The Portable Dante by Dante Alighieri
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He answered then: “I am Friar Alberigo, I am he who offered fruit from the evil orchard: here dates are served me for the figs I gave. ”
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“Oh, then!” I said. “Are you already dead?” And he to me: “Just how my body is in the world above, I have no way of knowing.
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This zone of Tolomea is very special, for it often happens that a soul falls here before the time that Atropos should send it.
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And that you may more willingly scrape off my cluster of glass tears, let me tell you: whenever a soul betrays the way I did,
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a demon takes possession of the body, controlling its maneuvers from then on, for all the years it has to live up there,
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while the soul falls straight into this cistern here; and the shade in winter quarters just behind me may well have left his body up on earth.
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115-117. The Pilgrim, fully aware that his journey will indeed take him below the ice, carefully phrases his treacherous promise to the treacherous shade, and success- fully deceives him (149-150). The Pilgrim betrays a sinner in this circle, as the latter does one of his companions there with him in the ice (by naming him).
118-120. Friar Alberigo is one of the Jovial Friars (see Canto XXIII, 103-108).
124-135. According to Church doctrine, under certain circumstances a living person may, through acts of treachery, lose possession of his soul before he dies (“before the time that Atropos [the Fate who cuts man’s thread of life] should send it, ” 126). Then, on earth, a devil inhabits the body until its natural death.
But you should know, if you’ve just come from there: he is Ser Branca D’Oria; and many years have passed since he first joined us here, icebound. ”
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“I think you’re telling me a lie, ” I said, “for Branca D’Oria is not dead at all; he eats and drinks, he sleeps and wears out clothes. ”
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“The ditch the Malebranche watch above, ” he said, “the ditch of clinging, boiling pitch, had not yet caught the soul of Michel Zanche,
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when Branca left a devil in his body to take his place, and so did his close kinsman, his accomplice in this act of treachery.
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But now, at last, give me the hand you promised. Open my eyes. ” I did not open them. To be mean to him was a generous reward.
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O all you Genovese, you men estranged from every good, at home with every vice, why can’t the world be wiped clean of your race?
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For in company with Romagna’s rankest soul I found one of your men, whose deeds were such that his soul bathes already in Cocytus
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but his body seems alive and walks among you.
137-147. Ser Branca D’Oria, a prominent resident of Genoa, murdered his father- in-law, Michel Zanche (see Canto XXII, 88), after having invited him to dine with him.
154. The soul is Friar Alberigo, and Faenza, his hometown, was in the region of Romagna (now part of Emilia-Romagna).
155. The man is Branca D’Oria.
CANTO XXXIV
FAR ACROSS the frozen ice can be seen the gigantic figure of Lucifer, who appears from this distance like a windmill seen through fog; and as the two travelers walk on toward that terrifying sight, they see the shades of sinners totally buried in the frozen water. At the center of the earth Lucifer stands frozen from the chest downward, and his horrible ugliness (he has three faces) is made more fearful by the fact that in each of his three mouths he chews on one of the three worst sinners of all mankind, the worst of those who betrayed their benefactors: Judas Iscariot, Brutus, and Cassius. Virgil, with the Pilgrim on his back, begins the descent down the shaggy body of Lucifer. They climb down through a crack in the ice, and when they reach the Evil One’s thighs, Virgil turns and begins to struggle upward (because they have passed the center of the earth), still holding on to the hairy body of Lucifer, until they reach a cavern, where they stop for a short rest. Then a winding path brings them eventually to the earth’s surface, where they see the stars.
“Vexilla regis prodeunt Inferni, ” my master said, “closer to us, so now look ahead and see if you can make him out. ”
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A far-off windmill turning its huge sails when a thick fog begins to settle in, or when the light of day begins to fade,
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that is what I thought I saw appearing. And the gusts of wind it stirred made me shrink back behind my guide, my only means of cover.
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1. The opening lines of the hymn “ Vexilla regis prodeunt “—“The banners of the King advance”—(written by Venantius Fortunatus, sixth-century bishop of Poitiers; this hymn belongs to the liturgy of the Church) are here parodied by the addition of the word Inferni, “of Hell, ” to the word regis, “of the King. ” Sung on Good Friday, the hymn anticipates the unveiling of the Cross; Dante, who began his journey on the evening of Good Friday, is prepared by Virgil’s words for the sight of Lucifer, who will appear like a “windmill” in a “thick fog. ” The banners referred to are Lucifer’s wings.
Down here, I stood on souls fixed under ice (I tremble as I put this into verse); to me they looked like straws worked into glass.
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Some lying flat, some perpendicular, either with their heads up or their feet, and some bent head to foot, shaped like a bow.
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When we had moved far enough along the way that my master thought the time had come to show me the creature who was once so beautiful,
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he stepped aside, and stopping me, announced: “This is he, this is Dis; this is the place that calls for all the courage you have in you. ”
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How chilled and nerveless, Reader, I felt then; do not ask me—I cannot write about it— there are no words to tell you how I felt.
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I did not die—I was not living either! Try to imagine, if you can imagine, me there, deprived of life and death at once.
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The king of the vast kingdom of all grief stuck out with half his chest above the ice; my height is closer to the height of giants
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than theirs is to the length of his great arms; consider now how large all of him was: this body in proportion to his arms.
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If once he was as fair as now he’s foul and dared to raise his brows against his Maker, it is fitting that all grief should spring from him.
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Oh, how amazed I was when I looked up and saw a head—one head wearing three faces! One was in front (and that was a bright red),
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38-45. Dante presents Lucifer’s head as a perverted parallel of the Trinity. The colors of the three single faces (red, yellow, black) are probably antithetically analogous to the qualities attributed to the Trinity (see Canto III, 5-6). Therefore, Highest Wisdom would be opposed by ignorance (black), Divine Omnipotence by impotence (yellow), Primal Love by hatred or envy (red).
the other two attached themselves to this one just above the middle of each shoulder, and at the crown all three were joined in one:
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The right face was a blend of white and yellow, the left the color of those people’s skin who live along the river Nile’s descent.
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Beneath each face two mighty wings stretched out, the size you might expect of this huge bird (I never saw a ship with larger sails):
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not feathered wings but rather like the ones a bat would have. He flapped them constantly, keeping three winds continuously in motion
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to lock Cocytus eternally in ice. He wept from his six eyes, and down three chins were dripping tears all mixed with bloody slaver.
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In each of his three mouths he crunched a sinner, with teeth like those that rake the hemp and flax, keeping three sinners constantly in
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the one in front—the biting he endured was nothing like the clawing that he took: sometimes his back was raked clean of its skin.
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“That soul up there who suffers most of all, ” my guide explained, “is Judas Iscariot: the one with head inside and legs out kicking.
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As for the other two whose heads stick out, the one who hangs from that black face is Brutus— see how he squirms in silent desperation;
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61-63. Having betrayed Christ for thirty pieces of silver, Judas endures greater pun- ishment than the other two souls.
65. Marcus Brutus, who was deceitfully persuaded by Cassius (67) to join the con- spiracy, aided in the assassination of Julius Caesar. It is fitting that in his final vision of the Inferno the Pilgrim should see those shades who committed treacherous acts against Divine and worldly authorities: the Church and the Roman Empire. This provides the culmination, at least in this canticle, of these basic themes: Church and Empire.
the other one is Cassius, he still looks sturdy. But soon it will be night. Now is the time to leave this place, for we have seen it all. ”
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I held on to his neck, as he told me to, while he watched and waited for the time and place, and when the wings were stretched out just enough,
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he grabbed on to the shaggy sides of Satan; then downward, tuft by tuft, he made his way between the tangled hair and frozen crust.
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When we had reached the point exactly where the thigh begins, right at the haunch’s curve, my guide, with strain and force of every muscle,
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turned his head toward the shaggy shanks of Dis and grabbed the hair as if about to climb— I thought that we were heading back to Hell.
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“Hold tight, there is no other way, ” he said, panting, exhausted, “only by these stairs can we leave behind the evil we have seen. ”
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When he had got me through the rocky crevice, he raised me to its edge and set me down, then carefully he climbed and joined me there.
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I raised my eyes, expecting I would see the half of Lucifer I saw before. Instead I saw his two legs stretching upward.
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If at that sight I found myself confused, so will those simple-minded folk who still don’t see what point it was I must have passed.
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67. Caius Cassius Longinus was another member of the conspiracy against Caesar. By describing Cassius as “still look[ing] sturdy, ” Dante shows he has evidently confused him with Lucius Cassius, whom Cicero calls adeps, “corpulent. ”
“Get up, ” my master said, “get to your feet, the way is long, the road a rough climb up, already the sun approaches middle tierce!”
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It was no palace promenade we came to, but rather like some dungeon Nature built: it was paved with broken stone and poorly lit.
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“Before we start to struggle out of here, O master, ” I said when I was on my feet, “I wish you would explain some things to me.
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Where is the ice? And how can he be lodged upside-down? And how, in so little time, could the sun go all the way from night to day?”
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“You think you’re still on the center’s other side, ” he said, “where I first grabbed the hairy worm of rottenness that pierces the earth’s core;
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and you were there as long as I moved downward but, when I turned myself, you passed the point to which all weight from every part is drawn.
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Now you are standing beneath the hemisphere which is opposite the side covered by land, where at the central point was sacrificed
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the Man whose birth and life were free of sin. You have both feet upon a little sphere whose other side Judecca occupies;
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when it is morning here, there it is evening. And he whose hairs were stairs for our descent has not changed his position since his fall.
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When he fell from the heavens on this side, all of the land that once was spread out here, alarmed by his plunge, took cover beneath the sea
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96. The time is approximately halfway between the canonical hours of Prime and Tierce, i. e., 7:30 A.M. The rapid change from night (“But soon it will be night, ” 68) to day (96) is the result of the travelers’ having passed the earth’s center, thus moving into the Southern Hemisphere, which is twelve hours ahead of the Northern.
and moved to our hemisphere; with equal fear the mountain-land, piled up on this side, fled and made this cavern here when it rushed upward.
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Below somewhere there is a space, as far from Beelzebub as the limit of his tomb, known not by sight but only by the sound
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of a little stream that makes its way down here through the hollow of a rock that it has worn, gently winding in gradual descent. ”
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My guide and I entered that hidden road to make our way back up to the bright world. We never thought of resting while we climbed.
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We climbed, he first and I behind, until, through a small round opening ahead of us I saw the lovely things the heavens hold,
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and we came out to see once more the stars.
127-132. Somewhere below the land that rushed upward to form the Mount of Purgatory “there is a space” (127) through which a stream runs, and it is through this space that Virgil and Dante will climb to reach the base of the Mount. The “space” is at the edge of the natural dungeon that constitutes Lucifer’s “tomb, ” and serves as the entrance to the passage from the earth’s center to its circumference, created by Lucifer in his fall from Heaven to Hell.
THE DIVINE COMEDY: PURGATORY
CANTO I
HHAVING LEFT THE Inferno behind, Dante announces his intention to sing of the second kingdom, Purgatory, and calls upon the Muses, in partic-ular Calliope, to accompany his song. As the dawn approaches, he feels a sense of renewal, and, looking up into the heavens, he sees four stars. Turning his gaze earthward again, he discovers standing near him a dignified old man: Cato of Utica. Cato thinks Dante and Virgil are refugees from Hell, and he questions them as to how they managed to escape. Virgil explains that Dante is still a living man, and that, at the command of a lady from Heaven, he, Virgil, has been sent to guide this man on a journey for the purpose of his salvation. Already this journey has taken them through Hell, and now it is their intention to see the souls of Purgatory. Cato assents to their passage. He then instructs Vir-gil to hind a reed around the Pilgrim’s waist and to be sure to cleanse him of every trace of stain from the infernal regions. The two poets descend to the shore of the island on which they’ve found themselves after leaving Hell, where they proceed to carry out Cato’s instructions. The purgation is marked by a miracle: when Virgil pulls a reed from the ground, another springs up immediately to take its place.
For better waters, now, the little bark of my poetic powers hoists its sails, and leaves behind that cruelest of the seas.
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And I shall sing about that second realm where man’s soul goes to purify itself and become worthy to ascend to Heaven.
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1-6. The first tercet introduces the theme of the sea voyage, a metaphor both for the journey undertaken by Dante the Pilgrim and for the process of composition in which the genius of Dante the Poet is involved. The same image with the same twofold implication is found in the Paradise at the beginning of Canto II.
Here let death’s poetry arise to life, O Muses sacrosanct whose liege I am! And let Calliope rise up and play
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her sweet accompaniment in the same strain that pierced the wretched magpies with the truth of unforgivable presumptuousness.
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The tender tint of orient sapphire, suffusing the still reaches
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renewed my eyes’ delight, now that I found myself free of the deathly atmosphere that had weighed heavy on my eyes and heart.
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The lovely planet kindling love in man made all the eastern sky smile with her light, veiling the Fish that shimmered in her train.
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Then to my right I turned to contemplate the other pole, and there saw those four stars the first man saw, and no man after him.
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7. The poetry of the Inferno is dead in that it treated of souls dead to God and to His grace. But note also the suggestion of resurrection contained in this line.
9. Calliope is the greatest of the Muses, who, in Greek mythology, presides over heroic or epic poetry.
11-12. Pierus, king of Emathia in Macedonia, had nine daughters, to whom he un- wisely gave the names of the nine Muses. In their presumption they challenged the Muses to a contest in song, in which they sang the praises of the Titans who waged war against Jupiter (cf. Inferno XXXI). Defeated by Calliope, who was chosen to represent all the Muses, they were punished by being transformed into magpies (cf. Ovid, Metamorphoses V, 294-678).
23. No living man since the time of Adam and Eve has seen the four stars that the Pilgrim now sees. These stars would have been visible to Adam and Eve because the Garden of Eden, in which they were placed after their creation, was located atop the mountain of Purgatory (the Pilgrim is now at the bottom of this same mountain). After the Fall, Adam and Eve were driven from the garden, and they and their offspring—the whole human race—were consigned to inhabit the lands opposite the Earthly Paradise, that is, accord-ing to Dante’s geography, the Northern Hemisphere. Hence, the stars of the southern sky would be invisible in the inhabited northern part of the globe.
Allegorically, the four stars represent the four cardinal virtues: Prudence, Tem- perance, Justice, and Fortitude.
The heavens seemed to revel in their flames. O widowed Northern Hemisphere, deprived forever of the vision of their light!