Virgil guides Dante through Limbo.
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The booming of thunder startled me out of my faint and I awoke like one who had been drugged. I got up and looked around, trying the best I could to get my bearings. I found myself on the edge of that awful shore still hearing all the screams and cries of those ruined souls bound for endless grief. Yet it was so dim there I could hardly see a thing.[1]Dante had fainted at the earthquake, thunder, lightning, and violent wind that brought Canto 3 to a close. How he and Virgil crossed the Acheron we are not told, but he slowly comes to his senses on … Continue reading
My guide, shaken and pale said: “Let us now go down into this sightless world. I’ll go first and you follow close by me.”[2]For the first time we are given to understand that Virgil, too, was affected by the convulsions of Nature that ended the previous canto. Note how Dante was only thinking about how dark it was, and … Continue reading
Seeing how he had become so deathly pale, I said to him: “How can you go down there if you too are so frightened? You’re the source of my strength when I lose heart, you know.”
He reassured me: “It’s the dreadful fate of all the souls down here that makes me look frightened; but trust me, I’m OK. Let’s get going – the long road ahead calls us downward.” So we entered the first circle of that eternal abyss – he leading, me following.[3]Dante’s Hell is shaped like an immense inverted cone. Apart from what we saw in Canto 3 (the gate, the neutrals, and the sinners at the River Acheron), Hell proper is organized into nine concentric … Continue reading
What struck me first, judging just by what I could hear, was that the shrieking and screaming had stopped. All I heard instead were muted sighs in the trembling air, but sighs of grief, not pain.[4]We have entered the first circle of Hell proper, which is Limbo. As the word implies in Latin, it is on the verge or edge of Hell. The souls here do not suffer like everyone else in Hell because they … Continue reading Now I began to make out countless groups of souls – men, women, and children.
My good master then said to me: “You’re not curious about what sort of souls these are around you?[5]In Canto 3, Dante was eager to ask questions, mistaking Virgil’s reply with annoyance, and was embarrassed as a result. But they were eventually answered. Here, though, Virgil is eager for him to … Continue reading Well, before we go on, let me tell you that none of them have sinned. However, that in itself was not enough to save them. Why they’re here is because they weren’t baptized which, as you know, is the initiation into your Christian faith. And, if you’re thinking that some of them lived before Christ, well, those are here because they didn’t worship God in the right way. I myself am a part of that group. Sadly, we’re here for this and no other fault on our part – lost – and this is where I came from when Beatrice sent me to you. If we suffer, it’s because of this: we’ve been cut off from hope, but we live on in desire.”[6]These are sad lines indeed, and Dante would have us sigh in a solidarity of grief with these virtuous, but hopeless, souls.
Hearing this hurt me deeply. Just think: all these otherwise virtuous souls were here in this Limbo – forever! Hoping to have him confirm the unerring teachings of Christian doctrine, I said: “Tell me, my teacher, my master, has anyone ever gotten out of here and gone up to Heaven – through his own merit or with someone else’s help?”[7]Realizing that Limbo is Virgil’s place, Dante proceeds to “quiz” him on one of the tenets of the Christian faith and stated in the Creed: “He suffered under Pontius Pilate, was … Continue reading
He knew exactly what was in my mind and answered: “I was virtually new to this place when I saw a great Lord[8]The word “Christ” is never used in the Inferno. come down here in our midst wearing a crown of victory.[9]The best explanation of this “crown of victory” is that Christ had a halo with a cross in it. Recalling my earlier claim that virtually every scene in the Comedy has been illustrated, I am … Continue reading He took lots of souls here back with him to Heaven: Adam our first parent; his son, Abel; Noah; Abraham the Patriarch; King David; Jacob, his father, his children, and his wife, Rachel; and so many more blessed souls. But know this: before these souls were taken up to Heaven, no other human soul had ever gotten there.”
We were walking the whole time he was speaking, walking through the “woods” – what I mean is, the souls there were as thick as trees in a forest.[10]Throughout the poem, Dante will remark on the number of souls he sees in a particular place, sometimes impossible to count. This has both a sobering and a happy effect: sobering when one thinks of … Continue reading But we hadn’t gotten too far from where I had awakened after that fright by the river when, up ahead, I saw a great dome of light that lit up the darkness around it. We weren’t that far away, though, and I vaguely made out that souls of great honor were there.
“O glory of all the sciences and the arts,” I burst out, “tell me who are those great souls who have the honor of residing over there apart from all the others?”
He replied: “They bear an honored title that still echoes through your own world, and Heaven’s favor on them puts them in this special place.”[11]We will discover in a moment that these are the souls of great classical poets. Not only are they honored in human memory and by divine favor, hovering above them is a kind of glowing dome of light … Continue reading
And while he was telling me this, I heard a voice announce: “Let us honor our glorious poet who now resumes his place among us.”[12]In his eagerness to know who these souls are, Dante addresses Virgil as the “glory of all the sciences and the arts,” anticipating the welcome given him as “our glorious poet” by those who … Continue reading
Then, I saw four great souls coming toward us; their faces showed neither grief nor joy. My Virgil started to explain: “Look at the one who’s holding the sword, leading the others as if he were their master. That’s the spirit of Homer, the king of poets.[13]Holding a sword because war, particularly the Trojan War, played a significant role in his epics. Next there are the Romans: Horace the satirist, Ovid, and then Lucan.[14]Horace is Quintus Horatius Flaccus, 65BC-8BC; Ovid is Publius Ovidius Naso, 43BC-19BC, most famous for his Metamorphoses, which seems to have been a major source of mythology for Dante; Lucan is … Continue reading We all share the same title and they honor me by welcoming me back.”
So, here was the noble school of the king of poets, that singer of the most sublime verses, who soars above all the rest like an eagle.[15]A reference, of course, to Homer’s grand epics, The Illiad and The Odyssey, which Dante never read because he didn’t read Greek, and there were no translations of these works available to him in … Continue reading After they had greeted each other, they turned to me and warmly welcomed me among them – which made Virgil smile. And more than that, they paid me the greatest honor by actually welcoming me as one of their group – me, the sixth among such great ones![16]The word honor has been used several times in this canto and is definitely a theme here. The inhabitants of this place, including those who are not famous, lived virtuous and honorable lives which … Continue reading
Well, we continued walking in the direction of that glowing dome, talking about things that interested us. However, when we reached it, I could see there a beautiful castle that was surrounded by seven high walls and a gently-flowing stream.[17]We get the sense now that this dome of light is larger than a simple bright nimbus over the first four of the noted poets. As the now six of them move on, talking among each other, we become aware … Continue reading We walked right on top of that water, through seven gates in those walls, and arrived at a lovely verdant meadow.[18]The poets’ walking on top of the water, including Dante, points our attention to another consistent feature of the Comedy. Dante the poet insists that both his poem and his chief character, Dante … Continue reading The souls we encountered there were calm and serious-looking, and their demeanor spoke of great authority. They seldom spoke, and then very quietly.
We settled at a spot off to one side, beautifully lit and higher up so that we could see everyone else who was there. And as expected, my fellow poets started pointing out who all those nearby souls were, which sent a thrill through my heart. There was Electra, mother of Troy’s founder,[19]Dante’s Electra is the daughter of Atlas and the mother of Dardanus, who founded the city of Troy. She is not to be confused with Electra, the daughter of Agamemnon and sister of Orestes in the … Continue reading standing with a small group which included Hector, a prince of Troy and Aeneas. Rounding out that group was Julius Caesar – hawk-eyed and dressed in full armor.[20]Notice how Dante identifies the Trojans first since they, through the hero Aeneas, were the progenitors of the Empire which, here, includes Julius Caesar. As will be seen in various places in his … Continue reading
Then more famed and ancient souls were pointed out: Camilla, queen of the ancient Volsci, and Penthesilea, queen of the Amazons; King Latinus and his daughter, Lavinia, next to him.[21]Latinus ruled the central coastal region of Italy where Aeneas would eventually settle, and from there would begin the eventual empire of Rome. Latinus gave Lavinia to Aeneas in marriage. I saw that famous Brutus who expelled the ancient Tarquin rulers and established Roman Republic. Then more noted Romans: Brutus’ sister, Lucretia; Julia, daughter of Julius Caesar; Marcia, Cato’s second wife; and Cornelia, mother of the valiant Gracchi. And, interestingly enough, there, off by himself, was the famous Moorish soldier and sultan, Saladin.[22]Saladin might appear as an unusual and out-of-place neighbor to all these Greeks and Romans. But he was famous not only for his prowess as a Muslim warrior, but for his wisdom, and even more so for … Continue reading
Just a little higher up I saw that great sage – Aristotle – mentor and exemplar of all those who seek knowledge, sitting with famed members of his philosophic family who paid homage to him.[23]One wonders if Dante placed all these scholar-souls a bit higher than the others mentioned so far because theirs were exploits and victories (and even battles) of the mind rather than on the fields … Continue reading These included Socrates and Plato, who sat on either side of him. There also were men of ancient fame and philosophy: Democritus, Diogenes, and Thales; Anaxagoras, Empedocles, Zeno and Heraclitus.[24]Democritus (ca. 460BC – ca. 370BC): a contemporary of Socrates, who thought that the world exists by chance. Diogenes (ca. 412BC – 323BC): a Cynic philosopher who taught that the path to … Continue reading
And there were even more to be seen in that famous company surrounding the great philosopher: Dioscorides, who classified herbs and plants, Orpheus, Tully, and Linus; the moralist Seneca, Euclid, Ptolemy, Hippocrates and Galen. Lastly, were Avicenna and Averroes, famous for his commentary on Aristotle.[25]Dioscorides (ca. 40AD – ca. 90AD): Greek physician and natural scientist; the first to classify the medicinal properties benefits herbs and plants. Orpheus: the Greek mythical poet and musician … Continue reading
I saw so many more famed intellectuals, but I have to stop here because my story is long, and I have to leave things out at times in order not to stray from it. But, soon enough, the other four of our party left us as Virgil, my wise guide, led me out of the peaceful quiet of Limbo back into that Hell storm. Again, I came to a place where there is no light.
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Notes & Commentary
| ↑1 | Dante had fainted at the earthquake, thunder, lightning, and violent wind that brought Canto 3 to a close. How he and Virgil crossed the Acheron we are not told, but he slowly comes to his senses on the other shore, for he can still hear the thunder booming in the distance and the cries and shrieks of those who are damned. |
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| ↑2 | For the first time we are given to understand that Virgil, too, was affected by the convulsions of Nature that ended the previous canto. Note how Dante was only thinking about how dark it was, and it’s Virgil who puts those thoughts into words as they proceed into the “sightless world.” Allegorically, the sightless world is the world of sin which the damned now inhabit. |
| ↑3 | Dante’s Hell is shaped like an immense inverted cone. Apart from what we saw in Canto 3 (the gate, the neutrals, and the sinners at the River Acheron), Hell proper is organized into nine concentric circles or divisions which get smaller in circumference as one approaches the bottom at the center of the earth. |
| ↑4 | We have entered the first circle of Hell proper, which is Limbo. As the word implies in Latin, it is on the verge or edge of Hell. The souls here do not suffer like everyone else in Hell because they are morally blameless, but by an accident of fate, they have been cut off from the salvation that may well have brought them to a different place. Virgil will explain this shortly. At the time Dante wrote this poem, it was understood from Church teaching (it was never a dogma) that unless a person was baptized they could not be saved. However, this changed in 2007 when, after several years of study, the Church published a document, called “The Hope of Salvation for Infants Who Die Without Being Baptized.” In it, the Church fundamentally states that there is every reason to believe that infants who die without baptism are saved by the loving mercy of God. While the main focus of these teachings was/is on infants, it is clear that Dante broadened the concept of Limbo to include adults as well, and as we shall see. |
| ↑5 | In Canto 3, Dante was eager to ask questions, mistaking Virgil’s reply with annoyance, and was embarrassed as a result. But they were eventually answered. Here, though, Virgil is eager for him to ask; perhaps because this is his place in Hell and he knows the most about it. All through the poem, of course, we’ll see that Dante is filled with curiosity. |
| ↑6 | These are sad lines indeed, and Dante would have us sigh in a solidarity of grief with these virtuous, but hopeless, souls. |
| ↑7 | Realizing that Limbo is Virgil’s place, Dante proceeds to “quiz” him on one of the tenets of the Christian faith and stated in the Creed: “He suffered under Pontius Pilate, was crucified, died, and was buried. He descended into Hell, and on the third day He rose again from the dead.” The italicized phrase, commonly known in Dante’s day as “the harrowing of Hell,” refers to the belief that between the time of His death and resurrection, Jesus went into Limbo and released the souls of the great patriarchs, prophets, and others who implicitly believed in His coming. Virgil, who died in 19BC, would have been present for such an event. |
| ↑8 | The word “Christ” is never used in the Inferno. |
| ↑9 | The best explanation of this “crown of victory” is that Christ had a halo with a cross in it. Recalling my earlier claim that virtually every scene in the Comedy has been illustrated, I am reminded of, and recommend that the reader find, the image of Fra Angelico’s The Harrowing of Hell. In a mischievous touch, the sainted painter depicts a devil squashed under the door that Christ stands above, having just smashed it open. |
| ↑10 | Throughout the poem, Dante will remark on the number of souls he sees in a particular place, sometimes impossible to count. This has both a sobering and a happy effect: sobering when one thinks of the countless souls of the damned he points out; happy when one thinks of those who have been saved. |
| ↑11 | We will discover in a moment that these are the souls of great classical poets. Not only are they honored in human memory and by divine favor, hovering above them is a kind of glowing dome of light which represents the illuminating power of human Reason which brought such fame to these poet-souls and which pushed back the darkness of ignorance as it pushes back the darkness here in this place. |
| ↑12 | In his eagerness to know who these souls are, Dante addresses Virgil as the “glory of all the sciences and the arts,” anticipating the welcome given him as “our glorious poet” by those who inhabit the dome of light. |
| ↑13 | Holding a sword because war, particularly the Trojan War, played a significant role in his epics. |
| ↑14 | Horace is Quintus Horatius Flaccus, 65BC-8BC; Ovid is Publius Ovidius Naso, 43BC-19BC, most famous for his Metamorphoses, which seems to have been a major source of mythology for Dante; Lucan is Marcus Annaeus Lucanus, 39AD-65AD. |
| ↑15 | A reference, of course, to Homer’s grand epics, The Illiad and The Odyssey, which Dante never read because he didn’t read Greek, and there were no translations of these works available to him in his lifetime. What he knew of Homer was by fame and reputation, and from citations of his work in later Latin texts which Dante had access to. |
| ↑16 | The word honor has been used several times in this canto and is definitely a theme here. The inhabitants of this place, including those who are not famous, lived virtuous and honorable lives which brought them here. And not to let the opportunity pass by, Dante the poet, in a conscious bit of self-advertising, includes himself among the great classical poets, having been welcomed by them as one of their group. Even though their lives are centuries apart, and Dante is still alive, they already honor him. One might ask, tongue in cheek, do they know his Comedy? |
| ↑17 | We get the sense now that this dome of light is larger than a simple bright nimbus over the first four of the noted poets. As the now six of them move on, talking among each other, we become aware that this dome of light is rather immense, considering all it contains. |
| ↑18 | The poets’ walking on top of the water, including Dante, points our attention to another consistent feature of the Comedy. Dante the poet insists that both his poem and his chief character, Dante the pilgrim, are absolutely real. Furthermore, Dante the pilgrim is a living human being all throughout the poem. But this is the only place in the poem where is corporeality does not show through. In other words, being alive, he should have sank when he crossed the stream. Everywhere else, we will see that his weight, his touch, and his shadow affect things around him. As for as the castle and its seven walls, there are several allegorical interpretations for them. The castle might represent wisdom or philosophy. The seven walks lend themselves to a mixture of virtue and learning, but mostly to the classical liberal arts: the trivium (grammar, logic, and rhetoric), and the quadrivium (arithmetic, music, geometry, and astronomy). The flowing stream is often identified with eloquence, which our most eloquent poets would have floated across with ease. Finally, because the lovely meadow is fresh and green, it may represent the lasting fame of the six poets who arrive there. There is certainly also an echo throughout this pleasant walk of the scene in the Aeneid (6:637ff) when Aeneas reaches the Elysian Fields: “Aeneas gained the entrance, sprinkled fresh water over his body, and set up the branch on the threshold before him. Having at last achieved this, the goddess’s task fulfilled, they came to the pleasant places, the delightful grassy turf of the Fortunate Groves, and the homes of the blessed. Here freer air and radiant light clothe the plain, and these have their own sun, and their own stars. Some exercise their bodies in a grassy gymnasium, compete in sports and wrestle on the yellow sand: others tread out the steps of a dance, and sing songs.” |
| ↑19 | Dante’s Electra is the daughter of Atlas and the mother of Dardanus, who founded the city of Troy. She is not to be confused with Electra, the daughter of Agamemnon and sister of Orestes in the great Greek tragedies of Euripides and Sophocles, etc. |
| ↑20 | Notice how Dante identifies the Trojans first since they, through the hero Aeneas, were the progenitors of the Empire which, here, includes Julius Caesar. As will be seen in various places in his poem, Dante believed in two great kingdoms: the empire of Rome, governed by its rulers, and the kingdom of Heaven, governed on earth by the popes. As he will make clear, so much of the world’s trouble at his time was due to the interference of the empire in the affairs of the Church and vice-versa. Dante believed that the rightful governance of the world belonged to the empire and that the Church had lost its bearings when its leaders forgot their sacred role as Shepherds and prostituted themselves with the gaudy trappings of empire. |
| ↑21 | Latinus ruled the central coastal region of Italy where Aeneas would eventually settle, and from there would begin the eventual empire of Rome. Latinus gave Lavinia to Aeneas in marriage. |
| ↑22 | Saladin might appear as an unusual and out-of-place neighbor to all these Greeks and Romans. But he was famous not only for his prowess as a Muslim warrior, but for his wisdom, and even more so for his compassion and generosity. Having smashed several Crusader strongholds in Palestine on the one hand, he was greatly admired for his humane treatment of his Christian prisoners on the other. |
| ↑23 | One wonders if Dante placed all these scholar-souls a bit higher than the others mentioned so far because theirs were exploits and victories (and even battles) of the mind rather than on the fields of war. |
| ↑24 | Democritus (ca. 460BC – ca. 370BC): a contemporary of Socrates, who thought that the world exists by chance. Diogenes (ca. 412BC – 323BC): a Cynic philosopher who taught that the path to virtue was through abstinence and self-control. Thales (ca. 635BC – ca. 545BC): early Greek philosopher who proposed that the basic element of all things is water. Anaxagoras (500BC – 428BC): believed that all material things contain a spiritual element that gives them life and form. Empedocles (ca. 494BC – ca. 434BC): fifth century BC; believed that earth, air, fire, and water – empowered by love – gave shape to the cosmos. Zeno (ca. 336BC – 264BC): founded the Stoic school of philosophy; a follower of Parmenides. Heraclitus (ca. 535BC – ca. 475BC): believed that fire was the primary form of all matter and that our knowledge is based on sense perception. |
| ↑25 | Dioscorides (ca. 40AD – ca. 90AD): Greek physician and natural scientist; the first to classify the medicinal properties benefits herbs and plants. Orpheus: the Greek mythical poet and musician who could tame almost anything with his music. Note how Dante purposefully places both Orpheus and Linus (below) – mythic figures among the real Who’s Who of his list. Tully (106BC – 43BC): another name for the famed Roman orator, Cicero. Linus: a mythical Greek poet and musician. Seneca (4 BC – 65AD): the noted Stoic philosopher. Euclid (3rd – 4th century BC): the father of geometry. Ptolemy (ca. 100AD – ca. 170AD): famous in astronomy, mathematics, and geography. It is his geocentric model of the universe that generally accepted until it was replaced by the heliocentric model of Copernicus during the Renaissance (followed later by Kepler and Galileo). Dante uses Ptolemy’s geocentric plan to shape the cosmos he uses throughout the Comedy. Hippocrates (ca. 460BC – ca. 377BC): founder of medicine as a healing science. Galen (ca. 130BC – ca. 200BC): famed in the medical arts like Hippocrates. Avicenna (980-1037) and Averroes (1126-1198): two Arabian physicians and philosophers, the latter famous for his commentary on Aristotle. |