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7. Inferno.
I am the way into the doleful city,
I am the way into eternal grief,
I am the way to a forsaken race.
Justice it was that moved my great creator;
Divine omnipotence created me,
And highest wisdom joined with primal love.
Before me nothing but eternal things
Were made, and I shall last eternally.
Abandon every hope, all you who enter.
I saw these words spelled out in somber colors
Inscribed along the ledge above a gate;
‘Master,’ I said, ‘these words I see are cruel.’
Dante’s Inferno, the first section of the Divine Comedy, is a medieval
poem in which our author is given a guided tour of Hell. He encounters famous
historical figures as well as people he knew personally, while his tour guide
(the Roman poet Vergil) explains the logic of the Hell’s organization and the
divine justice of its terrible punishments. Suzanne and Chris retrace these
steps and talk about their favourite passages in all their upsetting cruelty
and beauty.
Show Notes.
The Inferno as translated by Mark Musa
[Bookshop], Charles
Singleton, or Ciaran
Carson. Also available free online in Allen
Mandelbaum’s translation (with useful notes by Teodolinda
Barolini) at Digital Dante.
The Holkham
manuscript, one of only four fully illustrated copies of
Dante’s Divine Comedy from the fourteenth century, is available online through
the Bodleian library. It’s worth exploring its
illustrations.
Gustave Doré’s famous nineteenth-century
illustrations are also
fabulous.
Jean-Baptiste Carpeaux’s statue of Ugolino and His
Sons.
More artworks inspired by the
Inferno.
Caroline Bergvall reading
“Via”, hosted at her
PennSound page. The poem
is in her collection Fig.
Next time: John Milton’s Paradise Lost, also
available at Project Gutenberg.
View all episodes
By Suzanne Conklin Akbari and Chris Piuma
4.8
3030 ratings
I am the way into the doleful city,
I am the way into eternal grief,
I am the way to a forsaken race.
Justice it was that moved my great creator;
Divine omnipotence created me,
And highest wisdom joined with primal love.
Before me nothing but eternal things
Were made, and I shall last eternally.
Abandon every hope, all you who enter.
I saw these words spelled out in somber colors
Inscribed along the ledge above a gate;
‘Master,’ I said, ‘these words I see are cruel.’
Dante’s Inferno, the first section of the Divine Comedy, is a medieval
poem in which our author is given a guided tour of Hell. He encounters famous
historical figures as well as people he knew personally, while his tour guide
(the Roman poet Vergil) explains the logic of the Hell’s organization and the
divine justice of its terrible punishments. Suzanne and Chris retrace these
steps and talk about their favourite passages in all their upsetting cruelty
and beauty.
Show Notes.
The Inferno as translated by Mark Musa
[Bookshop], Charles
Singleton, or Ciaran
Carson. Also available free online in Allen
Mandelbaum’s translation (with useful notes by Teodolinda
Barolini) at Digital Dante.
The Holkham
manuscript, one of only four fully illustrated copies of
Dante’s Divine Comedy from the fourteenth century, is available online through
the Bodleian library. It’s worth exploring its
illustrations.
Gustave Doré’s famous nineteenth-century
illustrations are also
fabulous.
Jean-Baptiste Carpeaux’s statue of Ugolino and His
Sons.
More artworks inspired by the
Inferno.
Caroline Bergvall reading
“Via”, hosted at her
PennSound page. The poem
is in her collection Fig.
Next time: John Milton’s Paradise Lost, also
available at Project Gutenberg.
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