46. How Much Classical Imagery Can One Poem Take? Inferno, Canto IX, Lines 34 - 63
The Erinyes (or three Furies) await the arrival of Medusa on the walls of Dis.
This passage is the densest thicket of classical allegory we've encountered. The references are so dominating yet quickly brushed by that the poet even steps out from behind the curtain to ask us to notice it all as part of the allegorical schematics in COMEDY.
But which part of all this time among the wrathful or before the walls of Dis is allegorical? All of it? Even Phlegyas' boat? Or just the Furies? Or the threat of Medusa (the Gorgon)? Or even merely Virgil's hands, which are placed over the pilgrim's eyes?
To make matters worse, this passage starts with a distinct problem: Memory fails in a poem that hopes memory won't.
Let’s get lost (a bit) in the weeds of classical literature--because Dante asks us to.
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The segments of this episode of WALKING WITH DANTE:
[02:06] My English translation of INFERNO, Canto IX, lines 34 - 63. If you'd like to read along, continue the conversation with me, or find a deeper study guide for this episode, just scroll down this page.
[04:17] Memory fails! Understandable, sure, because the walls of Dis are terrifying. Problem is, our poet prayed for "unerring memory" back in INFERNO, Canto II.
[05:50] The Furies arrive in their full horror--and maybe their full allegory, too. Let’s strike at the heart of this complicated passage in which we're asked to Christianize classical literature and "classicize" a Christian poem.
[12:16] The pilgrim Dante presses close to Virgil. But maybe the poet does, too. Maybe the way out of too much classical imagery is to engage more deeply with . . . classical literature. Or maybe engage more humanly?
[15:11] The threat of Medusa! She'll turn Dante to stone. But which him? The pilgrim or the poet? Maybe both. In any event, Virgil saves the pilgrim by blocking his vision. (Ahem!)
[19:45] In the final tercet (three lines), the poet steps out and asks us to look behind the veil of his poetry. I've got four ways to make sense of this complex request.
My English translation of INFERNO, Canto IX, Lines 34 - 63:
He said more, but I can’t recall any of it,
Because my eyes had pulled all my awareness
Up to the high tower with the fiery turret,
Where all at once appeared
Three hellish furies painted with blood.
They had the limbs and shape of women,
But iridescent green hydras wrapped around them.
They had little snakes and horned serpents for hair
That wound across their horrible brows.
And he, at once, knew them as the ladies in waiting
For the queen of eternal wailing.
“Watch out!” he said to me. “The ferocious Erinyes!
“That’s Megaera on the left side,
The one who cries on the right is Allecto.
And the one between them is Tisiphone.” And then he shut up.
They raked their breasts with their fingernails,
Beat them with their hands, and shrieked so loudly
That out of fear I pressed close to the poet.
“Let Medusa come! Then we’ll turn him to stone,”
They said as they peered down at us.
“We didn’t do right when it came to avenging Theseus’s attack.”
“Turn around and keep your eyes closed.
If the Gorgon shows herself and you see her,
You won’t get back to the world above.”
As my master said this, he took hold of me,
Spun me around, and not trusting my own hands,
Put his own over my eyes as well.
Oh you who are of healthy intellects,
Look well at the teaching that hides itself
Under the veil of these strange verses.
FOR DEEPER STUDY
Sources that Dante would know
For the Erinyes (or the Furies): Virgil, AENEID, Book VI:555 - 575; Statius, THEBIAD, Book I:52 - 124; and Lucan, PHARSALIA, Book VI:733.
For Theseus (who came to rescue Prosperina and whom the Furies should have killed): Virgil, AENEID, Book VI:392 - 397.
For Medusa (or the Gorgon): Ovid, METAMORPHOSES, Book IV:606 to Book V:249.
Four translation issues
The Erinyes are said to be le meschine de la regina de l’etterno pianto (lines 43b - 44—literally, “the handmaidens of the queen of eternal lamenting”). That queen is probably Persephone (or her Roman counterpart, Proserpina), although she could also be Hecate (a goddess of crossroads, witchcraft, night, and the moon). No matter who she is, there appears to be a queen of the damned in Dante’s underworld, although the poet nowhere else follows up on this dropped reference. Once again, we’re forced to ask if Dante was writing a more classical poem at first, one that slowly became more Christian the longer he worked on it.
Let’s talk about that last tercet (or three-line stanza). Here’s the Florentine for Canto IX, lines 61 - 63: O voi ch’avete li ‘ntelletti santi,/ mirate la dottrina che s’asconde/ sotto ‘l velame de li versi strani (literally, “O, you all who have the intellects healthy,/ gaze at the doctrine that hides itself/ under the veil of the verses strange”). We should note is the voi—that is, you, formal and/or plural. It appears the poet is addressing either one of his betters or a group of his betters. He may also be flattering his reader with that voi. How does it indicate the poet’s relationship to us at this moment?
Then there’s the main verb: mirate. It’s not just “gaze at” or “ponder upon.” It carries something of “stare fixedly.” The poet asks you to look through his text and to some doctrine that’s underneath the words (or even under his poetic technique, since the passage specifically calls out his versi).
Finally, notice that the right readers are qualified—not all readers will get this, but only those with intelletti santi (something like “cleansed intellects” or “purified minds” with a definite overtone of “healthy” in the adjective). How can anyone have a cleansed mind in hell? Who are these readers?
Seven interpretive issues
Virgil claims that if the pilgrim looks on the Gorgon (that is, Medusa), all hope of return is lost (line 57). Is Virgil right? Hasn’t the pilgrim been promised a successful mission across the known universe? Is this the pagan Virgil’s fear, not Dante’s more Christian hope? If so, there’s a bit of daylight between Virgil and Dante. Or have the terms of the contracted voyage changed? Is more at stake?
What if the veiled allegory is only about Virgil’s hands over the pilgrim’s eyes? We could then say that classical poetry can keep you back from your doom as you fight back against the Medusa’s tempting face. Or perhaps we can say that Dante is not yet advanced enough in his education to turn away from the wildness inherent in his own poetry but needs the rigors of the classical poet Virgil to keep him safe. (And maybe the rigors of Latin to keep his vernacular Florentine safe?)
The Furies were heavily allegorized throughout the Middle Ages . . . and so heavily allegorized by the early commentators for INFERNO. Boccaccio claims that Alecto = “without rest,” Tisiphone = “voice of anger,” and Megaera = “great contentiousness.” Many other early commentators seem to pick up an allegorical scheme from the 12th-century scholar Bernard Silvester, who died long before Dante and who claimed that Alecto = “evil thoughts,” Tisiphone = “evil speech,” and Megaera = “evil deeds.” Many of these commentators then link the Furies in Dante’s vision right to left as a progression: thoughts lead to speech which leads to deeds. A few go so far as to claim that the Furies are anger, greed, and lust up on the walls, three sins we’ve already seen. There might actually be a little something to this medieval reasoning. These Furies do seem to mark a barrier between one part of hell and a much darker, deeper part ahead of us. Perhaps they are the last gasp of out-of-control passions before we get to the more conniving, deceptive sins ahead.
Back to that address to the reader and the veil of interpretation. In the podcast episode, I linked the veil to the curtain before the holiest place in the ancient Jewish temple. I remarked that according to two of the Gospels, this veil was ripped from top to bottom when Jesus was crucified (see Matthew 27:51 and Mark 15:38). But there’s another possible New Testament reference that might run under these lines. In II Corinthians 3:13, St. Paul writes that Moses wore a veil to keep people from staring at whatever was left of God’s glory, bits still clinging to Moses after he received the law on Mount Sinai. Paul goes on to claim that unbelieving Jews still read Moses’s writing with a veil over their minds (3:15), a veil that is removed when these Jews convert. He finishes off his argument by claiming that Christians go about with “unveiled” faces (3:18). Might Paul’s passage lean into Dante’s text? Is there a way that Dante sees two groups of readers: the uninitiated and the initiated. (And how would you become one of the initiated?)
And one more thing about those lines: the rhyme sequence. Sani (“purified” or “healthy”) and strani (“strange”) are rhymed with mani (“hands”—lines 59, 61, and 63). First off, this rhyme is so simple. (Deceptively so?) Second, the rhythm of the lines is quite pleasing; it’s so fluid that the lines slip by as if in common speech, not poetic craft. Later in INFERNO, Dante will begin to use harsh rhymes and rhythms to indicate the depth of misery or despair at hand. But here? Almost elementary, somewhat at odds with the difficulty of what it all means. Finally, think about those rhyming words: hands, cleansed, strange. Hands write poetry (Virgil’s did, although they’re over the pilgrim’s eyes at the moment). Can poetic hands be both purified and strange? At the same time? Or to different types of readers?
There may be yet more poetic high jinks afoot. Probably before COMEDY, Dante wrote a series of poems (canzoniere) that acted out various states of love and distress in front of various women (for our purposes, all those women who are not Beatrice). One of these light lyrics is titled Al Poco Giorno e Al Gran Cerchio d’Ombra (“To the Short Day and to the Big Circle of Shadow”). In it, Dante rhapsodizes about a gelata (“a frozen woman”) who doesn’t pay him much attention although his love is rooted in la dura petra (“hard stone”—ahem). This woman may be an allegory of an early spring day (she’s dressed in green and seems to live on grassy fields); but the poet is still afraid of her since he runs away for escape . . . mostly because her light is so great that it never offers adequate shade. (He’s laying it on thick.) The question is, does Dante play around jokingly in INFERNO, Canto IX, with this “rocky” poetry? If he had stuck with these sorts of love poems, might he never have gotten to COMEDY, only fooling around as he did with fair-weather loves, rather than striking out for harder, more adventurous things?
Medusa’s threat is always heterosexual in mythology. Her charms have no affect on women. Does old Virgil believe that the mortal man Dante could turn aside from his great work and go back to writing light verses to various love interests, thereby (as it were) turning back into stone rather than becoming the great voyager across the universe?
One journaling prompt
How do you know when you’ve pierced the veil, when you’ve gotten under something to a deeper meaning? How do you know when you hit hard “pay dirt” and don’t need to dig any deeper? Do you ever? Or is “calling it a day” about the best you can hope for?