante's work with the highest of words and gives him some advice, as well as a prophesy about his coming exile. Dante tells Brunetto that he wishes him alive again, that he sees him as a paternal figure, and that he feels deep gratitude for his teachings.
Analyse: The symbolism of the rain of fire and the scorching sand is that of sterility and unproductiveness: The rain should be life giving, the soil fertile. Instead, symbolically, the sex practices of the sodomite are not life giving.
The poets near a waterfall at the edge of the third ring of Circle VII, and they can hear the rumbling of its water falling into the next circle.
The poets continue toward the waterfall and Virgil asks Dante for his cord, which Dante wears around his body. Virgil tosses the cord into the pit. Dante expects a strange event, and Virgil reads his mind, telling him that an unusual event will indeed occur. Dante is astonished — surprised enough to swear on his whole poem — when he sees a strange shape fill the air.
Geryon, the monster, lands on the brink of the abyss, his tail hanging over the side. Geryon's face is that of an innocent man, but his body is half-reptile, half-hairy beast, with a scorpion's stinger at the end of his tail. The poets approach him, and Virgil tells Dante to go and see the sinners in the final round of Circle VII, warning him to make his talk brief.
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Dante moves around the circle alone and approaches a group of sinners whose eyes are full of tears and set on enormous purses hanging around their necks. Dante sees no one that he knows among the group, though he seems to recognize the coat-of-arm symbols emblazoned on the purses. This group, the Usurers, tells Dante to go away and leave them alone. The faces of the Usurers lack individuality because their concern with money made them lose their individuality. Fearing that he has stayed too long, Dante goes back to Virgil, who is already mounted on the rump of Geryon. Dante is terribly afraid but mounts Geryon anyway, and before he can ask for assistance, Virgil embraces him and helps him hold on. Virgil tells Geryon to fly smoothly, which he does, and he lets the poets off at the bottom of the pit near the eighth circle. Geryon takes off like a shot, relieved of Dante's living weight.
Analysis: Geryon symbolizes Fraud, the sin of the souls in Circle VIII. Furthermore, like Fraud, his innocent face fools the onlooker long enough to be stung by his scorpion-like tail.
Epic thread! I love Dante's Inferno. Do you have a download link for all images?
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The last two circles of Hell punish sins that involve conscious fraud or treachery. These circles can be reached only by descending a vast cliff, which Dante and Virgil did on the back of Geryon.
The fraudulent – those guilty of deliberate, knowing evil – are located in the eighth circle named Malebolge (meaning evil ditches or pockets or chasms). This circle is divided into ten Bolgie, or ditches of stone, with bridges spanning the ditches.
The first bolgia the poets approach is filled with tormented sinners, the Panderers (those who used others to serve their own purposes) and Seducers, who march in separate lines in opposite directions. Demons with horns flog them continuously to keep them moving.
Just as the panderers and seducers used the passions of others to drive them to do their bidding, they are themselves driven by whip-wielding demons to march for all eternity.
In the group of panderers, the poets notice Venedico Caccianemico who sold his own sister Ghisola to the Marquis d'Este.
In the group of seducers, Virgil points out Jason, who gained the help of Medea by seducing and marrying her only to later desert her alone and pregnant for Creusa.
Best thread on /hr/ in a loooong time, this is super interesting.
>>2612274
I don't
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The souls in the second bolgia are the Flatterers. Flatterers also exploited other people, this time using language. They are steeped in human excrement (which represents the words they produced) as they howl and fight amongst themselves.
Dante again recognizes a sinner, Alessio Interminelli da Lucca, who suffers in this pit because of false flattery. Virgil points out a woman in the chasm, Thaïs the whore, who also resides in the chasm because of false flattery. Thaïs, is said to have received the gift of a slave from her lover, and when asked if she thanked him much, she replied with so much flattery that her gratitude was beyond believing.
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Thaïs the whore in the circle of the flatterers, plunged in a trench of excrement.
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Dante and Virgil are on the rim of the third bolgia of Circle VIII for those guilty of Simony. These sinners used their positions in the church for personal monetary gain. The Simonists are upside-down in round holes the size of baptismal fonts.
From each of these holes protrude the feet and legs of a spirit, with the rest of the body upside down in the hole. The soles of their feet are on fire, and Dante sees one shade who is apparently suffering more torment than others, moving and shaking violently; his feet are burning more fiercely than the others.
The soul mistakes Dante for Boniface and is surprised that he is there earlier than expected. Dante tells the soul that he is mistaken, and the soul tells his story. The soul wore "the Great Mantle" of the office of the pope. Below him, in cracks in the rock, are other popes who committed the same sin. When the next pope, Boniface, joins them, he, Nicholas III, will be pushed further down into the stone. The soul says that a new and worse soul will be sent in time to cover him in the hole. Dante reproaches the spirit vehemently. Virgil is pleased at Dante's behavior and carries him out of the chasm where he looks down into the next moat.
Analysis: Dante clearly finds these sinners despicable. This act does not happen often in Inferno, and it is significant because it illustrates Dante's abhorrence of the corruption of the church that he held so dear.
Throughout Inferno, Dante learns to rebuke and despise sin. Here he feels absolutely no pity for this sinner, as he did with many sinners at the beginning of his journey, and in fact, damns him further. Virgil, as a spiritual guide and symbol for wisdom, is very pleased with Dante's actions. Dante grows more and more ready for the next legs of his journey — Purgatory and Paradise. He must purge himself of sin before he enters those places.He must experience Hell and its dangers before he can experience the opposite.
Thank you so much I love you for this
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In Canto XX, Dante looks down upon the faces of the sinners in the next chasm, the fourth bolgia, and weeps with grief at their torment; these sinners must walk through eternity with their heads on backwards and tears in their eyes. Virgil reproaches Dante for feeling any pity for these sinners, the Fortune Tellers, Diviners, Sorcerers, Astrologers, and False Prophets, because they are here as a point of justice. They sinned by trying to foretell the future, which is known only to God and thus will spend eternity forever looking behind with blurred vision.
In Canto XXI, Dante and Virgil make their way to the fifth chasm, a lake of boiling pitch, which is very dark. Corrupt politicians (barrators) are immersed in this lake, which represents the sticky fingers and dark secrets of their corrupt deals. They are guarded by devils called the Malebranche ("Evil Claws"). The sign for their march is provided by a fart: "and he had made a trumpet of his ass."
Suddenly, a raging demon appears, and Virgil hides Dante behind a large rock so he can go to the demons and make a deal for their safe passage.
The demon is carrying a sinner, which he tosses into the pitch, saying that he is going back for more sinners to place in the chasm of Grafters. The other demons warn the sinner to get beneath the pitch or the sinners will taste their grappling hooks.
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Virgil confronts the demons, and they threaten to harm him. He asks to speak to one of them, and Malacoda, leader of the demons, steps forward. After hearing about Virgil's divinely inspired journey, Malacoda grants the poets safe passage and rounds up a group of ten demons to escort them to the next bridge. The poets must travel on the next bridge, because as Malacoda tells them, the closest bridge fell in an earthquake 1,266 years, one day, and five hours from the present point in time (indicating the Harrowing of Hell on the day that Christ died).
Dante is afraid of the demons and pleads with Virgil to go on without them, but Virgil reprimands him for his fear and reminds him that the demons are there only to guard and torture the sinners in the stew of pitch. After a vulgar sign ( a fart ) and countersign between the demons, the poets move on with their escorts.
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Dante marvels that he is in such terrible company, but he realizes that this part of his trek with the demons is necessary. Every now and then a sinner shows his back at the surface of the pitch to ease his pain, and Dante compares them to frogs squatting about in water with only their muzzles sticking out.
One sinner is slow in ducking back into the pitch fast enough and is caught by one of the demons who pulls him out of the pitch by his hair. Before the demons tear him to shreds, Dante asks if he can listen to the sinner's history. The sinner replies that he was born in Navarre and worked for a king and began to graft, which is the reason he now suffers in the pitch. The demons begin to tear at the sinner, and to avoid this punishment, he offers them a deal. The sinner says that he will whistle, as if he'd been set free, and call more sinners (especially Italians with whom Dante will want to speak) to the surface of the pitch, so that they can suffer at the hands of the demons as well.
The demons are suspicious, but they let him try his plan, warning him that if he tried to escape they would catch him. The sinner, once set free, jumps off of the ridge into the safety of the pitch and escapes. The demons, furious at the deception, fly after him.
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When they see that he has escaped, two of the demons begin fighting, fall into the pitch, and are unable to rise. The other demons form a rescue party and while they are occupied, the poets use the opportunity to slip away unnoticed to the sixth bolgia.
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As he and Virgil progress, Dante worries that they may have provoked the demons too much with this embarrassment. Virgil agrees. Suddenly, they hear the motion of wings and claws from behind, and turn to see the demons racing after them in a mad pack. Virgil acts quickly. Grabbing hold of Dante, he runs to the slope leading to the Sixth Pouch. He then slides down the slope with Dante in his arms, thus foiling the demons, who may not leave their assigned pouch.
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In the sixth Bolgia, the poets find the Hypocrites listlessly walking along wearing heavy, gilded lead cloaks, which represent the falsity behind the surface appearance of their actions – falsity that weighs them down and makes spiritual progress impossible for them.
Two spirits approach without speaking. Finally, one observes that Dante must be alive because his throat moves. Speaking to Dante, they ask why he has come to this valley of Hypocrites and who he is.
Dante tells them he is a Florentine and is indeed alive; in turn, he asks who they are who weep so bitterly and what their punishment is. They answer that they were of the order of the Jovial Friars and had been named to govern Florence jointly, in order to keep peace.
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Dante angrily begins to speak to the friars of their evil, when he sees a figure on the ground held by three stakes. Friar Catalan explains that this is Caiaphas, the high priest who advised Pontius Pilate to condemn Jesus to death on the cross for the supposed benefit of the city. Therefore, he lies crucified to the ground to suffer being walked upon for all eternity.
Finally, he turns and asks the friar if there is a bridge over the chasm. The friar answers that all were destroyed at the same time, but the travelers may climb out of the ruins of the one nearby, without much difficulty.
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The climb to the next bridge presents problems. Virgil is weightless, but he has to give very careful directions for Dante to test each rock before he puts his weight on it.
They both climb to the top of the sixth chasm, but Dante is out of breath. They walk to the end of the bridge, where it rests on the wall between the seventh and eighth chasms, and look down on the mass of strange serpents below them.
After the poets reach the end of the bridge, they can see the masses of serpents and sinners in the seventh chasm where the Thieves reside. They are guarded by the centaur Cacus, who has a fire-breathing dragon on his shoulders and snakes covering his equine back. The sinners are naked, and their hands are tied behind them with a serpent whose head and tail are threaded through the spirit's body at the loins and tied in coils and knots at the front. Another serpent sinks its fangs in the neck of a shade, who immediately takes afire, burns to ashes, and falls on the ground, only to resume its shape and its torment once again.
Nice! Keep 'em going
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This shade is Vanni Fucci of Pistoia. Dante asks what his crime was, for he had seen him once and considered him to be a man of violence. The spirit, ashamed, confesses that it hurts him more for Dante to see him here in this dreadful place than it did to be condemned to this chasm of thieves.
Fucci makes "figs" with his hands and blasphems God. A Centaur, Cacus, races up to the group and asks the location of the blasphemer. Virgil explains to Dante that Cacus does not reside with his fellows at the banks of Phlegethon because he stole Hercules' cattle. Hercules avenged the theft by clubbing Cacus to death, and he continued clubbing long after Cacus was dead. Suddenly, hoards of serpents climb on to Fucci and a dragon perches on his shoulders.
The Centaur leaves and three sinners appear, apparently concerned, asking if a sinner named Cianfa has fallen back. At that moment a six-legged lizard fastens itself to one of the three sinners, Agnello, and weaves itself through the sinner's body, melding it with the sinner, like hot wax. The two beasts become one and the other two sinners mock Agnello.
A small black monster runs up to one of the remaining two sinners and bites him near his bellybutton. A mutual transformation begins. The monster takes on the human form of the sinner, and the sinner takes on the monster's form.
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The poets move on to the eighth chasm where Dante sees thousands of little flames, reminding him of fireflies on a hillside. He leans so far forward on the ledge of the bridge that he almost falls into the chasm. Virgil says that each of the flames contains a sinner, which is hidden from view by the fire surrounding it. These are the Evil Counselors, people that used their power and their intellect for evil. These are not people who gave false advice, but people who used their position to advise others to engage in fraud.
Ulysses and Diomedes are condemned here for the deception of the Trojan Horse and the matter of the theft of Pallas Athena's statue at the Palladium, they share the same flame.
Because Dante is Italian, Virgil suggests that he speak with them instead, because they are Greek and may scorn Dante's manner of speaking.
Ulysses tells the tale of his fatal final voyage where he left his home and family to sail to the end of the Earth only to have his ship founder near Mount Purgatory; Ulysses also mentions of his encounter with Circe, stating that she "beguiled him." Guido da Montefeltro recounts how he advised Pope Boniface VIII to capture the fortress of Palestrina by offering the Colonna family inside it a false amnesty and then razing it to the ground after they surrendered.
After hearing the spirit's story, the poets move to the ninth pit, where the Sowers of Discord reside.
This is some of the best shit I've seen on hr ever, I applaud you op
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The ninth bolgia is the place of the Sowers of Discord and Scandal, and the Creators of Schism.
A large sword-wielding demon hacks at the Sowers of Discord walking around the chasm, dividing parts of their bodies as in life they divided others. As they make their rounds the wounds heal, only to have the demon tear apart their bodies again.
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The first one Dante sees is Mahomet, disemboweled, who tells him that his son-in-law, Ali, is in the same condition and that all the others are horribly mangled in some manner.
Mahomet explains that these sinners were responsible for scandal and rift, and therefore, they are torn apart as they tore others apart in life. Mahomet asks Dante to tell Fra Dolcino, who is still alive, to store food for the winter or risk joining him in the chasm. After asking Dante to warn his friend, Mahomet moves on.
Dante also encounters another shade who cannot speak because his tongue is chopped out. This is Gaius Scribonius Curio who had Julius Caesar betray Pompey which started Caesar's Civil War.
Analysis: Dante describes Mahomet as a schismatic, apparently viewing Islam as an offshoot from Christianity, and similarly Dante seems to condemn Ali for schism between Sunni and Shiite where his face is chopped up.
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A third shade who has both of his arms hacked off, Mosca dei Lamberti, calls out that he too wishes to be remembered. Mosca advised the death of a man who had broken an engagement. The death of the man resulted in the beginning of a long feud between the Guelphs and the Ghibellines of Florence, tearing the city asunder. This feud ultimately resulted in a great political schism that resulted in Dante's exile. Dante wishes death to all his kindred, and the shade runs off like a madman.
Then a headless figure approaches Dante, holding his head in front of him as if it were a lantern. The figure holds his head up to the poets, so they can hear him better. The figure says that he is Bertrand de Born, and that he set the young king to mutiny against his own father. Born also states that, because he parted father and son, he spends eternity with his head parted from his body.
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Dante wants to stop for a moment to observe these suffering shades, but Virgil is impatient and tells him to move along. Dante tells Virgil that he is seeking one of his own kinsmen who, he believes, is here. "I think a spirit of my own blood is among the dammed." Dante is tarrying only because he wants to speak with this relative, and he wishes Virgil would be more patient.
Virgil responds that he saw Dante's kinsman under the bridge that they had just crossed, and that this shade, which the others had called Geri del Bello, had shaken its finger threateningly at Dante as they passed by. It is then that Dante realizes that the murder of Geri del Bello had never been revenged by any member of Dante's family. And for this failure, Dante expresses his sorrow for his un-avenged kinsman.
While Virgil and Dante are talking, they reach the bridge over the tenth and final chasm of the eighth circle.
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Here they see the suffering and hear the wails and weeping of the Falsifiers (alchemists, counterfeiters, perjurers, and impostors).
The noise is so loud that Dante covers his ears, and the stench is so powerful that it reminds him of rotting human flesh, lying exposed to the world. These souls lay about, as if dying from pestilence and disease. Some lay gasping, some lean on one another, and some pick one another's scabs as if scaling a fish.
Analysis: The final chasm of Circle VIII contains the Falsifiers, who are, as are the other sinners in other circles, suffering the pain of retribution. These sinners affected the senses of others, showing themselves or substances to be what they are not, thus they spend eternity in a corruption of the senses — filth, thirst, disease, stench, darkness, horrible shrieking, physical pain — these sinners are damned to an eternity of what they put others through in life.
Remember, Virgil stated earlier that God despised Malice the most, out of all of the possible sins, and these souls in the final chasm of Circle VIII are certainly guilty of Malice — they knew exactly what they were doing, and they did it with malicious intent.
In this particular canto, readers should note that the sinners aren't suffering from an outside, foreign influence in the environment as in the other cantos. The sinners here are suffering from systemic infection within themselves. Alchemists have leprosy, impersonators are mad, counterfeiters have dropsy, and the liars have a fever that makes them stink. They are punished by the corrupt state of their minds and bodies. Their corrupt sense of values is symbolized by the corrupt state of their minds and bodies.
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Virgil interrupts two of the souls who are picking at each other's scabs and asks them if there are any Italians among them. One replies that they are Italian and once Virgil explains their presence in the circle, the souls tell their history. One is Griffolino, and he supposedly joked with Albert of Siena that he could fly and thus, he was burned for the lie, though he is in this circle for alchemy, another form of falsifying. The other soul is Capocchio, Dante's friend in his school days, who was burned for alchemy in 1293.
A shade acting like a "raging pig" suddenly sprints over to Capocchio and sinks his teeth into his neck. Griffolino tells Dante that the sinner is Gianni Schicchi who is now rabid and "bites whatever he sees" and whose crime is impersonation.
Gianni Schicchi forged the will of Dante's relative Buoso Donati by writing himself in as someone else just so that he could inherit Buoso Donati's best horse.
Thanks OP, good shit going on in here
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Then Dante asks about another sinner and Griffolino identifies her as well. She’s Myrrha, a princess who lusted after her father.
Myrrha suffers from madness for disguising herself to commit incest with her father King Theias in order to gratify her lust. Once caught, she changed herself into a tree and bore Adonis from the trunk.
Schicchi and Myrrha are the Evil Impersonators, damned to rage though Hell and seize on souls, and in turn, they are seized upon by one another.
>>2612096
good thread OP
nice job
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Dante moves on and sees a man who’s been twisted into the shape of a lute, has the flesh of the face rotting off, and is bloated by a disease called dropsy. This horribly deformed sinner can still speak and identifies himself as Master Adam.
He is in next class of Falsifiers, the Counterfeiter. Master Adam made florins from alloyed gold and was burned for the offense. On top of his afflictions and the curse of not being able to move, he is damned with extreme thirst, constantly craving a drink of water, though his belly is waterlogged. He’s tortured by thoughts of his hometown’s river, the Arno, flowing past nice moist green hills.
Finally, the poets meet a soul of the final class of Falsifiers, Sinon the Greek, a False Witness who beguiled the citizens of Troy to allow the Trojan Horse into the gate of Troy, thus allowing the soldiers inside to wreak havoc on that city. And they also meet Potiphar, who falsely accused Joseph of raping her.
Both are afflicted by a fever so fierce that it makes their skin smoke.
Master Adam and Sinon the Greek exchange blows and begin bickering about who is the worse sinner. Sinon says that he is there for one sin, while Master Adam is there for thousands — each coin being a separate sin. Dante listens, fascinated, until Virgil reproaches him soundly, and Dante is overcome with shame and speechless.
Analysis: Virgil upbraids Dante for weeping and pausing at the 9th pit, consistent with the hardening of his character in these later circles. There is no time for pure emotion at this point in the journey; time is growing short and Virgil must move Dante along, even if that means taking on a harsher nature. Dante is still utterly human, his emotions changing with each moment of the journey, though he is coming to realize that his pity does not change the fate of these sinners. Dante is coming to understand the nature of sin and is learning to be disgusted by it.
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Dante decides to talk about Virgil’s tongue.
He compares Virgil’s tongue to Achilles’ lance, which has the power to heal any wound it inflicts simply by touching it again. Similarly, Virgil’s tongue and, by extension, his words, have the power to hurt, but also the power to heal. Having reconciled their love for each other, they continue up the bank towards the ninth and final circle.
The poets climb to the top of the stony chasm that ends the eighth circle and they begin their approach to the final circle, the circle of Treachery.
It’s dark and they can’t see where they’re going.
Fortunately they still have a sense of hearing. Of which fact they’re brutally reminded when they’re deafened by a bugle’s blast.
It’s such a scary sound that Dante compares it to Roland’s horn, which sounded at the defeat of the unconquerable Charlemagne.
Dante thinks that he sees a city with many towers in the distance, but Virgil tells him that his eyes deceive him. The towers are actually the Giants plugged into the center of the well. The Giants are standing on a ledge above the ninth circle of Hell, so that from the Malebolge they are visible from the waist up as their legs are embedded in the banks of the Ninth Circle.
They include Nimrod, Ephialtes, Briareus, Tityos, Typhon and Antaeus.
Indeed, as they grow closer, Dante sees the Giants clearly, and at close range, Dante says that Nature was wise to discontinue the creation of these monsters.
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One of the Giant, Nimrod, was a king in Babylon, responsible for the building of the Tower of Babel, a doomed project which ended up with God smiting down the tower, breaking up man’s single language into thousands of unintelligible ones therefore bringing the confusion of different languages to the world and then condemning Nimrod to Hell.
Nimrod speaks in a nonsense tongue, condemned to babble through eternity, not understanding and not being understood.
Virgil reprimands Nimrod telling him not to try to speak but to stick to its horn, which hangs around its neck and which Dante heard just earlier.
Dante then sees an even taller Giant, who is bound with a huge iron chain five times around his body, his arms bent behind him and Dante wonders who could have had the strength to bind the Giant. Virgil names him as Ephialtes, son of Neptune, who in classical mythology warred against the gods and tried to climb to the top of Olympus to overthrow Zeus (Jupiter). For taking up arms against the gods, Ephialtes’s arms are now immobilized so that he can do no more harm.
Ephialtes begins to rock back and forth and shakes in his chains, causing the ground to tremble and scaring Dante.
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Virgil tells Dante that they will find Antaeus, a giant who is unchained because he did not join the other Giants against the gods and can carry them down the well.
Antaeus is there for the many murders he committed; he should be in another circle, but suffers with the other Giants merely because of his nature as a Giant. Antaeus is the son of Neptune (the Sea) and Tellus (the Earth) and was invincible, as long as he touched the Earth, his mother. Hercules killed him by holding him over his head and strangling him in mid-air.
Virgil praises the fearful Antaeus for his deeds and strength on Earth and with this flattery, gains passage. Virgil tells him to carry Dante and him safely down the well, since Dante, who is alive, can report his name back on earth, guaranteeing him fame. Antaeus eagerly outstretches a hand, and Dante and Virgil climb onto his palm. Dante is scared to travel this way, but Antaeus reaches down and safely deposits the two poets in the ninth circle of hell, the realm of Traitors.
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A soul cries out for Dante to be careful not to tread on the heads of the souls and Dante looks down and sees that the sinners are frozen in a lake, the river Cocytus.
The ice is so thick that, according to Dante, if a mountain were to fall on it, the edges of the lake wouldn’t so much as creak.
Cocytus originates from the same source as the other infernal rivers: the tears of a statue called The Old Man of Crete which represents the sins of humanity.
Cocytus is the ninth and lowest circle of The Underworld, the most horrendous place, the very bottom of Hell, reserved for the most heinous sinners. This is the home of traitors and those who committed acts of complex fraud. Depending on the form of their treachery, sinners are buried in ice to a varying degree, anywhere from neck-high to completely submerged in ice.
Cocytus is divided into four descending concentric rounds of traitors, in order of seriousness:
The first round is called Caïna, after Cain who slew his own brother Abel, and the sinners here have their heads bowed toward the ice, chattering their teeth and crying.
Caïna is reserved for those who were traitors to their kin and blood relatives.
Dante looks around and sees two sinners clamped tightly together, breast-to-breast, and asks them who they are, to which they do not reply as the cold has frozen their mouths shut but butt their heads together like goats. A nearby sinner with his ears frozen off replies that these two were the Alberti brothers, who killed one another in a squabble over their inheritance, hence they must spend all of eternity locked together, bickering and butting heads.The sinner condemns them as the souls most worthy for this punishment in Caïna, even more so than Mordred who betrayed his father the King Arthur, and Foccaccia and Mascheroni who killed relatives.
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The poets enter the second round, Antenora, which is named for the Trojan Antenor who betrayed Troy to the Greeks. This round is for those who were treacherous to their country.
Moving further towards the center of Hell, Dante accidentally kicks the face of a sinner, who yells at Dante "Are you here to revenge Montaperti?", asking him why he would want to cause him more pain. Dante asks Virgil for a moment to speak with the sinner.
He then goes on to roughly ask the cursing sinner who he is. Instead of answering, the sinner replies with a mirroring question, asking who Dante is that he thinks he can just go around kicking poor people, as if he were alive.
Predictably, Dante answers haughtily "I am alive and, even better, I can give you lasting fame in the mortal world." But in vain. The sinner is not impressed or intimidated and does not want to comply.
Dante grabs a handful of the shade's hair and threatens to tear it out if he does not give his name. The shade says he will not tell. So Dante actually goes through with his threat, ripping out tufts out the sinner’s hair in handfuls and making the poor guy scream in pain.
A nearby sinner betrays him and tells Dante the name of the reluctant sinner: Bocca degli Abati. Dante threatens the sullen sinner, saying that because he has been so uncooperative, Dante will slander his reputation up in the living world. Bocca still doesn’t care.
Bocca fought in the Battle of Montaperti (1260) between Florence and Siena. Bocca, well that alongside Florentine Guelphs, was actually for the Ghibellines of Siena. At the sight of the attack, he approached the florentine flag-bearer and cut him the hand holding the banner. This caused a major confusion in the Guelph troops and signed, then the victory of Siena.
Before Dante leaves, satisfied to have solved the riddle of the betrayer of Montaperti, the same Bocca starts screaming as many names as possible of his fellow sinners, all traitors to their country or party.
This is so interesting op, I'm gonna save every picture you've posted, thanks !
Fun Thing:
If you tore out all of the pages of The Comedy and arranged them 3 across, so that you read line 1 of Inferno, line 1 of Purgatorio, line 1 of Paradiso, line 2 Inferno, line 2 Purgatorio, etc. it still reads perfectly. Only works in original Italian, obviously.
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Upon leaving Bocca, Dante comes across a truly gruesome sight: two sinners in such close proximity that one is feeding off of the back of the other's neck. Dante describes the upper head as the lower one’s hat, and its chewing as that of a person eating his daily "bread". The poet promises to bring word of him back to the mortal realm so long as his tongue doesn’t dry up if the sinner would tell it. The hungry sinner pauses from gnawing on the head, raises his mouth from the bleeding skull, wipes his lips on his victim’s hair, and begins to speak.
The shade was Count Ugolino della Gherardesca, and the soul he feeds upon was his former partner-in-crime Ruggieri degli Ubaldini, Archbishop of Pisa, on whom he trusted.
As a magistrate of Pisa, Ugolino is forced into some tough decisions. One of them is ceding three of Pisa’s fortresses to hostile neighboring cities, a move which many consider a betrayal.
In 1288, Pisa was hit by a dramatic increase in prices, resulting in food shortage and riots among the bitter populace. During one of these riots, Ugolino killed a nephew of the Archbishop, turning the latter against him.
The Archbishop, accusing Ugolino of treachery, aroused the citizens. When the town hall was set on fire, Ugolino surrendered. Ruggieri imprisoned Ugolino and his four young sons in the Muda tower.
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They had been in prison for "several moons" when he has a terrible dream: Archbishop Ruggieri appears as a lord and master of the hunt, riding with his allies Gualandi, Sismondi, and Lanfranchi (all Ghibelline families) and hunting down a lone wolf and his poor pups from a Pisan mountain with a bunch of hounds. After only a short flight, both father and son wolves are attacked by the hounds. The wolves represent Ugolino and his sons.
When Ugolino woke up in the morning, he heard his children begging for food. As the day goes on, the boys expect the food that is usually brought to them.
But instead of food comes the sound of people nailing shut the doors of the tower. On orders of the Archbishop the keys were thrown into the Arno river.
Upon hearing his doom, Ugolino turned silently to his sons and inside he "turned to stone." He knew this was the death knoll for him and his sons and he had to watch them one by one starve to death.
Before dying Ugolino's children begged him to eat their bodies.
'Father our pain', they said,
'Will lessen if you eat us you are the one
Who clothed us with this wretched flesh: we plead
For you to be the one who strips it away'.
… And I,
Already going blind, groped over my brood
Calling to them, though I had watched them die,
For two long days. And then the hunger had more
Power than even sorrow over me
(Canto XXXIII)
71/74
Ugolino died and in Hell, is joined together with the enemy who starved his children and who, now, becomes the savage feast for him to munch on for eternity.
Once through with his long and passionate tale, Ugolino goes wild with grief and bites down on Ruggieri’s skull again. No amount of punishment will satisfy his desire for revenge — it will never be satiated.
Dante curses Pisa, wishing that the neighboring islands of Caprara and Gorgona would dam up the river Arno so that all Pisan citizens would drown
Analysis: It is not apparent that Ugolino is a traitor who fully deserves his place in Hell. But, the four children are innocents and should not have become Ruggieri's victims.
Ugolino's punishment is the concept of retaliation. This is a masterful stroke on Dante's part, for in the very depths of Hell, how else can Dante evoke pity for someone whose crime is as monstrous as was Ugolino's? Note, therefore, that Ugolino is here in Hell as a traitor because he betrayed his own party to Ruggieri, but also, that he is here as the betrayed. Ugolino may be said to be both the victim of divine justice and also the instrument of it, in that he also punishes his betrayer, Ruggieri.
As the poets move along, they come to a place where the souls are not placed vertically in the ice, but they are supine with only their faces raised out of the ice. As a result, their tears freeze in their eyes, creating little crystal visors over their eye sockets. Dante is beginning to feel chilled and also feels a wind blowing over the ice — Virgil says that the source of the wind will soon be known.
pls more?
>>2612096
bump for awesomeness
The poets reach the final round of the last circle of Cocytus, the ninth and final circle of Hell called Judecca, and see the sinners there completely encased in the ice, in all sorts of strange and twisted positions. These are the sinners who were treacherous to their masters, and since they cannot speak, the poets move on to see Satan, the master of this place.
Dante uses Virgil as a windbreaker, because Satan's bat-like wings are flapping, creating a cold wind that freezes the ice firmer. Dante stands dazed and shaken in the presence of this hideous being and can only attempt to describe him.
Satan is bound in the ice to his mid-point and has three faces — a red one, a yellow one, and black one. In each of his three mouths he chews a sinner. Virgil explains that Judas Iscariot, who betrayed Christ, is the one in the middle and suffering most, and that the other two are Brutus and Cassius, who betrayed Caesar.
Analysis: The image of Satan is a startling one, beginning with its three faces, which symbolize the perversion of the Holy Trinity. Dante says that Satan is as ugly as he was once beautiful, recalling his former incarnation as an angel. Satan, here, seems less powerful than traditionally depicted; he is dumb and roaring, trapped in the ice, punished as the rest of the sinners, perhaps worse.
Virgil tells Dante to hold on to him as he climbs Satan's back, waiting for a moment when the wings are open so that they can have a safe passage down. Finally, Virgil climbs through a hole in the central rock, turning around — Dante is afraid that Virgil is going back through Hell, but both of the poets find themselves on their feet and standing on the other side of the world, having passed the mid-point of the Earth. They can see Satan's legs on this side, his body still frozen in the ice above.
Without pausing to rest, the poets make the long journey to the other side of the world where they are delivered though a round opening into the world under the stars.
That's the end Dante's Inferno.
Bonus File. It is slightly different than what OP has as his 71'st.. I don't know why Doré made two different versions of the same etch but there are 2 on WikiArt so I'm putting up the one not yet shown.
I will look into Purgatorio and Paradiso.
>>2613558
engraving*
I was unable to find Paradiso or Purgatorio in high res. Sorry guys.
Could somebody take a screenshot of this whole thread please? I feel like this is one of the best threads ever to grace /hr/. I've saved all of the images but i dont feel as if its enough.
>>2613581
http://archive.is/YxlGf
OP here
continuing from >>2613353
The poets now enter the third round: Ptolomaea, named after Ptolemy, governor of Jericho and son-in-law of Simon Maccabaeus the high priest. Ptolemy arranged a banquet honoring Simon and his sons and then treacherously murdered them.
Traitors to their guests are punished here. They are punished more severely than the previous traitors, since the relationship to guests is an entirely voluntary one.
One of the shades locked up to the face in the ice begs Dante to remove the sheath of ice over his eyes so that he may cry freely for a while. Dante promises to do so if the shade tells him his name, saying that he will go to the last rim of the ice if he does not keep his promise. The shade complies, saying that he was Friar Alberigo.
Alberigo tells Dante that his sin was so terrible that the moment he committed it, he was taken out of his body and thrust here, and that a demon took the place of his soul in his worldly body.
Alberigo had relatives killed by armed soldiers during a banquet at his home. Alberigo's orders to bring fruit was the signal for the murder.
The sinner explains that he is repaid in Hell in dates for the figs he called for at the banquet.
Continuing from >>2613812
Dante asks Alberigo if he’s already dead. Alberigo answers that he doesn’t know. Because Ptolomea has the power to take a soul to Hell before the sinner has even died.
To illustrate his point, Alberigo points out the sinner behind him, Branca Doria.
Dante accuses Alberigo of lying because he knows that Branca Doria is still living.
According to Alberigo: once a traitor commits a crime against his guest, a demon from Ptolomea possesses the sinner’s live body on earth and hurls the sinner’s soul down to Hell. So a demon-possessed Branca is still living on earth.
Now, Alberigo calls in his favor, asking Dante to relieve his eyes. But Dante refuses. Even after promising to do so on pain of eternal condemnation.
Dante is even proud of his refusal, calling it a "courtesy" to the sinner.
He proceeds to curse the Genoese (because apparently both Alberigo and Branca were from Genoa) as a people so corrupt that their souls can be in Hell while they’re still living.
72/74
"Vexilla Regis prodeunt inferni" opens the final canto: "The banners of the King of Hell draw closer."
The poets reach the final round of the last circle of Cocytus, named Judecca, after Judas, betrayer of Christ. Here are the traitors to their lords and benefactors. All of the sinners punished within are completely encased in ice, distorted in all sorts of strange and twisted positions.
Since they cannot speak, the poets move on to see the master of this place.
In the very centre of Hell, condemned for committing the ultimate sin, personal treachery against God, is Lucifer.
Lucifer, the "morning star", also known as Satan, was formerly the Angel of Light and once tried to usurp the power of God. As punishment, God banished Satan out of Heaven to an eternity in Hell (created by the impact of Satan's fall).
Dante now witnesses Lucifer in all his glory, meaning size. Lucifer is so big that Dante claims he himself is closer in size to a giant than a giant is to Lucifer.
Satan is waist deep in ice and flaps his six wings, as if trying to escape, which only serve to increase the cold infernal winds in Cocytus and further ensures his imprisonment as well as that of the others traitors in the circle.
Dante stands dazed and shaken in the presence of this hideous being and can only attempt to describe him. He wonders how Lucifer could possibly have been beautiful once… because he’s nauseatingly ugly now.
Continuing from >>2613814
Lucifer has three faces joined together, one blood red, one black, and one a pale yellowish, weeping tears from his six eyes. His tears fall into his three mouths which are chewing a bloody pulp.
Brutus and Cassius are feet-first in the left and right mouths respectively, for their involvement in the assassination of Julius Caesar.
In the central most vicious black mouth is Judas Iscariot, the betrayer of Jesus. Judas is receiving the most horrifying torture of the three infamous traitors: his head gnawed by Lucifer's mouth, and his back being forever skinned by Lucifer's claws.
Analysis: The greatest sinner of the world is Judas Iscariot, the man who betrayed Jesus with a kiss. Both Brutus and Cassius betrayed Caesar, founder of Dante's beloved Roman Empire.
The image of Satan with its three faces symbolizes the perversion of the Holy Trinity: Satan is impotent, ignorant, and full of hate, in contrast to the all-powerful, all-knowing, and loving nature of God.
73/74
see >>2613549
('cause duplicate file)
Virgil tells Dante to hold on to him as he climbs the ragged fur of Lucifer's back, waiting for a moment when the wings are open so that they can have a safe passage down. Finally, Virgil climbs through a hole in the central rock, turning around — they pass through the centre of the earth with a consequent change in the direction of gravity, causing Dante to think they are returning to Hell at first.
Dante leans out to look back up toward Lucifer’s torso, but the world has turned upside down; instead of Lucifer’s chest, he sees Lucifer’s legs.
But both of the poets find themselves on their feet and the pair emerge in the other hemisphere, right under Jerusalem, where Christ died.
Virgil goes on to explain the time of day, which also was switched around. It's now dawn on Easter Sunday. And that here, in the southern hemisphere, there’s nothing but ocean, because when Lucifer fell from Heaven, he fell into the southern hemisphere before lodging inside the earth. All the land there got so scared of him that they all "ran" to the northern hemisphere, leaving only water behind.
Dante has stopped listening in favor of exploring his surroundings. He finds that he and Virgil are in a cave with a burbling stream in it, the river Lethe (meaning "oblivion" or "forgetfulness"), the last of the five rivers of the underworld.
74/74
see >>2613553
("cause duplicate file)
They follow this stream back to the surface of the world without pausing to rest. Dante and Virgil then emerge beneath a sky studded with stars.
"Inferno" ends,
"Purgatorio" follows.
OP here,
I soon will post all Gustave Doré's engravings of the next chapters Purgatorio and Paradiso, either here on /hr/ or /lit/ as few pics does not exist in high rez.
Can do as well Gustave Doré's work on Milton's Paradise Lost if you guys want ( let me more than a week to prepare it though)
>>2613822
Literally 10/10. In on Purgatorio
>>2613822
If you do start posting in /lit/ could you link the thread here please? I don't wanna be out of the loop, this has been the best thread in hr in ages
>>2613594
genio del futbol mundial
>>2612208
Who is the heavenly messenger?
>>2614082
This angel has no name: it is an allegory of divine aid to help the poets going further in Hell by opening the gate of the city of Dis.
Virgil, the fearless guide, stands pale and helpless, speaking brokenly to himself. His incantations and reason are useless against those who willfully dared to oppose Jesus himself, and Virgil is forced to ask for the help that Heaven promised.
Allegorically, this episode is another reminder that human reason can't achieve salvation without Divine aid. Virgil, as reason, can't understand sin committed in full knowledge and with deliberate will.
Purgatorio.
The second part of Dante Alighieri's 14th-century epic poem "Divine Comedy", followed by Paradiso.
In 1868, Purgatorio is illustrated by Gustave Doré's fourty two wood engravings.
I'm dumping all of them.
Gustave Doré
(6 January 1832 – 23 January 1883)
Overview of the Purgatory.
As you can see I'm a true mspaint master.
Dante's Purgatorio with english translation can be found here:
http://oll.libertyfund.org/titles/alighieri-the-divine-comedy-vol-2-purgatorio-english-only-trans
Also, shmoopdotcom helped me a lot.
As you have gone to Hell and back, let's continue the trip to the final destination, God.
1/42
Having survived the depths of Hell, Dante and Virgil ascend to the Mountain of Purgatory on the far side of the world, on Easter morning, 1300.
The mountain is an island, the only land in the Southern Hemisphere. Dante describes Hell as existing underneath Jerusalem, created by the impact of Satan's fall. Mount Purgatory, on exactly the opposite side of the world, was created by a displacement of rock, caused by the same event.
Dante proceeds to invoke the Muses. He asks Calliope, the head muse, to help him so that his “poem [may] rise again from Hell’s dead realm.”
He’s relieved to be out of Hell and to see the sky—“the gentle hue of oriental sapphire”—again at last.
On the eastern horizon is the planet Venus, which looks like a very bright star. At the south pole, four old (but still shiny) stars are glowing. We know they’re ancient because Dante says they were seen by the “first people.”
Looking back to the north pole, Dante sees a constellation that tells him the time of day, but before he can calculate it down to the exact minute, an old man distracts him.
2/42
The old man is sage-like, one of those white-bearded men who immediately commands respect; perhaps even more respect because his face is framed by the light of those four significant stars.
Dante describes him as having a long grizzled beard and graying hair falling down over his chest in two tresses; his face is illuminated by starlight.
The old man comes up to Dante and asks who he is that he could escape Hell. He follows with a deluge of questions: who was your guide? Have the laws of Hell been broken? Or have the powers that be changed them?
Virgil, who unlike Dante isn’t distracted by the man’s questions, forces Dante’s “knees and brow [to] show reverence.”
Virgil explains that a lady of Heaven, Virgin Mary, sent him here and he is escorting Dante and then shows his impressive knowledge by identifying the nameless old man.
He is Cato of Utica, a pagan who was a Roman military leader and statesman, and who has been placed by God as the general guardian of the approach to the mountain.
Cato then commands Virgil to go on, but to first get Dante a new belt made out of a rush and wash his face so he can be all cleaned up for Purgatory.
Then Cato vanishes.
Hyped for more!
3/42
On the shore, the rushes are all wet with dew.
Dante notes that they’re walking on a shore that has never felt the footstep of a living man.
Virgil places his hands on the wet grass. Dante reads his intent and kneels, letting Virgil wash the dirt from Hell off of his face with the dew.
As the sun rises on Purgatory, Dante spies a ship sailing across the sea toward the island at a great rate. It’s glowing like the planet Mars in the morning as it approaches. Dante also compares it to a flying bird.
Virgil instructs Dante to kneel and fold his hands because it is an angel that guides the boat and propels it with its wings. The brightness of the angel's face blinds Dante. As the ship approaches, Dante hears the voices of hundreds of spirits aboard the boat singing a psalm: "In exitu Israel de Aegypto” (Psalm 114 and translate as “During the departure of Israel from Egypt”).
4/42
The angel makes the sign of the cross over the souls, who fling themselves to the ground. The boat leaves.
When the spirits, gape-mouthed, land on the island they ask Dante and Virgil for directions to the path. Virgil explains that they too are new arrivals and the spirits realize that Dante is still alive because they can see him breathing and they turn pale in astonishment.
The souls are penitents sent to Purgatory to cleanse themselves of sin.
Now the center of attention, Dante compares himself to a messenger of peace, around whom everyone crowds to hear the good news. One soul admires Dante so much that it actually steps forward to hug the poet. Dante returns the gesture—not because he’s reveling in his celebrity, but because he recognizes the admirer. He/she is Casella who was a singer and composer from Florence. Casella died sometime before Easter Sunday 1300 (when Dante arrives in Purgatory). He/she smiles, showing both affection and bemusement, when Dante tries futilely to embrace Casella three times, but because it is a spirit, it has no mass and Dante's arms close around air. The soul comforts him, reassures him that he loves Dante.
Casella says the Helmsman Angel can pick and choose whom he wants to take first, even though he’s been taking all comers for the past three months. But there’s no harm done, insists Casella, since the angel’s will is God’s will. So he/she waited "on the shore where Tiber’s stream becomes saltwater" to cross, meaning at Ostia, Rome’s port at the mouth of the river Tiber. Ostia is where all souls who aren’t damned to Hell gather to cross to Purgatory.
Casella put some of Dante's poems to music so Dante asks him/her to sing a song for him. The other spirits gather motionlessly around to listen to the sweet song but Cato ends the diversion by reminding everyone that their mission to climb the mountain is urgent. The spirits disperse and begin their journey.
Dante and Virgil, follow just as quickly.
Thanks OP, amazing thread.
5/42
As the souls scatter, Dante draws close to Virgil because of their special connection. Dante feels like Virgil is his conscience. They run together towards the mountain.
As they slow down, Dante focuses on the mountain before them.
Dante describes the way the sun shines on his body. When the travelers enter Ante-Purgatory, Dante suffers a moment of fear when he notices that he is the only one who casts a shadow on the ground. Virgil doesn’t.
Virgil must remind him that he (Dante) is still alive and has a body, whereas Virgil’s body is long gone, buried in Naples.
Virgil goes on to praise the Lord, saying that lowly man cannot hope to understand His divine ways. He pleads for man to attempt to answer only the what, not the why, of God’s ways. Those who try to answer the why—like Aristotle and Plato—always fail.
By this time, they’ve reached the foot of the mountain and figured out it’s quite steep. Virgil remarks that it’ll be hard to find a place where a creature without wings can climb it. As Virgil studies the slope, Dante spies a group of souls approaching them very slowly from the left.
These spirits, “favoured by good fortune,” are rather timid and approach the poets like a flock of sheep, with those in the back following the movements of those ahead without knowing why. When the sheep-like souls to Dante’s right see that he casts a shadow, they stop dead and back up a little.
Virgil then explains the same phenomenon to them. Yes, Dante has a shadow. Yes, Dante is alive and yes, he’s virtuous enough to be here in Purgatory.
Continuing from >>2614272
One of the spirits in the group approaches Dante. This spirit belongs to Manfred, King of Sicily, and the illegitimate son of the Holy Roman emperor Fredrick II.
At the battle of Benevento, he received two fatal wounds. Right before dying, Manfred repented of all his sins and gave himself completely to the merciful God. Unfortunately, his enemy was Pope Clement IV and he excommunicated him after death. So this Pope's man dug up Manfred’s body—originally buried at Benevento—to move it outside papal territory.
Manfred begs Dante to tell his daughter that he repented before he died and that he regrets that his body did not get a proper burial. Manfred explains to Dante that even people who repent at the last minute are granted salvation but they must stay in Purgatory thirty times as long as the length of their rebellion against the Church. However, they can shorten that wait if they receive prayers from living souls.
Manfred asks Dante to take his message to his daughter Constance so that she can pray for him.
Analysis: On the lower slopes, the Ante-Purgatory, Dante meets two main categories of souls whose penitent Christian life was delayed or deficient: the excommunicate and the late repentant. The former are detained here for a period thirty times as long as their period of contumacy. The latter includes those too lazy or too preoccupied to repent, and those who repented at the last minute without formally receiving last rites, as a result of violent deaths. These souls will be admitted to Purgatory thanks to their genuine repentance, but must wait outside for an amount of time equal to their lives on earth.
I'm so glad I accidently went to /hr/ instead of /hc/ today, lol. This was awesome OP.
6/42
Dante's conversation with Manfred has made Dante lose track of time. He uses his distraction to refute one of Plato’s theories of the human soul; namely, that a single human being has more than one soul.
Plato believed that each of man’s different functions—like life, intellect, sensation, movement—is controlled by a different soul.
According to Dante’s logic, if a person had several souls, he would still notice the passage of time, no matter how spellbound he might be by something else (say… Manfred), because not all of his souls are concentrating on the same thing at one time. But, because Dante doesn’t notice the passing of time, this proves that man has only soul.
A shout cuts short his thoughts. The mysterious band of souls has found what Dante is seeking: a mountain path he can climb.
Virgil and Dante come to a cleft in the rocks where they begin their climb toward the summit. The path is really narrow, though. Its opening is very small. Dante finds the climb through the First Spur, where the Late-Repentant due to negligence dwell, extremely difficult and must stop at a ledge to rest.
The mountain is so high that Dante can’t even see its top. Dante is exhausted. He begs Virgil to stop. He orders Dante to climb up to the ridge where he’s standing and they’ll take a break together. Dante scrambles up obediently.
While they rest, Dante notices that although they face the sun, the sun appears on his left. Virgil explains that Purgatory stands on the opposite hemisphere from Jerusalem and since scientists believed that the world only had one hemisphere, this geography made perfect sense to Dante. As the two begin their ascent once again, Virgil comforts Dante by telling him that the climb will become increasingly easier as they approach the summit.
7/42
Dante and Virgil move to the Second Spur where the Late-Repentant who died by violence spend their time in Purgatory.
Soon a voice cries out, “Perhaps you will need to sit before you reach that point!”
Dante and Virgil do a double take and notice a massive boulder they haven’t seen before.
They investigate. Behind the boulder they find a little community of lounging men. The men are all worn out and lying down.
One of them catches Dante’s eyes. He’s sitting up with his head down between his knees.
Dante makes fun of his laziness: "O my sweet sire, set your eyes on that one, who appears lazier than if Sloth were his sister".
The penitent man overhears and shoots back, "Now go on up, you who are so steadfast".
Dante recognizes the man's voice and worry overwhelms him as he sits down by the tired fellow and looks him in the face. The indolent man keeps speaking.
Dante replies, calling him Belacqua. He smiles at Belacqua, relieved to find him here and not in Hell, but asks him why he’s languishing here.
Belacqua is majorly depressed. He asks Dante, "What’s the use in continuing to climb?" The guardian angel won’t let him through the gate to do his penance until he’s languished the length of his life out here in ante-Purgatory. For now, he can only hope for prayers to shorten his wait.
Before Dante can comfort his friend, Virgil crows 'Let’s shake a leg! It’s already noon' ("Come on, now, you see the sun touches the zenith, and night’s feet have already run from the banks of the Ganges to Morocco").
So they leave wretched Belacqua behind.
Continuing from >>2614296
Analysis:
As said before, these souls must now wait in Ante-Purgatory for as long as they negligently delayed their repentance on earth: that is, the length of their mortal lives.
Aware of this rule, Belacqua, true to character, is in no rush to begin the arduous climb up the mountain. “Belacqua” is most likely the nickname of Duccio di Bonavia, a Florentine musician and instrument maker with whom Dante appears to have had a warm friendship characterized by comical, witty teasing. Since Belacqua was still alive in 1299, it’s plausible that he died shortly before Dante’s arrival in Purgatory in 1300. One early commentator, calling Belacqua the laziest man who ever lived, repeats the gossip that from the moment Belacqua arrived in his shop in the morning and sat down, he never got up except to eat and sleep.
I'll post the rest tomorrow. thanks everyone.
8/42
As Dante and Virgil are leaving the Indolent souls in the First Spur behind towards the Second Spur where the Late-Repentant who died by violence spend their time, one of the souls sees Dante, gapes, and points him out to the others.
Dante turns his eyes, at the sound of these words, and sees them all gazing in wonder, at him alone.
Virgil asks Dante: "Why is your mind so ensnared that you slacken pace? What does it matter to you what they whisper here? Follow me close behind, and let the people talk: stand like a steady tower, that never shakes at the top, in the blasts of wind: since the man, in whom thought rises on thought, sets himself back, because the force of the one weakens the other".
Dante is duly shamed, follows orders, and blushes a bright red.
A large group of spirits approach them singing Miserere. They all stare at Dante’s shadow and change their chant to a long, hoarse "Oh!" "Make us wise to your state".
The penitents call after them to stop and talk and Virgil kindly speaks for Dante. He tells them that yes, Dante’s alive.
Once they realize that Dante is alive they beg him to to bring word of them to their loved ones on Earth.
They announce that they all died by violence, but repented of their sins at the very last second before death.
Dante stops to look at them. He says he doesn’t recognize any of them but would be happy to help them.
One soul steps forward and asks Dante to bring news of him to his hometown Fano.
He is Jacopo del Cassero who defended Bologna against the expansionist intentions of Azzo d'Este, lord of Ferrara. During a trip he was chased after and reached by the assassins of Azzo D'Este, sought refuge in a swamp near Padua where he died assassinated. He regrets fleeing towards Oriago instead of Mira. Had he gone to Mira, the penitent implies, he might still be alive. Instead, he ended up in a marsh where his blood soaked into the ground.
9/42
Then without a break, another penitent asks for Dante’s help in bringing news to the Montefeltro.
He names himself as Buonconte da Montefeltro (His father, Guido, is amongst the false counselors in Hell -Inferno Canto26-). He was captain of the Ghibelline army that was soundly defeated by the Florentine guelphs during the battle of Campaldino.
Dante, who fought alongside his fellow Florentines, asks him how he died: what happened to Buonconte’s body, which was not found on the battlefield?
Buonconte gives his story: during the battle, he suffered a throat wound and was running for his life bloodying the plain when he fell along the banks of the Archiano, where he died with Mary’s name on his lips.
Buonconte reveals that an angel and a demon fought over his soul after he died but the angel finally took possession of him because of a little tear that appeared in his eye, thus leaving the evil angel to punish Buonconte’s corpse by bringing flooding rains that sweep the body downstream into the Arno. That’s why nobody could find him.
The slain soldier now appears in Ante-Purgatory among those who sinned right up until the moment they died a violent death; only then did they repent and forgive, thereby leaving the world in peace with God.
10/42
Suddenly, a third soul identifies herself as La Pia and begs Dante to take her story to the living world only after he’s rested a bit, though. "May you remember me, who am La Pia. Siena made me: Maremma undid me: he knows, who having first pledged himself tome, wed me with his ring."
Analysis: Pia de Tolomei of Siena, implies that her husband Nello of the Maremma (the coastal region near Siena) caused her death, despite his wedding vows to her.
While some say the murder took place with such secrecy that its manner was never known, others claim Nello ordered a servant to take Pia by the feet and drop her from the castle window. A motive for the murder may have been Nello’s desire to marry his neighbor, a widowed countess.
"Pia de' Tolomei" is also a tragic opera based on Divine Comedy premiered in 1837.
Synopsis:
Ghino has fallen in love with Pia, wife of his cousin Nello, a Ghibelline lord. When she refuses his love, as revenge Ghino informs Nello that he has discovered a secret message (found by the mischievous servant Ubaldo) proving that Pia has an adulterous relation. It tells of a secret meeting to be held between Pia and her lover. Ghino goes to the place described in the message, and does find Pia with a man. Ghino does not know that the man is not her lover but her brother Rodrigo, a Guelph, whom she is helping to escape from Nello's prison. Rodrigo manages to escape, but Pia is captured and imprisoned.
Ghino again offers her his love, promising to give her freedom in exchange; but the woman still refuses. Impressed by Pia's virtue and informed of the true identity of her alleged lover, Ghino repents and, mortally wounded in battle, reveals the truth to Nello. However, Nello had already given to his servant Ubaldo the order to kill Pia by poisoning. Nello rushes to stop the servant, but it is too late: he finds his wife is dying. On her deathbed, Pia forgives her husband, and effects a reconciliation between him and Rodrigo.
Continuing from >>2614648
Dante compares himself to the winner of a dice game, who gets all the attention while the loser sulks in solitude. The penitents lavish him with attention, tapping his shoulders, tugging at him, all asking to be remembered.
Amongst the crowd, Dante recognizes Benincasa who met his death by Ghin di Tacco’s ruthless weapons, and Guccio de’ Tarlati, who was drowned as he ran in pursuit at Campaldino, and Count Orso, his spirit severed from its body through envy and hatred, and not for any sin committed. And Federigo Novello and Pierre de la Brosse.
Nearly every spirit that he meets urges Dante to ask for prayers on its behalf. Virgil once wrote that prayers from loved ones do not help souls in Purgatory. Dante questions him on this opinion and Virgil explains that the passage that he wrote referred to a pagan who would not be helped by prayers; Christians do, however, leave Purgatory earlier when God's heard prayers on their behalf. Virgil also admits, though, that Beatrice will give him the final answers to all of his questions so Dante is eager to continue their journey. Not because he’s hankering for Beatrice but because it’s getting late. However Dante can’t expect them to make so much progress so quickly. They can’t possibly climb to the top before the sun sets.
At that moment they see a soul seated alone and they rush towards him to get directions. The soul says nothing, though, but only watches them as a couchant lion would. Instead of telling them where to go, the mysterious soul asks them who they are and where they’re from.
When Virgil says “Mantua,” the penitent’s attitude completely changes. He stands up, identifies himself as the poet Sordello of Mantua, and promptly hugs Virgil.
At this point, Dante launches into a scathing invective against the violence, corruption, and lack of effective leadership up and down Italy, calling his native country first a ship without a helmsman and secondly a whore.
11/42
Then he turns his anger to the Florentines who, he believes, have become especially bad neighbors.
He then goes into a long metaphor comparing Italy to a horse. Historical figures like Emperor Justinian have come along to “mend your bridle,” but Dante concludes this is useless since “the saddle’s empty.” In other words, Italy has yet to find a good leader.
He scolds the Church for not allowing Caesar to sit in Italy’s saddle, but instead controlling the bit themselves. Then, Dante uncharacteristically shows pity for the Ghibellines (his rival faction) by lamenting both Guelph and Ghibelline nobility together. Had a proper emperor ruled Italy, he would’ve reconciled the two parties and brought peace to the country. He ends by calling Florence a sick woman.
Following Dante’s rant about Italy, Sordello subtly asks Virgil who he is.
Virgil, in his fancy but humble way, explains who he is and that he is a sinner.
At which point, Sordello drops to his knees. Virgil answers that he went through all the circles of "the mournful kingdom", but that God is allowing him to move beyond Hell and into Purgatory, where he usually could not enter. Virgil also explains that he dwells in the Limbo with other virtuous pagans "who were bitten by the teeth of death before they were baptised and exempt from human sin" and who did not practice "the three holy virtues: Faith, Hope, and Charity".
Having said enough about himself, Virgil asks Sordello to point them to the path that would take them most easily to the entry to Mount Purgatory. But Sordello explains the "Rule of the Mountain": that after sunset souls are literally incapable of climbing any further.
Sordello leads them to a beautiful valley filled with sweet flowers that is so bright with the color of grass and flowers that it surpasses such beauties as “gold and fine silver, cochineal, white lead and Indian lychnite.” The valley of the Princes.
continuing from >>2614651
Analysis: The darkness apparently saps people of their will and they cannot physically climb higher. They can go downwards and rest, but not upwards. Allegorically, the sun represents God, meaning that progress in the penitent Christian life can only be made through the light of the Divine Grace.
12/42
Since the sun is setting, Dante and his companions stop here for the night where they meet persons whose preoccupation with public and private duties hampered their spiritual progress. The spirits, particularly deceased monarchs, are consigned to this spot because they too neglected to repent.
These shades give the valley its name, Valley of the Rulers. They’re singing a hymn, “Salve, Regina.” “Hail, Queen.”
Sordello points out the highest-seated penitent, Emperor Rudolph, who is the only one not moving his lips to the others’ singing. Beside him is the ruler of Bohemia Ottokar II, who (Sordello says) is much better than his lazy son, Wenceslaus.
The soul nearby is Philip III, who seems so deep in counsel with Henry I of Navarre, who died "withering the lily" (France’s symbol is the lily, meaning that he lost a battle). Sordello quite rudely calls them the “father and father-in-law of the pest of France,” this pest being Philip IV, who supported making Clement V the pope, which resulted in the Pope being abducted from Rome.
Then there are Charles of Anjou and Peter of Aragon, singing in harmony while on earth they were bitter rivals over the throne.
Sordello continues on Henry III of England, "the king of the simple life". Finally, the ruler seated lowest in the valley is William the Marquis.
Darkness falls on the Valley of the Rulers.
Dante describs the sunset as the "hour which makes the thoughts, of those who voyage, turn back, and melts their hearts, on the day when they have said goodbye to their sweet friends; and which pierces the new pilgrim with love, when he hears the distant chimes, that seem to mourn the dying day".
The spirits begin to sing an evening devotion, "Te lucis ante terminum". Dante listens. Then, from the gorgeous sky descend two angels.
13/42
Although Dante cannot see their faces because they are so bright but he sees that the angels hold flaming swords with broken tips and have blond hair. Their clothes are "green as tender newborn leaves, trailing behind, stirred and fanned, by their green wings".
Taking defensive positions overlooking the valley, one angel lands above Dante, the other on the opposite bank, so that the people were between them. Sordello explains that they come from the Virgin Mary herself and serve as guards for the night in the valley against "the serpent that will now come".
At the mention of “serpent,” Dante keeps turning around to see if a serpent is approaching and he hides behind Virgil.
Quite unaware of Dante's fear, Sordello calmly proceeds to lead them down the bank with the intent of talking to the singing penitents.
Dante takes three mincing steps before he realizes someone’s watching him—a soul trying to recognize Dante. It hasn’t yet grown so dark that he can identify him as the judge Nino de Visconti. Dante is relieved to find his friend among the penitents and not among the damned in Hell. Nino begs him to ask his daughter to pray for him because his wife no longer cares about him.
Now Dante’s eyes turn to Heaven. He notices that three twinkling stars overhead (representing the theological virtues of Faith, Hope and Charity) have replaced the constellation of four (representing the cardinal virtues) that he had seen at dawn.
As Dante is speaking, Sordello draws him towards himself, saying: ‘Look, there is our enemy,’ and pointed his finger: the serpent! It appears among the grass and flowers as a small snake periodically turning around to lick its back; the angels quickly descend, drive off the snake (which represents the Devil, like the one that gave Eve the bitter fruit), and return to their perches above the valley—if they did not, those inside and elsewhere on the mountain would be in danger of corruption, and falling, down the mountain.
Can't wait for more!
comfy thread, bookmarked for later reading
Jebus Christopher
>>2613822
PARADISE LOST PLEASE!
The fact that you'd take all this time to write about this for people really is amazing.
I just wish I could save this thread and return to it regularly.
can't wait for paradiso!
Thanks for all this!
14/42
Now that the venomous threat fled, Dante notices that a shade, who had drawn close to the Judge Nino, did not stop from gazing at him, for even a moment, during all that threat.
He wishes Dante luck in his endeavors up in Purgatory, and then asks for news about his homeland, Val di Magra: "May that lamp that leads you higher, find as much fuel, in your will, as is needed to reach the enamelled summit". He then introduces himself as Conrad Malaspina, not the elder, but descended from him, and says "I had that love for my own, that here is purified".
Although Dante has never been to this place, he has heard of it because its rulers,The Malaspini who however were Ghibellines, are well known. Dante replies courteously, heaping praise about the glory, courtesy and chivalry of Conrad’s family.
He goes on claiming that although everyone else is affected by the “evil head” (Satan), the Malaspina family alone walks the true path.
Conrad echoes the sentiment and prophesies that Dante will visit Val di Magra before "the sun [has] rested seven times" under Franceschino’s protection, who once was Dante’s host.
Night has fallen. Dante tells that "the moon’s aurora" has abandoned the bed of her lover and is growing beautifully pale. Meanwhile, opposite her the constellation Scorpio has jewels lining its tail. It is 8.30pm on the evening of Easter Monday, and Dante falls asleep, overtaken by human weakness. He passed through the Inferno without sleep, and is now exhausted.
Dante observes that, unlike his comrades around him, he bears “something of Adam” (he has a human body with a biological clock) and is sleepy. So he sinks down on the grass, where the five of them are already seated.
15/42
In the hour “when the swallow begins her melancholy songs, when the mind is almost prophetic, more of a wanderer from the body, and less imprisoned by thought", Dante has a dream. (Note: popular medieval belief held that dreams experienced close to daybreak were most likely to come true.)
He sees an 'eagle, poised in the sky, on outspread wings, with golden plumage, and intent to swoop' down on him.
Dante imagines the descending eagle, like Jupiter snatching Ganymede.
The eagle then dives like a lightning bolt and snatches up Dante in its talons and soars upward. It seems to him that they both burn in the sky and the flames of vision so scorched him, that his sleep is broken.
Dante compares his awakening to Achilles’ when he woke up in a new kingdom after being carried there by his mother Thetis. Dante is so startled that he turns pale and cold. Virgil, the only one at his side, comforts him. The sun is already more than two hours high and Dante's eyes turn towards the sea (which wasn’t in sight when he went to sleep).
Virgil reassures Dante: "when your spirit was asleep in you, among the flowers [...] a Lady came, and said: I am Lucia: Let me take this man, who sleeps, and I will help him on his way. She took you, and came on upwards, as day brightened, and I followed in her track. Here she placed you, and her lovely eyes first showed me that open passage: then she, and sleep, together, vanished."
Dante listens with consternation but quickly regains his composure.
Afterwards, he follows Virgil confidently to the entrance to the Gate of Purgatory (until now they had been in Ante-Purgatory).
continuing from >>2615331
Analysis:
Ganymede was a young Trojan prince, known for his beauty, abducted by Jupiter in his divine lust–in the form of an eagle–to serve forever as the god’s cupbearer in Olympus. Ganymede was thus viewed as a symbol of male sexual love, particularly between a boy and a mature man, in the Middle Ages and Renaissance.
Ganymede being a son of Troy, and an ancestor of Aeneas ( In Virgil's Aeneid, Aeneas is an ancestor of Romulus and Remus and the first true hero of Rome), links the regeneration to that of Roman law and justice.
The purgation of lust that Dante will finally achieve passing through the fire at the top of Purgatory, is here echoed in the dream, and the purgation of the world’s lust by a new Imperial eagle is prophesied.
Dante is being carried upwards by Lucia whose emblem is light. The eagle in the medieval Bestiaries flies into the circle of fire in its old age, its feathers are consumed, and it falls blinded into a fountain, where it is renewed like the phoenix. It is a symbol therefore of baptismal regeneration through Divine Grace.
Virgil describes how Lucia came down to help at dawn, and her eyes, symbols of the cardinal virtues by which they can make progress up the Mount, showed Virgil the passage to the proper Purgatory.
16/42
Moving up by the cliff, Dante and Virgil comes to a gate. At first this appears as a simple fissure in the wall of the path, but as they approache it becomes clear that it is, in fact, a gateway entrance, with three steps before it that shine blindingly in three colours.
In this blinding light sits an angelic gatekeeper,overwhelmingly bright, as glorious as the one bringing souls to the shore of Purgatory.
The gatekeeper guards the gate into Purgatory proper well, but will allow those who are sufficiently devout, and who have a valid reason through.
The guard speaks, asking them where their escort is and warning them to be careful in their approach. Virgil answers that "a heavenly Lady" just pointed them here. The angel blesses them and invites them onto the stairs.
The bottom step is made of white marble, so pure and polished that it reflects images. The middle step is basalt, coloured "darker than a dark blue-grey, of a rough, calcined stone" and two cracks along its length and width forming the sign of the Cross. The top step is flaming "porphyry, fiery as blood spurting from an artery".
The angel sits on an adamantine block before the solid gate, its feet on the third step, holding a drawn sword in one hand, with light reflecting from it like a bright flame, too near to the light of Heaven for mortal eyes. The gate itself is of solid banded iron.
Virgil urges Dante to climb these steps and to beg the guard to let them through. He beats thrice on his chest then throws himself at the angel’s feet, begging for mercy.
The gatekeeper raises his sword and carves in blood seven 'P's ( "Peccatum", sin) on Dante's forehead with the point of his sword, one for each mortal sin, and advises Dante that he does not fail to wash them all off as he ascends.
continuing from >>2615409
Dante notes that the gatekeeper wears a dusty-earth coloured robe, from which he draws two keys, one gold and one silver, he received from Peter, to unlock the gate. He informs Dante that Peter warned him—when in doubt—to open the gate rather than turn praying souls away.
The angel allows Virgil and Dante to enter and pushes the door of the sacred gateway, saying to the poets: "Enter, but I let you know, that whoever looks behind, returns outside, again." The gates creak as they open, sounding really old, like the gates of the Temple of Saturn on the Tarpeian Hill where the Roman Treasury was stored.
As they enter, Dante hears beautiful voices singing " Te Deum laudamus."
Then the gate clangs shut behind them.
Analysis:
The Gate of Purgatory, Peter's Gate, has been interpreted as an allegory of the Sacrament of Penance. The courteous angel who guards the entrance, is the priestly confessor, while the three steps are the three stages of the Sacrament: Repentance (heartfelt contrition), Confession (recognition of one’s sins), and Forgiveness. Repentance is cool marble, Confession rough and scorched, breaking the stubbornness of the heart, and Forgiveness red with Christ’s blood. The adamantine threshold is the rock of the Church with its power to forgive sin, and the firmness and constancy of the confessor.
The angel at Peter's Gate uses two keys to open the gate, these are "the keys of the kingdom of heaven” given to Peter by Jesus (Matt. 16:18-19).
One is silver: the remorse, and the other is gold: reconciliation – both are needed to open the gate when used in order, silver then gold; meaning that both remorse and reconciliation are necessary for redemption and salvation.
If the keys do not turn in the lock, then the person's entry to Purgatory is denied, at least at present.
continuing from >>2615410
Beyond the Gate the path is at first difficult. The poets climbs through a broken rock, which is moving on this side and on that, like a wave on the sea that ebbs and flows, making their passage like the Argo did.
This makes their steps so slow that the wandering circle of the moon regains its bed to sink again to rest (or about 9am on the Tuesday morning).
They finally come upon an open space, that borders the void, about 'the length of three human bodies' wide from its outer brink to the inner cliff, realizing they’re tired and lost, 'more lonely than a road through a desert', and stop.
The inner wall is vertical with no visible way up to the next terrace, but is of clear white marble, carved with friezes giving examples of humility so complex that even such artists as Polycletus (a greek sculptor) and Nature herself would be overwhelmed.
So vividly carved on that rock are images of Gabriel the angel (who opened Heaven to men after Adam and Eve had been banished from Eden) in prayer to a painted Virgin Mary in front of him. Dante claims one can almost hear him saying “Ave” ("Hail").
Analysis:
Argo was the ship on which Jason and the Argonauts sailed to retrieve the Golden Fleece. The Argonauts sailed between the Symphlegades, two rocky islands in the Euxine Sea, clashing rocks according to the fable, that otherwise crushed what passed between them.
17/42
Virgil interrupts Dante’s gape-mouthed staring to advise him to look at all the images.
So he looks some more. Another story rendered in the stone shows a cart drawn by oxen carrying a sacred ark. This is King David dancing before the Ark of the Covenant, in an act of humility and worship, while Michael watches scornfully from the palace window.
Beyond that picture is another. There, Dante sees the Roman Emperor Trajan mounted on horseback and surrounded by golden banners emblazoned with the eagle emblem. Near him stands a poor widow. The representation is so detailed that Dante can hear the conversation being held:
The widow begs God to avenge her son’s murder. The Emperor Trajan asks her to wait until he returns to fulfill her request. She asks sadly, what if he doesn’t return? Trajan responds that his regent will perform the duty for her. Still doubtful, she asks why he is neglecting his duty. He assures her that the act will be done before he leaves because his duty and mercy require it of him.
Dante is agape with wonder that God could make a picture seem so real. He explains that this is because God sees nothing new (including fantastic pictures), while men are fascinated by novelties all the time.
Virgil interrupts, drawing Dante’s attention to a group of approaching penitents.
>>2612140
has it ever been explained how dante made it to the other side??
18/42
Dante warns readers that the punishment they’re about to see may be harsh, but not to dwell on that. He now explains the nature of Purgatory, that here there is a debt to be paid rather than a punishment, and that the burden of purgation, its suffering, cannot last beyond the Day of Judgement. Hell is eternal recurrence, but Purgatory is bounded in time.
Dante thinks; those people coming towards us don’t seem like… people. He thinks his sight is just off and shares this thought with Virgil.
Virgil assures him that it’s not his vision; these people purge their sin here on the first terrace by bearing heavy weights on their shoulders and are thus bent over, and praying as they go, for themselves and those on Earth who are still in danger of Hell.
Dante laments that men could be so proud as to render them blind and force them to walk backwards. He asserts that men are worms and that only after they’ve gone through purgation can they morph into angelic butterflies. He asks the rhetorical question, why do men try to fly when they’re still merely worms—or sinful.
He then compares these bent-over penitents to "corbels", which are shaped like men in despair, with their knees drawn up to their chests.
When Dante looks again, the penitents' forms echo the despair. Everyone is bent over at different heights, according to the weights on their backs. All of them seem on the verge of collapsing.
continuing from >>2615628
Analysis:
From the gate of Purgatory, Dante goes through its seven terraces. These correspond to the seven deadly sins or "seven roots of sinfulness." The classification of sin here is more psychological than that of the Inferno, being based on motives, rather than actions.
The core of the classification is based on love: the first three terraces of Purgatory (Pride, Envy, and Wrath) relate to perverted love directed towards actual harm of others, the fourth terrace relates to deficient love (Sloth), and the last three terraces (Greed, Gluttony and Lust) relate to excessive or disordered love of good things.
The first of the sins is Pride: a perverted desire or love of the wrong thing, as are anger and envy. On the first terrace, Dante and Virgil see beautiful sculptures expressing humility and witnesses the proud carrying heavy burdens to humble them, , the opposite virtue. Here, the proud must purge their sin under examples of the opposite virtue, humility.
>>2615617
No, there is nothing about this in his text. He just faints and wakes up on the opposite bank.
continuing from >>2615642
Despite the stones on their backs, the penitents praise God to please give them His blessing.
Virgil agrees to pray for the prideful penitents if they will show him and Dante the easiest way up the mountain, adding in a whisper that Dante—because he still has a body—isn’t quite as athletically gifted in climbing as the bodiless souls.
Omberto, one of the souls lost in the crowd, answers. He laments that his arrogance has not only brought pain to him, but to his whole family, and that here he bears the burden that he refused to shoulder on earth. Omberto from the Sienese Maremma, was put to death at Campagnatico, by the Sienese, who resented the arrogance of the family with whom they had long been at war.
A second soul twist his head around and catch a glimpse of Dante’s face. He is 'Oderisi , the glory of Gubbio, and the glory of that art which in Paris they call ‘Illumination’.
Oderisi was a famous and talented miniaturist and illuminator who worked with Franco of Bologna to illuminate manuscripts in the Vatican Library.
Oderisi insists that his colleague Franco was a better painter and he regrets being so proud during his lifetime because he’s paying the price here. He rants against mankind in general for its pride, because those acclaimed at a certain time can never stay great forever. This speech fills Dante's heart with holy humility, and deflates his swollen pride.
Oderisi then points out the soul in front of him and whispers to Dante that this man was once the pride of Siena and he is here because he presumed to grasp all Siena in his hand. And pride of power meets the same fate as artistic glory.
He is Provenzan Salvani, the leading Ghibelline among the Sienese at the battle of Montaperti, where Florence was humbled.
Dante asks how he reached the first terrace so quickly, especially if the penitents have to spend the length of their whole lifetime praying before they can enter Purgatory proper.
19/42
Oderisi tells of how Provenzan humbled himself by dressing as a beggar to procure the money to ransom a friend imprisoned by Charles of Anjou. This act, despite his late repentance, allowed him to enter the Gate of Purgatory.
And Oderisi prophesies that Dante too will know through exile the pain of begging hospitality of others.
Dante then leaves and follows 'the burdened spirit, bowed like oxen under the yoke, humbled in thought'.
The terrace ahead is carved with sculpted reliefs like tombstones in the ground over which the poets walk.
The sculptures, as examples of Pride, protrude from the mountain: first Satan who fell through pride, then the Giants who challenged the gods, next Nimrod whose tower of Babylon was frowned on by God, and finally, Arachne.
Arachne was a blessed weaver of Greece who boasted that her skill was greater than that of Athena, and refused to acknowledge that her skill came, in part at least, from the goddess of wisdom.
Hearing of her attitude, Athena then appeared on her doorway disguised as an old woman in a dark cloak and asked if she really didn't believe that Athena had taught her to weave. Arachne repeated her boast and Athena challenged her to a contest in which Zeus was to be the judge. Whoever lost must promise never to touch spindle or loom again.
Arachne wove a web thin yet strong with many colours, but this was no match for Athena's weaving, made up of the gods and their glory, shining with their beauty.
Arachne acknowledged Athena's triumph, but despaired at the loss of her craft. Athena saw that Arachne could not live if she could not weave, so she touched Arachne with the tip of her spear, turning her into a spider so she could weave without spindle or loom.
Dante rages against the arrogant “sons of Eve” (humankind), telling them sarcastically to turn a blind eye on their evil ways. Virgil exhorts Dante not to lose time getting absorb like that. Virgil points out an angel who is preparing to come towards them.
Probably the best thread I've read in a long time.
>>2615771
This.
I've had this thread bookmarked since it started and I've come back to it everyday looking for more.
continuing from >>2615759
The beautiful creature comes to them. The angel is robed in white and his face glows like Venus, the morning star.
He loses no time in opening his arms and spreading his wings to welcome Dante and Virgil to the staircase of the next terrace, then he says: "Few are those who do come, at this invitation. O human race, born to soar, why do you fall so, at a breath of wind?"
The angel leads them where the rock is cleft: there he beats his wings against Dante's forehead, and promises him a safe journey.
As the two poets walk, they hear a song. The words to the song are “blessed are the poor in spirit” and they float along beautifully on the breeze, to which Dante says: "How different these openings are from Hell’s: here we enter with songs, and, down there, with savage groaning."
Now climbing, Dante feels lighter, wondering what heavy weight has been lifted from him. Virgil replies that one of his P’s the gatekeeper placed there has been erased from his forehead and every time that happens his burden is eased a little and his feet take joy in traveling uphill. Dante flies his hands to his forehead and feels only six P’s, to what Virgil smiles, signifying the first victory of hope.
Analysis: At the conclusion of each visit to one of the seven terraces they meet an Angel, whose attribute is the opposite of the sin being purged, here it is the Angel of Humility. One of the seven letters P’s inscribed on his forehead by the Angel at the Gate has been removed, as the respective letters will be erased at the conclusion of the visit to each terrace. Purgation gradually leads to less labour, the ascent is easier the higher we climb, and the heavy weight of pride has here been lifted.
Dante and Virgil arrive at the top of the stairs on the second terrace, the Envious.
The cornice, like the first, loops round the hill except that its curve is sharper, but lacks the carvings, being very bare and empty, with no apparent penitent.
20/42
Virgil utters a prayer to the sun that it guides them safely. Although the ledge seems deserted, Dante hears voices that passed by in flight singing the praises of fraternal love—the opposite virtue of envy. Dante hears such things as “Love those who have shown you hatred” and “I am Orestes”. Virgil directs Dante’s attention towards the path in front of them, where a crowd of souls sits.
Dante opens his eyes and sees people wearing clothes the same color as the stone all around them.
As he gets closer, Dante realizes that he’s witnessing the punishment of envious souls, and his eyes immediately fill with tears:
Their eyelids are wired together like wild hawks being tamed, as they lean together like blind beggars seeking alms. Their eyes, which did not value the visible world correctly, are now sealed from vision. Dante feels the discourtesy, and lack of fraternal feeling, in passing them unseen in silence, and Virgil tells him to speak to them briefly.
He first praises the Envious because they are destined to eventually enter Heaven and to regain their sight and memory.
Dante encounters a female penitent who says that she was Sapia de Saracini. She tells Dante how her fellow Sienese backed the Ghibelline leader, while she was envious of their power. When they were defeated in battle, Sapia rejoiced and dared to turn her impudent face, crying out to God “Now I no longer fear you!". However, she repented at the end of her life and thus ended up in Purgatory.
Now she turns her attention to Dante and asks who he is, that he should be able to see and to use breath to speak. Dante answers that he’ll pass through here eventually too and be blinded for a little while, but not for long, because he never was really envious in his life. Instead, he's more afraid of the first terrace.
Two unnamed souls in the Envious group are speaking. They wonder aloud who this person is, who cannot only see, but is alive.
>>2612096
Thank You OP, i'm crying, this is so beautiful
21/42
One urges the other to ask the man himself because “you’re closer”.
One of them finally turns to Dante and asks who he is and where he’s from, since he’s such an oddity in this place. Dante says that "it would be useless to tell you who I am, since my name does not sound much, as yet" and that he is from a town on the banks of the river that begins in Mount Falterona.
He realizes that Dante speaks of the river Arno and that he hasn't mentioned it by name because he is ashamed of his hometown.
The shade responds by delivering a blistering speech against the people that live along the Arno. According to the soul, the Arno starts in a place full of “filthy hogs” (the Casentines) more fitted for acorns than any other food, then descends to a land of "curs" (the Aretines) that snarl more than their power merits. These curs are so disgusting that even the Arno turns its current, scornfully, away from them, while the curs surrounding it become "wolves" (the Florentines). As the river descends further, it comes across wily "foxes" (the Pisans) full of deceit.
The shade prophesies that his grandson who is becoming a "wolf" hunter on the bank of the savage river will someday slaughter the people that live in the region of "wolves".
Dante’s curiosity finally overwhelms him and he asks the two speakers who they are. The first soul replies: "You want me to condescend to do that for you, that you will not do for me", but the soul nevertheless reveals his identity. He is Guido del Duca and was in life envious of anyone who appeared to be happy. He introduces his friend as Rinieri da Calboli.
Analysis: Dante’s message is once more, degenerate Italy, fallen from its ancient virtues, lost in factional strife. His examples are almost meaningless to us, but well known to his contemporary audience.
In Hell the spirits talk against one another, here they join in fraternal conversation, Ghelph with Ghibelline (who were ennemies, like Guido and Rinieri)
continuing from >>2616057
Just as Dante and Virgil leave the Envious behind, a voice strikes them like lightning when it splits the air: “Everyone who findeth me shall slay me” and vanishes like a thunderclap.
Before they have time to react, another voice thunders, “I am Aglauros, she, who was turned to stone.” At this, Dante inches nearer Virgil for protection. Virgil scolds Dante for not recognizing good, but fearing it.
Analysis:
These are voices calling out examples of Envy, echoing the counter examples to the first voices of love that they heard at the start of the terrace.
The first one is from Caïn, the son of Adam and Eve, who killed his brother Abel out of envy because God favored Abel's sacrifice over Cain's, thus becoming the first murderer of humanity.
The second one comes from Aglauros. Hermes fell in love with Herse and went to her house to ask for her hand. Aglauros, Herse's sister, agreed to give Herse his message for the price of gold. Athena saw all of this and sent the hag Envy to torment Aglauros with jealousy. Aglauros blocked the passage to Herse's room and refused to let Hermes in. Hermes, angry at her for breaking her promise, changed her into a stone statue.
Envy is distinct from jealousy, but envy can trigger jealousy.
Now, The poets head west, straight into the sunlight. Dante 'lifts his hands above his eyes and makes that shade which dims the excess light'. But it's not just the sun. Dante seems struck by reflected light, in front of him, from which his eyes are quick to hide. Virgil says to Dante that the light is nothing to worry about; it's a messenger that comes to invite us to climb. The blessed creature, the angel of Fraternal Love, who attends the exit from the second terrace then says: ‘Enter a stairway, here, much less steep than the others.’
As they enter the staircase, they hear a strain of a hymn behind them: "Beati misericordes: blessed are the merciful’(Mercy counters human envy).
>>2616034
>i'm crying
get a grip you utter faggots
22/42
As they walking up, Dante asks what Guido del Duca meant when he said “division and partnership”? Virgil explains Guido’s sin:
When a person desires something that can be diminished by partnership/fraternal love (each share is small), then this inspires Envy. But if the person turns his desire heavenward, "envious fear would not be core to his heart".
Dante says: "How can it be that a shared good makes a greater number of possessors richer by it than if it is owned by a few?’ And Virgil to him: ‘Because you fix your eyes only on earthly things, you produce darkness from true light. Divine goodness is drawn to love, like a "light ray", and generates increased love (shared good increases love, meaning that shared does not mean less) and up there "the more people, the more love there is and, like a mirror, the one increase reflects the other" .
Virgil ends: "you will see Beatrice, and she will free you completely from this, work, so that the other five wounds that are healed by our pain are soon erased, as two have been" (a second letter P has been erased from Dante’s forehead).
Arriving on the next terrace, that of the wrathful, Dante suddenly is stopped by an ecstatic dream.
He sees a temple with a woman inside. She says with the tender attitude of a mother ‘My son, why hast thou thus dealt with us?' and vanishes.
Then another woman appears to him. She urges her husband—King Pisistratus of Athens—to kill the man who has dared to touch their daughter in public. The good King answers: No, "what shall we do to those who wish harm to us, if we condemn him who loves us?".
Then Dante sees people, "blazing with the fire of wrath, killing a youth with stones, and calling continually and loudly to each other: ‘Kill him, kill him!" As he's dying, the youth's eyes turn towards Heaven, and he prays to God to forgive his persecutors.
continuing from >>2616482
Virgil says to Dante: "what you saw was to prevent you having an excuse for not opening your heart, to the waters of peace, that are poured from the eternal fountain".
Analysis: Dante’s three visions are images of Gentleness, the opposite of Wrath.
The first voice repeats the words Virgin Mary spoke to Christ, displaying restraint upon finding Jesus, her son, in the temple of Jerusalem conversing with learned adults (Jesus had come to Jerusalem with his parents, but he stayed behind when Mary and Joseph returned home and it took them three days to find him).
The second is Pisistratus' voice replying calmly to his wife, showing judgement and restraint.
The third vision is the stoning of Saint Stephen, the first christian martyr, who forgave his tormentors.
They continue walking until vespers, following the light of the sun. Soon, though, they are swallowed up by black smoke, which appears from nowhere. This smoke blinds them.
>>2616135
>Not being poetic
>Not crying while reading Dante
Back to /co/ you go
23/42
Dante claims that this mysterious smoke is darker and rougher than the darkness of Hell or a 'night deprived of every planet, under a scant sky, darkened by cloud' that he is forced to close his eyes. Dante compares himself to a blind man seeking the assistance of a guide to protect him as he goes 'through the foul and bitter air'. Virgil urges Dante 'not to get cut off' from him.
Suddenly, countless voices compete for dominance in the smoke, praying and singing the hymn “Agnus Dei” (Lamb of God). Virgil says that the singers are the Wrathful, 'untying the knot of anger'.
Hearing them in conversation, a ghostly voice calls out to Dante. It asks the identity of this man “whose body pierces through our smoke” and “who speaks of us exactly like a man who uses months to measure time.” The penitent agrees to follow Dante as far as he’s “allowed.”
In case Dante feels worried about losing him in the smoke, the soul comforts the poet, saying that they can keep track of each other through their sense of hearing.
Dante acknowledges that he’s alive and says that he went 'through the pain of Hell' and has been permitted access here because God gives him the right. Dante asks the spirit: "tell me if I'm heading straight for the pass: and your words will be our escort."
The soul, intimidated, tells Dante that he was called Marco and he was a Lombard.
>>2612096
thanks OP.
24/42
Marco Lombardo claims that he 'knew the world, and loved that worth, at the sight of which every one now unbends their bow' and prays Dante to pray for him when he's above and adds that they are going 'the right way to ascend'.
In support of Marco’s words, Dante agrees that the world is 'indeed so wholly destitute of every virtue' and 'weighed down with sin'. Dante begs Marco to show him 'the cause, so that he can see it, and tell others, since some people place the cause in the sky, and others here below.’
Marco sighs and says:
"the world is blind, and you come from there, indeed. You, the living, refer every cause to the heavens, as though they carried all along with them by necessity. If it were so, free will would be destroyed in you, and there would be no justice in taking delight in good, and lamenting evil. The heavens initiate your movements: I do not say all,[...] you are given a light to know good from evil: and you are given free will, which gains the victory, completely, in the end, if it survives the stress of its first conflict with the heavens, and is well nurtured. Free, you are subject to a greater force, and a better nature, and that creates Mind in you, that the sky does not have control of. So if the world today goes awry, the cause is in yourselves, search for it in yourselves[...]."
Marco then says:
"From His hands, who loves her dearly before she exists, issues the Soul, in simplicity, like a little child playing in laughter and in tears, and she knows nothing but that, sprung from a joyful Maker, she willingly turns towards what delights her. She savours, at the start, the taste of childish good, and is beguiled by it, and chases it, if her love is not curbed or misguided. That is why it was necessary to create Law as a curb, and necessary to have a ruler, who might at least make out the towers of the true city."
continuing from >>2617240
Analysis:
Dante’s discussion of free will at the center of the Purgatorio (on the 3rd terrace, the Wrathful), and therefore at the center of the Divine Comedy, accords with the importance of this notion, since there is no point being angry with someone who has no choice over his actions:
First, mortals believe that Heaven controls and preordains everything. This, of course, is wrong, because then there would be no free will. An individual becomes liable to the rewards or punishments of justice through the exercise of free will. While the heavens awake human desires,some of them, but not all, individuals, because they understand good and evil and have the free will to choose their path in life, are responsible for their actions. Thus, the world is a worse place than it once was and man has only himself to blame, not God.
Then, Marco claims that God created man’s mind. He made the Soul a simple thing, like a playing child who is unaware of his maker and who pursues trivial goods that may or may not promote virtue. Men need some force to restrain their desires or guide them in a better direction. This force is Law, the curb to sin. Therefore, men need a good ruler, who can see and understand the good, to direct them to the only true city—the city of God.
continuing from >>2617241
Marco's lecture continues:
"There are laws, but who sets their hand to them? No one: because the Shepherd who leads his flock, may chew the cud, [...] and confuses spiritual and temporal. So the people, seeing their Guide only aiming at that benefit he is eager for, feed on that, and do not question further. You can see clearly that bad leadership is the cause of the world’s sinfulness, and not that nature, corruptible within you.
Rome [...] used to have two Suns, that made the two roads visible, that of the world, and that of God. One has quenched the other: and the sword and the shepherd’s crook are joined: and the one linked to the other must run to harm, since, being joined, one will not fear the other [...]."
Analysis: The Papacy is corrupt (the shepherd is Dante's favorite villain, Pope Boniface), and spiritual life and temporal life are confused. Rome, which “made the world good” by separating and limiting the powers of church and state, one that governed spiritual life while the other governed political life, now links the two separate forces under one ruler (Boniface), an error since it destroys mutual respect and obedience, thus, because of this dilution, the world has fallen into corrupt ways and virtue is so rarely seen, then the entire society sinks into degeneracy.
Then, Marco tells Dante that light is whitening and shining through the smoke up there; this is his sign to leave.
So he turns back leaving Dante and Virgil.
Dante sees the sun setting beyond the slope of the Mount. He follows Virgil’s trusty footsteps out of the cloud of smoke.
continuing from >>2617269
Suddenly, Dante's imagination is getting away with him again: "O imagination, that takes us out of ourselves, sometimes, so that we are conscious of nothing, though a thousand trumpets echo round us, what is it that stirs you, since the senses place nothing in front of you? A light stirs you, which takes its form from heaven, by itself, or by a will that sends it downwards." (Fuckin' magnets, how do they work?)
Images of Wrath appear to him:
First, Procne, who killed her son and fed his boiled and cooked flesh to her husband Tereus, King of Thrace, upon learning that he raped Philomela (Procne’s sister) and tore out her tongue to prevent her revealing the crime. Philomela managed to inform Procne of the crime by weaving a tapestry that told the story. The sisters presented Tereus with the severed head of his son, who enraged, chased the two sisters. But before he could catch them, they were all transformed into birds: Tereus into a hoopoe, Procne a nightingale, and Philomela into a swallow.
Then, Procne disappears from Dante’s inner sight, only to be replaced by another image of wrath: the crucified body of Haman (aka Xerxes I, a vizier in the Persian empire). Haman was the counselor for King Ahasuerus of Persia. When the 'just' Mordecai, a Jew, refused to bow down to him, Haman tried to have all the jews killed. Mordecai convinced Queen Esther, herself a jew, to intervene. And Haman was hanged for his crime on the same gallows he had prepared for Mordecai.
And, as this image 'bursts like a bubble does', finally, another replaces it: A beautiful girl cries and laments for her dead mother, who has committed suicide. The girl is Lavinia and the unnamed mother is Amata. When Queen Amata saw her city of Latinum attacked by Aeneas’ forces, she assumed that Lavinia’s suitor, Turnus, had been killed by Aeneas. She hung herself in rage.
OP, I SALUTE YOU
THANKS
Best thread ever!
keep posting please
continuing from >>2617278
'As sleep is broken, when a new light suddenly strikes on the closed eyelids, and hovers, brokenly, before it completely vanishes', Dante’s visions stop. Light strikes his face when a gorgeous voice, which snatches him from any other intention, says: ‘Here, you can climb’.
Virgil intervenes: ‘This is a Divine Spirit, that points us towards the path to climb (to the fourth terrace), without our asking, and hides itself in its own light. It does towards us what a man does towards himself: since he who sees the need, but waits for the request, has set himself malignly towards denial' (Purgatory is a community of the spirit, where Hell was divisiveness).
Virgil urges Dante to follow him quickly before night falls.
Led by the angel of Meekness, they climb a stairway. As soon as Dante is on the first step, he feels 'something like the touch of a wing', and his face is fanned (removed of the third letter P), and he hears someone say: ‘Beati pacifici: blessed are the meek, who are without sinful anger.’
Night has fallen rather abruptly. Dante feels his strength melt away and his legs stop of their own accord. They stand where the stairway goes no further, and are aground, like a boat, that arrives at the shore. Dante perks his ears, straining in the darkness to hear what this new terrace will bring, and to Virgil says: 'what offence is purged in this circle, where we are?'
And him to Dante: "the love of good, that fell short of its duties, restores itself just here: here the sinfully lazy oar is plied again".
"Neither creature nor Creator, was ever devoid of love, natural or rational. The natural love is always free of error (perfect in the eyes of God), but the rational love (that stems from man's free will) may err because of an evil objective, or because of too much or too little energy".
continuing from >>2617580
Virgil continues:
"While it is directed towards the primary virtues, and moderates its aims in the secondary ones, it cannot be the cause of sinful delight, but when it is turned awry, towards evil, or moves towards the good with more or less attention than it should, the creature works against its Creator. So you can understand, that love is the seed of each virtue in you, and its errors the seeds of every action that deserves punishment".
Love that aims to hurt others has three origins:
-"There are those who hope to excel through their neighbour’s downfall, and because of this alone want them toppled from their greatness. This is Pride.
-There are those who fear to lose, power, influence, fame or honour because another is preferred, at which they are so saddened they desire the contrary. This is Envy.
-And there are those who seem so ashamed because of injury, that they become eager for revenge, and so are forced to wish another’s harm. This is Wrath".
These are the sins found on the first three terraces, that Dante has already passed, where sinners who loved earthly objects excessively do penance for it.
Then, Virgil talks about love directed toward a worthy end but with insufficient zeal:
-Those, whose sin was that of deficient love and, who love distortedly from insufficient attraction to the good and do not act enough upon their love to attain it. "This terrace torments you for it, after just repentance. This is Sloth".
On the last three terraces are those who sinned by loving good things as objects of primary love, but loving them in an excessive or disordered way.
Virgil does not tell Dante how distorted love manifests itself in humans. He reveals only that in the three terraces to come, distorted love is punished. Dante will have to discover those vices on his own.
25/42
Virgil eventually states that free will can pervert natural love and men are judged by their acts of free will:
Mortals are completely unaware that love is their innermost, motivating desire. So this Love that God puts in us is pre-ordained and we can’t do anything about it. Thus, man cannot be praised or blamed for that part of him. This is natural love.
There is, however, another part of man that judges and distinguishes between right and wrong, and this is the part of man that can be praised or blamed for his actions, because it’s his free will.
As Virgil concludes his explanation, the poets hear a group of spirits approach in great haste.
The souls of the crowd, each one racing around the terrace, which is of plain undecorated flinty rock, are quite spread out, but still move quite fast, as a mass, racing off into the distance. They are not allowed to pause in their running through night and day.
Two of them shout out examples of Zeal—the opposite of their own sin, Sloth, as they hurry by: 'How quickly Mary to the mountain ran!' and: 'Caesar once, Ilerda to subdue, struck at Marseilles, and ere his foemen knew had entered Spain.'
(The first voice is about Mary, after the Annunciation, hastening to the hill country, and the second voice is about Julius Caesar, rushing from the siege of Marseilles to attack Pompey’s lieutenants in Catalonia).
The rest shouts, after that: ‘Hasten! Hasten all! Do not let time be wasted, through lack of love, so that labouring to do well may renew grace.’
Virgil tries to calm them down by assuring them that Dante—still a living man—will pray for them, if they’ll just do a small favor and show them the way up the mountain.
One of the spirits says: ‘Come behind us, and you will find the gully. We are so full of desire for speed, we cannot stay: so forgive us if you take our penance as an offence'. He also tells them he was the Abbot of San Zeno in Verona.
continuing from >>2617585
The Abbot mourns for Alberto, the father, who will regret the decision to hand down the abbacy to his illegitimate and deformed son. This is all that Dante’s able to hear from the abbot, because at this point the rush of the crowd has carried him far away.
Virgil turns his attention to the last two members of that crowd, who are still within earshot. As they run away, the two laggard penitents shout out two last examples of Sloth:
‘The people for whom the Red Sea opened, were dead before Jordan saw their heirs’ (the Israelites, who refused to follow Moses to the Promised Land, after their escape from Egypt, and were left to die in the desert by their own sins),
and: ‘Those who did not endure the labour with Aeneas, until the end, gave themselves to an inglorious fate.’ (Aeneas’s followers who pled exhaustion, stayed behind and died in Sicily rather than reaching Italy with his elected band).
Dante has a host of new thoughts, which float randomly from one to the other, and he falls asleep.
Analysis: Sloth describes a lax or tepid love and pursuit of what is good and virtuous. To correct themselves of this fault, the slothful now show great vigor in running around the terrace, shouting famous examples of slothful behavior and its contrary virtue, Zeal, as they go along.
It is some time before dawn and a woman comes to him in a dream. Her eyes squint, her feet are crippled, with maimed hands, she’s pale, and stutters.
Dante gazes at her, and with just one look, she transforms her into a vision of loveliness, her pale face coloured as the sun comforts the cold limbs that night weighs down, and begins to sing, so that Dante can hardly turn his attention away. ‘I am,’ she sings, ‘I am the sweet Siren: I am so pleasing to hear that I lead seamen astray, in mid-ocean.'With my song, I turned Ulysses from his wandering path, and whoever rests with me, rarely leaves, I satisfy him so completely.’
26/42
The siren's lips have barely closed, when a lady appears, near him, saintly and ready to put her to confusion. She says, angrily: ‘O Virgil, what is this?’ Virgil seizes the Siren, and, immediately rips open the siren’s dress, revealing her front naked, and shows Dante her foul-smelling belly.
Dante immediately turns his eyes away and rouses from sleep. Virgil, who has called him at least three times, spurs Dante onwards.
Analysis:
The siren, a symbol of temptation and seduction, first appears ugly but Dante’s gaze makes her appear attractive, as the rational mind may be seduced into believing that the objects of excessive desire are attractive.
Lust particularly, Dante’s personal weakness, is indicated here.
The sirens lured sailors to destruction by their sweet songs. They had the heads of women and the bodies of birds. They seduced Ulysses’s sailors towards them. He resisted by having his ears plugged with wax, and having himself tied to the mast.
Dante rises, when all the circles of the holy mountain are now filled with the high day, with his forehead wrinkled like someone burdened by thought, when he hears words, spoken, in so gentle and kind a voice, as is not heard in this mortal world: ‘Come, here is the pass.’ The Angel of Zeal, points out the way, between two walls of solid stone, fans the poets with his outspread wings, that seem like a swan’s, removing another letter P. As they walk past in reverence, the angel tells them that those “qui lugent” (“who mourn their sinfulness”) will have consolation in their souls.
After they pass the angel, Virgil notices that Dante is now staring at the ground. He asks Dante what’s wrong.
Dante answers that his dream from last night makes him go in such dread. Virgil comforts him by reminding him how free will and reason escape the siren.
Like a falcon, Dante turns towards the lure of spiritual food, and the poets reach the fifth terrace.
27/42
Here on the fifth terrace, Virgil and Dante immediately see the penitents, weeping , and who lie face down on the ground. He hears them say: ‘my soul cleaveth unto the dust’ with such deep sighing the words are hardly understood.
Virgil speaks, praying for their salvation, to what a soul answers: ‘If you come longing to find the quickest way, and are safe from having to lie prostrate, let your right hand be always towards the outer edge.’
Dante asks the penitent who he is, why he has his backs turned upwards, and if he should pray for him. He was Pope Adrian V, and wore 'the great mantle', keeping it 'out of the mire'. But before that, he 'discovered the false life' and 'was a wholly avaricious spirit, wretched, and parted from God'. Now he is punished for it.
Adrian explains that here the Avarice is punished and the Mount has no bitterer penalty. Since they wanted only earthly things and never “lifted their eyes on high,” here in Purgatory justice holds them lain unmoving, their eyes 'impelled towards earth'.
Dante bows out of respect for this former pope but the penitent asks why he’s kneeling. Dante answers that seeing his prostration makes him feel ashamed of standing up over him. The pope orders Dante to stand up straight, because in the spirit world everyone is an equal servant of God (all formal relationships are abandoned beyond the grave).
The pope tells Dante to leave him alone to his suffering which has been disturbed, but asks to be remembered to his pious surviving niece Alagia.
Virgil leads the way, through the rare free space, wherever the path isn’t completely covered by prostrate penitents.
Dante then says: "Accursed be you, Avarice, ancient she-wolf, who, to satisfy your endless hunger, take more prey than any other beast! When will one come by whose actions Avarice will vanish?" (the starving she-wolf that threatened Dante in Inferno Canto1)
thanks for this OP, it's an enjoyable read. Keep it up
These are phenomenal.
I've literally never browsed /hr/ before, but this thread has left a great impression on me.
You have my sincere gratitude OP.
continuing from >>2617763
One voice, weeping piteously, calls out, tearfully, like a woman in labour: “Sweet Mary! you were so poverty-stricken as can be seen by that inn where you laid down your sacred burden”.
Following that, Dante hears: "O Caius Fabricius, you wished to possess virtue in poverty, rather than much wealth with vice."
Fabricius was a Roman counsel who rejected gifts from ennemies when negociating peace, and bribes to further his political career.
These words are so pleasing to him that he moves forward, to make contact with the spirit, from whom they seem to emerge; now the voice speaks of the bags of gold Saint Nicholas secretly donated to poor young girls, 'to lead their youth towards honour' (meaning, they could get wed with a dowry).
Dante asks the speaking soul who he is and why it’s only he that talks about such good role models. To get him to talk, Dante promises him prayers when he returns to the living world. The penitent soul agrees: "I will tell you not because I expect any comfort from over there, but because so much grace shines in you".
The soul says that he was 'the root of the evil tree, that overshadows all christian countries' and 'was called Hugh Capet: from me the ‘Philip’s and ‘Louis’s derive by whom France is ruled'. He was king of France, the founder of the grand french dynasty of Capetian rulers. He was not of royal blood, but the son of a butcher instead (here, Dante confuses Hugh Capet with his father Hugh the Great, Duke of the Franks, who was the supposed son of a butcher).
The line first 'did little harm, but its rapaciousness began in force and fraud' when Provence, Normandy and Gascony were seized.
Then Hugh foresees Charles of Anjou, King of Naples 'haggling over his daughter, as pirates do over other hostages'. He married his daughter to the evil Azzo of Este, presumably for a consideration.
28/42
Hugh Capet then prophecies that Charles of Valois will come 'alone, without an army, and with the lance of Judas jousted with, and couches it so as to make the guts of Florence spill';
and that 'a fleur de lys' (French royalty symbol) in the person of Philip the Fair, 'the new Pilate', will enter Italy to abduct 'the christ' Boniface. He sees Boniface being mocked and tortured and then slain between two thieves who're still alive. Philip the Fair will carry 'his sails of greed, lawlessly, against the Temple'.
Hugh then says: 'O Lord, when will I rejoice to see the sweet vengeance, which, hidden, your anger forms in secrecy?’
Analysis:
This is the coup d’état in Florence plotted by Pope Boniface (Dante's ennemy) and staged by the Black party (Dante’s hated rivals) with the help of the French prince, Charles of Valois, thus ousting in exile the Whites (Dante's party);
and the abduction and humiliation of Boniface at the hands of Boniface's ennemies, the Colonnesi, by King Philip IV of France, who proceeded, out of avarice, to persecute the Order of the Knights Templar to gain their treasures. ( Which btw have never been found by anyone yet! )
And Dante subtly places a somewhat un-Christian desire for God’s vengeance in Hugh’s mouth rather than in his own.
Finally, Hugh turns back to Dante and tells him that what he said before, 'concerning the only Bride of the Holy Spirit' (Mary) is 'the burden of all our prayers as long as daylight lasts', but when the night comes, we adopt a different strain instead.
At night, 'we rehearse the history of Pygmalion, whose insatiable lust for gold made him traitor, thief and parricide.
And the avaricious Midas’s misery, that followed on his greedy wish. Then each remembers the foolish Achan. Then we accuse Sapphira, and Heliodorus and the whole Mount echoes with the infamy of Polymnestor. Last of all we cry out: 'Crassus, tell us, since you know, what does gold taste like?'
continuing from >>2618399
Analysis:
The penitents on this terrace recite examples of poverty and generosity (Mary, Fabricius and Nicholas), the counter-virtue of greed, during the day and decry examples of avarice during the night:
Pygmalion was the cruel-hearted brother of Dido who secretly killed Dido's husband, to seize his wealth.
Midas was a king with the power to turn everything he touched into gold ( it's worth google it, the myth story is really great).
Achan was stoned and burned for disregarding Joshua’s decree that the treasure from the capture of Jericho should be consecrated to the Lord.
Sapphira and her husband, who were members of the early christian church in Jerusalem, sold possessions, into common ownership, but kept back part of the price, when other followers sold everything. They were put to death by Peter for it.
Heliodorus, a king's treasurer, who stole it.
Polymestor: during the Trojan War, King Priam was frightened for his youngest son Polydorus's safety since Polydorus could not fight for himself. Priam sent the child, along with gifts of jewelry and gold, to the court of King Polymestor to keep him away from the fighting. After Troy fell, Polymestor betrayed Priam and threw Polydorus into the ocean in order to keep the treasure for himself.
And Crassus, surnamed the Wealthy, who was a member of the famous Roman triumvirate (which in latin means “coalition of three men”) who ruled Rome along with Caesar and Pompey. He was so notorious for his love of gold that when he was finally defeated, in a battle with the Parthians, their King Orodes poured molten gold down his throat.
To explain why his is the only voice Dante hears, Hugh tells that sometimes the penitents sing 'with greater or lesser force—according to the impulse prompting us to speak'—and it just so happens that 'no one else was raising his voice near here'.
As the poets leave Capet, Dante feels a tremendous earthquake.
continuing from >>2618400
He compares the trembling mountain to the trembling of the island of Delos when the goddess Latona gave birth to the twins that would eventually become the sun and moon—Apollo and Diana.
From every side the spirits suddenly cry "Gloria in excelsis Deo" then when the quake ends, returne to their usual laments.
Dante feels confused about what happened on this terrace: the avaricious and prodigal penitents’ behavior and the earthquake's cause, he is possessed by the desire for knowledge but he is not keen to ask Virgil, so he goes on, fearful and thoughtful, with haste driving him along the impeded path.
Analysis: Here again is a reminder that the desire of the intellect for truth is a legitimate one, that Dante is on a journey of enquiry, and that right use of freewill, and rational love freed from appetite, direct the mind towards that union of light, reason and love which is the Godhead.
A shade appears, unseen, and comes on behind gazing at the prostrate crowd at its feet, saying: ‘My brothers, God give you peace.' The two poets turn quickly. Dante compares the man they just encountered to Jesus, newly risen from his grave, following a pair of pilgrims who do not realize he is there until he speaks.
The spirit demands to know why Dante has come to Purgatory. Virgil points out the marks on Dante's forehead and that it is right for him to reign among the good, and that although he is consigned to Limbo, Virgil must act as Dante's guide.
Then Virgil questions the newcomer why the Mount shook. Dante listens silently. The soul says that 'the sacred rule of the mountain allows nothing without purpose. Here the penitents are free from earthly changes'. All weather changes (clouds, rain, snow, lightning, etc...) cannot reach any higher than the Gate of Purgatory. 'Perhaps it trembles because of the winds hidden underground', the soul does not know either.
I'll post the rest saturday night, cheers
Bump for Saturday!
On many of these, although the artstytle heavy on lines looks very neat, they have ailiasing issues. Saved a couple though, may try to convert to phone walls. Thanks OP
10/10 top notch thread. beautiful.
almost saturday!
Still Bumping
>>2612096
anyway to quick save all these images with texts
Op are you still alive or have you taken a trip to hell?
>>2612096
Thanks OP, best thread in years.
I've been following this thread all week, I'm going through a break with my girlfriend and she may break up with me tonight.
Just wanted to say thank you so much for this. I'm on a journey of self-improvement at the moment, I've given up gaming and I'm taking up reading and exercise.
Your posts have given me a real interest in classical poetry which I'm going to continue looking into.
The subject of this story and the way in which you describe it has made me think about a lot of things in ways I wouldn't usually.
If you continue doing these (I understand if not as it must be very time-consuming). I will read them every time.
Thank you.
OP here
ok, let's go on. But first i wanted to let you know guys that nothing is written on my own, with a few exceptions.
I've had gustave doré's work for a long time on my pc, but with no explanations of it whatsoever.
As i was building a folder about his work and Dante, i was like, fuck me, this book is marvelous and mind-blowing: why not share it while i'm building this up. And there you go.
But basically, as i'm not a philosopher nor native english speaker, i'm just copy and pasting from around 10 websites, compiling, mixing sentences, and adding a little extra from wiki, to get you the best and the most complete and comprehensive of this poem (ten threads would'nt be enough to explain everything) I regret that Inferno is not as complete as Purgatory though (i'll give you a good link for this 1st part after Paradiso is done)
I'm glad you've been enjoying it but don't thank me, thank the people who dissected this book, i'm learning about it as well as you do.
Continuing from >>2618495
But what the soul does know is that here it quakes when a soul completes its penance and has been purged so that it can rise to Heaven, then all the penitents give a joyous shout.
After 500 years of torment, he now feels free will towards a better threshold, and he reveals that it was for him that the mountain shook.
He was a famous poet at Rome in Titus’s reigns, who sang of Thebes, and then of great Achilles (he wrote Thebaid, and Achilleid, dealing with the Trojan War). The people there still calls him Statius.
Without recognizing Virgil standing before him, Statius remarks that his inspiration in life was the great poet Virgil's Aeneid. Virgil turns to Dante silently with a look that says, “Be silent.” Trying to remain impassive, Dante can’t help but merely smiles.
Statius notices and asks Dante why he showed a 'flash of laughter'. Dante feels torn between telling Statius the truth and obeying Virgil’s order to keep quiet. Dante chooses to reveal the name of his guide and Statius bows down in great reverence and awe, already stooping to embrace Virgil’s feet. But Virgil says: ‘Brother, do not, since you are a shadow, and it is a shadow that you see.’ And Statius, rising, says: ‘Now you can understand the depth of love that warms me towards you, when I forget our nothingness, and treat shadows as solid things.’
Statius now joins Dante and Virgil for the rest of the way up the mountain, and off they go.
The Angel of Liberality is already left behind them, and has directed them to the sixth circle, having erased the mark from Dante's forehead. The angel blessed them saying 'those whose desire is for righteousness are blessed' then the word: sitiunt, ‘they thirst’.
As they move up, Virgil and Statius discuss the Aeneid. Now Virgil asks Statius as a friend, how he became avaricious since they encountered him there.
continuing from >>2620387
Statius answers that Virgil is assuming his sin was avarice because of the terrace they found him on, but it was the opposite—prodigality. Statius was a spendthrift and if he has paid for it for 'thousands of moons [...]among those people who lament their Avarice, it has happened to him, because of its contrary'.
Statius admits that he was so moved by this passage in Virgil's epic poem that he became prodigal: "O sacred hunger for gold, why do you not rule human appetite?" Virgil asks Statius: 'what sunlight or candlelight illuminated the darkness for you, so that after it you set sail to follow the Fisherman (how he became a Christian). Again, Statius reveals that Virgil's poems sentence: ‘The earth renews: justice returns, and the first age of mankind: and a new race descends from Heaven’ led him to Christianity. 'The whole world was already pregnant with true belief, seeded by the messengers of the eternal kingdom [...] but when Domitian persecuted them, their sighs were combined with tears of mine'. However, Statius kept his conversion a secret 'out of fear'; and this difference sent him round the fourth terrace for four centuries.
Statius asks Virgil if some poets he knew—Terence, Caecilius, Plautus, and Varius are damned, and in what circle.
Virgil answers that they all reside 'in the first circle of the dark gaol'. He also names Homer, 'that greek whom the muses nursed above all others', and 'many other who once covered their foreheads with laurel' :Euripides, Antiphon, Simonides, Agathon, Antigone, Deiphyle and Argia, Ismene, Hypsipyle, Thetis and Deidamia.
Now both of them fall silent and content themselves with walking.
'Four handmaidens of the day’ have gone since dawn and 'the fifth was by the pole of the sun’s chariot' (it's 10am). While walking their way up, Dante listens to the other two poets, ahead of him, conversing for a while about poetry.
Continuing from >>2620390
Analysis:
- Opposite sins, Prodigality and Avarice, are punished in the 4th circle of Hell, and purged in the 5th terrace of Purgatory.
- The greek god Apollo is, among others, the god of poetry and his symbol is the laurel. In ancient Greece and Rome, laurel wreaths were awarded to victors (in sports, in poetic meets, after a military victory). The word "laureate" refers to it.
- The four persons Statius cites are roman playwrights, the others listed by Virgil are greek, and all of them are in the Limbo (see Inferno canto4).
Their 'sweet dialogue' is soon interrupted by the sight of a huge tree in front of them, 'with wholesome and pleasant smelling fruit'. Instead of branching up and out, all the branches taper downward, making it impossible to climb. 'A clear stream falls from the high cliff, and spreads itself over the canopy above'.
The poets near the tree, and a disembodied voice inside the leaves cries: ‘Be chary of this food’. It then says: ‘Mary thought more about how the feast might be made honourable than of her own mouth'. 'And the roman women in ancient times were content to drink water; and Daniel despised food and gained wisdom'. Then, 'the First Age was beautiful, like gold'. 'Honey and locusts were the meat that fed John the Baptist in the desert'. Dante gazes through the green leaves, hypnotized, but Virgil wants the time be spent more usefully.
And then, "Labia mea Domine: O Lord open thou my lips", is heard, 'in singing and weeping, producing joy and pain'. 'Just as thoughtful travellers, who pass people unknown to them on the road', a crowd of spirits overtakes the trio.
Dante notices that their eyes are 'all dark and cavernous, their faces pale, and so wasted that the skin took shape from the bone'. In his head, Dante compares them to Erysichthon. And 'the sockets of their eyes seem gem-less rings: those who see the letters OMO in a man’s face, would clearly have distinguished the M there'.
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Analysis:
The voices from the tree are examples of Temperance, the counter-virtue of Glutonny:
-The transformation of water into wine at the Wedding at Cana is the first miracle attributed to Jesus. Mary pointed out that the wine on the tables ran out: "They have no wine"; Jesus delivered a sign of his glory by turning water into wine.
- the Roman women for being satisfied with water is likely based on the claim of Thomas Aquinas, who recommended sobriety to women.
-Daniel: taken up by Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon, after his capture of Jerusalem; he then served to interprete the king’s dreams. Daniel grew stronger and wiser when he abstained from the king’s meat and wine.
- those who lived in the Golden Age, a mythical time, when the human race was “content with foods that grew without cultivation”.
- John the Baptist, preaching in the desert of Judea, subsisted on locusts and wild honey.
Dante compares the skinny souls to Erysichthon: he committed sacrilege against the goddess Ceres by cutting down her sacred tree, and was punished with an inappeasable hunger. He consumed his own flesh until he starved.
And, OMO stands for 'homo' (man in latin). The two O’s are the eyes, while the M consists of the lines from the two cheekbones connected to the nose. Their faces are so emaciated that their sunken eye sockets accentuate the sharp outline of the M.
Dante still wonders 'what famished them', when a shadow turns and speaks to him, but 'what is extinguished in his aspect, is revealed by his voice'. He is Dante's friend Donati Forese.
He begs Dante 'not to stare at the dry leprosy that stains his skin, nor the lack of flesh' then asks him about his two companions.
Forese is robbed of fluent speech by Dante's desire to know why his friend's face is so tortured. Forese says that 'all these people who weep and sing, purify themselves again, through hunger and thirst, for having followed Gluttony to excess'.
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Their pain is to constantly smell fruit and pure water but to vainly circle the tree, unable to eat or drink. He says: 'I say pain, but ought to say solace, since that desire leads us' in Christ’s footsteps to reach God.
Dante asks him to explain why he isn’t still 'below where time is repaid, for time alive' (ante-Purgatory). Forese responds that his widow Nella, 'by her river of tears' and 'her devout prayers', drew him from the shores of waiting, and freed him from the other terraces.
According to him, Nella, whom he loved deeply, is winning her God’s love more than ever, because she is living alone. She is also more virtuous than the 'savage' florentine women who are immodest and appear in public with their breasts exposed. Forese foresees a time when it will be forbidden for florentines to walk around so indecently and that "the shameless creatures would already have their mouths open to howl, if they realised what swift Heaven is readying for them" (probably some imminent decree against it).
Forese, like all the souls around, notices that Dante 'veils the sun' (he has a solid body) and begs Dante 'to not hide his state any longer'.
Dante reminds his friend that he has led a reckless life and that Virgil led him 'through the deep night' and he 'must remain without him' until he meets Beatrice. Then Dante points to Statius: 'and the other shade is one for whom every cliff, as it freed him from itself, shook'.
As they walk on, the Gluttonous penitents gather around Dante, incredulous that he casts a shadow. Forese answers, when Dante asks after Forese's sister Piccarda, that she is already in Paradise. Among the barely recognisable 'shrivelled' faces, he points some of the Gluttonous around him:
Bonagiunta of Lucca, the pope Martin (who loved eating eels stewed in wine), Ubaldino della Pila (father of Archbishop Ruggieri) snapping his teeth on the void, and Marchese (who was a heavy drinker high official from Forli).
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Upon seeing Dante, Bonagiunta murmurs the name 'Gentucca' and prophesies that Dante, when visiting Bonagiunta’s home, the single woman Gentucca will welcome him, even though the men of city may reprove the fact.
Then Bonagiunta asks Dante if he wrote the poem, "Ladies who have intelligence of love" (which is the first line of Dante’s Vita Nuova) and Dante replies he did and that he writes 'when Love inspires him [...] in the way he dictates within'. Unexpectedly, Bonagiunta salutes Dante’s innovative way of writing, called 'the dolce stil novo'—the sweet new style.
All the souls gathered around the poets, except Forese, suddenly disperse in unison like a concerted flock of birds and quicken their steps away. The latter asks Dante: ‘when will I see you again?’ Dante 'do not know how long he may live but his return will not be soon enough [...] since the place appointed for him there, is, day by day, more naked of good, and seems condemned to sad ruin'.
Forese tries to comfort him by foreseeing a Florentine sinner being punished—his own brother, Corso Donati. He prophecies that his brother—a violent Black Guelph—will die by being dragged by the tail of a horse and having his body smashed, all the way to 'the valley where sin is never purged'. Forese finally tells Dante he must leave because he already lost too much precious time matching his pace to theirs.
As Forese strides away, Dante compares him to a horseman riding out ahead of a troop 'to win the honour of the first encounter'.
As the trio of poets is walking, they glimpse a second big fruit-tree. Beneath it the Gluttonous, lifting their hands 'like spoilt and greedy children begging', are vainly reaching up towards the fruit on the branches. The tree seems to taunt them by keeping its branches just out of reach. Again, a disembodied voice warns the poets not to get close to the tree because it is grafted from the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil, that Eve ate from.
>>2620308
feeling the same way, take care and be free.
>>2620386
i have been following you since your first post, saving and bumping, thanks for all.
Saludos
Continuing from >>2620604
The voice then says: 'Remember the accursed Centaurs formed in the clouds, who fought Theseus, with their bi-formed bellies sated with food and wine' and 'remember the Hebrews who appeared fastidious when drinking, so that Gideon would not have them for his comrades'.
The three poets listen as they walk. It is with surprise that the Angel of Temperance appears to them, glowing like 'glass or metal in a furnace'. Dante clearly feels the feathers move, blowing an ambrosial perfume to his senses, then a wind on his forehead. The angel then says: ‘Blessed are those who are so illumined by grace, that the love of sensation does not fire too great a desire in their hearts, and who only hunger for what is just.’
Dante, Virgil and Statius climb the stairs to the seventh and final terrace of purgation.
Analysis:
-Dante associates the excess desire being purged on this terrace with the excessive desire for knowledge, and the disobedience, that led Eve to eat of the apple from the tree.
-the voice cites two examples of Gluttony: first, the Centaurs (creatures half man and half horse, sons of Ixion and a cloud), who gorged with food and wine, tried to abduct Hippodamia at her wedding with the king of Lapithae, and were later driven off and destroyed by Theseus during the Centauromachy. This myth is an allegory of the conflict between the lower appetites and civilized behavior in humankind.
And the Hebrews who drank ‘as a dog lappeth’ and were thus not selected by Gideon, before a battle to save Israel, when he chose the few who put hand to mouth when drinking.
The Sun is in Taurus and Scorpio set below the horizon (it’s 2 pm). Something has been bothering Dante since the last terrace but he is too hesitant to ask what. Virgil, though, senses it and encourages Dante to speak: ‘Fire the arrow of your speech, that you have drawn to the notch.’ So Dante asks: ‘how can one become lean, there, when food is unnecessary?’
Continuing from >>2621039
Virgil says: 'If you recall Meleager' [...] or if you thought of the reflected image in a mirror, 'what seems hard to understand would seem easy to you'.
Statius is called on and starts by explaining how a soul is born:
"Perfect blood, which is never absorbed by the thirsty veins,[..] and remains behind acquires a power in the heart. It falls to the part, of which it is more fitting to be silent than speak and, from that part, is afterwards distilled into the partner’s blood, in nature’s vessel. There one blood is mingled with the other’s, one disposed to be passive, the other active, because of the perfect place it springs from". Then it "begins to work, first coagulating, then giving life". "As soon as the structure of the brain is complete in the embryo, the First Mover turns to it [..] and breathes a new spirit into it, filled with virtue [..], and forms a single soul, that lives and feels, and is conscious of itself".
"And when Lachesis has no more thread to draw, the soul frees itself from the flesh, taking both the human and divine powers: the other faculties falling silent. [..] It falls, by itself, wondrously, without waiting, to one of these shores. [..] The spirit is followed by its new form [..] and is called a shadow and in this way it shapes the organs of every sense including sight. In this way we speak, and laugh, form tears, and sighs. The shade is shaped according to how desires and other affections stir us, and this is the cause of what you wondered at".
Continuing from >>2621040
Analysis:
-In mythology, when Meleager was born, the Moirai predicted he would only live until a brand was consumed by fire. Overhearing them, his mother stole, doused and hid the brand. His father sent him to gather up heroes from Greece to hunt the Calydonian Boar that had been terrorizing the area. Atalanta wounded the boar and Meleager killed it. He awarded her the hide since she had drawn the first drop of blood.
Meleager's brother and his uncle grew enraged that the prize was given to a woman. Meleager killed them in the following argument, along with two others for insulting Atalanta.
When his mother found out her son killed relatives, she placed the brand, his life, upon the fire, thus killing her own son and fulfilling the prophecy.
-In mythology, the Moirai (the Fates) were the female personifications of destiny. They controlled the metaphorical thread of life of every mortal and immortal from birth to death: Clotho, who spun the thread of life, Lachesis, who measured the thread of life with her rod, and Atropos, who cut the thread of life and chose the manner of a person's death.
-Based on a medieval understanding of reproduction, the food goes through four rounds of digestion, the third taking place in the heart.
When it goes through the last round, and is taken out of the heart and turned into “perfect blood,” there’s some leftover blood. Within the heart, that 'perfect blood' remnants gain a formative power and they flow down into the genitals. There it resides as semen and passes from man to woman's womb. Once the foetus is formed, God then endows it with a soul.
At death, the soul leaves the body but retains its intellect, memory, and will.
When the soul reaches either Acheron (entrance to Hell) or Tiber (entrance to Purgatory) the soul assumes a body without mass that takes attributes of its former body. The shades, therefore, see, hear, speak, and weep and their forms depend on how they behave in their lifetime.
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Now the poets have reached 'the last turn' towards the seventh terrace.
There, 'the cliff hurls out flames, and the terrace breathes a blast upwards that reflects them'. The path is narrow and hazardous.
They have to go by the side that is clear of flames, one by one: and Dante fears the fire on one side, and on the other he fears the fall. Virgil warns Dante to walk cautiously 'because an error can easily be made.’
He hears ‘Summae Deus clementiae’ sung 'in the heart of the great burning'. And he sees spirits walking through the flames.
Dante 'looks at them, and at his steps, with a divergent gaze, from time to time'.
After the end of that hymn, they shout aloud: ‘Virum non cognosco', and ‘Diana kept to the woods, and chased Callisto away'.
Then they return to sing the names of women and husbands who were chaste, as virtue and marriage demand.
Dante says that, here, 'by this treatment, the last wound', Lust, 'must be healed'.
Analysis:
Pride, one of Dante’s major weaknesses, is purged on the first terrace of Purgatory; and Lust, his other major weakness, is purged on the last terrace. So Dante's own two great failings directly link Purgatory with Inferno and with Paradise.
Dante both gazes at the spirits and his feet, and into his own past.
Then the spirits shout out examples of Chastity, the counter-virtue of Lust:
-Mary's words during the Annunciation, when she asked how, not having sexual relations with a man, she will give birth to Jesus: ‘How shall this be, seeing I know not a man?' (Virum non cognosco)
-the virgin goddess of the hunt Diana, who upheld the virtue of Chastity by expelling one of her nymphs, Helice, upon learning she was pregnant. Helice was raped by Jupiter who disguised himself as Diana. Juno, Jupiter’s wife, punished Helice by transforming her into a bear. Jupiter later intervened, thus enraging his wife further, by setting Helice in the heavens as a constellation.
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As Dante watches the flames, transfixed, Virgil cautions him not to look at the flames.
It is now dusk and where the sun rays strike him, Dante leaves a shadow on the flames ahead, turning redder, which excites the curiosity of the Lustful souls within.
One of them steps forward, 'careful not to emerge, to where they would be no longer burning'. The shade begs Dante to tell them why he is still alive, since they all 'thirst' to [know] it, 'more than Indians or Ethiopians do for water'.
Dante almost answers when he’s distracted by another crowd of penitents, on the other side, coming toward the group in the fire.
When the two groups meet, like 'ants, in their dark battalions', the shadows hurry to embrace each other briefly.
Then, each one tries to shout the loudest; the newcomers: 'Sodom and Gomorrah!’ and, the others: ‘Pasiphaë!' Then the two parties part 'like cranes that fly, some to the northern mountains, others towards the desert: the latter shy of frost, the former of the sun'.
The first party comes back to Dante to hear his response. He tells them that he is still alive and asks them who they are, as well as who those people are moving the opposite direction. One spirit reveals that the souls in the group yelling 'Sodom and Gomorrah' were guilty of the unnatural vices for which Caesar was called 'regina' (queen) while the souls in his group were guilty of heterosexual lust, they followed their appetites like beasts, so they call her name, Pasiphaë.
The spirit then names itself as Guido Guinizelli. He was the founding father of the lyric poetry and Dante knows him.
Continuing from >>2621583
Analysis:
Dante now parallels the second circle of Inferno (canto5), that of the carnal sinners. Here too couples meet, but not entangled together in passion, more in blind friendship of desire as they pass.
The lustful shout examples of Lust, one homosexual the other heterosexual:
-Sodom and Gomorrah: these kingdoms were situated on the Jordan River plain (the area just north of the modern-day Dead Sea). One day, in the city of Mamre, "the Lord" revealed to Abraham that the sin of Sodom and Gomorrah 'is very grievous'. Abraham inquired of the Lord if he would spare the city if 50 righteous people were found in it; then he inquired of God for mercy at lower numbers (first 45, then 40, and finally at 10), with the Lord agreeing each time. Two angels were sent to Sodom to investigate and were met by Abraham's nephew Lot who lodged them. The inhabitants of Sodom tried to rape them. Then, not having found even 10 righteous people in the city, they commanded Lot to gather his family and leave. Thus, Sodom and Gomorrah were destroyed with brimstone and fire.
The sin of Sodom is debated, but the act of inhospitality and violence toward foreigners is the more significant ethical downfall of Sodom. Later, Sodom and Gomorrah have been used as metaphors for vice and homosexuality viewed as a deviation.
About Caesar: He was once accused of being King Nicomedes’s bedfellow, and Caesar' soldiers chanted ribald songs about his predilections during a triumph, calling him 'regina'.
-and Pasiphaë: Minos, king of Crete, prayed to Poseidon, the sea god, to send him a bull as a sign of support. He was to kill the bull to show honor to the deity, but decided to keep it instead because of its beauty. To punish Minos, Poseidon made Pasiphaë, Minos's wife, fall deeply in love with the bull. Pasiphaë had craftsman Daedalus make a hollow wooden cow in order to mate with the bull. The offspring was the monstrous Minotaur.
How can I save this thread forever?
>>2621655
If you're in Windows you can right click and then select "Save As" then select "Save", then you can save the page and access it when ever you want. Hope it helps.
Gonna save all the images in order and save the text in a word file. Can't wait to read it all through
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Dante expresses his admiration for Guido. Guido, however points to another spirit in front, and says that he ‘was the better craftsman of his mother tongue' and surpassed both Giraut de Borneil of Limoges, the ‘master of the Troubadours’, and Fra Guittone of the Sicilian School of Poetry. Guido then asks Dante to say a prayer for both him and the spirit he pointed out; and suddenly vanishes through the fire, like a fish diving through deep water.
Dante draws forward a little towards the one Guido had pointed to; the soul then speaks in provençal:
‘Your sweet request of me is so pleasing,
that I cannot, and will not, hide me from you.
I am Arnaut, who weeping goes and sings:
seeing, gone by, the folly in my mind,
joyful, I hope for what the new day brings.
By that true good, I beg you, that you find,
guiding you to the summit of the stairway,
think of my sorrow, sometimes, as you climb.’
Then he, too, hides himself in the fire.
Analysis:
In Dante's Purgatorio, this “better” poet is Arnaut Daniel, an Occitan troubadour of the 12th century from Périgord, praised by Dante for his love poetry. He was a master of the 'hidden style' and known also for his technical virtuosity. Arnaut’s courtly poem is the only instance in the Divine Comedy in which a non Italian character speaks in his 'mother tongue'.
In Arnaut's words, Dante considers his own punishment to come, for Lust, as he himself goes onward. And Arnaut before likewise vanishing in the flames, gives Dante a summary of Dante's own journey, from 'folly' to the promise of 'joy', from destructive passion to spiritual hope, leaving him with that reminder of his own purgation to be experienced after death. Dante has expressed his poetic, his amorous, and his spiritual journey in this Canto, winding the threads together, making out of life, love and poetry a stairway to the Heavens.
Continuing from >>2622070
The sun is setting on the Mount and it is dawn in 'Jerusalem where his Maker shed his blood', midnight in Spain and noon in India where the Ganges is 'scorched by mid-day heat' (approximately 6pm).
The poets soon meet the last angel, the angel of Chastity, standing beyond the flames, on the bank, and singing: ‘Beati mundo corde: Blessed are the pure in heart'. When Dante nears him, the angel says: ‘You may go no further, O sacred spirits, if the fire has not first bitten you'. Dante bends over, staring with fear at the fire where the Lustful are being burnt.
Virgil tries to calm him: 'there may be torment here, but not death. Remember, [..] and now forget all fear'. He also reminds Dante of their mutual trust when they rode on Geryon’s back in Hell.
Seeing Dante, troubled and still rooted to the spot, Virgil says: 'this wall lies between you and Beatrice'. At that name, Dante opens his eyes, just as the dying Pyramus did to see his beloved Thisbe.
Virgil then plunges into the fire. Dante follows, Statius comes behind. The heat is so intense that Dante says to himself that he’d rather throw himself 'on molten glass' to try to find some coolness. As Dante goes through the fire, a voice on the far side sings 'Venite, benedicti Patris mei: Come, ye blessed of my father'.
Darkness falls as the poets, safe from the fire, lie down on the stony steps, unable to climb further.
As they rest, Dante compares himself to a goat guarded by two sheperds. Dante looks at the stars, which seem 'brighter and bigger than they used to be' and falls asleep.
Analysis:
-The story of Pyramus and Thisbe, a pair of ill-fated lovers, is part of Ovid's Metamorphoses; and Shakespeare used it as a basis for the ending of Romeo and Juliet.
-The beatitude sung here is the division of the sheep and goats at Judgement day, when the King shall say to the sheep on the right: ‘Venite benedicti patris mei' when the goats are condemned to the everlasting fire.
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Just before sunrise, at the hour when Venus, the planet of Love, shines, in Pisces, the sign of religion, Dante dreams.
A lady appears to him, 'young and beautiful and going along a plain gathering flowers: and she says, singing: ‘Whoever asks my name, know that I am Leah, and go moving my lovely hands around to make a garland. I adorn myself here, to look pleasing in the glass, but my sister [over there], Rachel, never moves from her mirror, and sits there all day long. She is as happy to gaze at her lovely eyes, as I am to adorn myself with my hands: action satisfies me: her, contemplation.’
It is dawn when Dante wakes up and he finds his two guides already awake.
Analysis:
Dante’s third and final dream on the mountain of Purgatory is as clear and tranquil as the first two dreams were fraught with violence and angst.
Leah and Rachel, in their roles of “doing and seeing", appear as the symbols of the active and contemplative life. Leah gathers the flowers of the field for a garland. This is action. While Rachel contemplates life in the mirror of mind. This is contemplation.
Dante states that we may have two kinds of happiness in this life, according to two different paths. Here Dante takes the balanced view that both paths lead to the truth: one is the active life, the other the contemplative life.
Nevertheless it is Rachel whom Beatrice sits with in heaven (see Inferno canto2, but i forgot to mention her), thus, although by the active path we may arrive at a happiness that is good, the other path leads us to the best happiness and state of bliss.
A beautiful thread.
The poor souls in Limbo will be eternal while these engravings and text will not. I'm glad I stumbled over these posts, a worthwile way to spend some free time before the storm.
Continuing from >>2622106
Virgil greets Dante:'That sweet fruit, that mortal anxiety goes in search of, on so many branches, will give your hunger peace today.’ These words are so encouraging that Dante feels his feet are as light as wings as he walks.
On the topmost step of the stairway, Virgil fixes his eyes on Dante and says:
"You have seen the temporal and the eternal fire, and have reached a place where I, by myself, can see no further. Here I have led you, by intellect and art: now, take your delight for a guide: you are free of the steep path, and the narrow. See, there, the sun that shines on your forehead, see the grass, the flowers and the bushes, that the earth here produces by itself.
While the lovely, joyful eyes, that, weeping, made me come to you, are arriving, here you can sit down, or walk amongst all this. Do not expect another word, or sign, from me. Your will is free, direct and whole, and it would be wrong not to do, as it demands: and, by that, I crown you, and mitre you, over yourself."
Analysis:
Here in this last speech of Virgil to Dante is the full hope and promise of the Purgatorio. Virgil has guided Dante to the summit of the stair only by “intellect and art”, for which Virgil is the symbol. He has brought him to long for the final sweetness, the fruition of understanding and love, though he himself cannot pass on towards it. This is the greatness and glory of the teacher and the master, to point the way to a promised land that he himself may not reach. Virgil has attained the end of his own knowledge, of earthly philosophy, of the ancient pagan wisdom.
Moral innocence is recovered: Dante’s spirit is purged and freed, his will, and this was the objective of the journey through Inferno and along the Mount, is whole and freely directed towards the good; Dante's mental love now has been perfected and turned to God.
Divine Philosophy will absorb earthly philosophy: and Revelation will enhance wisdom, beyond all human institutions.
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Dante and Statius leave to explore the forest of the Earthly Paradise.
The divine wood is lush, dense green and perfumed on every side. 'A sweet breath of continuous air strikes' Dante's forehead and this wind bends the branches of the trees gently, but not enough to disturb 'the little birds, in the treetops, practising their art: singing'.
Already, Dante has wandered so far into the forest that he see where he entered. He comes across a stream which prevent him going any further. The waters seem the purest, 'though it flows dark, dark in perpetual shade, that never allows the sun or moonlight there'.
Dante stops and 'with his eyes, he passed beyond the stream, to stare at the vast multitude of fresh flowers'. Suddenly, on the far bank, Dante is astonished to see a lovely 'lady, all alone, going along singing, gathering flowers'. Dante pleasantly asks her to move nearer so that he can know what she sings. Her singing reminds him of the song Ceres sings every winter when her daughter Proserpine must leave her.
As a lady who is dancing, turns with feet close to each other, she turns to Dante, her eyes looking modestly downwards. She inches nearer the bank and grants Dante the gift of raising her eyes. Her glance is as shiny as Venus’s eyelids when she waswas struck by Cupid’s arrow. Then Matilda, her name, smiles and says: ‘You are new, and perhaps because I am smiling here, in this place chosen as a nest for the human race, wonderingly, you have some doubts. [..] I came ready to answer your questions'
Curious about the nature of the forest and the water, Dante asks about it; Matilda answers she 'will clear away the fog that annoys' him.
She says: 'The highest Good created Man good, and for goodness, and gave him this place as a pledge of eternal peace. Through Man’s fault, he did not stay here long: through Man’s fault, he exchanged honest laughter and sweet play, for tears and anxiousness'.
Dante is in The Earthly Paradise.
Continuing from >>2622459
Analysis:
-After his three days of purgation on the Mount, Dante enters the Earthly Paradise that contrasts, in its beauty and innocence, with the dark wood where the journey first began (Inferno canto1). He no longer remembered how he entered that first dark wood through sin, so now, reborn, in this mirror wood, he forgets his first entry into that fallen state through new-found virtue.
-It is unclear if Dante had in mind a particular historical or fictional model for Matilda. Matilda is a symbol of the active spiritual life, equivalent to Leah; and she embodies the pure beauty and innocence of this terrestrial paradise, which was the home of Adam and Eve before they disobeyed God and were cast out. Coming so soon after the terrace of Lustful, she contrasts innocence and corruption, primal virtue and moral unworthiness.
-Persephone (Proserpine in roman mythology) is the daughter of Zeus (Jupiter) and the goddess of the harvest Demeter (Ceres). Persephone, while gathering flowers, was abducted by Hades (Dis), the god-king of the underworld, as her mother Demeter hid her away from the Olympian gods. Demeter searched for her ceaselessly, so preoccupied with her loss and her grief that the seasons halted; living things ceased their growth. Faced with the extinction of all life, Zeus sent his messenger Hermes to the underworld to bring Persephone back. Hades indeed complied, but first he tricked her, giving her some fruit seeds to eat (or she willingly accepted). Thus, she was bound to Hades; and she was obliged to spend half a year in the underworld (autumn and winter, the unfruitful seasons) and then, allowed to ascend to the upper world, she was reunited with her mother Demeter, in springtime for 6 months.
She therefore symbolises innocence untarnished, the power of the earth, not yet fallen and dragged into the city of Dis, Hell.
Bump for more!
Continuing from >>2622542
Matilda continues:
The Garden was raised, 'this far towards Heaven' and above 'the storms' of Earth which are created 'below this Mount', as a place of peace, free of such earthly weather, where Man should not be hurt (Statius was right about the weather changes in canto 20).
The breeze in the Earthly Paradise, that Dante has felt, is due to the air from the sky above the Mount, created by motions of Heaven, revolving in a circle; and the music of the celestial spheres is echoed here in the forest.
A plant struck by the breeze 'impregnate the air with its virtue', and the seeds, in the air, spread to the northern hemisphere, where they might land in the soil and sprout.
That is why, she explains, it is not strange 'when some plant takes root without obvious seed'.
And the water flowing through the terrestrial paradise 'does not rise from a spring [..] but issues from a constant, unfailing fountain', replenished by God’s will. The water divides to form two rivers:
'On this side it falls with a power that takes away the memory of sin: on the other, with one that restores the memory of every good action. On this side it is called Lethe, on that side Eunoë, and does not act completely unless it is tasted first on this side, and then on that'.
Matilda concludes that here, where 'the root of Humanity was innocent', is the place that the poets of the Golden Age used to dream of. Hearing this, Dante turns to his two poet guides and finds them smiling.
Matilda then sings 'Blessed are those whose transgressions are forgiven' as she coyly moves, like a woodland nymph, along the riverbank. Dante keeps pace with her until they come to a sharp bend in the river. She then says: ‘My brother, look and listen.’
And a sudden brightness floods, through the great forest, on every side, so that Dante is unsure if it's lightning. Dante wonders, as the light shines brighter, lasting, under the green branches. A lovely melody wafts through the air.
37/42
It is so beautiful that Dante condemns Eve’s boldness, that robbed humankind of this bliss.
Dante invokes the Muses to help him describe this experience because he struggles to put his sentiments into words:
A little further on, 'the illusion of seven golden trees' appears to Dante. As they come nearer, he realizes that these are seven candlesticks. Dante turns full of wonder towards Virgil, who replies 'with a face no less stunned'.
As the seven flames move forward, each one leaves a banner of light behind it, with the air above coloured in 'seven bands, of the hues in which the sun creates his bow'.
Dante then see a long line of people singing, 'twenty-four Elders', two by two, crowned with lilies and dressed in white so brilliant that it is reflected in the stream, following the seven banners, slower than a bride coming down the aisle at her wedding.
Four creatures come after them, crowned with green leaves and plumed with six wings, the feathers full of eyes. Each beast has a different face: man, lion, ox and eagle. Ezekiel, who once saw them, can pictures them, as Dante cannot "squander more rhymes” describing the animals.
After the animals comes a triumphal two-wheeled chariot drawn by a griffin, harnessed at the neck. The wings of the griffin are stretching high out of sight and are gold, as are the rest of its eagle parts; the lion half is 'white mixed with brilliant red'.
The chariot is so grand that not even 'the sun chariot' of Phaethon (the son of the solar deity Apollo) can rival it, nor those of such eminent generals as Scipio Africanus (who defeated Hannibal) or Augustus (the founder of the roman empire and its first emperor).
38/42
Three ladies come dancing, in a circle, by the right hand wheel of the chariot, each dressed in a different color: one is so red she would scarcely be visible in the fire: the next is as if her flesh and bones were made of emerald: the third seems of newly fallen snow.
By the left hand wheel, four dressed in purple, dance by, following the lead of the one who had three eyes in her face.
Behind them, Dante sees 'two aged men', Luke, and Paul, with a gleaming sword, followed by four people, of humble aspect and behind them all, a solitary old man, John the Divine, coming by, with a visionary face. These seven, also dressed in white, wear roses wreaths on their heads.
As the procession passes by Dante, a peal of sudden thunder rends the sky, and the whole panoply halts; the chariot is right in front in Dante.
Continuing from >>2622885
Analysis:
The divine pageant is a symbolic procession representing the Church:
-the seven candlesticks are the seven gifts of the Holy Spirit: wisdom, understanding, counsel, might, knowledge, pity and fear of the Lord.
-the seven banners are the seven sacraments, or the working of the seven gifts.
-the twenty-four elders are the books of the Old Testament. The white garments are emblematical of Faith.
-the four beasts represent Matthew, Mark, Luke and John. The green leaves indicate Hope. The six wings are the six laws: natural, mosaic, prophetic, evangelical, apostolic, and canonical. The eyes indicate knowledge of past and future.
-the two wheels of the Church’s chariot are the contemplative and active life.
-the grifon is Christ, half eagle and half lion in his divine golden, and human red-and-white aspects. The wings are Mercy, and Truth or Justice.
-The three ladies who dance by the right hand wheel are the theological virtues: Faith in white, Hope in green, and Charity in red.
-The four moral or cardinal virtues Prudence, Justice, Fortitude and Temperance, are by the left wheel. Prudence has the three eyes, which see Past, Present and Future, and the purple dress of the four moral virtues is that of the Imperial Law.
-Luke, and Paul with the sword of his martyrdom. Then James, Peter, John and Jude, the ‘humble’ authors of the Epistles. The roses that the seven wear represent Charity, where the Old Testament Elders wore white lilies representing Purity. And Saint John the Divine, the author of the 'book of Revelation', often known as 'The Apocalypse of John', signals us that we are entering a moment of visionary revelation.
Probably the best thread ever on this board. Bravissimo OP, bel lavoro
>>2612096
Italian here, I have the "Divine Comedy" with Doré's illustration on my bookshelf but I will save all of then the same. Thank you.
If you want to listen a great actor reading it search Vittorio Gassman
>>2623131
Edizione Mondadori?
Anyway, Carmelo Bene far better than Vittorio Gassman:
Carmelo Bene _ Lectura Dantis _ Inferno, Canto V, vv. 73-142 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AbVy8zUDdRg
>>2612096
Fuckin great ... Dante bless you!
39/42
The seven candlesticks that guide the faithful, as the constellation of the Little Bear guides sailors, come to a halt. The twenty-four Elders turn to face the chariot and one of them lifts his voice, singing: ‘Veni sponsa de Libano: Come with me from Lebanon, my spouse'. All the elders rise to sing after him.
'As the saints at the Last Judgment will rise, ready, each one, from his tomb, singing Halleluiah', hundred spirits rise in the chariot crying 'Benedictus qui venis: Blessed art thou that comest' and as they scatter flowers around, they call out 'Manibus o date lilia plenis: O give lilies with full hands'.
As when the face of the rising sun is seen through the mist, veiling the sky, all rose-red at dawn—out of the cloud of falling flowers, a lady appears to Dante, crowned with olive-leaves, over a white veil, dressed in colours of living flame, beneath a green cloak.
Dante' spirit, 'that has endured so great a space of time, since it has been struck with awe, trembling, in her presence, through the hidden virtue that issues from her', now feels 'the intense power of former love'.
At the first sight of her, which has already transfixed him, before he was out of his childhood, Dante turns to the left, 'with that faith with which a little boy runs to his mother, when he is afraid or troubled' saying to Virgil: ‘There is barely a drop of blood in me that does not tremble: I know the tokens of the ancient flame.’
But Virgil is no longer there; his mentor and friend, has faded away from view. Upon realizing the loss of his beloved guide, all the beauties of Eden do not prevent his dew-washed cheeks from turning dark with tears: Dante weeps.
"Dante, do not, because Virgil goes, do not weep yet, since you must weep soon for another reason". The veiled lady then directs her gaze towards him, like an admiral who stands at stern and prow to inspect the crews.
Dante turns at the sound of his own name, looking at her.
Continuing from >>2623416
'Although the veil which drapes her head [..] does not allow her to appear clearly', she continues to speak, regally, and severely: ‘Look at me, truly. I truly am. I truly am Beatrice. How did you dare to approach the Mount? Do you not know that here Man is happy?’ Dante casts his sad eyes down, at the water of Lethe, but sees there his own face. Then he looks at the grass, his head bowed with shame, as child being scolded by a severe mother.
Beatrice falls silent, the angels surrounding Beatrice intervene and immediately sing ‘In te, Domine, speravi: In thee, Lord, do I put my trust.’
At this plea for mercy on his behalf, Dante, like the Apennine snows that are frozen and melt like candle-wax at the touch of warmth from the african winds, weeps openly at the compassionate singing of the Angels who harmonise their notes with the melody of the eternal spheres.
Beatrice turns to the Angels, the alert watchers of night and day, and explains to them why she wants Dante to understand and heed her words: 'By the generosity of divine graces, [..] this man, potentially, was such in his 'vita nuova': new life, that every true skill would have grown miraculously in him. But the more good qualities the earth’s soil has, the more wild and coarse it becomes with evil seed, and lack of cultivation. [..] For a while I supported him [..] I was less dear to him when I rose from flesh to spirit [..] and he turned his steps to an untrue road, chasing false illusions of good'.
'He sank so low, that all means to save him were already useless, except that of showing him the lost people. To achieve that, I visited the gates of the dead, and my prayers carried to him who guided him upwards'.
Then beatrice says that Dante is meant to purge his soul and must repent with tears to pass beyond the Lethe: ‘O you, who are on that side of the sacred stream, say, say if it is true: your confession must meet the charge.’
Continuing from >>2623423
Analysis:
Beatrice is crowned with the olive of wisdom and clothed in white, green and red of the three virtues: faith, hope, charity.
Beatrice is the personification of Divine Philosophy, the feminine aspect of soul, and mortal love transcended. But also the real Beatrice, whom Dante first saw as a child of 8 in 1274, when he was 9yo. She was Beatrice Portinari and she died in her 25th year. Dante's love for her inspired the poems 'Vita Nuova' and the 'Divine Comedy'.
As Beatrice arrives to guide Dante onwards, Virgil vanishes, his guidance no longer possible. His disappearance from the action of the poem is marked by a loving tribute to the Roman poet based on his own verses: 'give lilies with full hands' and 'I know the tokens of the ancient flame'.
Repeating the word 'truly' 3 times Beatrice impresses upon him her reality, her identity, and her condemnation of the life he was leading, his temerity at approaching the Mount, so that he glances at the Lethe which erases memory of sin, but sees there his own memories, and looks away ashamed. The eyes here are the windows of the soul.
While Beatrice was alive, her eyes directed him to virtue, but at her death Dante turned towards other physical manifestations of love. Her presence in his dreams failed to rouse him. Only his journey through Inferno could do that, and so she went to Virgil and sent him to Dante as his guide.
Continuing from >>2623424
Analysis:
Here, we are at the crucial stage of Dante’s journey: the Inferno, Purgatorio and Paradiso represent an analogue to his own Past, Present and Future: his Past of Repentance and, moral and intellectual failing, his Present of Confession, and his hoped-for Future of Redemption. He is on the threshold of Paradise, as he stood previously at the foot of the stair of the Gate of Purgatory. There, those three steps signified the three stages of the sacrament: Repentance, Confession and Forgiveness. Here Beatrice acts as the Confessor. His past life has idealised her, and carried him towards her, now he must exalt her, and go beyond her physical being to what she represents and herself points towards, Universal Love.
Continuing from >>2623431
As Beatrice commands him to speak, Dante feels completely stunned at her words. Seeing him silent, she encourages him: "What are you thinking of? Reply to me: the sad memories, you have, are not yet erased by the water".
Confusion and fear drive a yes in his mouth, so quietly that eyes are needed to interpret it.
As a crossbow breaks when fired at too high a tension, Dante breaks under this heavy charge and bursts into tears and sighs.
But Beatrice is unmerciful. She asks Dante what troubles he ran across after her death that made him stop moving forward along the true path? What temptations did others lure him with to make him parade in front in them?
With hardly a voice to answer, weeping, he says: "Present things with false delights turned my steps away, as soon as your face had vanished". Beatrice then says that if he had stayed silent, or denied what he has confessed, his fault would be no less noted, because the Judge knows of it. Thus, because he has openly admitted to his sins, the blade of justice will come down a little less sharp.
She continues. However, 'in order to be more steadfast, on hearing the Siren sing next time', Dante should 'stifle the source of his weeping'. Nothing should have been as beautiful to Dante as herself, even after her death. If her supreme beauty could not keep him from his desire for mortal things, what could? 'At the first sting of false things', he should have flown away. 'Some young girl, or other vanity, of such brief enjoyment, should not have weighted [his] wings'.
Dante listens, 'mute with shame', like a sullen child.
She tells him to lift his head. At her command, Dante sees her, facing the Griffin. Underneath her veil, she seems 'to exceed her former self, more than she exceeded others when she was [alive]'. The sight of her beauty and his remorse overwhelm him so that he faints.
Analysis:
-Beatrice refers to the Siren, implying the seductions of lust and pride, of excess.
40/42
When he awakes, Dante sees Matilda, whom he found alone gathering flowers from the riverbank, bending over him, saying "Hold to me". She plunges Dante up to his neck into the Lethe. Near the shore, she submerges him in the water, clasping his head, so deeply that he has to swallow water.
Then, she pulls him out and leads him, cleansed, among the four dancing women. The four introduce themselves, singing, as 'the nymphs' of Eden and 'the Stars' in Heaven, and as the handmaidens of Beatrice. They sing: "We will take you to her eyes: but the three on the other side, who look more deeply, will sharpen your vision to the joyful inward light".
They lead him over to where Beatrice stands beside the griffin and tell him: ‘See that you do not spare your eyes: we have set you in front of the bright emeralds, from which Love once shot his arrows at you.’
Dante finds himself lost in Beatrice's brilliant green eyes. Her eyes seem full of emerald fires as they gaze serenely upon the griffin. The dual-natured creature, one of the human one of the divine, is reflected in them, just like the sun in a mirror.
Then the three female dancers of the other group approach Beatrice and sing to her: "Turn Beatrice, turn your sacred eyes, to your faithful one.[..] Grace us, by unveiling your face to him, so that he may see the second beauty that you conceal".
At this Dante prays to the Muses again, pleading for the ability to stay sane when confronted with Beatrice’s full beauty.
Analysis:
-Under the veil of faith, and pure, beyond the stream of Lethe, beyond memory of sin, Beatrice is more beautiful than before, and Dante falls, stunned with remorse. Remember that he fell, stunned with pity, at the end of Canto V of the Inferno in the circle the 'carnal malefactors'.
-Matilda, the agent of forgiveness, submerges him as in baptism, and forces him to drink the Lethe water, that takes away memory of sinful actions.
Continuing from >>2623492
Analysis (sequel):
-Dante is led among the dance of the four cardinal virtues, Beatrice’s helpers, by the left-hand wheel (contemplative wheel) of the Chariot. In heaven they are the four stars of the Southern Cross, which Dante saw in Purgatorio Canto1.
-The three theological virtues (the three Graces) asks Beatrice to turn towards Dante, and out of grace which is needed to supplement human wisdom, unveil her face for him, and reveal her ‘second beauty’, second to her eyes, that of her smile, which signifies their own triple virtues of faith, hope, and now charity which is also forgiveness.
Incredible thread OP. This is the 4plebs link
http://archive.4plebs.org/hr/thread/2612096/#2612096
if the images are ever removed just make sure to have a google image search extension installed and just search the thumbnail. That should do the trick.
I think I might edit an ebook version in calibre and put all these in there. I'd probably have to downsize them because of the great quality. Again, thanks for the thread OP.
bummppy for the rest of this amazing story
Come on OP!
Continuing from >>2623498
When Beatrice unveils herself, Dante gazes at her, his other senses dulled, "too intensely" that he is rebuked by the Virtues. He obeys, but is so dazzled by Beatrice’s beauty that he remains sightless for a while.
As the procession begins to move again, Dante and Statius stand with Matilda at the wheel of the chariot. The griffin is so noble, though, that his movements don’t even ruffle his feathers.
Beatrice descends from the chariot, at the foot of a huge tree, 'with every branch stripped of blossom, and foliage'. All those around Dante mutters 'Adam' and blesses the griffin "who tears nothing sweet-tasting from this tree". The creature of two natures replies: ‘So the seed of righteousness is preserved.’
This is the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil, that Adam ate from.
The griffin pulls the chariot closer and bounds it to the tree with a branch.
When the two are linked, the tree miraculously bursts into bloom, its color 'tinted more than rose and less than violet'. While Dante watches, the others begin chanting a hymn that Dante cannot understand. Then he falls asleep.
When Dante awakes, he asks bemused: ‘Where is Beatrice?’ and Matilda replies: ‘See her sitting under the new foliage, at its root [..] the rest are rising after the Grifon' into Heaven. Beatrice sits 'alone, on the bare earth, left there as the guardian of the chariot', the seven nymphs encircling her.
Beatrice speaks: "You will not be a forester long, here, and will be with me, a citizen, eternally [..] So, to help the world that lives wrongly, fix your gaze on the chariot, and take care to write what you see, when you return, over there".
Like a lightning bolt, an eagle 'swoops down through the tree' and strikes the chariot with all its power, leaving the vehicle twisted 'like a ship in a storm'. Then, a ravenous 'vixen' leaps into the body of the triumphal car. Beatrice herself drives it out of the chariot and rebuke it 'for her foul sins'.
41/42
Suddenly, the eagle plummets again, this time leaving its feathers scattered all over the chariot. And a voice comes from Heaven, 'as it comes from a sorrowing heart', and it says: "O my little boat, how badly you are freighted!"
Then it seems to Dante that the ground opens, 'between the two wheels, and a dragon emerges pointing his tail upwards through the chariot, and drawing his spiteful tail towards himself, like a wasp withdrawing her sting, he wrenches away part of its base, and slides away'.
The 'holy structure' suddenly transforms and begins sprouting heads. 'The first three are horned like oxen, but the other four have a single horn on the forehead'. Seated on it 'a shameless Whore' appears, a 'Giant' standing by her side; each kisses the other, over and over. The whore turns 'her lustful, wandering eye' on Dante, then 'her fierce lover scourges her from head to foot'.
Finally, the Giant unties 'the monster' from the tree, drags it and the whore away into the forest, and disappears.
Analysis:
This episode is an allegory in which the chariot plays the role of the Church. It is a denunciation of the corrupt papacy of the time, and its ties to the French monarchy:
-the eagle swooping trough the tree and striking the chariot represents the Roman empire and the Roman persecution of the early Church.
-the vixen represents the heresies.
-the imperial eagle again attacks, leaving behind feathers: this is the Donation of Constantine, viewed as worldly contamination of the Church.
-the dragon represents Islam, viewed as a schism within Christianity
-the seven monstrous heads are the beast of the apocalypse.
-the prostitute represents the corrupt papacy who lasciviously embraces a giant, the French monarchy; the giant brutally beats the wanton woman—Philip the Fair’s hostile treatment of Pope Boniface—and finally drags the chariot and woman into the forest, representing the Pope Clement’s removal of the papacy from Rome to Avignon in southern France.
Continuing from >>2624969
Horrified, the seven virtues cry and begin to sing ‘Deus, venerunt genes:O God, the heathen are come’; Beatrice listens to them, 'compassionate and sighing', as Mary 'at the foot of the Cross'. Beatrice then, saying: "a little while, and ye shall not see me, my beloved sisters, and again, a little while, and ye shall see me"; implies that the Church is corrupted but will be cleansed.
Then she sets the seven women in front of her, and 'with a nod' motions Dante and Statius to approach her. She tells Dante—calling him 'brother'—to ask any questions he might have. Dante is again speechless but finally says: "you know my needs, and what is good for them". And she to him: "I want you to free yourself, now, from fear and shame, so that you no longer speak like one who dreams".
She tells Dante not to fear for 'the chariot that the serpent shattered' because 'God’s vengeance cannot be evaded'.
Then she says that the eagle which left its feathers in the chariot will not be forever without an heir, for she foresees in the constellations a figure sent by God, the 'Five Hundred and Ten and Five', who will come to 'kill the Whore, and the Giant, who sins with her'.
Now, she tells him to pay attention to her words so that he can transmit them to 'those who live the life that is a race towards death' and to remember when he will write about it 'not to hide that [he has] seen the tree, now twice spoiled, here.’
Analysis:
-the Roman letters for 500, 10 and 5, DXV, rearranged, stand for DUX: a leader.
So this new leader, Dante’s ‘greyhound’ (see Virgil's prophecy in Inferno Canto 1), perhaps Can Grande, will rise to rid Italy of the corrupt Papacy, the Whore, and the false French Empire, the Giant.
-Can Grande della Scala was Dante’s patron at Verona, to whom the Paradiso was dedicated and who sheltered Dante from 1316. He received the last thirteen Cantos of the Paradiso, left unfinished at Dante’s death, from Dante’s son Jacopo.
42/42
Whoever, Beatrice says, 'robs the tree of its fruit, and tears at it, in a blasphemous act, offends God, who created the tree for His sole use'. She tells Dante that his 'intelligence is asleep' if he can’t see why the tree is built so strangely, tall with its branches inverted to make it hard to climb. Dante's idle thoughts are keeping him from seeing, in the tree, 'that, morally, God’s justice is in the injunction'.
But since she sees that his mind is 'made of stone', Beatrice urges him to copy her words down. Dante answers that her words are already emblazoned on his mind, 'like wax by the seal' but her words 'soar far beyond his vision'. She answers that Dante's 'way is as far from the divine way, as the swiftest Heaven is from the earth'. That the difficulty of her words is proof of just how much distance there is between man’s reasoning and God’s.
At which he replies: ‘I do not remember that I was ever estranged from you'.
She answers, smiling: "If you cannot remember it, think, now, how you drank Lethe’s water today: and if fire is deduced from smoke, this forgetfulness clearly proves the guiltiness of your desire, intent on other things. But now my words will be naked, as far as is needed to show them to your dull vision".
The sun is now holding the noon circle. The seven ladies suddenly stop walking, like an escort that stops upon finding strange things, before the banks of a river. Beatrice orders Matilda, agent of reconciliation, to lead Dante to the waters of Eunoë, that restore the memory of virtuous actions. Matilda leads him forward and asks Statius to come as well.
Dante drinks from Eunoë then says:
"I came back, from the most sacred waves, remade, as fresh plants are, refreshed, with fresh leaves: pure, and ready to climb to the stars".
Continuing from >>2624995
Analysis:
The Purgatory was a procession through a vertical cathedral, through a sacrament, from sinfulness in penitence to confession and renewal. The seven deadly sins have been purged, the seven cardinal and theological virtues have been evoked. The soul is immortal, the individual mind and feelings are continued beyond the grave. The pity evoked in Hell, has become the hope felt in Purgatory. The will has been purified and freed. The right objects of the free will have been understood. Intellect can overcome the irrationality of human passion, to direct its forces towards true human and divine Love.
The Earthly Paradise, empty and innocent still, is the possible goal of human endeavour, but in the end only a gateway, a passage beyond.
But earthly love and wisdom has proved to be only a precursor to the Divine Love that gives the spirit of the lover the power to ascend to Paradise. Beatrice the woman has become Beatrice the saint. Dante the lover has become Dante the pilgrim. Hope will triumph. Love redeems.
Cool thread op ty.
Thank you so much, OP. I'm saving this entire thread.
OP here,
thanks everyone, really.
Paradiso will follow, no worries. There are less images than the two previous chapters though.
I will let you know in a few hours whether i upload paradiso here or make a new thread on /lit/, depending of the pictures' size.
again, thank you all
>>2612096
dude, this is fucking dank
thanks for this
>>2625043
Thank you! Im so happy that you exist
Paradiso.
The third and last part of Dante Alighieri's 14th-century epic poem "Divine Comedy".
In 1868, Paradiso is illustrated by Gustave Doré's eighteen wood engravings.
I'm dumping all of them, here.
Gustave Doré (1832 – 1883)
bonus pic
Dante and Virgil in the ninth circle of Hell
Paintig by Gustave Doré, 1861.
Overview of the Divine Comedy, in english
Overview of Paradiso, in italian.
(if an italian anon could translate the words in red, that'd be great)
Continuing from >>2625005
Dante is flying towards Heaven, with Beatrice alongside, from the Earthly Paradise on the top of the mount Purgatorio.
Dante begins: "The glory of Him, who moves all things, penetrates the universe [..] I have been in that Heaven that knows his light most, and have seen things, which whoever descends from there has neither power, nor knowledge, to relate: because as our intellect draws near to its desire, it reaches such depths that memory cannot go back along the track".
He calls on Apollo, the god of poetry and music, for inspiration: 'enter my chest and breathe', so that Dante might be worthy of those 'laurel leaves' that the god took as his emblem.
The hemisphere where Dante and Beatrice are is all bright, at noon. Dante sees her gazing at the sun, he too fixes his eyes on the sun but not for long, since he's not immortal. But he stares long enough to see 'him' all round like 'molten iron'; as if 'a day had been added to day'. He says to himself: "To go beyond Humanity is not to be told in words".
In the sunlight, Dante wonders whether he is only pure soul or still a soul housed within a body. As he flies upward, he hears the heavenly harmonies of the celestial spheres around him. Beatrice says that he is 'no longer on earth' but he is like lightning leaving its proper home. Now Dante wonders how he can rise 'above lighter matter' when he is heavier than the spheres of air and fire.
Analysis: Medieval philosophers believed:
-in a geocentric universe, with the Earth at the center of the universe and all the other stars revolving around it. The revolution of each planet (the "spheres") creates a different musical note.
-and that the universe was made up of five elements. The northern hemisphere of the planet is all earth. The southern hemisphere (where the mountain of Purgatory is located) is all water. This planet is surrounded by a layer of air, then higher up a layer of fire, finally the ether of the heavens, where God resides.
Awesome thread, OP. You're the best!
Continuing from >>2625543
Beatrice anticipates Dante's first question and explains the Universal Order:
"All things observe a mutual order among themselves, and this is the structure that makes the universe resemble God. In that order, all things are graduated, in diverse allocations, nearer to, or further from, their source, so that they move over the great sea of being, each one with its given instincts that carry it onwards. This instinct carries the fire towards the moon; that one is the mover in the mortal heart,[even things without souls]. The Providence that orders it so, makes the Empyrean, in which the ninth sphere whirls with the greatest speed, quiet, with its light and the power of the bowstring, that directs whatever it fires towards a joyful target, carries us towards it now, as if to the appointed place.
It is true that, as form is sometimes inadequate to the artist’s intention, because the material fails to answer, so the creature, that has power, so impelled, to swerve towards some other place, sometimes deserts the track if its first impulse is deflected towards earth by false pleasures".
Then she looks towards Heaven.
Analysis:
Everything in the universe arranges itself in a certain order, as God decrees. Everything is placed at different distances from God. The upward movements are due to forces (‘instincts’) that drive matter and intellect.
Thus, when each thing moves across the 'sea of being', it is motivated by a desire to be close to God, because everything has a natural tendency to return to the point from which it came. This desire affects everything and is what draws Dante towards the source, the highest unmoving heaven, the Empyrean—within which the ninth sphere, the Primum Mobile whirls.
There is the potential for failure and imperfection. Many times people are distracted by earthly pleasures and deaf to God's calling, so they stray from the path towards Him; just like lightning, which "unnaturally" falls instead of rising.
This entire thread makes me want to go to hell purgatory and heaven, brb killing myself
>>2625480
Starting from the bottom left:
Le VII arti liberali = the seven liberal arts
These arts are split in two:
Trivio, or trivium, were three subjects that with the four subjects of the quadrivio made up the study courses in medieval times.
Those subjects were:
1) grammatica=grammar, the study of the latin language.
2) dialettica = dialectic, one of the branches of phylosophy.
3)retorica = rethoric, it taught how to persuade people.
These were the subjects of the trivium, the quadrivio was made up by:
1) aritmetica = mathematics
2) musica = music, it was not instrumental/vocal music but it was the music made by the celestial spheres.
3) geometria = geometry.
4) astrologia = astrology
Keep in mind that at the time these subjects were really different from the modern ones, even if they kept the names, because everything was finalized in finding symbols and other links to religion or god.
Over the liberal arts:
filosofia = philosophy
philosophy was split in three sciences :
1) scienza naturale = natural science
2) scienza morale = moral science or ethical science
3) scienza divina = divine science or theology.
The red words on the red circles refers to the angelic hierarchy and means:
1) angeli = angels;
3) arcangeli = archangels;
4) principati = principality;
5) potestà = powers;
6) virtù = virtues;
7) dominazioni = dominations;
8) troni = thrones;
9) cherubini = cherubs;
10) serafini = seraphs;
Here you are, those were all the traslations of the red words in that picture.
Continuing from>>2625752
Dante now warns us: "O you, in your little boat, who, longing to hear, have followed my keel, singing on its way, turn to regain your own shores: do not commit to the open sea, since, losing me, perhaps, you would be left adrift. The water I cut was never sailed before: Minerva breathes, Apollo guides, and the nine Muses point me toward the Bears. You other few, who have lifted your mouths [..] towards the bread of Angels [..] you may truly set your ship to the deep saltwater, following my furrow, in front of the water falling back to its level".
"The glorious Argonauts who sailed to Colchis, who marvelled when they saw Jason turned ploughman, did not marvel as much as you will".
Beatrice again gazes upward and Dante sees himself arriving, 'in the space of time', on 'the first planet': the Moon. It seems that a cloud covers them, 'dense, lucid, firm, and polished'.
Analysis:
-Dante urges readers who are not ready for the theological theory of Heaven to 'turn' back and reread the first two books of Divine Comedy. His ship, unlike ours, is guided by Apollo and the Muses. So only those who understand (the 'few who turned their minds unto the bread of angels') should follow his wake, where the waves are smooth because he is there to explain what's going on. The rest of the sea is tumultuous, making it hard to navigate.
-Jason, leader of the Argonauts, at the end of his journey, was promised the golden fleece by the King of Colchis, only if he could perform three tasks: first, Jason had to plow a field with fire-breathing oxen, the Khalkotauroi, that he had to yoke himself. Then, Jason had to sow the teeth of a dragon into the field. The last task was to overcome the sleepless dragon which guarded the Golden Fleece.
>>2625906
brilliant, thank you
