Poetry Summary: the Inferno by Dante Alighieri, Canto III

"Abandon all, hope, you who enter here." The Poets pass through the Gates of Hell, and hear cries of anguish. Souls are running through black haze. Virgil explain that these souls are the Opportunist; those souls in life that were not good or evil, but lived without moral choices, and in their self interest. Amongst them are the outcasts who took no sides in the Rebellion of the Angels in the war of Heaven. Heaven and Hell have denied them access. They took no sides, therefore are vanquished to an eternal darkness of filth. As they sinned so they are punished. These souls race round and round in pursuit of a waving banner. They are pursued by swarms of wasps and hornets, who sting them making them bleed. Amongst these souls in Pope Celestine V. Celestine's great guilt is that his cowardice, in selfish terror for his own welfare, served as the door through which so much evil entered the Church.

The Poets come to the first river of Hell, Acheron, which marks the border of Hell. Here the newly arrived souls wait for Charon, an old man, to ferry them. Charon recognizes Dante as a living man and angrily refuses him passage, but Virgil informs Charon that Dante's passage has been ordained by above. The damned souls are wailing and cursing all the way across the river into Hell. Dante is overcome with terror, and does not reawaken until he is on the other side. These swoons, fainting spells by Dante, in the descent show him most susceptible to the grief that surrounds him. As he descends, pity leaves him, and he even goes so far as to add to the torment of one sinner. The allegory is clear: we must harden ourselves against sympathy for sin.

Canto III: Analysis:

Virgil leads Dante to the Gates of Hell. Above the Gates, it reads, "Abandon all, hope, you who enter here" (line 9). After the Poets pass through the Gates of Hell, they are assailed by cries of anguish. Dante asks, "Sweet Spirit, what souls are these who run through this black haze?" (lines 30-31) Virgil responds, "They were neither for God nor Satan, but only for themselves" (lines 35-36). The first of the souls in torment were the Opportunists. The Opportunists are those souls in life that were not good or evil, but lived without moral choices, and in their self interest. Amongst them are the outcasts who took no sides in the Rebellion of the Angels in the war of Heaven. They reside in the Ante-Inferno that is within Hell yet not quite a part of it. Heaven and Hell have denied them access.

Dante's Hell is the symbolic law of retribution. As they sinned so they are punished. Their contrapasso is to be eternally unclassified. They took no sides, therefore are vanquished to an eternal darkness of filth. As their sin was in darkness so they move in darkness. As their actions were a moral filth, so they run eternally through the filth of worms and maggots. They race round and round, as a "Never-ending rout of souls in pain," in pursuit of a waving banner (line 52). As they run naked, they are pursued by swarms of wasps and hornets. The wasps and hornets sting them and "Make their faces stream with bloody gouts of pus and tears that dribbled to their feet to be swallowed there by loathsome worms and maggots" (lines 64-66).

Dante recognizes several, among them including Pope Celestine V. Pope Celestine V is referred to being one of the many, and one who "In his cowardice, made the Great Denial" (line 57). This is intended for Celestine V, who became Pope in 1294. He was a man of saintly life, but allowed himself to be convinced by a priest named Benedetto that his soul was in danger since no man could live in the world without being damned. In fear for his soul he withdrew from all worldly affairs and renounced the Papacy. Benedetto promptly assumed the mantle himself and became Boniface VIII, a Pope who became for Dante a symbol of all the worst corruptions of the Church. Dante also blamed Boniface and his intrigues for many of the evils that befell Florence. Celestine's great guilt is that his cowardice, in selfish terror for his own welfare, served as the door through which so much evil entered the Church.

The Poet moves on to Acheron, the first of the rivers of Hell. Acheron marks the border of Hell. Here the newly arrived souls of the damned gather and wait for monstrous Charon, an old man, to ferry them over to punishment. Charon is the ferryman of dead souls across the Acheron in all classical mythology. Charon announcement, "Woe to you depraved souls! Bury here and forever all hope of Paradise: I come to lead you to the other shore, into eternal dark, into fire and ice" (lines 81-84). Charon recognizes Dante as a living man and angrily refuses him passage. Virgil informs Charon that their journey has been ordained from above. Charon reluctantly obliges them. The damned souls in Despair they blasphemed God" (lines 99-100). The souls of the damned are not permitted to repent, for repentance is a divine grace. The damned souls are wailing and cursing all the way across the river into Hell. They yearn for what they fear" (line 123). Hell is what the souls of the damned wish for. Hell is their actual and deliberate choice, for divine grace is denied to none who wish for it in their hearts. The damned must, in fact, deliberately harden their heart to God in order to become damned. Christ's grace is sufficient to save all who wish for it.

Dante is overcome with terror, and does not reawaken until he is on the other side. Suddenly, an earthquake shakes, wind and fire rise up from beneath the ground. Dante, "Blind, like one whom sleep comes over in a swoon, I stumbled into darkness and went down" (lines 132-134). Dante becomes terrified, and faints. This device shares a double purpose. Dante uses it to cover a transition. We are never told how he crossed Acheron, for that would involve certain narrative matters. The other is to provide a point of departure for a theme that is carried through the entire descent, and that theme is Dante's emotional reaction to Hell. These swoons in the descent show him most susceptible to the grief that surrounds him. As he descends, pity leaves him, and he even goes so far as to add to the torment of one sinner. The allegory is clear: we must harden ourselves against sympathy for sin.

Canto III: English Translation:

(1) I AM THE WAY INTO THE CITY OF WOE.
(2) I AM THE WAY TO A FORSAKEN PEOPLE.
(3) I AM THE WAY INTO ETERNAL SORROW.

(4) SACRED JUSTICE MOVED MY ARCHITECT.
(5) I WAS RAISED HERE BY DIVINE OMNIPOTENCE,
(6) PRIMORDIAL LOVE AND ULTIMATE INTELLECT.

(7) ONLY THOSE ELEMENTS TIME CANNOT WEAR
(8) WERE MADE BEFORE ME, AND BEYOND TIME I STAND.
(9) ABANDON ALL HOPE YE WHO ENTER HERE.

(10) These mysteries I read cut into stone
(11) Above a gate. And turning I said: "Master,
(12) What is the meaning of this harsh inscription?"

(13) And he then as initiate to novice:
(14) "Here must you put by all division of spirit
(15) And gather your soul against all cowardice.

(16) This is the place I told you to expect.
(17) Here you shall pass among the fallen people,
(18) Souls who have lost the good of intellect."

(19) So saying he put forth his hand to me,
(20) And with a gentle and encouraging smile
(21) He led me through the gate of mystery.

(22) Here sighs and cries and wails coiled and recoiled
(23) On the starless air, spilling my soul to tears.
(24) A confusion of tongues and monstrous accents toiled

(25) In pain and anger. Voices hoarse and shrill
(26) And sounds of blows, all intermingled, raised
(27) Tumult and pandemonium that still

(28) Whirls on the air forever dirty with it
(29) As if a whirlwind sucked at sand. And I,
(30) Holding my head in horror, cried: "Sweet Spirit,"

(31) What souls are these who run through this black haze?"
(32) And he to me. "These are the nearly soulless
(33) Whose lives concluded neither blame nor praise.

(34) They are mixed here with that despicable corps
(35) Of angels who were neither for God nor Satan,
(36) But only for themselves. The High Creator

(37) Scouraged them from Heaven for its perfect beauty,
(38) And Hell will not receive them since the wicked
(39) Might feel some glory over them." And I:

(40) "Master, what gnaws at them so hideously
(41) Their lamentation stuns the very air?"
(42) "They have no hope of death," he answered me,

(43) "and in their blind and unattaining state
(44) Their miserable lives have sunk so low
(45) That they must envy every other fate.

(46) No word of them survives their living season.
(47) Mercy and Justice deny them even a name.
(48) Let us not speak of them: look, and pass on."

(49) I saw a banner there upon the mist.
(50) Circling and circling, it seemed to scorn all pause.
(51) So it ran on, and still behind it pressed

(52) A never-ending rout of souls in pain.
(53) I had not thought death had undone so many
(54) As passed before me in that mournful train.

(55) And some I knew among them; last of all
(56) I recognized the shadow of that soul
(57) Who, in his cowardice, made the Great Denial.

(58) At once I understood for certain: these
(59) Were of that retrograde and faithless crew
(60) Hateful to God and to His enemies.

(61) These wretches never born and never dead
(62) Ran naked in a swarm of wasps and hornets
(63) That goaded them the more the more they fled,

(64) And made their faces stream with bloody gouts
(65) Of pus and tears that dribbled to their feet
(66) To be swallowed there by loathsome worms and maggots.

(67) Then looking onward I made out a throng
(68) Assembled on the beach of a wide river,
(69) Whereupon I turned to him: "Master, I long

(70) To know what souls these are, and what strange usage
(71) Makes them as eager to cross as they seem to be
(72) In this infected light." At which the Sage:

(73) "All this shall be made known to you when we stand
(74) On the joyless beach of Acheron." And I
(75) Cast down my eyes, sensing a reprimand

(76) In what he said, and so walked at his side
(77) In silence and ashamed until we came
(78) Through the dead cavern to that sunless tide.

(79) There, steering toward us in an ancient ferry
(80) Came an old man with a white bush of hair,
(81) Bellowing: "Woe to you depraved souls! Bury

(82) Here and forever all hope of Paradise:
(83) I come to lead you to the other shore,
(84) Into the eternal dark, into fire and ice.

(85) And you who are living yet, I say begone
(86) From these who are dead." But when he saw me stand
(87) Against his violence he began again:

(88) "By other windings and by other steerage
(89) Shall you cross to that other shore. Not hear! Not hear!
(90) A lighter craft than mine must give you passage."

(91) And my Guide to him: "Charon, bit back your spleen:
(92) This has been willed where what is willed must be,
(93) And is not yours to ask what it may mean."

(94) The steersman of that marsh of ruined souls,
(95) Who wore a wheel of lame around each eye,
(96) Stifled the rage that shook his woolly jowls.

(97) But those unmanned and naked spirits there
(98) Turned pale with fear and their teeth began to chatter
(99) At sound of his crude bellow. In despair

(100) They blasphemed God, their parents, their time on earth,
(101) The race of Adam, and the day and the hour
(102) And the place and the seed and the womb that gave them birth.

(103) But all together they drew to that grim shore
(104) Where all must come who lose the fear of God.
(105) Weeping and cursing they come for evermore,

(106) And demon Charon with eyes like burning coals
(107) Herds them in, and with a whistling oar
(108) Flails on the stragglers to his wake of souls.

(109) As leaves in autumn loosen and stream down
(110) Until the branch stands bare above its tatters
(111) Spread on the rustling ground, so one by one

(112) The evil seed of Adam in its Fall
(113) Cast themselves, as his signal, from the shore
(114) And streamed away like birds who hear their call.

(115) So they are gone over that shadowy water,
(116) And always before they reach the other shore
(117) A new noise stirs on this, and new throngs gather.

(118) "My son," the courteous Master said to me,
(119) "all who die in the shadow of God's wrath
(120) Converge to this from every clime and country.

(121) And all pass over eagerly, for here
(122) Divine Justice transforms and spurs them so
(123) Their dread turns with: they yearn for what they fear.

(124) No soul in Grace comes every to this crossing:
(125) Therefore if Charon rages at your presence
(126) You will understand the reason for his cursing."

(127) When he had spoken, all the twilight country
(128) Shook so violently, the terror of it
(129) Bathes me with sweat even in memory:

(130) The tear-soaked ground gave out a sigh of wind
(131) That spewed itself in flame on a red sky,
(132) And all my shattered senses left me. Blind,

(133) Like one whom sleep comes over in a swoon,
(134) I stumbled into darkness and went down.

Work Cited:

Alighieri, Dante, "The Inferno," Trans. John Ciardi, Signet Classics, New American Library, a division of Penguin Group (USA) Inc., New York , New York , 2009, Print.