Who He Is
Virgil is the shade of the poet of Mantua, author of the Aeneid, and he appears to Dante at the foot of the mountain, in Canto I of the Inferno, with the weak voice of one who has been silent for a long time. He introduces himself by what he no longer is (he says he was once a man), by his native land, by the time in which he lived (under Julius, in Rome under Augustus, in the age of false gods), and by the poem he sang, that of the just son of Anchises who came from Troy. Dante recognizes him by name and calls him master and author. He offers himself as a guide, and only as far as the law of the Emperor on high allows, because he rebelled against that law: he dwells in Limbo and cannot enter the city of God. He leads Dante through the whole Inferno, from top to bottom and across Lucifer's own body, and sets him back before the stars in Canto XXXIV of the Inferno. What defines him from beginning to end is the office of guiding and the exact measure of what that office can reach: he knows the way, protects, teaches, and corrects, and the book shows, canto by canto, where his authority ends.
Trajectory
In Canto I of the Inferno, when Dante recoils from the she-wolf, it is to Virgil that he asks for help, recalling his study and his love of your book, and it is Virgil who tells what the beast is:
e ha natura sì malvagia e ria, / che mai non empie la bramosa voglia, / e dopo ’l pasto ha più fame che pria, and it has a nature so evil and cruel that it never satisfies its craving, and after eating it is hungrier than before.
Dante recognizes him as the only one from whom he took the beautiful style:
Tu se’ lo mio maestro e ’l mio autore, / tu se’ solo colui da cu’ io tolsi / lo bello stilo che m’ha fatto onore, you are my master and my author, you alone are the one from whom I took the beautiful style that has done me honor.
The offer to guide him comes with a limit that he states without complaint:
ché quello imperador che là sù regna, / perch’ i’ fu’ ribellante a la sua legge, / non vuol che ’n sua città per me si vegna, for that emperor who reigns up there, because I was rebellious to his law, does not want anyone to come into his city through me.
In Canto II of the Inferno, at nightfall, it is Virgil who calms Dante's hesitation. He does not console him: he gives the doubt another name, cowardice, and brings proof that there is no reason for it, Beatrice's visit to Limbo and the chain of three ladies of heaven that runs from her to Dante.
l’anima tua è da viltade offesa; / la qual molte fïate l’omo ingombra / sì che d’onrata impresa lo rivolve, / come falso veder bestia quand’ ombra, your soul is wounded by cowardice, which often weighs a man down so that it turns him away from an honorable undertaking, as a beast, seeing falsely, shies from a shadow.
Beatrice's message, which he repeats to Dante from memory, is that of one who descends out of love and knows what must be feared:
I’ son Beatrice che ti faccio andare; / vegno del loco ove tornar disio; / amor mi mosse, che mi fa parlare, I am Beatrice, who makes you go; I come from the place to which I long to return; love moved me, and makes me speak.
In Canto III of the Inferno, before the inscription on the gate, Virgil does not comment on the verse of hope: he responds with a gesture, a hand that takes Dante's and a joyful face, and with the formula that all suspicion must be left behind there. To the Ignavi he refuses even the name:
Fama di loro il mondo esser non lassa; / misericordia e giustizia li sdegna: / non ragioniam di lor, ma guarda e passa, the world does not allow them to have fame; mercy and justice disdain them: let us not speak of them, but look and pass.
To Charon, who refuses to carry a living man, he answers with the reason of a will that no one disputes:
Caron, non ti crucciare: / vuolsi così colà dove si puote / ciò che si vuole, e più non dimandare, Charon, do not be angry: it is so willed there where what is willed can be done, and ask no more.
In Canto IV of the Inferno, Virgil's pale face frightens Dante, and he corrects the reading: it is the punishment of those who are there, himself among them, and not fear. Further on he describes the punishment of Limbo, speaking of himself in the plural:
Per tai difetti, non per altro rio, / semo perduti, e sol di tanto offesi / che sanza speme vivemo in disio, for such defects, and not for any other wrong, we are lost, and offended only in this: that without hope we live in desire.
The four poets who receive him make Dante the sixth in their line, and Virgil smiles to see his disciple accepted. In Canto V of the Inferno, before Minos, he repeats word for word the formula said to Charon, names the shades that the wind drags, and tells Dante to call the two lovers in the name of the love that carries them; it is to him that Francesca alludes, without naming him, when she speaks of the pain of remembering the happy time. In Canto VI of the Inferno, throwing earth into Cerberus's throats, he turns the beast's appetite against it:
E ’l duca mio distese le sue spanne, / prese la terra, e con piene le pugna / la gittò dentro a le bramose canne, and my guide spread his palms, took up the earth, and with his fists full threw it into the greedy throats.
And, to a question of Dante's about punishment after the Judgment, he refers the disciple to the doctrine he has already studied:
Ed elli a me: «Ritorna a tua scïenza, / che vuol, quanto la cosa è più perfetta, / più senta il bene, e così la doglienza, and he said to me: return to your science, which holds that the more perfect a thing is, the more it feels the good, and so also the pain.
In Canto VII of the Inferno he silences Pluto with a command and explains what Fortune is, the minister set by God, reviled by those who should praise her:
Vostro saver non ha contasto a lei: / questa provede, giudica, e persegue / suo regno come il loro li altri dèi, your wisdom has no contest with her; she provides, judges, and pursues her kingdom as the others do theirs, the gods.
In Canto VIII of the Inferno, on seeing Dante repel Filippo Argenti, he kisses his face and praises him for his disdain; then, before the gates of Dis, for the first time the poem denies him what he asks. He returns with his eyes lowered and without his former boldness, and yet he reassures the disciple:
Li occhi a la terra e le ciglia avea rase / d’ogne baldanza, e dicea ne’ sospiri: / «Chi m’ha negate le dolenti case!». / E a me disse: «Tu, perch’ io m’adiri, / non sbigottir, ch’io vincerò la prova, / qual ch’a la difension dentro s’aggiri, he had his eyes on the ground and his brows shorn of all boldness, and he said in his sighs: "Who has denied me the sorrowful houses!" And to me he said: "You, do not be dismayed because I am angry; I will win the trial, whoever may stir within to defend it."
In Canto IX of the Inferno he hides his pallor so as not to frighten Dante, breaks off his own sentence, and confesses that he has been there once before, summoned by a witch who dragged shades back into their bodies; when the Furies call for Medusa, he does not trust the disciple to carry out the order alone, and covers his eyes with his own hands:
«Volgiti ’n dietro e tien lo viso chiuso; / ché se ’l Gorgón si mostra e tu ’l vedessi, / nulla sarebbe di tornar mai suso». / Così disse ’l maestro; ed elli stessi / mi volse, e non si tenne a le mie mani, / che con le sue ancor non mi chiudessi, turn yourself around and keep your face closed; for if the Gorgon shows herself and you were to see her, there would be no returning ever up. So said the master; and he himself turned me, and did not trust my hands, but closed mine as well with his own.
The angel who opens the gate passes without addressing a word to him. In Canto X of the Inferno he tells Dante to measure his words before Farinata, and at the end, seeing him disturbed by the prophecy, he neither argues about what he heard nor consoles: he tells him to keep it in mind, and promises that she whose beautiful eye sees all, which tradition reads as Beatrice, will tell Dante the journey of his life. In Canto XI of the Inferno he uses the time of waiting to lay out the whole of Hell, and the reason he gives for the map is a thesis:
D’ogne malizia, ch’odio in cielo acquista, / ingiuria è ’l fine, ed ogne fin cotale / o con forza o con frode altrui contrista. / Ma perché frode è de l’uom proprio male, / più spiace a Dio; e però stan di sotto / li frodolenti, e più dolor li assale., of every malice that gains hatred in heaven, injustice is the end, and every such end afflicts another either by force or by fraud. But because fraud is man's own evil, it displeases God more; and therefore the fraudulent stay below, and more pain assails them.
When Dante asks why the incontinent stay outside the walls, he sends him back to the Ethics he has studied:
Non ti rimembra di quelle parole / con le quai la tua Etica pertratta / le tre disposizion che ’l ciel non vole, / incontenenza, malizia e la matta / bestialitade? e come incontenenza / men Dio offende e men biasimo accatta?, do you not remember those words with which your Ethics treats the three dispositions that heaven does not want: incontinence, malice, and mad bestiality? And how incontinence offends God less and draws less blame?
In Canto XII of the Inferno he holds back the Minotaur by recalling Theseus, and he persuades the centaurs by saying that Dante comes out of necessity and on the errand of one who went away from singing alleluia:
Tal si partì da cantare alleluia / che mi commise quest’ officio novo: / non è ladron, né io anima fuia., he who went away from singing alleluia entrusted me with this new office: this one is no thief, nor am I a soul-stealer.
In Canto XIII of the Inferno he apologizes for the disciple before the bleeding trunk: had he been able to believe beforehand what he sees, only from the verse of the Aeneid, he would not have stretched out his hand. In Canto XIV of the Inferno, before Capaneus, he speaks with a force that Dante had never heard:
«O Capaneo, in ciò che non s’ammorza / la tua superbia, se’ tu più punito; / nullo martiro, fuor che la tua rabbia, / sarebbe al tuo furor dolor compito»., O Capaneus, in that your pride is not quenched you are punished the more; no torment, except your own rage, would be a complete pain to your fury.
In Canto XV of the Inferno, hearing Dante answer Brunetto's prophecy, he looks back and approves from the side, with a proverb; and in Canto XVI of the Inferno he orders the three Florentines to be treated with courtesy, and throws Dante's cord into the abyss without explaining. In Canto XVII of the Inferno he calls Geryon, sends Dante to see the usurers alone, and, already mounted on the beast's back, puts Dante in front and embraces him in the air. In Canto XVIII of the Inferno he shows Jason by his bearing before the crime, and ends the visit to the ditch when the sight has been sated. In Canto XIX of the Inferno, pleased with Dante's harsh words against the simoniacs, he takes him in his arms and carries him back along the path. In Canto XX of the Inferno, by contrast, he rebukes Dante's weeping before the soothsayers:
Qui vive la pietà quand’ è ben morta; / chi è più scellerato che colui / che al giudicio divin passion comporta?, here piety lives when it is well dead; who is more wicked than the one who pities the judgment of God?
In the same canto he tells the origin of Mantua, his city, and asks that Dante reject any other version:
Però t’assenno che, se tu mai odi / originar la mia terra altrimenti, / la verità nulla menzogna frodi, therefore I warn you that if you ever hear the origin of my land told otherwise, let no lie defraud the truth.
In Canto XXI of the Inferno, before the Malebranche, he neither fights nor argues: he invokes what authorizes him.
sanza voler divino e fato destro? / Lascian’ andar, ché nel cielo è voluto / ch’i’ mostri altrui questo cammin silvestro, without divine will and a favorable fate? Let us go, for it is willed in heaven that I show another this wild path.
In Canto XXIII of the Inferno he reads Dante's thought, which fears the demons, and carries him on his chest, like the mother who wakes to the noise and sees the flames lit beside her, who takes up her child and flees without stopping, forgetting her own shift:
Lo duca mio di sùbito mi prese, / come la madre ch’al romore è desta / e vede presso a sé le fiamme accese, / che prende il figlio e fugge e non s’arresta, / avendo più di lui che di sé cura, / tanto che solo una camiscia vesta, my guide took hold of me at once, like the mother awakened by the noise who sees the flames lit near her, who takes up her son and flees without stopping, having more care for him than for herself, so that she wears only one shift.
Minutes later he learns, from a friar who quotes the Gospel, that Malacoda lied about the broken bridge, and goes on with a clouded brow:
Lo duca stette un poco a testa china; / poi disse: «Mal contava la bisogna / colui che i peccator di qua uncina». / E ’l frate: «Io udi’ già dire a Bologna / del diavol vizi assai, tra ’ quali udi’ / ch’elli è bugiardo, e padre di menzogna», my guide stood a while with his head bowed; then he said: "Badly did he tell the matter, he who hooks the sinners here." And the friar: "I once heard said in Bologna many vices of the devil, among which I heard that he is a liar and the father of lies."
In Canto XXIV of the Inferno he lifts Dante from his weariness with the argument about fame; in Canto XXVI of the Inferno he takes the word before Ulysses, because two Greeks might disdain a Tuscan; and in Canto XXVII of the Inferno, by contrast, he nudges Dante to speak to Guido da Montefeltro himself, because that one is Italian and the question is about the present. In Canto XXVIII of the Inferno he answers Mahomet on Dante's behalf, saying that neither death has reached him nor guilt brings him. In Canto XXIX of the Inferno he rebukes him for lingering among the wounds, and in Canto XXX of the Inferno he is almost angered by the attention Dante gives the quarrel of Adam and Sinon, and soon forgives him:
Maggior difetto men vergogna lava», / disse ’l maestro, «che ’l tuo non è stato; / però d’ogne trestizia ti disgrava, a greater fault is washed away with less shame, said the master, than yours was; therefore free yourself from all sadness.
The rule he leaves for the next times is stated without circumlocution:
E fa ragion ch’io ti sia sempre allato, / se più avvien che fortuna t’accoglia / dove sien genti in simigliante piato: / ché voler ciò udire è bassa voglia, and reckon that I am always at your side, should it happen again that fortune gathers you where there are people in a similar quarrel; for to wish to hear that is a base desire.
In Canto XXXI of the Inferno Virgil's tongue appears as Achilles' spear, which first wounds and then heals: the same speech that paints Dante's face with shame gives him back the remedy. Before Antaeus, he asks for help through the fame that Dante can give the giant:
Ancor ti può nel mondo render fama, / ch’el vive, e lunga vita ancor aspetta / se ’nnanzi tempo grazia a sé nol chiama, he can still give you fame in the world, for he lives and still expects a long life, if grace does not call him to itself before his time.
In Canto XXXII of the Inferno he waits in silence while Dante tears out Bocca's hair. In Canto XXXIV of the Inferno he opens the canto by adding a word to a verse of the hymn of the Cross, points to Dis, and says that there one must arm oneself with fortitude. He descends by Lucifer's fur with Dante on his back, and pants at the point where the world turns:
Attienti ben, ché per cotali scale», / disse ’l maestro, ansando com’ uom lasso, / «conviensi dipartir da tanto male, hold on tight, for by such stairs, said the master, panting like a weary man, one must depart from so much evil.
And, on the other side of the center of the earth, he explains to the bewildered disciple which hemisphere they are in and why the sun has already passed from evening to morning. His last image in the canticle is the climb:
salimmo sù, el primo e io secondo, / tanto ch’i’ vidi de le cose belle / che porta ’l ciel, per un pertugio tondo, we climbed up, he first and I second, until I saw some of the beautiful things that heaven carries, through a round opening.
Themes Embodied
Virgil is the measure of what human knowledge reaches in Hell, and the poem shows it in deeds, not in theses. He knows the way and says that he knows it (Canto IX of the Inferno), he orders the abyss with the Ethics of Aristotle (Canto XI of the Inferno), he overcomes ancient guardians with the formula of a will that no one disputes, and yet at the same time he is barred at the gates of Dis (Canto VIII of the Inferno), deceived by a demon (Canto XXIII of the Inferno), and silent about the place of the heretics on his own map. The reason he represents, in the common reading, protects even up to the gate and explains what comes after, but what comes after does not come from it. That is why his entry weighs on Knowledge and Wisdom: he knows a great deal, says what he knows with precision, and leaves it said where knowledge ends.
Limbo makes Virgil a case of the theme Desire before he is a guide: what he says of his own there is that they live in desire without hope. The guide whom Dante follows is, therefore, someone whom the journey touches from within, and this explains the pallor of Canto IV of the Inferno, the haste to take Dante out of Hell, and the sweetness with which he embraces him in moments of danger. Justice and Law also passes through him: he is rebellious to God's law for having been born before, and it is out of obedience to that law that he hands the disciple over to another soul at the point where his authority ends.
Divergent Readings
The poem gives Virgil two roles that do not coincide. In the reading that sees him as reason, he is the light that leads a man to the door of grace, and the scenes of protection (the hands over the eyes, the mother fleeing the fire) show the limit of that light. In the reading that sees him as poet, he is the author whom Dante honors and surpasses, and the scenes that matter are those of his authorship: the city of Mantua told in a way other than in the Aeneid (Canto XX of the Inferno), the Aeneid invoked as an excuse before the bleeding trunk (Canto XIII of the Inferno), and the name of Comedy set against that of high tragedy. Erich Auerbach reads this last contrast as proof that Dante never freed himself from the ancient doctrine of styles:
On Ulysses, whom Virgil receives in the eighth ditch: Dante did not know Homer, and the negative image of the hero reaches him through Virgil and Ovid.
The two readings cross in Canto XXVI of the Inferno: Virgil speaks to Ulysses not as reason but as the poet who sang the fall of Troy, and asks for attention to the lofty verses he wrote, and it is in this canto that the disciple keeps watch on himself so that his wit does not run without virtue. The text sustains both.
Relationships
- Dante: the disciple, who asks him for help in Canto I of the Inferno, is startled by his pallor in Canto IV of the Inferno, and whom he carries in Canto XXIII of the Inferno and in Canto XXXIV of the Inferno.
- Beatrice: the lady who descends to Limbo and sends him to Dante, in the account of Canto II of the Inferno, and to whom he refers Farinata's prophecy in Canto X of the Inferno.
- Charon: the boatman before whom he uses for the first time the formula of the will that no one disputes (Canto III of the Inferno).
- Minos: the judge to whom he repeats that formula in Canto V of the Inferno.
- Francesca da Rimini: the shade who alludes to him as the teacher who also knows what it is to remember the happy time in misery.
- Farinata degli Uberti: the Ghibelline chief before whom Virgil pushes Dante to the tomb and tells him to measure his tongue, in Canto X of the Inferno.
- Pier delle Vigne: the trunk of the wood to whom he asks that it say who it was, so that its fame may be refreshed, in Canto XIII of the Inferno.
- Ulysses: the Greek hero whom he addresses in place of Dante, in Canto XXVI of the Inferno.
- Guido da Montefeltro: the counselor who hears him speak in Lombard and for that reason asks him to stay, in Canto XXVII of the Inferno.
- Lucifer: the body by which he descends with Dante on his back, in Canto XXXIV of the Inferno.