19-39. THE REIN OF WRATH. The three visions of the ruinous results of wrath may be taken as exemplifying wrath against kin, against neighbor, and against God (and self).
The first vision (lines 19-21) shows Procne killing her own son in wrath. The bird that most delights in song is the nightingale. Dante probably intends Procne as “she . . . who was changed.” See IX, 15, note, which will also explain her act of great wrath.
The second vision (lines 25-30) is of the crucifixion of Haman, the powerful minister of Ahasuerus, King of Persia. Enraged against Mordecai, Haman persuaded Ahasuerus to decree the death of all the Jews in Persia. A cross (as Dante envisions it, though more likely it was a stake or a gibbet) was especially prepared for Mordecai. Queen Esther, however, persuaded Ahasuerus of Haman’s iniquity and the decree was canceled. Not to waste a perfectly good cross, or perhaps because he was confused by the number of people who were making up his mind for him, Ahasuerus had Haman crucified in Mordecai’s place. The basic story is told in The Book of Esther.
The third vision (lines 34-39) is of Amata killing herself for wrath. The incident is from the Aeneid, XII, 595 ff. Lavinia, daughter of the Latian king, was betrothed to Turnus, a neighboring king. War broke out between Turnus and Aeneas, and Queen Amata, mother of Lavinia, hoped Turnus would kill the invader and marry Lavinia. When a false rumor of Turnus’ death reached Amata, she hanged herself for rage at the thought that she had lost Lavinia beyond all hope. Aeneas did later kill Turnus in a duel. Lavinia’s words in line 39—“and mourn your death before I mourn another”—are prophetic of the death of Turnus. Lavinia later married Aeneas.
The incident itself will not, however, explain Dante’s full intent in citing it unless one remembers Dante’s partisan identification with the Trojans. (See especially Inferno, II, 13-30, and XXVI, 56-63 and notes.) Aeneas was God’s chosen and was sent to Italy by Divine Will to found the Roman Empire as the seat of the True Church. It was God’s will, therefore, that Aeneas marry Lavinia, daughter of Italy, and thus bring together God’s two chosen races. Amata’s wrath, therefore, was not only against herself but against God’s decree.
47. a new voice: The Angel of Meekness.
49-51. Dante’s phrasing should be understood in two senses (and both at once). The first: “I was filled with that yearning that allows a man no rest till he have his wish.” The second: “I was filled with such yearning that I shall never rest until, this life ended, I rise to stand once more before that Angel.”
64-66. as one: Virgil leading and Dante a step behind, as they have been going. Thus when Dante switches from the “he and I” of line 64, to the “I” of line 65, he is not being careless but, rather, precise. He mounts the steps a pace behind Virgil. (Reason goes first.)
69. evil wrath: One might think wrath inherently evil, and the adjective, therefore, redundant. Dante distinguishes here between Wrath as an evil thing, and Righteous Indignation as a just thing. (See Inferno, VIII, 43, note.)
70-72. To read Dante is to educate the eye. The observation here is both subtle and exact. At high altitudes the setting Sun’s rays shoot up so steeply that the first stars begin to appear before the last light of the Sun is gone. I do not know whether the phenomenon is observable from any earthly mountain, but it is easily observable in an airplane at high altitude.
77. and we were stuck fast: The Poets cannot ascend after darkness, but they have already finished the ascent to the Fourth Cornice. They are, therefore, free to continue on the level of the ledge. It is not darkness that stops them, but the contagion of Sloth that takes away their wills, though briefly. (See also XVIII, 87-90, and note to 87. And compare the pause they make in Inferno, XI, where the stench of Lower Hell is so great the Poets must wait till their nostrils adjust to it.)
85-87. SLOTH: The central sin (there are three deadly sins below it and three above it) is Acedia (from L. accidia, from Gr. roots meaning “not caring”) or Sloth. Sloth, however, must not be understood as physical laziness or slovenliness but as torpor of the soul which, loving the good, does not pursue it actively enough. Dante’s condition in the Dark Wood of Error, from which he embarked on his long journey, is best conceived as a recognition of the slothful worldliness of his soul up to that time. The entire journey, in fact, is Dante’s active pursuit of the true good, his own purgation from Acedia.
Acedia, however, is not simply the failure to perform good works for others, though it readily involves that failure. It is, more specifically, the failure to pay enough attention to the good, to make enough demands upon oneself. Were one to give all of his energy and attention to the pursuit of God’s truth, good works would follow automatically. Acedia may consist in being too torpid to arrive at a vision of the good, or in achieving that vision but neglecting to pursue it.
90. from delay: Since Dante finds himself temporarily deprived of strength to continue, he seeks to win advantage from delay, thus showing a zeal of which the Slothful failed in their lives. (Here, also, compare Inferno, XI.)
93. animal love: Blind instinct. mind-directed love: Those desires shaped by the God-given light of reason.
95-96. Free will may err in three ways. First, by seeking bad goals (the self-love of Pride, which seeks to rise above others; of Envy, which resents the rise of others; and of Wrath, which seeks revenge at the cost of others). Second, by too little zeal for the known good (Sloth). And third, by too much love for the good things of this world (Avarice, Gluttony, and Lust).
97-98. the Eternal Good: God. secondary goods: The pleasures of the earth given to man for his delight. To deny these is to reject God’s bounty; to seek them immoderately is to abandon God for His gifts.
106-108. love cannot abate: The doctrine here is Aquinian. Nothing in creation seeks anything but what it takes to be the good of love. Even suicide is an act motivated by self-love, the suicide believing he does himself more good in escaping life than in enduring it.
124. those just below . . . purge. Those on the first three Cornices.
125. The other: The other kind of love.
132. after a proper penance: After a penitent turning to God, and after the delay in Purgatory for the period of time they made God wait. After due penance, due punishment.
Canto XVIII
THE FOURTH CORNICE
The Sloth ful
The Whip of Sloth
The Rein of Sloth
Virgil continues his DISCOURSE ON LOVE, explaining THE RELATION OF LOVE AND FREE WILL, but warns Dante that Reason is limited. Dante must seek the final answer from Beatrice, for the question involves one of the mysteries of faith.
It is near midnight when Virgil concludes, and Dante is starting to drowse, when he is suddenly brought awake by a long train of souls who come running and shouting from around the mountain. They are THE SLOTHFUL, the souls of those who recognized The Good but were not diligent in pursuit of it. As once they delayed, so now they are all hurry and zeal, and will not even pause to speak to the Poets.
Two souls run before the rest shouting aloud THE WHIP OF SLOTH, one citing Mary as an example of holy zeal, the other citing Caesar as an example of temporal zeal.
Virgil hails the racing souls to ask the nearer way to the ascent, but not even the news that Dante is still alive slows them. One soul, a former ABBOT OF SAN ZENO, shouts back an answer while still running.
Behind the train come two more souls shouting THE REIN OF SLOTH, citing as examples of the downfall of the laggard, the Israelites in the desert, and those followers of Aeneas who remained in Sicily.
The souls pass from sight and hearing. Dante, his head full of confused thoughts, sinks into sleep. Instantly, his thoughts are transformed into A DREAM.
His explanation at an end, My Guide,
that lofty scholar, scrutinized my face
as if to see if I seemed satisfied.
And I, my thirst already sprung anew,
said nothing, thinking “He may well be tired
of all this questioning I put him
through.”
But that true Father, sensing both my thirst
and that I was too timid to reveal it,
encouraged me to speak by speaking first.
I, therefore: “Master, in the light you shed
my sight grows so acute that I see clearly
all that your argument implied or said.
But, dear and gentle Father, please discourse
more fully on that love in which you say
all good and evil actions have their source.”
And he: “Focus the keen eyes of your mind
on what I say, and you will see made clear
the error of the blind who lead the blind.
The soul, being created prone to Love,
is drawn at once to all that pleases it,
as soon as pleasure summons it to move.
From that which really is, your apprehension
extracts a form which it unfolds within you;
that form thereby attracts the mind’s attention,
then if the mind, so drawn, is drawn to it,
that summoning force is Love; and thus within you,
through pleasure, a new natural bond is knit.
Then, just as fire yearns upward through the air,
being so formed that it aspires by nature
to be in its own element up there;
so love, which is a spiritual motion,
fills the trapped soul, and it can never rest
short of the thing that fills it with devotion.
By now you will, of course, have understood
how little of the truth they see who claim
that every love is, in itself, a good;
for though love’s substance always will appear
to be a good, not every impress made,
even in finest wax, is good and clear.”
“Your words and my own eager mind reveal
exactly what Love is,” I said, “but now
there is an even greater doubt I feel:
if love springs from outside the soul’s own will,
it being made to love, what merit is there
in loving good, or blame in loving ill?”
And he to me: “As far as reason sees,
I can reply. The rest you must ask Beatrice.
The answer lies within faith’s mysteries.
Every substantial form distinct from matter
and yet united with it in some way,
has a specific power in it. This latter
is not perceivable save as it gives
evidence of its workings and effects—
as the green foliage tells us a plant lives.
Therefore, no man can know whence springs the light
of his first cognizance, nor of the bent
of such innate primordial appetite
as springs within you, as within the bee
the instinct to make honey; and such instincts
are, in themselves, not blamable nor worthy.
Now, that all later wills and this first bent
may thrive, the innate counsel of your Reason
must surely guard the threshold of consent.
This is the principle from which accrue
your just desserts, according as it reaps
and winnows good or evil love in you.
Those masters who best reasoned nature’s plan
discerned this innate liberty, and therefore
they left their moral science to guide Man.
Or put it this way: all love, let us say,
that burns in you, springs from necessity;
but you still have the power to check its sway.
These noble powers Beatrice will comprehend
as ‘The Free Will.’ Keep that term well in mind
if she should speak of it when you ascend.”
It was near midnight. The late-risen moon,
like a brass bucket polished bright as fire,
thinned out the lesser stars, which seemed to drown.
It traveled retrograde across that sign
the sun burns when the Romans look between
the Sards and Corsicans to its decline.
And he who made Piètola shine above
all other Mantuan towns, had discharged fully
the burden I had laid on him for love;
because of which I, being pleased to find
such clear and open answers to my questions,
was rambling drowsily within my mind.
I wakened in an instant to a pack
of people running toward us, a great mob
that broke around the mountain at my back:
as once, of old, wild hordes ran through the night
along Ismenus’ and Asopus’ banks
when Thebes invoked no more than Bacchus’ might;
in such a frenzy, far as I could see,
those who were spurred by good will and high love
ran bent like scythes along that Cornice toward me.
They were upon us soon, for all that rout
was running furiously, and out in front
two spirits streaming tears were calling out:
“Mary ran to the hills”—so one refrain;
and the other: “Caesar, to subdue Ilerda
struck at Marseilles, and then swooped down on Spain.”
“Faster! Faster! To be slow in love
is to lose time,” cried those who came behind;
“Strive on that grace may bloom again above.”
“O souls in whom the great zeal you now show
no doubt redeems the negligence and delay
that marred your will to do good, there below;
this man lives—truly—and the instant day
appears again, he means to climb. Please show him
how he may reach the pass the nearer way.”
So spoke my Master, and one running soul
without so much as breaking step replied:
“Come after us, and you will find the hole.
The will to move on with all speed so fills us
we cannot stop; we humbly beg your pardon
if duty makes us seem discourteous.
I was abbot of San Zeno in the reign
of the good emperor Frederick Barbarossa,
of whom the Milanese still speak with pain.
And another with one foot now in the grave
will shed tears for that monastery soon,
and rue the evil orders he once gave.
For he has set his son up as the head—
a man deformed in body, worse in mind,
and bastard born—in its true Pastor’s stead.”
He had by then left us so far behind
that if he said more, it was lost to me:
but I was pleased to keep this much in mind.
My aid on all occasion, the prompt Master,
said: “Look, for here come two who cry aloud
the Scourge of Sloth, that souls may flee it faster.”
At the tail end one runner cried: “They died
before the Jordan saw its heirs, those people
for whom the Red Sea’s waters stood aside.”
The other: “Those who found it too laborious
to go the whole way with Anchises’ son
cut from their own lives all that was most glorious.”
Then when those shades had drawn so far ahead
that I could not make out a trace of them,
a new thought seized upon me, and it bred
so many more, so various, and so scrambled,
that turning round and round inside itself
so many ways at once, my reason rambled;
I closed my eyes and all that tangled theme
was instantly transformed into a dream.
NOTES
18. the blind who lead the blind: Virgil means here the teachers of Epicurean philosophy and their students, both spiritually blind in Dante’s view in that the
y teach that all desire (i.e., all love, as Virgil calls it) is a good thing and should be gratified.
19 ff. VIRGIL’S DISCOURSE ON LOVE: The doctrine Dante puts into Virgil’s mouth is typically medieval both in content and in the manner of its statement. The soul, Virgil posits, is made with a potential for love, i.e., it is naturally drawn to that which pleases it. Such love passes to action in three stages.