Week 3: Nina- Dante, Infernos, Cantos

Dante starts off being woken by the morning sun during Easter when it’s a time of resurrection. The rest of the chapters have similar religious themes and sayings. However, being of the non-religious type, I read it as more of a intervention type reading. I felt that in order for Dante to understand heaven, he must experience hell itself. That’s where Virgil plays his roll in guiding Dante through this journey.

“‘Master, what is the meaning of his harsh inscription?’

And he then as initiate to novice:
‘Here musty you put by all division of spirit and gather your should against all cowardice.

This is the place I told you to expect.
Here you shall pass among the fallen people, souls who have lost the good of intellect.’

So saying, he put forth his hand to me, and with a gentle and encouraging smile he led me through the gate of mystery.” (12-18)

After this passage, Dante is then led to the shore where he must cross. However, the guard there realizes he is human and refuses to let him pass. This stood out to me because why would any living man want to cross into such a deathly place when it is not necessary? Virgil persists and, overcome with fear, Dante passes out and awakens on the other side. This goes back to my theme that if Dante wants to truly understand heaven, he must be lead by Virgil into the depths of hell. You don’t have to be religious to understand the meaning of this story. It’s context reaches farther than that and explains that sometimes it’s necessary to see evil to comprehend the good in life.

“I saw a banner upon the mist.
Circling and circling, it seemed to scorn all pause
So it ran on, and still behind it pressed

a never ending rout of souls in pain.
I had not thought death had undone so many
as passed before me in that mournful train.

And some I knew among them; last of all
I recognized the shadow of that soul
who, in his cowardice, made the Great Denial.



At once I understood for certain: these
were of that retrograde and faithless crew
hateful to God and His enemies.
These wretches never born and never dead
ran naked in a swarm of wasps and hornets
that goaded them the more the more they fled,

and made their faces stream with bloody gouts
of pus and tears that dribbled to their feet
to be swallowed there by loathsome worms and maggots.”

I feel that this is where Dante truly saw hell and all of it’s evil. He describes the souls of the dead who made it down here and how much pain they will go through the rest of their after life. The Sage told Dante that you will feel this when you cross into the Joyless beach.