Jeffrey Keeten's Reviews > The Divine Comedy

”THROUGH ME THE WAY INTO THE SUFFERING CITY,
THROUGH ME THE WAY TO THE ETERNAL PAIN,
THROUGH ME THE WAY THAT RUNS AMONG THE LOST.
JUSTICE URGED ON MY HIGH ARTIFICER;
MY MAKER WAS DIVINE AUTHORITY,
THE HIGHEST WISDOM, AND THE PRIMAL LOVE.
BEFORE ME NOTHING BUT ETERNAL THINGS
WERE MADE, AND I ENDURE ETERNALLY.
ABANDON EVERY HOPE, WHO ENTER HERE.”

Botticelli’s vision of Satan. There are 92 illustrations by Botticelli, inspired by The Divine Comedy, of which this edition contains a selection.

I read Inferno while in college and had always intended to go back and read Purgatorio and Paradiso, but somehow the years passed and I never returned to Dante’s masterpiece. When my son went off to college and asked to borrow some classics to read, I sent him, along with my copy of The Divine Comedy, Canterbury Tales, Utopia, Paradise Lost, and several other important works of literature. The rule with books, of course, is that there is no such thing as lending and returning. The lending part goes fine, but the returning is usually the tricky part. When I decided it was time to return to Dante, I didn’t ask for my copy back from my son, though he would be one of the few people who would return a book. I feel that giving a book to either of my children is an investment in all of our futures.

Since I decided to descend into hell with Dante, I was frequently glad to have Virgil as our guide. He explained the explainable. He provided a protective wing from the many monstrosities that we encounter.

”Gross hailstones, water gray with filth, and snow
Come streaking down across the shadowed air;
The earth, as it receives that shower, stinks.
Over the souls of those submerged beneath
That mess, is an outlandish, vicious beast,
His three throats barking, doglike: Cerberus.
His eyes are bloodred; greasy, black, his beard;
His belly bugles, and his hands are claws;
His talons tear and flay and rend the shades.”

As I was reading Dante’s descriptions of various horrendous beasts, it reminded me of the fantastical medieval expressions of imagination that I’ve encountered numerous times in the margins of holy books. These early monk illustrators displayed such a vivid creativity in how they depicted their fears. I can only wonder how terrifying their nightmares were and for them to believe that these terrors were real would only add wings and claws to their trepidation. They were infected with these fears by Christianity, while being dangled the balm and possibility of heaven.

How about this for a living nightmare?

”As I kept my eyes fixed upon those sinners,
A serpent with six feet springs out against
One of the three, and clutches him completely.
It gripped his belly with its middle feet,
And with its forefeet grappled his two arms;
And then it sank its teeth in both his cheeks;
It stretched its rear feet out along his thighs
And ran its tail along between the two,
Then straightened it again behind his loins.
No ivy ever gripped a tree so fast
As when that horrifying monster clasped
And intertwined the other’s limbs with its.
Then just as if their substance were warm wax,
They stuck together and they mixed their colors,
So neither seemed what he had been before.”

After seeing some of the horrors awaiting us in hell, which has proved to be a much better scare tactic for considering improving my heavenly resume than Death on the Highway or Red Asphalt II were for improving my driving skills, we encountered the pantheon of classical writers Homer, Horace, Ovid, and Lucan. Dante was so proud (we will deal with pride in Purgatory) that they accepted him as a member of their club. I was starting to wonder if Dante may have already resigning himself to a life in hell. Are great writers who don’t use their gifts glorifying God doomed to hell?

One of the wonderful things about writing, to paraphrase Chaucer, is that you can eviscerate your enemies forever in print, and certainly the people who had most offended Dante in life were experiencing the tortures of everlasting hell. Writers do play God. Because of the fame of The Divine Comedy, their names will always be associated with a list of famous sinners. I would say that Dante’s revenge was served cold, but really it was rather warmly given.

We also meet some sinners who led pious lives worthy of heaven, but because they were never baptised for the reason they lived before Christianity existed, or fell under the catchall phrase ”did not worship God in fitting ways,” and were all, every one of them, consigned to hell. God does seem to be very particular about all of his children fearing him, loving him above all else, and most importantly of all worshipping him. So it wasn’t about whether these people were good people, but that they showed proper reverence to his worshipness. Later, when I visited heaven, I didn’t see any issues with overcrowding, so I’m not sure why a few get out of hell free cards couldn’t have been surreptitiously handed out to those bereft of sin who didn’t completely conform to his will. How about even just a leg up to purgatory, where eventually one might after thousands of years of suffering earn a pair of wings?

It was with some relief, my deodorant was starting to give way, we ascended to Purgatory and confronted the seven terraced mountain, representing the seven deadly sins. For those in need of a recap, there are the malicious uses of love, such as wrath, envy, and pride, and those where love is too strong, such as lust, gluttony, and greed. Sloth is the only sin not based on excesses, but on a lack of enough self-love or energy to be a contributing member of society. As I weigh myself on these scales, I can honestly say that sloth and greed have never been sins of mine. Pride, I will admit, was a struggle when I was younger, but life has a way of knocking the piss out of us and reminding us constantly that we are only half as smart as we think we are. I’ve had a few wrathful moments in my life, but being around human beings for too long will test the patience of the most sainted among us. Lust I will plead the fifth, and gluttony . . well, food has never been an issue, but one could make a case that I do suffer from a serious case of book gluttony.

I did check out some of the real estate pricing while in Purgatory. *sigh*

It was with some relief that we discovered some angels in purgatory, bedraggled ones to be sure, but still ones doing what we want angels to do, which is protect us from marauding beasts.

”I saw the company of noble spirits,
silent and looking upward, pale and humble,
as if in expectation; and I saw,
emerging and descending from above,
two angels bearing flaming swords, of which
the blades were broken off, without their tips.”

Angels are badass warriors, and there have been several television shows in recent years that has depicted them as soft and warm cuddle buddies, but really angels aren’t for clinking beers with, but for us to stand behind when winged, fire spitting beasts are attempting to turn us into crispy critters.

Dante shared an epiphany with me while in Purgatory that left me thinking about the creation of dreams and how important it is for all of us to continue to build new dreams as we leap the final hurdles of achieving a dream or find that other dreams may no longer suit us.

”A new thought arose inside of me and, from
that thought, still others--many and diverse--
were born: I was so drawn from random thought
to thought that, wandering in mind, I shut
my eyes, transforming thought on thought to dream.”

Virgil was replaced as our guide by Beatrice as we were about three-quarters of the way through Purgatory. I was sorry to see Virgil go, but I must admit I’ve always wanted to meet Beatrice, just to see what type of woman would inspire such a lifetime of devotion from a man like Dante. She was the daughter of a banker, married a banker, and with her premature death at 25 remained forever the very vision of beauty. According to Dante, he only met her twice, but those sightings must have been magical because they left him with a permanent love hangover. I wanted to ask Dante if he had ever even talked to the lass or if he just projected all of his visions of her from glimpses of her outer beauty, but then the fact that she is here in Paradise may answer that question for me.

”In ascent, her eyes--
All beauty’s living seals--gain force, and notes
that I had not yet turned to them in Mars,
can then excuse me--just as I accuse
myself , thus to excuse myself--and see
that I speak truly: here her holy beauty
is not denied--ascent makes it more perfect.”

Heaven light, as it turns out, is even better than bar light. We all look our best.

If you are considering reading Dante, I would recommend for sure reading Inferno. Most likely when you encounter Dante references appearing in your reading, they will probably be from the Inferno. This Allen Mandelbaum translation is wonderful and so easy to read, and there are copious notes in the back to help guide you if Virgil loses you in a flaming forest. This is one of the classic works which I have felt for some time I’ve needed to read. There will be many more this year, including but not limited to War and Peace, Magic Mountain, and Les Miserables.

If a bit of flayed skin flies out from between the pages once in a while, don’t be afraid; it’s just part of the adventure. A word of caution though, be sure to buy some SPF1000 before you take this scenic walk with Dante.

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