leading him to fit himself to put on immortality. The passion of his
boyhood has now become the ennobling ideal of his life. Sustaining and
stimulating him, saving him from himself, ever leading him upward and
onward, his angelicized lady is an abiding presence with him whether he
is deep in the contemplation of the study of philosophy and the learning
of the ancients, or engaged in the activity of military or political
life, or as homeless wayfarer in exile, making his way from place to
place. When he falls from grace it is Beatrice who disturbs his peace of
mind by "a battle of thoughts." It is the "strong image" of Beatrice who
comes to him as he had seen her as a child, raises him from moral
obliquity, fills him with the very essence of the spiritual. Then he has
a wonderful vision--"a vision in which I saw things which made me
resolve to speak no more of this blessed one (Beatrice) until I could
more worthily treat of her. And to attain to this I study to the utmost
of my power as she truly knows: So that if it shall please Him through
whom all things live that my life be prolonged for some years, I hope to
say of her what was never said of any woman."
That promise, involving years of intense study and increasing devotion
to his beloved, Dante kept. The Divine Comedy is his matchless monument
to her who is the protagonist and muse of his poem and the love of his
heart. "Not only has the poet made her" says Norton, "the loveliest and
most womanly woman of the Middle Ages at once absolutely real and truly
ideal," but he has done what no poet had ever before conceived, thereby
achieving something unique in the whole range of literature--he has
"imparadised" among the saints and angels his lovely wonder, Beatrice,
"that so she spreads even there a light of love which makes the angels
glad and even to their subtle minds can bring a certain awe of profound
marvelling." He has given to her such a glorious exaltation that after
Rachel and Eve she of all women is enthroned in the glowing Rose of
Heaven next to the Virgin Mother, "our tainted nature's solitary boast,"
and so enthroned, Beatrice is at once his beloved and the symbol of
revelation, the heavenly light that discloses to mankind both the true
end of our being and the realities of Eternity.
Now with tremulous delight in his heart, admiration on his lips, ecstasy
in his soul, he is able to render her perhaps the very purest tribute of
praise and gratitude that ever came out of a human soul:
"O Lady, thou in whom my hope is strong
And who, for my salvation, didst endure
In Hell to leave the imprint of thy feet,
Of whatsoever things I have beheld,
As coming from thy power and from thy goodness
I recognize the power and the grace.
Thou from a slave hast brought me unto freedom,
By all those ways, by all the expedients,
Whereby thou hast the power of doing it.
Preserve towards me thy magnificence
So that this soul of mine, which thou hast healed
Pleasing to thee be loosened from the body."
Norton says: "It is needful to know Dante as a man in order fully to
appreciate him as poet."
What manner of man then was he? Redeemed by love, he was, to quote John
Addington Symonds, "the greatest, truest, sincerest man of modern
Europe."
DANTE'S INFERNO
DANTE'S INFERNO
At no period of modern times do we find that literature showed an
interest more keen in the Hereafter than at the present day. Religion
has always used both pen and voice to direct men's thoughts towards
eternity, but now it is literature that goes for subject-matter to
religion. This change of attitude is due, no doubt, to the fact that
several factors in present-day life--factors that literature cannot
ignore, have turned popular thought to religion. The World-war has
disciplined the character of men by the unspeakable experiences of
contact with shot, shell and shrapnel and the result has been that
countless numbers have turned to religion for strength and consolation.
Countless thousands whose dear ones made the supreme sacrifice for the
ideals of patriotism, also find in religion their only solace.
Those who have not this refuge turn to spiritualism and psychical
research in a futile effort to find a satisfactory solution of the
problem of the Hereafter. Again and again we see the unrest of the
ever-questioning soul depicted in the drama and the literature of the
day as it seeks enlightenment on the potentiality of the future life.
The stage presents plays based on spiritualistic manifestations or upon
supernatural healing or miraculous intervention. Many recent novels have
either psychical phenomena for their central interest or plots evolved
out of the miraculous in religion. As exponents of psychical research,
Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, W.T. Stead and Sir Oliver Lodge make an appeal
to readers to accept as scientific truths, the psychical manifestations
of the unseen world. A typical answer is given to that appeal by a
distinguished writer, Doctor Inge, Dean of St. Paul's, London, who
declares: "If this kind of after-life were true, this portrayed in the
pitiable revival of necromancy in which many desolate hearts have sought
spurious satisfaction, it would, indeed, be a melancholy postponement or
negation of all we hope and believe about our dead."
Prescinding from any attempt to discuss the occult phenomena evoked,
observed and studied in our day or to treat of the matters involved in
the supernatural in the books of the day, one may state as a fact that
the whole tendency of present day literature is to show a yearning for
light on a subject of fundamental importance to human nature. Far back
in the history of the race Job gave voice to the spiritual problems that
are today engaging the attention of the world. Some fifteen hundred
years ago, St. Augustine proposed to himself the question which so
generally concerns the twentieth century: "On what matter of all those
things of which thou art ignorant, hast thou the greatest desire for
enlightenment?" The great Bishop of Hippo becomes the spokesman of
humanity when he answers his own question by proposing another: "Am I
immortal or not?" (Soliloquia 2d).
In the realms of literature no work of man has answered that question
with greater vividness of imagery, intensity of concentration, beauty of
description--all based in a large measure on the teachings of
Christianity--than has Dante in his Divine Comedy. Devised as a love
offering to the memory of his beloved Beatrice who in the work is
symbolized as Heavenly Light on the things hidden from man, the poem
leads the reader through the dark abyss of Hell, the patient abode of
Purgatory, the glorious realm of Heaven as if the poet had seen Eternity
in reality instead of in imagination. Not only the state and the
conditions of the soul after death does he visualize with the precision
of Euclid, but as a philosopher and a theologian he proposes for our
instruction in the course of the journey many questions of dogmatic and
speculative thought affecting the Hereafter. He believes himself called
to be not simply a poet to entertain his readers, but a prophet and a
preacher with burning fire to deliver a message for man's salvation. So
he asks the help of Heaven:
"O Supreme Light that so high upliftest Thyself from mortal conceptions,
re-lend a little to my mind of what Thou didst appear and make my tongue
so powerful that it may be able to leave one single spark of Thy glory,
for the future people: for by returning to my memory and by sounding a
little in these verses, more of Thy victory shall be conceived" (Par.
XXXIII, 67).
Comedy is the title which Dante gives to his trilogy and posterity has
added the prefix adjective divine. The term comedy however is not used
in the modern sense which suggests to us a light laughable drama written
in a familiar style. "Comedy" Dante himself explains in his dedication
of the poem, "is a certain kind of poetical narrative which differs from
all others. It differs from tragedy in its subject matter in this way,
that tragedy in the beginning is admirable and quiet, in its ending or
catastrophe foul and horrible ... Comedy on the other hand, begins with
adverse conditions, but its theme has a happy termination. Likewise they
differ in their style of language, for tragedy is lofty and sublime,
comedy lowly and humble.
"From this it is evident why the present work is called a comedy, for
if we consider the theme in its beginning it is horrible and foul
because it is Hell; in its ending fortunate, desirable and joyful
because it is Paradise: and if we consider the style of language the
style is lowly and humble because it is the vulgar tongue in which even
housewives hold converse."
The theme of the poem Dante himself explains: "The subject of the work
literally taken is the state of souls after death; this is the pivotal
idea of the poem throughout its entire course. In the allegorical sense
the poet treats of the hell of this world through which we are
journeying as pilgrims, with the power of meriting and demeriting, and
the subject is man, in as much as by his merits and demerits he is
subject to divine Justice, remunerative or retributive" (Epis. dedicat.
ad Can Grande).
One of the earliest commentators amplifies the poet's statement.
Benvenuto da Imola writes: "The matter or subject of this book is the
state of the human soul both as connected with the human body and as
separated from it. As the state of the whole is threefold, so does the
author divide his work into three parts. A soul may be in sin; such a
one even while it lives with the body, is morally speaking dead, and
hence it is in moral Hell; when separated from the body, if it died
incurably obstinate, it is in the actual Hell. Again a soul may be
receding from vice: such a one while still in the body is in the moral
Purgatory, or in the act of penance in which it purges away its sin; if
separated, it is in the actual Purgatory. Yet even while living in the
body, a soul is already in a manner in Paradise, for it exists in as
great felicity as is possible in this life of misery: separated from the
body, it is in the heavenly Paradise where there is true and perfect
happiness, where it enjoys the vision of God." (Ozanam, Dante, p. 129.)
This testimony as to the subject matter of the Divine Comedy is brought
forth to offset the statements not infrequently made by expositors who
deny or ignore the supernatural that Dante's full thought can be
realized even if the reader rejects the poet's spiritual teaching,
especially his doctrine of the existence of a real Heaven and a real
Hell. It is true that Dante is "such a many-sided genius that he has a
message for almost every person." It is likewise true that an
allegorical interpretation may be adopted with no belief in the
Hereafter and it may open up many fruitful lessons for the reader. That
being granted, one may still ask whether one can ignore Dante's doctrine
of future rewards and punishment and so get full satisfaction from
treating the poet's conception of the Hereafter as a mere allegory.
The allegory presupposes that sin inevitably brings its own penalty.
But in this life virtue does not always bear its own reward nor is evil
always followed by retribution. Dante as the prophet and the preacher of
Christianity would have us understand, as Benvenuto da Imola points out,
that if the moral law is not vindicated in this life it will be in the
Hereafter, for our acts make our eternity. So the poet holds that while
this life according as it shows the soul in sin, in repentance or in
virtue may be considered allegorically Hell, Purgatory or Heaven, before
the Last Judgment a real Hell, a real Purgatory, a real Heaven is the
abode of disembodied spirits according to their demerits or merits and
after the Last Judgment, Purgatory no longer existing, souls will be in
eternal suffering in Hell or in unending joy in Heaven.
It is not to be expected that any reader will believe that Dante's Hell
is a photograph of reality. It is a Hell largely fashioned by poetic
visions and political theories, peopled in a great measure by those who
stand in opposition to the poet's theory of government. It is not, as is
sometimes asserted, a place to which the poet consigns his personal
enemies. As Dinsmore says: "Dante had too much greatness in his soul and
too much pride (it may be) to make revenge a personal matter: he had
nothing but contempt for his own enemies and never except in the case of
Boniface VIII ... did he place a single one of them in the Inferno, not
even his judge Cante Gabriella."
Though largely colored by his political theories Dante's Hell is also a
theological conception based on the teaching of the Catholic Church that
Hell exists as a place or state of punishment for the rebel angels and
for man dying impenitent, that is, for man in whom sin has become so
humanized that death finds him not simply in the act or habit of sin but
so transformed that in the striking words of Bossuet, "he is man made
sin." Dante fully accepted that doctrine which had been the constant
tradition and faith of the Church and had been reaffirmed in the second
ecumenical Council of Lyons held when Dante was a boy, nine years of
age.
It is not unlikely with his precocity for knowledge and sentiment at
that age that he was deeply impressed with the history of that council
especially as its legislation also dealt with the Crusades, the union of
Churches, the reform of the Church, the appointment of a king of the
Romans and an emperor--matters of vital importance to him later. He must
have recalled that Council also with special interest, for two of his
ideal personages, Thomas Aquinas and Bonaventure met their death, one on
his way to the Council, the other while actually attending its sessions.
In any event Dante firmly believed the doctrine of the Hereafter "that
they that have done good shall go into life everlasting and they that
have done evil, into everlasting fire." He held that the punishment of
the damned is two-fold. The greater punishment, called the pain of loss,
consists in the loss of the Beatific Vision, a suffering so great that
the genius of St. Augustine can hardly translate it in human language.
"To be separated from God," he says, "is a torment as great as the very
greatness of God." The other pain of the reprobate consists in the
torment of fire so frequently mentioned in Holy Writ. "According to the
greater number of theologians the term fire denotes a material and so a
real fire ... (but) there have never been wanting theologians who
interpret the scriptural term fire metaphorically as denoting an
incorporeal fire and thus far the Church has not censured their opinion"
(Cath. Encyclo., VIII, 211.)
While the pain of loss and the pain of sense constitute the very essence
of the punishment of Hell, theologians teach that there are other
sufferings called accidental. The reprobate never experience v.g. the
least real pleasure nor are they ever free from the hideous presence of
one another. After the Last Judgment the lost souls will also be
tormented by union with their bodies, a union bringing about a fresh
increase of punishment. On this subject, for our information Dante
addresses Virgil his guide through Hell: "Master, will these torments
after the great sentence increase or diminish?" Virgil explains that
they will become worse because when the soul is united again to the body
there will be perfection of being and the resulting sensitiveness will
be the more intense.
"Return unto thy science," answers Virgil, "which wills that as a thing
more perfect is the more it feels of pleasure and of pain." (Inf., VI,
40.)
Dante also holds that only by way of exception is there any escape from
Hell once a soul is condemned. Following a legend commonly believed in
the Middle Ages that in answer to the prayers of Pope Gregory the Great,
the soul of the Emperor Trajan was delivered from Hell, Dante assumes
that God who could not save Trajan against his will, allowed his soul to
"come back to its bones" and while thus united to use its will for
salvation. So regenerated Trajan is placed by Dante, in the Heaven of
Jupiter (Par. XX 40, 7). Referring to this incident the Catholic
Encyclopedia says: "In itself it is no rejection of Catholic dogma to
suppose that God might at times by way of exception, liberate a soul
from Hell. Thus some argued from a false interpretation of I Peter III,
19 seq. that Christ freed several damned souls on the occasion of His
descent into Hell. Others were led by untrustworthy stories into the
belief that the prayers of Gregory the Great rescued the Emperor Trajan
from Hell but now theologians are unanimous in teaching that such
exceptions never take place and never have taken place" (VIII, 209.)
As to the location of Hell it is the poet Dante and not Dante the
theologian, as we shall see later, who gives definite place and
boundaries to Hell. He knows that on this subject the Church has decided
nothing, holding to the statement of St. Augustine: "It is my opinion
that the nature of hell-fire and the location of Hell are known to no
man unless the Holy Ghost made it known to him by a special revelation."
Dante makes his Hell big enough to hold the majority of mankind. He
thinks that the elect will be comparatively few--just numerous enough to
fill those places in heaven forfeited by the rebel angels who formed
according to his conjecture, about a tenth of the angelical host. That
their places in Heaven are already nearly filled leaving little room for
future generations Dante makes known in the words of Beatrice:
"Behold our City's circuit, oh how vast
Behold our benches now so full that few
Are they who are henceforth lacking here."
(Par. XXX, 130.)
His theory of restrictive salvation, it may be noted, is not in accord
with the teaching of the Church which holds that to every man God gives
grace sufficient for salvation. That is true even as affecting the
heathen and those living in place or in time far removed from the Cross.
St. Thomas Aquinas expresses this doctrine of the Church when he writes:
"If anyone who is born in a barbaric nation does what lieth in him, God
will reveal what is necessary for salvation, either by internal
inspiration or by a teacher."
The farcical element is not wanting in the Inferno, a fact proving that
our poet, in furnishing the episodes, not superior to his age which
demanded especially in the religious plays presented in the public
square the sight of the discomfiture of the devil in scenes provoking
the audience to laughter. The best example of such farcicality occurs in
the eighth circle, fifth bolgia, where officials, traffickers in public
offices, or unjust stewards are immersed in boiling pitch. From time to
time when the fiends are not alert the reprobate here come to the
surface for a breathing or cooling spell, like dolphins on the approach
of a storm darting in the air and diving back again or like frogs with
their muzzles alone exposed and their bodies covered by the water,
resting on the banks of a stream into which they drop at the first
approach of danger.
Getting in this way momentary relief from suffering a grafter named
Ciampolo, a former retainer of King Thibaut II of Navarre, lingered too
long and was deftly hooked by Graffiacane amid the savage exultations of
the other fiends, who proceed to maltreat the unfortunate wretch. The
hideous confusion of attacks by the demons is stopped long enough for
the poet to learn his history, and also what is more interesting to
Dante, the names of two Italians, Friar Gomita and Michel Zanche who are
likewise suffering in the boiling pitch. Ciampolo, to save himself from
further maltreatment and to escape from his captors, now has recourse to
stratagem. He promises that if they consent to withdraw out of sight he
will whistle a signal that will be recognized only by his hapless
comrades; the two Italians and five others will then come to the surface
for cool air. The fiends may then have not one, but seven to rend! The
crafty plan succeeds. The demons withdraw behind the crags and then
Ciampolo plunges deeply into the boiling pitch. Two devils, endeavoring
to swoop down upon him now beyond their reach, fall upon each other in
brutal fury, while the rest of the troop hurry to the opposite shore to
rescue the belimed pair. Here is Dante's description of the farce:
"As dolphins, when with the arch of the back; they make sign to
mariners that they may prepare to save their ship: so now and then, to
ease the punishment, some sinner showed his back and hid in less time
than it lightens. And as at the edge of the water of a ditch, the frogs
stand only with their muzzles out, so that they hide their feet and
other bulk: thus stood on every hand the sinners; but as Barbariccia
approached, they instantly retired beneath the seething. I saw, and my
heart still shudders thereat, one linger so, as it will happen that one
frog remains while the other spouts away; and Graffiancane, who was
nearest to him, hooked his pitchy locks and haled him up, so that to me
he seemed an otter.
"I already knew the name of every one, so well I noted them as they were
chosen, and when they called each other, listened how. 'O Rubicante, see
thou plant thy clutches on him, and flay him!' shouted together all the
accursed _crew_. And I: 'Master, learn if thou canst, who is that
piteous _wight_, fallen into the hands of his adversaries.' My Guide
drew close to (his side) and asked him whence he came; and he replied:
'I was born in the kingdom of Navarre. My mother placed me as servant of
a lord; for she had borne me to a ribald master of himself and of his
substance. Then I was domestic with the good King Thibault; here I set
myself to doing barratry, of which I render reckoning in this heat.' And
Ciriatto, from whose mouth on either side came forth a tusk as from a
hog, made him feel how one of them did rip. Amongst evil cats the mouse
had come; but Barbariccia locked him in his arms, and said: 'Stand off
whilst I enforke him!' And turning his face to my Master: 'Ask on,' he
said, 'if thou wouldst learn more from him, before some other undo him.'
"The Guide therefore: 'Now say, of the other sinners knowest thou any
that is a Latian, beneath the pitch?' And he: 'I parted just now from
one who was a neighbour of theirs (on the other side); would I still
were covered with him, for I should not fear claw nor hook!' And
Libicocco cried: 'Too much have we endured,' and with the hook seized
his arm and mangling carried off a part of brawn. Draghignazzo, he too,
wished to have a catch at the legs below; whereat their decurion wheeled
around around with evil aspect. When they were somewhat pacified, my
Guide, without delay, asked him that still kept gazing on his wound:
'Who was he, from whom thou sayest that thou madest an ill departure to
come ashore?' And he answered: 'It was Friar Gomita, he of Gallura,
vessel of every fraud, who had his master's enemies in hand, and did so
to them that they all praise him for it: money took he for himself, and
dismissed them smoothly, as he says; and in his other offices besides,
he was no petty but a sovereign barrator. With him keeps company Don
Michel Zanche of Logodoros; and in speaking of Sardinia the tongues of
them do not feel weary. Oh me! see that other grinning; I would say
more; but fear he is preparing to claw my scurf.' And their great
Marshal, turning to Farfarello, who rolled his eyes to strike, said:
'Off with thee, villainous bird!' 'If you wish to see or hear Tuscans or
Lombards,' the frightened sinner then resumed, 'I will make them come.
But let the (evil claws hold back) a little, that they may not fear
their vengeance; and I, sitting in this same place, for one that I am,
will make seven come, on whistling, as is our wont to do, when any of us
gets out.'