Book Around the Corner

Dante’s Inferno by Dante Alighieri. circa 1317.

On a crazy impulse of optimism, I started to read Dante’s Inferno. OK, a trip to Florence prompted it as well. To be honest, before reading it, Dante’s Inferno meant little to me, a poem with horrible descriptions of hell and some vague notions about Dante’s true love Beatrix. Nothing more. You can say I started it with an open mind, not enough cultural references and a little apprehension about how much I’d get from the book. Let’s face it, I’m not able to discuss Dante’s work and I bet thousands of scholars did it thousand times better than anything I could write. I’m just able to relate my response to it.

I read the French translation by Rivarol which dates back to the 1780s. I didn’t choose the translation, I just went for the free kindle version and it happened to be by Rivarol, with many typos. But it’s free, I can’t complain. Then I checked an online book store, Rivarol’s seems to be a famous translation. I suspect it’s not always faithful to the text but when it comes to a book written in Toscan in the 14thC, I don’t mind that it’s a bit unfaithful as long as it helps me read the book. And Rivarol is good to make Dante’s masterpiece accessible to a naïve audience: the language is light and easy, the footnotes are relevant and helped a lot. It’s in prose, I don’t think I could have read a version in verses anyway. Now, the book.

Dante is visiting the inferno with the Roman poet Virgil as a guide. The Inferno is composed of 33 canti and each one describes a torture inflicted on souls who committed the sin aimed at that specific circle. The sins are various from gluttony to sodomy, via hypocrisy, ruse, bribery, corruption, deception, betrayal and all kinds of religious and political misbehaviours or crimes. In each canto, Dante gets to talk to one or several souls stuck there to atone their sin.

In my ignorance, I didn’t expect this strange mix of Ancient Rome, Ancient Greece and Christianity. For example, three characters are by Satan’s side: Judas, Brutus and Cassius. One Christian reference and two from Ancient Rome. Virgil guides Dante through his journey and it places the young poet under the protection of this monument of poetry. The inferno resembles the Hades. We encounter Charon, Cerberus and some tortures reminded me of the ones from the Greek mythology. It’s the be-attached-with-your-liver-eaten-by-a-bird kind of torture. But it’s mingled with Christian themes and references. For example, one circle imprisons fortune-tellers. Virgil says:

On est sans pitié pour des maux sans mesure. Ne sont-ils pas assez criminels, ceux qui osèrent être les émules d’un Dieu?

Here pity most doth show herself alive, When she is dead. What guilt exceed his, Who with Heaven’s judgement in his passion strives?

It’s a strange condemnation in Virgil’s mouth since the Roman people believed in auspices, oracles and couldn’t make important decisions without consulting priests, magicians and fortune-tellers.

What I didn’t expect as well is the political aspect of the book. In each circle Dante meets and talks with people he recognises. He wrote The Divine Comedy in exile. He’s incredibly upfront: he gives names of various famous people and make them end up in hell in the appropriate circle according to their past life (war crimes, abuses, political fights) In Canto 19, he meets Pope Boniface in the third valley, where he condemns the wealth and greed of the Church.

Oh! si l’antique respect pour vos ombres pontificales n’enchaînait ma langue, elle vous poursuivrait bien plus âpre ment encore, pasteurs mercenaires! car votre avarice foule le monde ; elle est amère aux bons et douce aux méchants. C’est de vous qu’il était prédit à l’évangéliste, quand il voyait celle qui était assise sur les eaux se prostituer avec les rois ; celle qui naquit avec sept têtes, et dix rayons qui s’éclipsèrent avec les vertus de son époux. C’est vous aussi qui vous êtes fait des dieux d’or et d’argent; et si l’idolâtre encense une idole, vous eu adorez mille. Ah! Constantin, que de maux ont germé, non de ta conversion, mais de la dot immense que tu payas au père de ta nouvelle épouse

If reverence of the keys restrain’d me not, Which thou in happier time didst hold, I yet Severer speech might use. Your avarice O’ercasts the world with mourning, under foot Treading the good, and raising bad men up. Of shepherds, like to you, th’ Evangelist Was ware, when her, who sits upon the waves, With kings in filthy whoredom he beheld, She who with seven heads tower’d at her birth, And from ten horns her proof of glory drew, Long as her spouse in virtue took delight. Of gold and silver ye have made your god, Diff’ring wherein from the idolater, But he that worships one, a hundred ye? Ah, Constantine! to how much ill gave birth, Not thy conversion, but that plenteous dower, Which the first wealthy Father gain’d from thee!”

I didn’t know you could speak so freely in the 14^thC without risking your life. I can’t imagine it in the France of that time but perhaps I have misconceptions about freedom of speech in the Middle Ages. After all, I’m not a specialist.

There are constant references to Florence and the politics of his time. Thank you, Count Rivarol, for all the explanations included in the footnotes. They helped.

I have little to say about the style, especially for English-speaking readers. You wouldn’t read the same version as me and the quality of the translation is crucial. Dante does create powerful images and poetic metaphors.

Vers le retour de l’année, jeune encore, où déjà le soleil plonge son front pâlissant dans l’urne pluvieuse : quand le jour s’accroît des pertes de la nuit, et que les voiles transparents de la gelée imitent au matin la robe éclatante de la neige, le pâtre qui n’a plus de fourrages se lève et regarde autour de lui ; mais voyant partout blanchir la plaine, il se bat les flancs, et troublé par son malheur, il rentre sous ses toits, court, s’écrie et se désespère. Il sort enfin, et renaît à l’espérance lorsqu’il voit qu’un temps si court a changé l’aspect des champs: déjà la houlette en main, il chasse devant lui son troupeau, qui bondit sur la verdure.

IN the year’s early nonage, when the sun Tempers his tresses in Aquarius’ urn, And now towards equal day the nights recede, When as the rime upon the earth puts on Her dazzling sister’s image, but not long Her milder sway endures, then riseth up The village hind, whom fails his wintry store, And looking out beholds the plain around All whiten’d, whence impatiently he smites His thighs, and to his hut returning in, There paces to and fro, wailing his lot, As a discomfited and helpless man; Then comes he forth again, and feels new hope Spring in his bosom, finding e’en thus soon The world hath chang’d its count’nance, grasps his crook, And forth to pasture drives his little flock: So me my guide dishearten’d when I saw His troubled forehead, and so speedily That ill was cur’d; for at the fallen bridge Arriving, towards me with a look as sweet, He turn’d him back, as that I first beheld At the steep mountain’s foot.

But it’s hard for me to say what comes from Dante and what comes from Rivarol’s interpretation. However, I did get the gory details I expected:

Un homme se présenta d’abord, ouvert de la gorge à la ceinture: ses intestins fumants pendaient sur ses genoux, et son cœur palpitait à découvert.

As one I mark’d, torn from the chin throughout Down to the hinder passage: ‘twixt the legs Dangling his entrails hung, the midriff lay Open to view, and wretched ventricle, That turns th’ englutted aliment to dross.

Nice vision, isn’t it?

So after struggling to read it, what’s my opinion? I’m glad I read it but I guess I won’t remember more than what is in this billet. I don’t have enough education in literature and history to fully grasp the beauty and the innovation of this text.

PS: I used the free English translation by Cary. I hope I found the right passages corresponding to the French version. Honestly, I hardly understand that kind of English, I did my best.