Dante's Divine Comedy

Canto III consists of three episodes.

1. THE ENTRY AT THE GATE (lines 1-30)

The Inscription on the Gate of Hell (lines 1-9)

For a comparison, consider this inscription above the door of the Church of St. Lazarus in Autun, France.

IN THIS WAY, WHOEVER DOES NOT LEAD A DISOBEDIENT LIFE WILL RISE AGAIN, AND ENDLESS DAYLIGHT WILL SHINE FOR HIM. GISLEBERTUS MADE ME. MAY THIS TERROR TERRIFY THOSE WHOM EARTHLY ERROR BINDS, FOR IN TRUTH THE HORROR OF THESE SIGHTS ANNOUNCES WHAT AWAITS THEM.

Above it, Gislebertus carved a scene of demons weighing souls in scales, hoping to add them to Hell where they torture them. The use of the inscription in Hell, supports the argument that Hell is designed like a cathedral.

How does the anaphora (repetition of an initial word or phrase in a series of phrases or sentences) in lines 1-3 of Canto III contribute to the tone and meaning of those lines?

The anaphora is emphatic. It also somewhat personifies the gate as though it were itself speaking the words.

Canto III takes place in the Vestibule of Hell where Virgil and Dante first see Hell’s Gate. Lines 4-6 of the inscription on the Gate of Hell consist of three epithets. To whom do those epithets refer – in order?

The human psyche moves towards the object of its love.

Esolen calls these lines “chilling” but adds that lines 7-9 are shockingly ironic. He asks, “How can Love fashion a realm of groaning and wailing, of utter agony and alienation?

Thomas Aquinas asserts “the just punishment of the wicked is an act of charity toward them (justice and charity cannot finally be at odds), even when that punishment does not or cannot result in their correction.”

Esolen elaborates, “punishment respects the dignity of the sinner, to grant him what his own disordered love has merited and has longed for. For such a lover the only place more agonizing than Hell would be Heaven. Indeed, the one place hotter than Hell is Heaven, as Dante imagines it: without grace, the fires of Love in Paradise would be unendurable.”

According to line 4, why was Hell created? According to line 7, when was Hell created?

Justice caused God to create Hell. (The word justice appears in its noun form 35 times in the poem.

Before any other created thing.

How do you interpret lines 13-15?

Perhaps Dante finds the description threatening: Abandon hope.

Perhaps Dante is merely afraid.

It is also likely that it is difficult for Dante to imagine that a loving God created Hell.

He understands the “letter” of the inscription but not the meaning. The impact is psychological but not intellectual: “their sense is hard for me.” (12) He turns to Virgil “as one who read my thoughts.” (13) [Some hear an echo of the words of Jesus’ disciples after he tells them they must eat of His flesh and drink of His blood – “This is a hard saying.” (John 6:60) The impact of both the words of Jesus and the inscription on the Gate “hard” because of their conceptual newness. Dante’s response reflects man’s psychological and intellectual limits in the face of revelation, mystery, and grace.]

How do Virgil’s words in lines 13-15 continue the development of Dante’s character that began in Canto I and continue in Canto II?

He must trust both Virgil and himself and act with courage.

What is the significance of lines 17-18?

“[T]he good of intellect” is the power to make choices ruled by sound reason and graced by divine love. Those in Hell failed or refused to do so. [Throughout Inferno, Dante points to the role of the intellect in living the moral life. According to Aristotle in his Nicomachean Ethics “truth is the good of intellect.” The damned have a false and distorted view of reality.]

What kind of imagery dominates lines 22-27? What tone does that imagery support?

Auditory – the cacophony corresponds to the loss of reason and intellect

The tone is one of horror, confusion, pain and seem to elicit Dante’s pity (line 24).

2. THE NARRATIVE OF THE COWARDLY SOULS (lines 31-69)

What sinners constitute the first group Dante encounters (lines 34-36)?

Those who “merited neither praise nor infamy.” Because they refused to act, they had refused love. Their cowardice is a refusal to strive toward a goal set within the limits of one’s natural capabilities, according to Aquinas.

What sub-group within that larger group does Dante identify in lines 37-39?

The angels who neither rebelled against nor stayed loyal to God in the War in Heaven when Lucifer rebelled. “They were for themselves.”

Esolen emphasizes their cowardice. Ciardi emphasizes their opportunism.

Why is this group in neither Heaven nor true Hell (lines 40-50?

Their sin would mar the beauty of Paradise, and their cowardice would bring a sort of glory by comparison to the souls in Hell.

Detail the punishment of the cowards (lines 46-56, 64-69).

They chase a blank banner (no allegiance to anyone). They envy even those who are assigned to lower circles. They are more or less forgotten on Earth. They receive no regard from either mercy nor justice.

They are stung by flies and wasps, the blood running down their faces to mingle with their tears and falling to their feet where maggots gather up the mess.

Dante designs the punishments in Hell according the concept of contrapasso, roughly translated as “the law of symbolic retribution”

It is the principle by which Dante creates a punishment that recreates the means, the effects, and/or the psychological state associated with a sin, using the sinner as the victim of the punishment.

Contrapasso, or the law of symbolic retribution” fits most appropriately into the allegory genre. ALLEGORY is a form of extended metaphor in which objects, persons, and actions in a narrative are equated with meanings that lie outside the narrative itself. Thus it represents one thing in the guise of another — an abstraction in that of a concrete image. The characters are usually personifications of abstract qualities, the action and the setting representative of the relationships among these abstractions. Allegory attempts to evoke a dual interest, one in the events, characters, and setting presented, and the other in the ideas they are intended to convey or the significance they bear. REMEMBER THAT IN AN ALLEGORY THE LITERAL AND THE SYMBOLIC LEVELS OF INTERPRETATION FUNCTION SIMULTANEOUSLY, EACH AT ITS OWN LEVEL.]

How does the punishment inflicted on those who occupy the Vestibule (Ante-Hell) demonstrate the law of symbolic retribution?

Cowardice is essentially a failure to make a choice.

• Their nakedness suggests they have never put on the new man.
• The blank flag symbolizes an absence of purpose or party.
• The darkness recalls moral blindness of those who refuse to commit themselves.
• The stinging wasps provide the impetus to act that the sinners declined in life; hence, they may be regarded as the guilty conscience.
• Their blood and tears flow down their bodies to create a vile mess rife with maggots; in life they shed tears for no person or cause.
• The filth through which they run is representative of their moral filth (in this case, a lack of commitment).
• Because their cowardice places them outside the moral categories defined by love in action, they have no place in Heaven or Hell.
• I suppose that even their running is symbolically antithetical to their former fence-sitting.

Prior to the elevation of Celestine V to the papacy, many had longed for one who would renew the Church, an opportunity Celestine had in light of his personal humility but who – from Dante’s perspective – missed the opportunity for reformation. He had wanted a pastor angelicus but believed he got a pontifex diabolus instead when Boniface VIII succeeded Celestine V.

Celestine is the representative sinner of the cowardly. Dante will identify and even talk to a representative sinner in all but one of the remaining circles of Hell, some of which include separate divisions which themselves feature a representative sinner.

How does line 49 explain why Dante uses an epithet in line 60 instead of stating the name of Pope Celestine V?

Lines 49 explains that the world refuses to even talk about them; further God (“Mercy and Justice”) holds the cowards (opportunists, neutrals, cowards) in contempt.

[Until Pope Benedict XVI abdicated in 2013, no other pope had ever done so. Before Benedict abdicated, he visited Celestine V’s tomb.]

Read aloud Dorothy Sayers’ words on Acedia from A Beginner’s Guide to Dante’s Divine Comedy, p.23.

3. THE SHORE OF ACHERON

The Acheron is the “River of Hate.” It serves as a boundary between the Vestibule and Hell proper.

How does Virgil respond to Dante’s inquiry regarding why the damned appear eager to do to their punishments (lines 72-78)? Further how does Virgil’s response affect Dante? (lines 79-81)

Virgil essentially tells Dante, “You will have to wait.” His answer shames Dante.

Which of the epic conventions appears in lines 92-93? To what does it refer?

epithet – Heaven

Who is the “guardian” of the River Acheron? (line 94) What is Dante’s source for this character? What details of his appearance does Dante share? (lines 82-83, 97-99, 109)) How has Dante reshaped the character for his Christian poem?

Charon is described as old man with lank white hair and skin. His lower cheeks are “goatish” (“wooly”). His furious eyes flash with fire; later they are described as being of “fiery coal.” The latter detail denotes him as demonic.

How do you interpret Charon’s words in lines 91-93? How does Virgil answer Charon’s demand that Dante depart and not board his boat? (lines 95-96) What epic convention functions here?

Charon predicts that Dante is not bound for Hell. Rather, he will take another boat (the one that leads to Purgatory).

Virgil says, “this is willed/where power is power to do whatever it will.” It is an epithet for Heaven.

Contrast lines 100-108 with lines 73-75. How do lines 103-105 echo Job 3:3? How does it recall Matthew 14:21?

In the earlier lines, Dante observes the sinners to be eager, but the latter lines describe them as appear fearful (turning white and gnashing their teeth) and angry (“with fury for their fate”). Further, they blaspheme God, their parents, and the whole human race as well as the day they were born. They wail bitterly. Job says, “Let the day perish wherein I was born, and the night in which it was said: A man child is conceived.”

Matthew 14:21 – “And the Son of man indeed goeth, as it is written of him: but woe to that man by whom the Son of man shall be betrayed. It were better for him, if that man had not been born.”

Which of the epic conventions do lines 109-114 demonstrate? How is the comparison particularly apt for those entering true Hell? How does the concluding simple simile characterize the sinners?

It is an epic simile, apt because the sinners are like leaves dried up after dying and moved, perhaps, against their will. Line 114 supports the notion that they are naked. The final simile indicates their lack of will in Hell.

How is this convention particularly appropriate to the situation it describes?

The autumn leaves evoke the dying of the year – appropriate to the souls of the dead. Their blasphemies parallel the way leaves hang on to the branch yet inevitably fall to earth.

How does Virgil explain the sinners’ tossing themselves into Charon’s boat? What significant fact about the changed nature of the damned does Virgil express in lines 121-126?

“Justice Divine” (God) moves transforms their initial dread of Hell into an irresistible urge to go to their punishment. He turns their fear into desire.

How does Canto III end, and how does that conclusion impact Dante?

A bolt of fire-red lightning explodes and overwhelms Dante’s senses, and he falls into unconsciousness.

If you feel creative and have the time, consider filling in an outline of Dante’s Inferno and list a representative sinner for each of the sins we will read about. When I did this with students, I required that they use no living person but could use historical figures as Dante does, fictional/legendary/mythological figures from stories, books, TV, games, or films. It is a way of understanding why Dante uses representative sinners that are named in nearly every circle.