INFERNO IX
INFERNO IX
1–3. Dante has gone white with cowardice. Seeing this, Virgil tries to compose his own features. In Canto VIII.121 Virgil was angry, and this fact leads many commentators to believe that the color in his face now is still the red flush of anger. On the other hand, others believe (and over the centuries there are roughly as many of one opinion as of the other) that Virgil’s new color just now is the pallor of frustration and shame. Either reading is possible, but red is probably the better choice, especially since we then have the dramatic contrast between white-cheeked Dante and red-faced Virgil. [return to English / Italian]
7–9. Virgil’s doubt and ensuing confirmation has caused considerable difficulty. The overall sense of the tercet is, however, probably clear enough: “we must win this fight unless (I did not understand what Beatrice told me)…No, what she said must be true; but I wish the promised help from heaven would get here.” Musa’s remark on the passage bears repeating (Musa.1974.1, p. 73): “because during his lifetime [Virgil] could not believe in the coming of Christ, so now he can not believe in the coming of the angel—in spite of his having learned from Beatrice that the Pilgrim’s journey is willed in Heaven.” In other words, Virgil, condemned to hell for not having had faith, repeats that error even now. [return to English / Italian]
10–15. A fairly rare example of an interpretive exercise embedded in the poetic text itself, Dante as glossator of Virgil’s words and presenter of his own understanding as he heard them. What he thought, then, was perhaps that Virgil was afraid that they would be left in hell, in which case Dante would perish. [return to English / Italian]
17. The “first circle” is Limbo, where Virgil and the other virtuous heathens have their eternal resting place, and where, in his own words, “without hope we live in longing” (Inf. IV.42). [return to English / Italian]
19–27. Erichtho’s conjuration of Virgil may be the single most outrageous example of the utter liberty Dante at times employs in his treatment of classical literature. No such tale exists in any other text before Dante’s, nor anything like it. While many point to the similar statement made by the Sibyl, hoping to reassure Aeneas that she has been shown by Hecate (Proserpina) the places of the underworld (Aen. VI.562–565), no one has come close to finding a source for a Virgilian journey to the depths of hell under the spell of Erichtho. This Thessalian witch appears in a crucial role in Lucan’s Pharsalia, the later poet’s rather nasty version of Virgil’s more benign Sibyl. In a lengthy episode in the sixth book (vv. 507–830) of Lucan’s poem, a book with evident parallels to the descent to the underworld in the Aeneid, replete with Sibyl-like guide in the person of Erichtho, the witch holds center stage. Serving the curiosity of Sextus Pompeius, son of the great Pompey, one of the major republican opponents of Caesar in the civil war, she agrees to foretell the outcome of the war by practicing her necromantic art on the corpse of a recently slain soldier. What the soldier tells is hardly pleasant news, but is hardly complete, either. He does make plain to Sextus that the ghost of his father will come to him in Sicily (VI.812–813) in order to reveal still more (but Lucan committed suicide by Nero’s order before finishing the poem, and the scene was not written). It is out of these materials that Dante has concocted his idiosyncratic tale.
And what is it that Erichtho wanted? In Lucan’s poem (VI.586–587) we learn that her greatest desire is to be able to mangle the corpses of Julius Caesar (the poem is set before the murder of Caesar—44 B.C.) and of Pompey. Virgil died in 19 B.C. As he says in this narrative, Erichtho called him (like the young soldier in Lucan’s poem, only recently dead) back into his body shortly after he died and sent him down to the ninth Circle, Judecca. Why? Those who have written on this problem have not developed any hypothesis to account for her motive. Yet Dante surely would have given her one in the myth that he was constructing. Or Virgil is simply making up a tall story in order to give himself authority—a dubious hypothesis embraced by some.
We know from Lucan that Erichtho had an unfulfilled ambition, to ravage the corpses of Caesar and Pompey. Where are these located in Dante? Caesar is in Limbo; of Pompey we hear little, and nothing about his station in the afterlife. However, it is at least possible that Dante is playing a game with his reader here. As a co-conspirator of Brutus and Cassius, would Pompey not naturally have been punished along with them? That seems possible. Whatever justification we seek for this strange tale of Virgil’s first visit to the realm of the damned, we probably should try to find it in the pages of Lucan. (See Holl.1980.1, pp. 178–80.)
Boccaccio was the first and perhaps lone discussant (in his commentary to Inf. IX.25–27) to think of the only biblical tale that contains similar elements (and was surely familiar to Dante), the story of Saul’s visit to the witch of Endor, who calls up the spirit of Samuel for Saul; the latter—in a scene more powerful than even anything in Lucan—foretells Saul’s death and the defeat of the Israelites at the hands of the Philistines (I Samuel 28:3–25). [return to English / Italian]
27. Judecca, the ninth Circle, named for Judas, betrayer, like all those punished there with him, of a rightful lord and master. [return to English / Italian]
28–30. His tale told, Virgil’s point is clear: “I have been all the way down to the bottom of the pit; you can trust in my guidance.” The “heaven that encircles all” is almost certainly the Crystalline Sphere, or primum mobile. [return to English / Italian]
33. There is debate among commentators as to what exactly this sentence means. It seems more likely that the ira (“wrath”) referred to is the righteous anger of the forces of God (namely, the angel who is now approaching) rather than the wrath the travelers will encounter in the forces defending the City of Dis, as Boccaccio believes, or the “wrath” they must employ in order to enter the city (the view of most of the early commentators). [return to English / Italian]
38–48. “The three Erinyes or Furies, Alecto, Megaera, and Tisiphone, who dwelt in the depths of Hell and punished men both in this world and after death” (T). See Aeneid VI.570–575. In Virgil, as in Greek myth, these three sisters are punishers of crimes of blood. Dante sees them as the handmaids of Proserpina (or Hecate), the queen of hell. [return to English / Italian]
52. “Gorgon Medusa; she alone of the three Gorgons was mortal, and was at first a beautiful maiden, but, in consequence of her having given birth to two children by Poseidon in one of Athena’s temples, the latter changed her hair into serpents, which gave her head such a fearful appearance that every one who looked upon it was turned into stone” (T). See Ovid, Metamorphoses IV.606–V.249. The Furies’ threat to bring out their biggest defensive weapon remains unfulfilled only, we may assume, because of the rapid deployment of God’s own siege-weapon, the angelic intercessor. [return to English / Italian]
54. The Furies lament that, when Theseus came to the nether regions with Perithous in order to rescue Proserpina (see Aen. VI.392–397), they only imprisoned him, rather than putting him to death, since that left him alive to be rescued by Hercules. [return to English / Italian]
58–63. Vv. 61–63 contain the second address to the reader in the poem (see note to Inf. VIII.94–96). This one has caused more difficulty than any other, and “solutions” are so abundant that it is fair to say that none has won general consent, from the first commentators’ exertions until today. Opinions are divided, first of all, on whether the passage points back in the text, either primarily to Medusa (seen as despair, heresy, the hardened will, etc.) or to the Furies (seen as sin itself, or the three main categories of sin punished in hell [incontinence, violence, fraud], or remorse, etc.), or to a combination of these. Those who believe that the passage invites the reader rather to look forward than back are in accord that it refers to the avenging intruder who is about to appear in order to open the locked gates of Dis; but there is great debate over exactly what the one “sent from heaven” (v. 85) signifies (see discussion, below). Surely it seems more natural for the reference to point backwards to something already said. And indeed something noteworthy and perhaps puzzling has just occurred: Virgil has covered Dante’s eye-covering hands with his own hands as well. If this passage (vv. 58–60) is the one that contains a hidden doctrine (and few commentators believe it is, but see Hollander [Holl.1969.1], pp. 239–46), perhaps what it suggests is that stoic restraint is not enough to keep a sinner safe from dangerous temptation (i.e., Dante, had she appeared, would have looked upon Medusa and been turned to stone, just as Ulysses would have listened to the Sirens and been destroyed by them had he not been restrained by other forces). [return to English / Italian]
64–72. This splendidly energetic simile is perhaps built out of elements found in two similes in the Aeneid (II.416–419; XII.451–455). In the first of these the Trojan forces mount an impetuous counterattack upon the Greek invaders of their city; in the second the forces of Aeneas begin the eventually victorious final attack upon the armies of Turnus. The celestial messenger, though only one in number, has the force of a great army; victory is seconds away. [return to English / Italian]
73. Now Virgil can allow Dante to use his eyes once more: Medusa is apparently no longer a threat. [return to English / Italian]
76–78. A number of commentators and translators have the frogs in this simile going to the bottom of the pond; they go to land (a la terra), as Dante says they do, and as any intelligent frog will do when a snake enters the water. This simile probably derives from Ovid, Metamorphoses VI.370–381. [return to English / Italian]
81. The angel walks upon the water in imitation of Christ (Matth. 14:25). [return to English / Italian]
82–83. The angel resembles Mercury, as he is described by Statius, Thebaid II. 1–11, coming back up from the foul air of the underworld with his caduceus in hand. [return to English / Italian]
85. That this agent of good is “sent from heaven” indicates clearly enough that he is an angel, although debate over his identity still continues. See Silvio Pasquazi, “Messo celeste,” ED, vol. 3, 1971, making a strong case for his angelic status and giving a summary of the debate. Pasquazi also argues for one traditional further identification, making the messo specifically the archangel Michael, who led the forces of the good angels against the rebellious ones in the war in heaven (Rev. 12: 7–9)—see n. to Inferno VII.10–12—exactly the forces he now must combat once more in the netherworld. Over the centuries there has been a continuing argument between those who believe that the messo is Mercury and those who believe that he is an angel, and, in some cases, specifically Michael. It seems highly likely that Dante here gives us an archangel Michael “dressed up” as Mercury, a fused identity that is not problematic in any way, given Dante’s practice of combining pagan and Christian materials. [return to English / Italian]
86–87. Virgil’s command that Dante bow down before the angel removes just about any doubt about the messo’s divine status. [return to English / Italian]
89–90. The angel’s opening of the barred gates with his verghetta (“wand”) is almost surely modeled on Mercury’s similar opening of the gates of Herse’s chamber with his verga, i.e., his caduceus (Ovid, Metam. II.819). [return to English / Italian]
91. The “outcasts of heaven” are undoubtedly the rebellious angels referred to in Inferno VIII.82–83, “more than a thousand angels fallen from Heaven.” See also the reference, a few lines earlier in this canto (v. 79), to “a thousand lost souls” who guard the City of Dis, that is, these very angels. [return to English / Italian]
93–99. The angel makes clear, in his address to his fallen brethren, that resistance to the will of God is utterly useless. His reference to the chaining of Cerberus by Hercules reflects Aeneid VI.392–396. Dante has now been associated with two classical heroes, Theseus (v. 54) and Hercules. His powers, however, reside not in himself but in his heaven-ordained mission. [return to English / Italian]
100–103. The angel’s impassive attitude tells us something about the nature of the inhabitants of hell that we sometimes forget: from God’s perspective there is nothing worthy of attention in their plight. The angel only wants to get out of this place as quickly as he can in order to return to eternal bliss, so much so that he has not even a word of greeting or support for the two travelers. [return to English / Italian]
106. This whole passage, from Inferno VII.130 to now, the moment of successful entry of the walled City of Dis, narrates a military campaign: Virgil and Dante approach by sea in Phlegyas’s military transport ship; the forces ranged against them signal their coming and prepare to do battle, closing the gates and assuming defensive positions on the battlements; they wheel up their main weapons, the Furies, who prepare to unleash their secret weapon, Medusa; the invading forces then deploy their secret weapon, the heavenly battering-ram that opens the gates and, in a trice, wins the battle. [return to English / Italian]
112–115. Dante’s references to two famous ancient Roman cemeteries, at Arles in France and Pola in Istria, build the scene for us: these grave sites are not mounds in the ground but sarchophagi, raised monuments of stone that contain the remains of the dead. [return to English / Italian]
127–131. Virgil explains to Dante that this sixth Circle of hell encloses many different heretical sects, each of which is punished in a separate sepulchre, and some of which are punished with more, others with less, severity.
Why is heresy punished within the walls of Dis, where all the sins punished are sins of will, not those of appetite? It is interesting to see how often early commentators associate heresy with obstinacy or obduracy; their word is the Latin pertinax. Some of them may be reflecting St. Thomas’s definition (S.T. II–II, q. 5, a. 3): if a man “is not pertinacious in his disbelief, he is in that case no heretic, but only a man in error.” See, among others, the commentaries of Boccaccio (Inf. IX.127; IX.110–133), Benvenuto (Inf. IX.112–116; IX.127–129), Francesco da Buti (Inf. IX.106–123; X.31–39), John of Serravalle (Inf. X.13–15); Daniello (Inf. IX.133 [citing Thomas]) and, among the moderns, Poletto (Inf. X.28–30), Carroll (Inf. IX.132). [return to English / Italian]
132. The turnings to the right here and at Inferno XVII.32 have caused puzzlement and some ingenuity. In hell, whenever the direction of their movement is mentioned, Dante and Virgil elsewhere always head to the left. Only on these two occasions do they move rightward. These two rightward turnings occur just before the entrance to the sixth Circle, in which heresy is punished, and before the exit from the realm of Violence, the seventh Circle. This is another instance in which the commentary tradition has not resolved Dante’s plan, if indeed there was one. [return to English / Italian]