Excerpt from the Divine Comedy
Published in The Divine Comedy of Dante Alighieri, 1906
“Beneath my head the others are dragged down / Who have preceded me in simony, / Flattened along the fissure of the rock."
The poet Dante Alighieri (DAHN-tay al-eeg-YEER-ee;
1265-1321), usually referred to simply as Dante, is considered one of the greatest writers of all time—on a par with figures such as the Greek poet Homer (700s b. c.) or the English playwright and poet William Shakespeare (1564-1616). By far the most widely admired of Dante's works is the Divine Comedy, which is not a comedy in the traditional sense: here the term refers to the fact that the story, told in a series of 100 "chapters" called cantos, has a happy ending.
The term "divine" is a reference to God, an abiding presence in the narrative as the poet journeys into the depths of the Inferno or Hell, guided by the departed soul of the Roman poet Virgil (70-19 b. c.; sometimes rendered as Vergil or Virgilius). Later, Dante describes a journey into Purgatory, a place of punishment for people working out their salvation and earning their way into Heaven or Paradise. A journey through Heaven constitutes the final section of the Divine Comedy.
This vast work is so complex and rich in detail that it is hard to do it justice in just a few words (see box, "The Di-
The Divine Comedy
Considered one of the world's great literary works, Dante's Divine Comedy is a long poem describing the author's journey into Hell, or the Inferno; then through the center of the Earth to Purgatory, a place of punishment for people working out their salvation; and finally, through the planets and stars into Heaven or Paradise.
Dante places the events of the Divine Comedy at Easter Weekend 1300, when he was—as he wrote in the open lines of Canto I—"in the middle of the journey of our life" (in other words, thirty-five years old). But the Divine Comedy is not meant to be understood as a literal story; rather, it is an allegory, or symbolic tale. Nor is it a comedy as that word is normally used: rather, the term "comedy" refers to the fact that after passing through great misfortune, the author is given a glimpse of the Heaven that awaits believers.
The Divine Comedy consists of 100 cantos, or chapters, which are in turn composed of verses. After an introductory canto in which Dante describes how he entered Hell through a darkened forest, each section comprises thirty-three cantos. In each place, Dante travels with a guide: in the Inferno, the Roman poet Virgil (70-19 B. C.), and in Purgatory and Paradise, his beloved Beatrice. The book is densely packed with references to people and events in Europe from ancient times through the early 1300s, and in order to enjoy it fully, a modern reader must consult extensive reference notes. It is a rewarding exercise, however, and anyone who reads the entire Divine Comedy comes away with an encyclopedic knowledge of the medieval world. Those fortunate enough to read it in Italian also have an opportunity to enjoy Dante's simple but beautiful language in the original.
Vine Comedy"). The passage that follows is drawn from Canto XIX of the Inferno, where Dante witnesses the punishment of popes and other Church leaders guilty of simony—the buying and selling of offices within the Church. Their punishment is particularly gruesome: they have been shoved headfirst, one on top of another, into a bottomless hole in the ground. The newest arrival must suffer the burning of his feet; but when another simoniac (someone who practices simony) dies, the earlier ones will be pushed farther down, deeper into the earth. As Dante notes, this was like the means used to execute hired killers, who were placed headfirst in a pit, then covered with dirt until they suffocated.
A scene of Hell from Dante's Divine Comedy; Satan watches from the background with his wings outspread. Reproduced by permission of the Corbis Corporation.
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