The Inferno: Canto 8
Created .For Lent, I'm reading The Inferno, the first part of The Divine Comedy by Dante Alighieri. As I read this classic work, I'll journal my experience. I'm using Anthony Esolen's translation, and will supplement my reading by listening to Ascend: The Great Books Podcast.
The plan is to read a Canto each day, once through on my own, then once with the notes in the back of the book, and journal my thoughts here.
Canto 8
Synopsis:
Dante and Virgil see signal fires. They cross the Styx and encounter Fillipo Argenti, a contemporary of Dante. The fallen angels outside the city of Dis, at the gates of Inner Hell, bar the path. A figure approaches unaided by any guide, to open the gates for them.
Thoughts:
This was the most confusing Canto yet.
What are the signal fires that they see at the beginning of the Canto? Virgil answers that across the water Dante will see what they are seeking, but I still don’t understand why there the signals are being sent. Is this the reason the fallen angels are waiting outside the city gates to turn Virgil and Dante back?
Virgil deals with Phlegyas as easily as the previous challengers, though the interaction with the fallen angels at the gates of Dis have me questioning my previous assumption that these ferrymen, guardians, and others that Virgil has had to tell off are actually demons. Perhaps some of them are damned with different or lesser punishments.
The interaction with Fillipo Argenti really confused me. Here’s this damned soul rising from the slime of the Styx. Dante tells him to get lost, Virgil pushes him back in the water, then Virgil is hugging Dante and blessing his mother. Dante says he’d like to see Argenti dunked, then the other souls in the Styx attack Argenti and Dante averts his eyes.
While reading, I thought perhaps it had to do with justice, but the thought was only halfhearted and uncertain. It wasn’t until I read Esolen’s notes that the idea of justice solidified. During my reading, I was thinking of justice with my mind, but not desiring it with my heart. Esolen says that to not want justice when it is warranted is sluggishness of soul, acedia, which is a convicting statement.
Esolen speaks of Dante’s thirst to see justice done, and how that is good, which explains Virgil’s response. I’m more inclined to desire mercy, but it’s too late for that for these souls---justice is all that remains for them. The desire for justice is something that I need to build in myself. I will have to wrestle with this. But I’m left wondering, did Dante’s desire wane when the actual justice was being done? Is this why he turned his eyes toward the shore?
Justice and wrath are different, and it’s important to make the distinction. Justice is turned toward the desire to see things put right. Wrath sets God-given reason aside. A person seeks justice, he gives himself over to wrath, turning away from God. I have to think more on this.
Esolen’s notes assert that Dis is the mirror image of New Jerusalem, the city of Heaven. The towers are mosques, the inhabitants fallen angels and the damned. When Dante and Virgil arrive there, there many fallen angels waiting there to bar their path. Virgil talks with them off to the side, but to no avail; they go inside the gates of Dis and shut them in Virgil’s face.
But Virgil’s invocations of God’s will prior to this have not been empty. Virgil speaks of the impotent attempts of the denizens of Hell to bar the way of Christ on Holy Saturday, and the results are visible in the broken outer gates of Hell. Now a mysterious figure approaches who will open the gates for them.
Conclusion:
Canto Eight gave me a lot to think on. Justice and its relationship to mercy, the contrast between justice and wrath, and how not desiring justice should be a warning sign that one is falling into acedia. I will need to think and read more about this.
The little cliffhanger at the end with the mysterious figure descending to help Dante get into the city has me eager to see what will happen next.