Dante: His Times and His Work

by Arthur John Butler

With Canto iii. and the arrival within the actual portal of Hell (though hardly in Hell properly so called) we enter upon a fresh subdivision of the poem; and are very soon brought up by the first, and one of the most perplexing, of the allusions to contemporary history with which it abounds. The elucidation of these would constantly offer almost hopeless difficulties, were it not for the early commentators, who are often able to explain them from personal knowledge. Now and then, however, it happens that they differ, and then the modern student is at a loss. This has been in some measure the case with the famous “gran rifiuto,” iii. 60; so that while we may with a high degree of probability accept the more usual view that the allusion is to the abdication of Celestine V., we cannot without further evidence feel so certain about it as we could wish. The whole conception of this canto seems to be due to Dante’s own invention; only to a nature like his, keenly alive to the eternal distinction between right and wrong, and burning with zeal in the cause of right, could it have occurred to mark off for special ignominy people whose sole fault seems to have been that they “took things too easily.” When, in Canto iv., we pass the river of Acheron, and find ourselves for the first time actually on the border of Hell itself, we are conscious at first of an alleviation. Melancholy there is, but it is a dignified melancholy, as different from the sordid misery of the wretches we have just left, as the “noble city” and the green sward enclosed by it are different from the murky air and the foul mud among which they have to dwell. Both in this and in the second circle we have punishment indeed but without degradation, even with some mitigation. Virgil at least enjoys the converse of the sages and great men of old and, in so far as non-Christians go, of recent times; while Francesca is solaced by the perpetual companionship of him for whose sake she has lost her soul. Even the penalty which she suffers, of being whirled for ever on the storm, is not exactly humiliating. From this point, however, we are conscious of a change. The gluttons seated or lying on putrid earth and exposed to lashing rain; the misusers of wealth, with all human lineaments effaced, and engaged in a foolish and wearisome scuffle; the ill-tempered, floating on the surface of the foul marsh of Styx or lying submerged in it according as their disposition was to fierce wrath or sullen brooding—all these are not merely tormented but degraded as well.

After crossing the Styx (Canto viii.) we find a further change. Thus far the sins punished have differed only in degree from those which we shall find being expiated in Purgatory. They are indeed the simpler forms, so to speak, of the defects common to all animal nature. They are the same which, in one of their interpretations, the three symbolical beasts of Canto i. denote. Henceforth we find sins which are only possible to the higher intelligence of humanity. It will be observed, too, that at this point what may be called pictorial description begins. Hitherto we have had merely a general impression of murky air and miry soil, sloping perhaps a little toward the centre, and intersected now and again by a stream. Now the City of Dis with minarets and towers rises in front of us, and, as we shall see in future cantos, from this time onwards the character of the scenery is indicated with great preciseness, even to its smallest details. Here, too, actual devils, beings whose will, as Aquinas says, is obstinately set upon evil, appear for the first time, as distinct from the personages of classical mythology, who act as warders of the various circles. Virgil, or human reason, is no longer sufficient of himself to secure a passage. Both at the gates of the fiery city and on subsequent occasions he is as helpless, without superior aid, as his disciple and follower.

The ninth canto contains a piece of allegory, that involved in the introduction of Medusa and the Furies, which has earned perhaps a greater reputation for obscurity than it deserves, from the fact that Dante himself calls special attention to it.

Cantos x. and xi. are both very important, the former for its bearing on the history of Florence. Those who have read the sketch of that history in the preceding chapters will understand the full force of Farinata’s discourse with Dante. We have had a brief passage of the same kind in Canto vi., but here the subject is treated at greater length, and with some marvellous dramatic touches.

Canto xi. must be thoroughly mastered if Dante’s scheme of ethics is to be understood. It forms, indeed, a summary of and key to the arrangement of the penalties, and a thorough comprehension and retention of it in the memory will be found a wonderful help to a recollection of the whole Cantica.

At the conclusion of the discourse in which Dante, speaking by the mouth of Virgil, has set forth this ethical system, the poets move forward along the brink of the pit until they arrive at a spot where they can reach the lower level. The descent is rendered possible by a steep and broken slope of loose rock, which Dante compares to the great landslip between Trent and Verona, known as the Slavino di Marco.[28] Virgil explains that this was due to the “rending of the rocks” at the time of the Crucifixion. The descent is guarded by the legendary Minotaur, the Cretan monster, part bull, part man. In this connection it may be noticed that the beings suggested by classical mythology, who are met with in the division of Hell which lies between the wall of the City of Dis and the brink of Malebolge, the Minotaur, the Centaurs, the Harpies, and Geryon (as Dante conceives him), all belong to the semi-bestial class. In spite of the opinion held by some of the most eminent Dante-scholars, that Dante in his classification of sins does not follow Aristotle’s grouping of them into incontinent, malicious, and brutal, but recognises the first two only, it seems difficult not to see in this, especially when it is taken in connection with expressions scattered throughout his writings, an indication that in the sins of the seventh circle he found the equivalent of the Greek philosopher’s θηριότης—the result of giving a free range to the brutal, as distinct from the common animal, impulses.

In this seventh circle, too, we first meet with fire as an instrument of Divine wrath. Indeed, with the single exception of the suicides, for whom a specially significant chastisement is devised, all the sinners in this group, from the heretics in their red-hot tombs to the usurers tormented on one side by the fiery rain, and on the other by the exhalations from the deeper pit, are punished by means of heat. At the foot of the slope is a great circular plain, ringed with a river of boiling blood in which spoilers, robbers, and murderers, some famous, some obscure, are plunged more or less deeply in proportion to the heinousness of their crimes; for, like earthly streams, this has its deep and shallow. At the latter point they cross, on the back of Nessus the Centaur, and at once enter (Canto xiii.) a wood of gnarled and sere trees, in which the Harpies have their dwelling. These trees have sprung from the souls of suicides, and retain the power of speech and sensation. From one of these, who in life had been the famous statesman Peter de Vineis, Dante learns that at the judgement they will recover their bodies, like others, but will not be allowed to reassume them. The body will be hung on the tree to which it belongs. Here, as in the case of the avaricious and the wrathful, the spirits of other sinners take a part in the infliction of the punishment. The wood is inhabited by the souls of those who had wasted their substance in life, and these are constantly chased through it by hounds, with much destruction of leaves and twigs.

On issuing from the wood (Canto xiv.), they find themselves at the edge of a great circular plain of sand, upon which flakes of fire are ceaselessly dropping. Skirting the wood for some distance they reach the bank of the stream of blood which, having circled all round the outer margin of the wood, now comes flowing through it, and crosses the sandy plain in a channel carefully built of shaped stone. Virgil takes occasion to explain the origin of the rivers of Hell. Thick fumes rise from it which quench the falling flames, so that along its bank, and there only, can a way be found. As they proceed they find sinners lying prone or running under the fiery shower. These are they who had done violence to God, either directly by open blasphemy, or indirectly by violating the divinely appointed natural order whereby both the race of mankind and its possessions should increase and multiply. Many famous Florentines are among these sinners (Cantos xv. and xvi.); and Dante talks long with the famous statesman and philosopher, Brunetto Latini, who had been his early friend and adviser, and with sundry great captains and men of renown. After this they reach the point where the river falls with a mighty roar down to the next level. There is no natural means of descent here available; and Dante hands to Virgil a cord with which he is girt. The meaning of this cord is very obscure. He says: “I once thought to capture the leopard with it;” and if the leopard denotes the factions of Florence, the cord may perhaps symbolise justice or equity. When Virgil has thrown it down they wait a short time, and presently a monster appears whose name we find to be Geryon, and who symbolises fraud or treachery. It is perhaps not unnatural that when the power to enforce justice has been cast away, treachery should raise its head. This monster draws near the brink (Canto xvii.), but before they mount on him, Virgil allows Dante to walk a few paces to the right, in order that he may take note of the last class of “violent” sinners, namely, the usurers. These hold an intermediate position between the violent and the treacherous; just as the heretics did between the incontinent and the violent. Here again are many Florentines. Like the other misusers of money in Canto vii. their features are unrecognisable, and they are only to be known by the arms embroidered on their money bags. After hearing a few words from one of them, Dante returns to Virgil, and both take their place on the croup of Geryon, who bears them downwards to the eighth circle. This (Canto xviii.), from its configuration, is known as Malebolge, or Evilpits. It is divided into ten concentric rings, or circular trenches, separated by a tract of rocky ground. From various indications we gather that each trench is half a mile across, and the intervening ground a mile and a quarter. The trenches are spanned by rocky ribs, forming bridges by which the central cavity can be reached. Here we find for the first time devils, in the ordinary acceptation of the term, employed as tormentors. The sinners in this circle are those who have been guilty in any way of leading others into sin, deceiving or cheating them, without any aggravating circumstances of ingratitude or breach of natural ties. In the first pit are those who have led women astray; these are scourged by fiends. In the next lie flatterers immersed in the most loathsome filth. In each Dante notes two examples: one of recent times—indeed, in both cases an acquaintance of his own,—and one taken from ancient history or legend. Jason, for his desertion of Hypsipyle and Medea, is the classical example of the first offence. Of this use of mythological persons we have many examples, but the typical flatterer of old time is a more curious selection, being a character in a play, whom Dante has borrowed from Cicero.

In the next, or third pit (Canto xix.), we again find fire as the instrument with which the sinners are punished. Those who have made money by misuse of sacred offices are buried head downwards in holes with their feet projecting, and fire plays about their soles. Naturally an opportunity is here presented for some strong invective against the recent unworthy occupants of the See of Rome.

Canto xx. brings us to the fourth pit, in which those who have professed to foretell the future march in a dismal procession with their heads turned round so that they look down their own backs. The sight of Manto, daughter of Tiresias, suggests a description of the origin of the city of Mantua. The last lines of this canto contain one of the most important indications of time which Dante gives in this part of the poem.