Inferno, Canto 2 with Dr. Anthony Nussmeier

What an extraordinary beginning to Dante's  epic. Imagine just for a moment that you  

are a medieval reader in an age without the  visual and intellectual distractions of mass  

and social media: it must have been  incredible you have in front of you  

Dante's divine comedy. You've just read the  first Canto often referred to as the prologue,  

in which Dante is conjoined the particular his own  journey that of Dante character and the universal  

the implication that his journey our journey is  that of the everyman. He has encountered the three  

allegorical beasts he has met Virgil, who will  be his guide through inferno and purgatory  

at the end of the first canto Dante pleads with  his duka his leader to take him to the realms hell  

purgatory in paradise that he has just described  we also get a foretaste of Dante's own confidence  

in that first subtle slight of Virgil Dante makes  his plea to and i quote the god virgil did not  

know for all his knowledge the pagan virgil cannot  know as Dante knows that god's grace has perfected  

nature ah virgil Dante is saying and not for the  last time you're a pagan you don't know this stuff  

Dante's beloved Beatrice on the other hand suffers  not from the spiritual maladies of sin and hell  

that dog virgil and the other albeit virtuous  pagans i am made such says she to virgil  

by god's grace that your affliction does  not touch nor can these fires assail me  

Dante character recalls his dreamlike journey  with artifice yes but i think we can agree with  

the critic Charles singleton who wrote that the  fiction of the comedy is that it is not fiction  

all the more so for the medieval reader as  it may be for us if the first canto sets  

the scene for the entire poem in the second  console we have a sort of second prologue  

for it is only in the third canto of the inferno  that Dante and his guide will come finally to  

the anti-inferno and the very first sinners  the neutrals who were not rebellious and not  

faithful to god who held themselves apart inferno  2 begins with more interweaving more conjoining  

Dante assimilates the two traditions to which  he will make recourse most often in his poem  

virgil's latin epic the Aeneid and of course the  christian bible among other things Dante is a  

great synthesizer like all great artists he fuses  multiple traditions in creating something novel  

think Steve jobs and apple jobs didn't  invent the personal computer nor much of  

the associated technology he just did it better  than anyone else Dante doesn't invent the epic  

not even in the vernacular he just  does it better than the others  

to the particular and the universal from the  opening canto here in inferno 2 Dante joins  

the secular and the sacred he evokes two  standard bearers of other worldly journeys  

one from each of the two traditions Aeneas  descent into the netherworld in virgil's poem  

and the ascent of saint Paul into heaven recounted  of course in his second letter to the corinthians  

we mustn't forget that Dante alternates  masterfully between the high and the low  

like heaven and hell between an ascending elegant  rhetoric and a descending popular speech more fit  

for the tavern his speech mirrors the depths of  hell and the unsurpassing sublimity of heaven  

in paradise 17 for example his ancestor kacha  guido will prophesy to him that his palm will  

have to and i quote la shapur gratar dove la rona  we'll have to scratch where it itches and so here  

in one of the most pregnant verses of the comedy  one given even greater weight by the unusual and  

solemn word order in the italian Dante expresses  hesitation he claims to be neither Aeneas nor Paul

is he up to the task is Dante worthy  will he be able to lay eyes on both  

saint peter's gate and on those so sorrowful  to descend to hell and to ascend to paradise  

despite his protestations to the contrary  Dante does desire to be the new Aeneas and  

a latter-day Paul after all the comedy does not  end after 168 verses suffice it to say Dante is  

self-assured in canto five of the inferno he  classes himself rather immodestly i might add  

as the sixth worthy poet in the company of  virgil homer Horace Ovid and Lucan our poet  

here references classical and the scriptural and  he abused Dante character with the glory of the  

secular and the holiness of the sacred  it is not that he is neither Aeneas nor  

Paul: in one person the coming together of the  secular and the sacred and one person makes  

immanent in Dante character a political component  the secular Rome founded by nes begat and i quote  

holy Rome and her dominion the journey of virgil's  protagonist prepared the papal mantle verse 27.  

Dante thus draws a straight line from the founding  of Rome to the founding of the church in Rome  

he christianizes the epic genre and he  christianizes the legendary founding of Rome  

this line will be sharpened subsequently  especially in the sixth canto of paradise  

the final canticle Dante's claim to be perhaps  inferior to the task at hand leads to the second  

theme of inferno 2 Dante's lack of courage virgil  approaches Dante for his apparent peaceful enmity  

if says virgos de Dante i've rightly understood  your words your spirit is assailed by cowardice  

the latin poet attempts to align Dante's fears  he recounts how he was called by Beatrice  

she in turn believes that it was saint Lucy  through the intercession of virgin Mary  

who requested that she be help the one Dante who  loved you so that for your sake he left the vulgar  

heard the reference to the vulgar heard alludes  to Dante's abandonment of the more profane amorous  

poetry of his youth for the higher poetic ideal  of the dona angelo the female figure is angel  

Dante in other words ain't like the other  fellas or maybe is the bad boy of lyric  

poetry has reformed himself for the girl Dante's  comedy will have its comedic moments though that  

is not what comedy means in this instance and in  any case inferno 2 is decidedly not one of them  

after virgil explains why he has come to Dante he  reproaches him again he pokes him this time with a  

series of piercing questions that would have not  have been out of place in a modern day rom-com  

think about the male protagonist who is encouraged  to throw caution to the wind and told you just go  

get the girl what are you waiting for ask virgil  why why do you delay why do you let such cowardice  

rule your heart why are you not more spirited  and sure when these three such blessed ladies  

care for you in heaven's court appropriately  chagrined Dante character demonstrates a changed  

attitude with one of the most beautiful similes  in the entire poem yes beauty and truth exist  

even in the inferno and it is fitting that  he should do so via simile for the first  

he first expressed his doubts to virgil with yet  another and as one who unwills what he has willed  

changing his intent on second thought so that he  quite gives over what he has begun such a man was  

i on that dark slope from his initial doubts  and cowardice Dante is reinvigorated buoyed by  

virgil's account of Beatrice comforting words the  second thoughts are countered by the radiant sun  

that is speech as little flowers bent and closed  with chill a night when the sun lights them stand  

all open on their stems such in my failing  strength did i become Dante newly resolute  

concludes the second canto with an allusion to  the very first verses of the comedy in tribe

i entered he writes in the final verse of inferno  two on the deep and savage way he uses the italian  

adjective sylvestro from the noun salva would with  which he had begun his epic now mezzo del caminos

mid way in the journey of our life  i came to myself in a dark wood  

and we too enter with him as we  prepare to cross to the gates of hell  

and of eternal pain and as we prepare to  experience the infernal typography a terrain

mute of all light Dante's fictional epic  stands as one of the great teachers of our  

non-fictional world the fiction of  the comedy is that it isn't fiction

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