6. Virgil To The Rescue: INFERNO, Canto I, Lines 67 - 96
Virgil materializes to rescue the pilgrim during his fall back down the slope.
Dante is saved by none other than a great Roman poet, the author of THE AENEID.
Dante’s walk almost ended just as it got underway, but it had to be redirected by, well, classical poetry—and a classical poet.
Virgil arrives on the scene, not as a pure allegory of human reason, but as himself, with all his Virgil-ness. What if Virgil is a human—damned, yes, but still human: fallible, a little insecure, a little preening, a great poet, and a bit of a windbag, all at once?
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The segments of this episode of WALKING WITH DANTE:
[02:20] My English translation of INFERNO, Canto I, Lines 67 - 96. If you’d like to read along, find a study guide for this episode, or continue the conversation with me through a comment, please scroll down this page.
[04:45] Virgil! That apparition is the great Roman poet.
[06:59] The first shot at a much longer discussion of an important tool in Dante's poetic kit: periphrasis, a rhetorical strategy whereby a writer "walks" around someone or something without naming him, her, or it.
[08:57] Virgil offers the pilgrim his résumé. It's not all it seems. Or perhaps it's less than he tries to make it.
[16:11] Virgil makes a big mistake, a theological mistake, which may tell us more about what our poet thinks of Virgil than Virgil intends to give away at this moment.
[20:24] Even so, the pilgrim offers Virgil a little hero-worship. Does this set up an implicit tension between the pilgrim in the poem and the poet behind the poem?
[21:45] A final bit about the internal landscape of this poem. There's a lot of talk about how medieval poetry shows no interiority, no inner life of its characters. But there may be a clue in this passage that COMEDY is very interested in the pilgrim's interiority.
[23:19] The question about the pilgrim's guides in COMEDY.
My English translation of INFERNO, Canto 1, Lines 67 - 96:
“Not a man,” he replied, “though I once was a man,
And my parents were Lombards,
Both with Mantua as their homeland.
“I was born sub Julio, although it was late,
And I lived in Rome under good Augustus
In the period of the false and lying gods.
I was a poet, and sang of that just
Son of Anchises who came from Troy
After proud Ilium was burned up.
“But you, why are you going back to all that sorrow?
Why aren’t you climbing this delightful mountain,
Which is the source and cause of every joy?”
“Wait, are you Virgil, the great fount
That opens out into a big expanse of language?”
I bowed my head in shame when I answered him.
“O glory and light of all the other poets,
Let my long studies and great love pay off,
All that I’ve done ever since I searched inside your volume.
“You are my master, you are my author.
I got the beautiful style from you
That has won me such honor.
“Look at the beast that made me turn back.
Save me from her, famous sage,
For she makes my veins and pulse quiver.”
“You must commit to another road,”
He answered when he saw me start to cry,
“If you want to get out of this savage place.
“The beast that makes you to wail
Doesn’t let anyone get by that way.
She will set upon you until she kills you.”
FOR MORE STUDY
Three translation issues:
I mentioned a tricky line when Virgil introduces himself. It’s line 67: “Rispuosemi: Non omo, omo già fui.” Literally something like this: “He replied to me: Not man, man once was.” It’s that repeated “omo” that breaks his reply in two, thereby both emphasizing the word “man” and also making it a bit more of a problem, as if there are at least two states of being a man (or a human). Also, notice the way the line chants: “nohn oh-moh oh-moh gee-ah foo-ee.” It sounds almost Gregorian!
Does Virgil praise or condemn Troy and Ilium? Here’s line 75: “poi che ‘l superbo Ilïón fu combusto”—literally, “then that proud Ilium was set on fire.” How does Virgil intend that word “superbo”? It can mean “great” or “glorious” . . . and given Virgil’s poem, THE AENEID, that’s the way we might think he intends it. But in Christian doctrine, being “proud” (“superbo”) is a sin, maybe the supreme sin among them all. Is Virgil then correcting his own poem, indicating something was wrong with Troy? Or is the poet Dante in the background winking at us, letting us understand that Virgil’s praise isn’t all it’s cracked up to be?
The big question about poetry is at line 87 when Dante the pilgrim categorizes Virgil’s writing as “lo bello stilo” (“the beautiful style”). This phrase is rather flat right here but it will pick up more and more meaning over the course of COMEDY, partly when we get to INFERNO, Canto II just ahead of us; but especially when we get up well up in PURGATORIO (at Canto XXIV) and Dante claims to practice the “dolce stil novo” (“sweet style new”—or “sweet new style”). What’s the difference between “bello” and “dolce”? And while we’re at it, “bello” (“beautiful”) is an aesthetic judgment for Dante . . . which (given medieval thinking) means it’s also an ethical judgment, because “that which is beautiful” is a subcategory of “how to live the good life.” In the end, “lo bello stilo” is loaded with meaning from the start and will get even more difficult to translate the further you get into COMEDY. For that matter—and perhaps to unduly complicate things—given the range of styles inside THE AENEID, not to mention in Virgil’s other poems (the GEORGICS and the ECLOGUES), which one specifically was “bello”?
Two interpretive issues:
Virgil is the pilgrim Dante’s first guide. But is he the poet’s guide? It’s almost impossible to answer this question right now as you read the poem; but it definitely bears considering as you move on, particularly once we get about eight more cantos into INFERNO and find what may be a break in the poem, followed by a spot before the walls of a castle that seems to stymie our dear Virgil. What if the Roman poet is a mostly adequate guide for the pilgrim who wakes up in a dark wood but not necessarily the right guide for a poet who’s trying to map out all that is and can be?
As a general rule, when we write about the historical Roman poet in English, we often spell his name “Vergil.” But when we write about the character in Dante’s poem, we often spell it “Virgil.” (There are scholars who would disagree with this shorthand division!) There’s no doubt that the poet Dante is playing fast and loose with Vergil’s historicity in this poem . . . and also that the poet intends for us to see this figure as indeed the historical Vergil, materializing out of nowhere. But the character Virgil will become (in many ways) the most rounded, developed person in this poem with a backstory that doesn’t exactly match the historical Vergil’s backstory. It’s always good to think about how much of a historical figure Dante sees in this Vergil/Virgil guy at any moment.
A journaling prompt:
In this passage, the pilgrim meets one of his favorite authors. I mentioned several times my glee and fear at meeting Henry James. Even so, he’s not an author from my childhood. That would be C. S. Lewis or maybe Laura Ingalls Wilder! Is there a writer, poet, singer, composer, or artist you’d like to meet, either from your childhood or your early adulthood, one who you believe would help you better understand your life? What would that encounter look like?