That in that location is much depth to Dante's "Inferno" is an understatement, and the poet'due south descent into the abyss is perplexing at first glance. However, past invoking the muses of verse and in being guided by Virgil, Dante tips his hand and reveals to the astute reader that the journeying into—and through—hell volition crave the flowering of love, a honey that conquers even the deepest levels of hell.

"Midway along the journey of our life / I woke to find myself in a dark woods / for I had wandered off from the straight path." Thus opens Dante's thou epic of love. But why did the pilgrim poet accept to descend into hell—of all places—earlier he could climb Mountain Purgatory and take his seat in the blossoming bud of the white rose of heaven? The Divine One-act is a love ballsy. Information technology is the greatest dear ballsy. Information technology is the most ambitious love epic ever crafted past the hands of a mere mortal. Dante descends into hell to learn to dearest once more past the most extreme examples of misdirected love and also through his relationship with Virgil.

That there is much depth to Dante is an understatement. There is much allegory, theology, political commentary, reflections on history, poesy, and economics, that give life to Dante'due south brilliant masterpiece. There are many ways to sympathize the multilayered world of hell: From its structure to why, at the lowest circle—rather than a fiery pandemonium as imagined by John Milton—the lake of hell is common cold, dark, and frozen. Yet the descent into the completeness that is the inferno is perplexing at first glance.

When Dante begins his ballsy, he states that he is having a sort of mid-life existential crisis. The verse form is nigh him. But information technology is more than about him. Dante says that midway forth "our" life he awoke to find himself in a nighttime wood because he had wandered off the straight and true path. That straight and true path is the path of love.

Information technology isn't surprising, given this reality, that the first proper circle of hell is the sphere of lust. Lust is the beginning of misdirecting love—equally evidenced past the pilgrim'southward word with the wounded lusters Francesca da Rimini and Paolo Malatesta. The two had carried on an illicit affair for a decade. Francesca, in talking to Dante, subtly blames the poet. It was Dante'southward romance poetry that had captured the heart of Francesca and filled her heart with erotic intent that ultimately was her own undoing. Dante takes pity on Francesca and faints.

In the beginning of all iii parts of the Divine One-act, Dante invokes poetry to guide him. "O muses! O loftier genius! Assist me now!" he aimlessly cries at the beginning of the second canto of the Inferno. Earlier ascending upwardly the slopes of Mountain Purgatory, Dante also invokes the muses again, "Hither let death's poetry ascend to life, / O muses sacrosanct whose liege I am! / And permit Calliope rise up and play." By the time he enters into heaven, Dante invokes Apollo (beyond being god of the sun, he was also the god of poetry), "O great Apollo, for this final task, / make me a vessel worthy to receive / your genius and the longed-for laurel crown."

Dante invokes the muses and gods of poetry in his journey because poetry, upwardly through Dante'southward fourth dimension, ever had dearest equally its corking theme. The epic poetry of Homer, though surrounded past the maelstrom of war, chiefly concerns itself with dearest. The Troubadours of Provence were love bards and poets who ready the medieval world aflame—and Dante meets one such Troubadour on his ascent upward Mount Purgatory.

Merely in the Latin mind, no greater love poet stood out than Dante'south own guide through hell and purgatory. Virgil was the chief poet of love in the Roman world. His ballsy is a grand tale of dear which Dante feels insignificant in comparison to. "I am non Aeneas," he tells Virgil before journeying to the underworld. Virgil's additional poetry, like the Eclogues, too chiefly concerns itself with love. "Omnia vincit amor," as Virgil famously wrote in Eclogue X.

By invoking the muses of poetry and in being guided by Virgil, Dante tips his hand and reveals to the acute reader (or listener) that the journey into—and through—hell will crave the flowering of love. Hell, subsequently all, is a loveless identify. And Dante's journey is one in which the muses of dearest must nurture him.

The initial relationship between Dante and Virgil is standoffish and common cold. While Virgil has been selected by Beatrice, Virgil treats Dante more than as an insolent kid than a son. Virgil is, at the verse form's beginning, more than of a reluctant guide. He regularly accosts Dante for his stupid questions and repeated mistakes journey through hell. Dante repeatedly faints, much to Virgil'southward chagrin.

Two things are missing in their human relationship when they enter into the gates which infamously read: ABANDON ALL HOPE YE WHO ENTER HERE. There is a lack of trust between Dante and Virgil. Every bit such, at that place is a lack of love between the two poets. In fact, the two missing ingredients are also the two missing values that permeate hell itself. Moreover, the lack of trust and lack of love are also envisioned as being united together. Without trust there can be no beloved. Without dearest, there tin can be no trust.

While the two poets come closer through their trials and tribulations, the first major transformation in Dante and Virgil's relationship is when they are at the gates of the Urban center of Dis. The famous gorgon Medusa guards the entry. Every bit she approaches the ii, Virgil shields Dante's eyes. This is ironic for several reasons. Offset, Virgil had informed Dante not to wait at Medusa'due south eyes after crossing over the River Styx. Virgil has come to care virtually Dante, equally evidenced by the fact that he informed Dante non to look into the seductive optics of the formerly cute gorgon slayed past Perseus. Dante, we mustn't forget, is yet alive while everyone else is dead. If Dante looked into the eyes of Medusa he would have been killed. Virgil'due south reminding Dante not to look into the eyes of the gorgon was done out of an human action of business for the pilgrim poet.

Second, the fact that Virgil shielded Dante'south optics too indicates his lack of trust. Despite informing Dante of the mortiferous powers of the gorgon seductress, Virgil still places his arm and hand over Dante's face to forbid him from being turned to stone.

3rd, and mayhap almost ironic of all, the fact that Virgil shields Dante's eyes indicates his growing love for the poor pilgriming soul even though the two still haven't reach that sacred bond of trust. (We should besides call up that the ninth circle of hell is reserved for all of the traitors who betrayed the trust of their benefactors, country, or family.)

The lack of trust between the two protagonists is presently remedied. Between cantos 19 and twenty-i, in that location is a tremendous, grace-filled, metamorphosis betwixt the two men. Dante makes the growing love exhibited between he and Virgil the central image in a place of horrifying and pitiable images. This is, in my view, intentional on the part of Dante. Considering they are in hell, and hell is a loveless place, love needs to grow into a burning burn betwixt Dante and Virgil in lodge for the 2 to farther proceed down the abyss in club to exit hell and begin the long and arduous journey up Mount Purgatory.

In the nineteenth canto, as the two are in the third bolgia of the eighth circle of hell, Dante is tired on the slopes of the mountain. All the same Dante wishes to have a chat with ane of the damned souls (soon to be revealed as Pope Nicholas 3). Exhausted, Dante appeals to his master becoming father-figure:

Who is that 1, Primary, that angry wretch,
who is writhing more any of his comrades,"
I asked, "the one licked by a redder flame?"
And he to me, "If you lot want to be carried downward
along that lower bank to where he is,
you can ask him who he is and why he's there."
And I, "My pleasure is what pleases y'all:
Yous are my lord, you lot know that from your will
I volition non swerve. You even know my thoughts.[1]

Here is the beginning great expression of self-giving and sacrificial love in the whole of the Inferno. Moreover, trust betwixt the 2 is growing which allows for the self-giving love that binds the two souls together. Virgil takes Dante in his arms and whisks him down the slopes:

So he took concur of me with both his arms,
And when he had me business firm confronting his breast,
He climbed back upward the path he had come down.
He did not tire of the weight clasped tight to him,
Just brought me to the top of the bridge's arch,
The one that joins the 4th bank to the fifth.
And here he gently set his burden down—
Gently, for the ridge, and so steep and rugged,
Would take been hard fifty-fifty for goats to cross.
From at that place another valley opened to me.[2]

There is no more fear or distrust in Dante reaching out and asking for Virgil'due south help. Furthermore, Virgil is no longer incensed at Dante's questions and pitiable status. As the intermediary guide, a sort of in persona Christi in the journey through hell, Virgil is there to assistance carry Dante when he is exhausted and cannot continue whatever longer. Honey, as we begin to see in flesh and blood imagery and action, truly does conquer fifty-fifty the deepest levels of hell.

Despite the progress fabricated in loving each other, wherein Virgil has become more than of a father to Dante than a mere guide, there is a final barrier for the ii to overcome. In that location is a hidden, invisible, wall the two have all the same to cantankerous. That subconscious barrier is forgiveness.

Though the two accept learned to dearest each other in a self-giving and cocky-sacrificial style—with Virgil lifting up onto his beingness the burden that is Dante—the 2 take notwithstanding to learn the loftier value and virtue of forgiveness. Before they can continue into the final circle of hell, this incredible literary construction on Dante'due south part must be realized: The two must learn to forgive each other as the highest expression of their learning to beloved.

In the thirtieth canto that final barrier of learning dearest is overcome. Dante, the typical childish pilgrim every bit he is at times in the Inferno, begins to coquet and waste time captivated in a argue between two egotistic sinners (appropriately almost a pond of water). Virgil is angered by Dante'due south dallying and accosts him. Dante tells us that in hearing Virgil's anger he was filled with shame. Upon looking at the face up of Dante, Virgil recognizes he has wronged Dante in his burst of anger. Virgil tells Dante to forget about his outburst and forgive him. Dante pardons Virgil's burst in the first and only human action of loving forgiveness in Inferno:

I was listening, all absorbed in this debate,
when the master said to me: "Keep right on looking,
a little more, and I shall lose my patience."
I heard the notation of acrimony in his voice
and turned to him; I was so total of shame
that it notwithstanding haunts my memory today.
Similar one asleep who dreams himself in trouble
and in his dream he wishes he were dreaming,
longing for that which is, every bit if it were non,
simply so I found myself: unable to speak,
longing to beg for pardon and already
begging for pardon, non knowing that I did.
"Less shame than yours would wash away a mistake
greater than yours has been," my master said,
"and so forget about it, do not be sad.
If ever once more you lot should meet upward with men
engaging in this kind of futile wrangling,
remember I am always at your side;
to have a taste for talk like this is vulgar!"[three]

This moment is important considering, as mentioned, it is the only instance of forgiveness in the poem. Had the two not learned forgiveness they would have been trapped in hell for all eternity. Without a moment of forgiveness, the journey to learn how to love once again would have failed. Without forgiveness, Dante and Virgil would take been trapped in the eighth circumvolve of hell. Without forgiveness, the reconciling reality of love which moves the stars would never have been revealed. In forgiveness, Dante realizes he has a fatherly effigy "ever at [his] side."

In Dante's sojourn through hell, the great poet-pilgrim learned how to love again. Information technology was his forgetting how to love that caused him to wander from the straight and truthful and into a dark wood reminiscent of the cold darkness of hell. Hell is a common cold, night, and loveless place. The only calorie-free, warmth, and love that flickered through the nine circles was the honey that Dante and Virgil learned in the presence of each other. Having learned dearest they conquered hell together and began their ascension up Mountain Purgatory with the beautiful stars as their guide, "I saw the lovely things the heavens hold, / and nosotros came out to come across again the stars."

Author's Annotation: Citations are from Mark Musa'southward translation of The Divine One-act.

The Imaginative Conservative applies the principle of appreciation to the discussion of culture and politics—nosotros approach dialogue with magnanimity rather than with mere civility. Will you assist united states remain a refreshing oasis in the increasingly contentious arena of modern soapbox? Please consider altruistic now.

Notes:

[1] Canto XIX, 31-39.

[2] Canto XIX, 124-133.

[3] Canto Thirty, 130-148.

The featured image is "The Inscription Over Hell-Gate" by William Blake (1757-1827), courtesy of Wikimedia Eatables.

Print Friendly, PDF & Email