The Divine Comedy

by Dante Alighieri

  57. Filippo Argenti (Ahr-DJEN-tee): One of the Adimari family, who were bitter political enemies of Dante. Dante’s savagery toward him was probably intended in part as an insult to the family. He pays them off again in the Paradiso when he has Cacciaguida (Kah-tchah-GWEE-da) call them “The insolent gang that makes itself a dragon to chase those who run away, but is sweet as a lamb to any who show their teeth—or their purse.”

  64. Dis: Pluto, King of the Underworld of ancient mythology, was sometimes called Dis. This, then, is his city, the metropolis of Satan. Within the city walls lies all the Lower Hell; within it fire is used for the first time as a torment of the damned; and at its very center Satan himself stands fixed forever in a great ice cap.

  68. mosques: To a European of Dante’s time a mosque would seem the perversion of a church, the impious counterpart of the House of God, just as Satan is God’s impious counterpart. His city is therefore architecturally appropriate, a symbolism that becomes all the more terrible when the mosques are made of red-hot iron.

  70-71. they are eternal flues to eternal fire: The fires of Hell are all within Dis.

  80. spirits purged from Heaven for its glory: The Rebellious Angels. We have already seen, on the other side of Acheron, the Angels who sinned by refusing to take sides.

  95. time and time again: A literal translation of the original would read “more than seven times.” “Seven” is used here as an indeterminate number indicating simply “quite a number of times.” Italian makes rather free use of such numbers.

  106. leaves me: Dante shifts tenses more freely than English readers are accustomed to.

  113. That great Soul stood alone: Virgil’s allegorical function as Human Reason is especially important to an interpretation of this passage.

  122. a less secret gate: The Gate of Hell. According to an early medieval tradition, these demons gathered at the outer gate to oppose the descent of Christ into Limbo at the time of the Harrowing of Hell, but Christ broke the door open and it has remained so ever since. The service of the Mass for Holy Saturday still sings Hodie portas mortis et seras pariter Salvator noster disrupit. (On this day our Saviour broke open the door of the dead and its lock as well.)

  125. a Great One: A Messenger of Heaven. He is described in the next Canto.

  Canto IX

  CIRCLE SIX

  The Heretics

  At the Gate of Dis the Poets wait in dread. Virgil tries to hide his anxiety from Dante, but both realize that without Divine Aid they will surely be lost. To add to their terrors THREE INFERNAL FURIES, symbols of Eternal Remorse, appear on a nearby tower, from which they threaten the Poets and call for MEDUSA to come and change them to stone. Virgil at once commands Dante to turn and shut his eyes. To make doubly sure, Virgil himself places his hands over Dante’s eyes, for there is an Evil upon which man must not look if he is to be saved.

  But at the moment of greatest anxiety a storm shakes the dirty air of Hell and the sinners in the marsh begin to scatter like frightened Frogs. THE HEAVENLY MESSENGER is approaching. He appears walking majestically through Hell, looking neither to right nor to left. With a touch he throws open the Gate of Dis while his words scatter the Rebellious Angels. Then he returns as he came.

  The Poets now enter the gate unopposed and find themselves in the Sixth Circle. Here they find a countryside like a vast cemetery. Tombs of every size stretch out before them, each with its lid lying beside it, and each wrapped in flames. Cries of anguish sound endlessly from the entombed dead.

  This is the torment of the HERETICS of every cult. By Heretic, Dante means specifically those who did violence to God by denying immortality. Since they taught that the soul dies with the body, so their punishment is an eternal grave in the fiery morgue of God’s wrath.

  My face had paled to a mask of cowardice

  when I saw my Guide turn back. The sight of it

  the sooner brought the color back to his.

  He stood apart like one who strains to hear

  what he cannot see, for the eye could not reach far

  across the vapors of that midnight air.

  “Yet surely we were meant to pass these tombs,”

  he said aloud. “If not . . . so much was promised . . .

  Oh how time hangs and drags till our aid comes!”

  I saw too well how the words with which he ended

  covered his start, and even perhaps I drew

  a worse conclusion from that than he intended.

  “Tell me, Master, does anyone ever come

  from the first ledge, whose only punishment

  is hope cut off, into this dreary bottom?”

  I put this question to him, still in fear

  of what his broken speech might mean; and he:

  “Rarely do any of us enter here.

  Once before, it is true, I crossed through Hell

  conjured by cruel Erichtho who recalled

  the spirits to their bodies. Her dark spell

  forced me, newly stripped of my mortal part,

  to enter through this gate and summon out

  a spirit from Judaïca. Take heart,

  that is the last depth and the darkest lair

  and the farthest from Heaven which encircles all,

  and at that time I came back even from there.

  The marsh from which the stinking gases bubble

  lies all about this capital of sorrow

  whose gates we may not pass now without trouble.”

  All this and more he expounded; but the rest

  was lost on me, for suddenly my attention

  was drawn to the turret with the fiery crest

  where all at once three hellish and inhuman

  Furies sprang to view, bloodstained and wild.

  Their limbs and gestures hinted they were women.

  Belts of greenest hydras wound and wound

  about their waists, and snakes and horned serpents

  grew from their heads like matted hair and bound

  their horrid brows. My Master, who well knew

  the handmaids of the Queen of Woe, cried: “Look:

  the terrible Erinyes of Hecate’s crew.

  That is Megaera to the left of the tower.

  Alecto is the one who raves on the right.

  Tisiphone stands between.” And he said no more.

  With their palms they beat their brows, with their

  nails they clawed

  their bleeding breasts. And such mad wails broke

  from them

  that I drew close to the Poet, overawed.

  And all together screamed, looking down at me:

  “Call Medusa that we may change him to stone!

  Too lightly we let Theseus go free.”

  “Turn your back and keep your eyes shut tight;

  for should the Gorgon come and you look at her,

  never again would you return to the light.”

  This was my Guide’s command. And he turned me about

  himself, and would not trust my hands alone,

  but, with his placed on mine, held my eyes shut.

  Men of sound intellect and probity,

  weigh with good understanding what lies hidden

  behind the veil of my strange allegory!

  Suddenly there broke on the dirty swell

  of the dark marsh a squall of terrible sound

  that sent a tremor through both shores of Hell;

  a sound as if two continents of air,

  one frigid and one scorching, clashed head on

  in a war of winds that stripped the forests bare,

  ripped off whole boughs and blew them helter-skelter

  along the range of dust it raised before it

  making the beasts and shepherds run for shelter.

  The Master freed my eyes. “Now turn,” he said,

  “and fix your nerve of vision on the foam

  there where the smoke is thickest and most acrid.”

  As frogs before the snake
that hunts them down

  churn up their pond in flight, until the last

  squats on the bottom as if turned to stone—

  so I saw more than a thousand ruined souls

  scatter away from one who crossed dry-shod

  the Stygian marsh into Hell’s burning bowels.

  With his left hand he fanned away the dreary

  vapors of that sink as he approached;

  and only of that annoyance did he seem weary.

  Clearly he was a Messenger from God’s Throne,

  and I turned to my Guide; but he made me a sign

  that I should keep my silence and bow down.

  Ah, what scorn breathed from that Angel-presence!

  He reached the gate of Dis and with a wand

  he waved it open, for there was no resistance.

  “Outcasts of Heaven, you twice-loathsome crew,”

  he cried upon that terrible sill of Hell,

  “how does this insolence still live in you?

  Why do you set yourselves against that Throne

  whose Will none can deny, and which, times past,

  has added to your pain for each rebellion?

  Why do you butt against Fate’s ordinance?

  Your Cerberus, if you recall, still wears

  his throat and chin peeled for such arrogance.”

  Then he turned back through the same filthy tide

  by which he had come. He did not speak to us,

  but went his way like one preoccupied

  by other presences than those before him.

  And we moved toward the city, fearing nothing

  after his holy words. Straight through the dim

  and open gate we entered unopposed.

  And I, eager to learn what new estate

  of Hell those burning fortress walls enclosed,

  began to look about the very moment

  we were inside, and I saw on every hand

  a countryside of sorrow and new torment.

  As at Arles where the Rhone sinks into stagnant marshes,

  as at Pola by the Quarnaro Gulf, whose waters

  close Italy and wash her farthest reaches,

  the uneven tombs cover the even plain—

  such fields I saw here, spread in all directions,

  except that here the tombs were chests of pain:

  for, in a ring around each tomb, great fires

  raised every wall to a red heat. No smith

  works hotter iron in his forge. The biers

  stood with their lids upraised, and from their pits

  an anguished moaning rose on the dead air

  from the desolation of tormented spirits.

  And I: “Master, what shades are these who lie

  buried in these chests and fill the air

  with such a painful and unending cry?”

  “These are the arch-heretics of all cults,

  with all their followers,” he replied. “Far more

  than you would think lie stuffed into these vaults.

  Like lies with like in every heresy,

  and the monuments are fired, some more, some less;

  to each depravity its own degree.”

  He turned then, and I followed through that night

  between the wall and the torments, bearing right.

  NOTES

  1-15. DANTE’S FEAR AND VIRGIL’S ASSURANCE. Allegorically, this highly dramatic scene once more represents the limits of the power of Human Reason. There are occasions, Dante makes clear, in which only Divine Aid will suffice. The anxiety here is the turmoil of the mind that hungers after God and awaits His sign in fear and doubt, knowing that unless that sign is given, the final evil cannot be surmounted.

  Aside from the allegorical significance the scene is both powerfully and subtly drawn. Observing Dante’s fear, Virgil hides his own. Dante, however, penetrates the dissimulation, and is all the more afraid. To reassure himself (or to know the worst, perhaps) he longs to ask Virgil whether or not he really knows the way. But he cannot ask bluntly; he has too much respect for his Guide’s feelings. Therefore, he generalizes the question in such a way as to make it inoffensive.

  Having drawn so delicate a play of cross-motives in such brief space, Dante further seizes the scene as an opportunity for reinforcing Virgil’s fitness to be his Guide. The economy of means with which Dante brings his several themes to assist one another is in the high tradition of dramatic poetry.

  14. from the first ledge: Limbo.

  20. Erichtho: A sorceress drawn from Lucan (Pharsalia, VI, 508 ff).

  24. a spirit from Judaïca . . . : Judaïca (or Judecca) is the final pit of Hell. Erichtho called up the spirit in order to foretell the outcome of the campaign between Pompey and Caesar. There is no trace of the legend in which Virgil is chosen for the descent; Virgil, in fact, was still alive at the time of the battle of Pharsalia.

  34 ff. THE THREE FURIES (or Erinyes). In classical mythology they were especially malignant spirits who pursued and tormented those who had violated fundamental taboos (desecration of temples, murder of kin, etc.). They are apt symbols of the guilty conscience of the damned.

  41. the Queen of Woe: Proserpine (or Hecate) was the wife of Pluto, and therefore Queen of the Underworld.

  50. Medusa: The Gorgon. She turned to stone whoever looked at her. Allegorically she may be said to represent Despair of ever winning the Mercy of God. The further allegory is apparent when we remember that she is summoned by the Furies, who represent Remorse.

  51. too lightly we let Theseus go free: Theseus and Pirithous tried to kidnap Hecate. Pirithous was killed in the attempt and Theseus was punished by being chained to a great rock. He was later set free by Hercules, who descended to his rescue in defiance of all the powers of Hell. The meaning of the Furies’ cry is that Dante must be made an example of. Had they punished Theseus properly, men would have acquired more respect for their powers and would not still be attempting to invade the Underworld.

  59-60. my strange allegory: Most commentators take this to mean the allegory of the Three Furies, but the lines apply as aptly to the allegory that follows. Dante probably meant both. Almost certainly, too, “my strange allegory” refers to the whole Commedia.

  61 ff. THE APPEARANCE OF THE MESSENGER. In Hell, God is expressed only as inviolable power. His messenger is preceded by great storms, his presence sends a terror through the damned, his face is the face of scorn.

  95. Cerberus: When Cerberus opposed the fated entrance of Hercules into Hell, Hercules threw a chain about his neck and dragged him to the upperworld. Cerberus’ throat, according to Dante, is still peeled raw from it.

  104. THE SIXTH CIRCLE. Once through the gate, the Poets enter the Sixth Circle and the beginning of the Lower Hell.

  109 ff. Arles . . . Pola: Situated as indicated on the Rhone and the Quarnaro Gulf respectively, these cities were the sites of great cemeteries dating back to the time of Rome. The Quarnaro Gulf is the body of water on which Fiume is situated.

  114. THE HERETICS. Within the Sixth Circle are punished the Heretics. They lie in chests resembling great tombs, but the tombs are made of iron and are heated red-hot by great fires. The tombs are uncovered, and the great lids lie about on the ground. As we shall learn soon, these lids will be put into place on the Day of Judgment and sealed forever. Thus, once more the sin is refigured in the punishment, for as Heresy results in the death of the soul, so the Heretics will be sealed forever in their death within a death.

  It must be noted, however, that Dante means by “heretic” specifically those skeptics who deny the soul’s immortality. They stand in relation to the Lower Hell as the Pagans stood in relation to the Upper Hell. The Pagans did not know how to worship God: the Heretics denied His existence. Each group, in its degree, symbolizes a state of blindness. (Other varieties of Heretics are in Bolgia 9 of Circle VIII.) Moreover, in Dante’s system, to deny God is the beginning of Violence, Bestiality, and Fraud; and it is these sins which are pun
ished below.