The entire canto is so beautiful and it speaks so close to our nature. The lines in 'unwilling...' happened and happens to me often! Thank you for all the lovely quotes, don't want to be annoying but would you mind sharing some of them in this chat? :)
Seneca said “We suffer more from imagination than from reality.”
I’ve wonder what inspired or haunted Dante’s extraordinary imagination, and the sources of his vivid imagery. I don’t believe it’s just Christian or secular iconography. I think Dante’s fears had a founding well before he created the Commedia.
I was struck, as a veteran, by two word choices in lines 3-6: “battle” and “memory.” Why did he characterize what was coming as “battle,” rather than, say, a struggle, passage, or pilgrimage? That peculiar word choice, and his reference to “memory” are (I infer) after-effects of his military experience — memories that are also reflected elsewhere in the Commedia.
While the historical record is thin, most researchers believe he experienced combat as a cavalryman at the bloody Battle of Campaldino in 1289, and perhaps at the siege of the fortress of Caprona in August of that year. Did the emotional toll of his experience (alongside his expulsion and exile) color his imagination? The book “Campaldino 1289: The Battle That Made Dante,” by Kelly Devries and Niccolo Cappani makes a strong case for the impact of his military experience on his imagination and the Divine Comedy.
There’s a saying “It is easy to laugh at the shadows when the night has passed.” (Virgil: “As phantoms frighten beasts when shadows fall.”) I don’t think Dante’s “night” had passed when he wrote the Commedia. Many of the shadows that haunted him, and that he portrayed so viscerally, seem to have had their earthly origin on the field of battle. It was just ten years before Good Friday, 1300 that he had seen a very compact battlefield littered with ~2,000 dead. In a letter (for which we have but a fragment) he said: “…ten years had already elapsed since the Battle of Campaldino, in which the Ghibelline party was almost utterly defeated and effaced, where I found myself no youngster in the practice of arms, and where at the beginning I felt great fear, and in the end even greater joy through the varying fortunes of that fight.”
Now, in the Dark Wood, he steels himself for battle yet again. He questions whether he’s prepared. “…With all my thinking” sounds suspiciously like flashbacks. He doubts he’s worthy. He is not a warrior in the heroic sense of Achilles, or Aeneas, and fears he may be on the verge of the warrior Ulysses’ recklessness: “I fear my venture may be mad.” He comes across as a reluctant veteran pondering the seeming foolishness of this undertaking. In Henry V, Shakespeare has the Duke of Orleans (in real life an accomplished poet) say “That’s a brave flea that dares to eat his breakfast on the lip of a lion.” I get the sense that here, particularly after his encounters in Canto 1, Dante feels like that flea.
What, then, convinced him to take that first step on the “Steep and savage path?” Virgil’s eloquent words? Reuniting with Beatrice? Or was it Virgil’s searing taunt — accusing him of having “a soul assailed by cowardice”? I can think of no greater insult in the chivalric code of Dante’s day. Virgil’s chiding echoes the poet Robert Frost: “The best way out is always through.“
Thank you Corey for your highly informative and insightful comment, it really helped me to form my own figure of Dante as a real life character. I believe being in the bloody battlefield followed by his futile political attempts and huge disillusionment with it all led to a sort of depression(though not named so back then); maybe his will to overcome this big black beast took him through a path of faith. Anyway I like reading it as a personal growth guide. And thank you also for the wonderful references and quotes :)
“Virgil acknowledges his doubts, but gently corrects him and points out that cowardice is “distracting him from honourable trials””.
Interesting - I didn’t get a ‘gentle’ vibe when I read that, but a pretty bald rebuke.
Dante: Are you sure about this?
Virgil: So you’re a coward…. 🤨
I’m sure a lot of that is just in how I read the translation I have (Longfellow). But I must admit that has always been one of my favorite exchanges in the Inferno (I even have a note beside it in my book) - it makes me laugh out loud. This is no doubt because I *am* a coward - I suspect most of us are in some way - and it’s good to have it just held up in front of my face every now and again…
Can’t wait to read the rest of the post — thx as always!
Part 2 of the post confused me. "Aeneas journeyed to the underworld and so did Saint Paul, but their journeys were divinely authorised; what makes Dante think that he can do the same?"
It makes sense if Dante read the Apocalypse of Paul and used Paul's purported trip to the afterlife, including heaven "to bring us back assurance of that faith with which the way to our salvation starts."
Paul does mention (in 2 Corinthians 12:2) someone he knew who was caught up into Paradise, but he remains uncertain whether it was just a vision or not.
In the end, Dante has been chosen with his task and on great authority, Mary, full of grace. In his humbled station, Dante can overcome his fears and trust as the lilies of the field, (those little flowers) that the way is prepared for him and all shall be well because Love awaits him.
Thank you for such a wonderfully detailed description of Canto ll. The added art is really nice. Being able to visually see these cantos in the art world enhances my reading experience. I chuckled when I saw the "you are here" on the map. This is going to be so helpful in the coming months. Your question that you asked midway "How much then, do we go through life fearing things that have no power over us?" really gave me pause today and was able to relate it back to an event at work. This canto makes me think that one must become our own hero. And for what it's worth, as an outsider looking in on you taking on this massive project...I think you have crushed any cowardice you were feeling. Looking forward to the next canto.
I so enjoyed this post. I loved the title of it, and this comment resonated so much: "How often have I undermined my noble aims through my own doubt? I wish I could say it happened only once in my life, but even when I planned this read-along seven months ago, I knew I was working toward something noble—yet I was still, to borrow Virgil’s words, ‘assailed by cowardice.’ There were many great minds who explored The Divine Comedy before me, who am I to attempt the same?"
When I started out on this Dante journey, I really doubted I could manage it. I've now had a first read up to Canto XX, love the chance to revisit one by one as we go along here. It therefore seemed time to invest more concretely by becoming a paid subscriber. Thank you so much, both of you, for being our Virgils on this journey.
Thank you for the insights into the detailed symmetry between the first two cantos - I completely missed most of this in my own reading!
The line: ‘And just as he who unwills what he wills..." makes me think of the 'To be or not to be' soliloquy in Hamlet which ends:
"Thus conscience doth make cowards of us all,
And thus the native hue of resolution
Is sicklied o'er with the pale cast of thought,
And enterprises of great pith and moment
With this regard their currents turn awry
And lose the name of action."
Quotes: I also like the John Ciardi translation of Virgil's admonition of Dante and the 'little flowers' simile:
"And now what ails you? Why do you lag? Why
this heartsick hesitation and pale fright
when three such blessed Ladies lean from Heaven
in their concern for you and my own pledge
of the great good that waits you has been given?"
As flowerlets drooped and puckered in the night
turn up to the returning sun and spread
their petals wide on his new warmth and light -
just so my wilted spirits rose again
and such a heat of zeal surged through my veins
that I was born anew.”
PS Thank you for including all the wonderful paintings and illustrations. They're a joy to look at.
The entire canto is so beautiful and it speaks so close to our nature. The lines in 'unwilling...' happened and happens to me often! Thank you for all the lovely quotes, don't want to be annoying but would you mind sharing some of them in this chat? :)
https://open.substack.com/chat/posts/52e3a54c-224e-41b7-ad73-f6789b62f2be
Seneca said “We suffer more from imagination than from reality.”
I’ve wonder what inspired or haunted Dante’s extraordinary imagination, and the sources of his vivid imagery. I don’t believe it’s just Christian or secular iconography. I think Dante’s fears had a founding well before he created the Commedia.
I was struck, as a veteran, by two word choices in lines 3-6: “battle” and “memory.” Why did he characterize what was coming as “battle,” rather than, say, a struggle, passage, or pilgrimage? That peculiar word choice, and his reference to “memory” are (I infer) after-effects of his military experience — memories that are also reflected elsewhere in the Commedia.
While the historical record is thin, most researchers believe he experienced combat as a cavalryman at the bloody Battle of Campaldino in 1289, and perhaps at the siege of the fortress of Caprona in August of that year. Did the emotional toll of his experience (alongside his expulsion and exile) color his imagination? The book “Campaldino 1289: The Battle That Made Dante,” by Kelly Devries and Niccolo Cappani makes a strong case for the impact of his military experience on his imagination and the Divine Comedy.
There’s a saying “It is easy to laugh at the shadows when the night has passed.” (Virgil: “As phantoms frighten beasts when shadows fall.”) I don’t think Dante’s “night” had passed when he wrote the Commedia. Many of the shadows that haunted him, and that he portrayed so viscerally, seem to have had their earthly origin on the field of battle. It was just ten years before Good Friday, 1300 that he had seen a very compact battlefield littered with ~2,000 dead. In a letter (for which we have but a fragment) he said: “…ten years had already elapsed since the Battle of Campaldino, in which the Ghibelline party was almost utterly defeated and effaced, where I found myself no youngster in the practice of arms, and where at the beginning I felt great fear, and in the end even greater joy through the varying fortunes of that fight.”
Now, in the Dark Wood, he steels himself for battle yet again. He questions whether he’s prepared. “…With all my thinking” sounds suspiciously like flashbacks. He doubts he’s worthy. He is not a warrior in the heroic sense of Achilles, or Aeneas, and fears he may be on the verge of the warrior Ulysses’ recklessness: “I fear my venture may be mad.” He comes across as a reluctant veteran pondering the seeming foolishness of this undertaking. In Henry V, Shakespeare has the Duke of Orleans (in real life an accomplished poet) say “That’s a brave flea that dares to eat his breakfast on the lip of a lion.” I get the sense that here, particularly after his encounters in Canto 1, Dante feels like that flea.
What, then, convinced him to take that first step on the “Steep and savage path?” Virgil’s eloquent words? Reuniting with Beatrice? Or was it Virgil’s searing taunt — accusing him of having “a soul assailed by cowardice”? I can think of no greater insult in the chivalric code of Dante’s day. Virgil’s chiding echoes the poet Robert Frost: “The best way out is always through.“
Thank you Corey for your highly informative and insightful comment, it really helped me to form my own figure of Dante as a real life character. I believe being in the bloody battlefield followed by his futile political attempts and huge disillusionment with it all led to a sort of depression(though not named so back then); maybe his will to overcome this big black beast took him through a path of faith. Anyway I like reading it as a personal growth guide. And thank you also for the wonderful references and quotes :)
“Virgil acknowledges his doubts, but gently corrects him and points out that cowardice is “distracting him from honourable trials””.
Interesting - I didn’t get a ‘gentle’ vibe when I read that, but a pretty bald rebuke.
Dante: Are you sure about this?
Virgil: So you’re a coward…. 🤨
I’m sure a lot of that is just in how I read the translation I have (Longfellow). But I must admit that has always been one of my favorite exchanges in the Inferno (I even have a note beside it in my book) - it makes me laugh out loud. This is no doubt because I *am* a coward - I suspect most of us are in some way - and it’s good to have it just held up in front of my face every now and again…
Can’t wait to read the rest of the post — thx as always!
Haha, my thoughts exactly.
Part 2 of the post confused me. "Aeneas journeyed to the underworld and so did Saint Paul, but their journeys were divinely authorised; what makes Dante think that he can do the same?"
It sent me looking for more info on St. Paul going to the underworld because of my unfamiliarity with that. Maybe you were referring to the 4th century non-canonical apocryphal text? https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apocalypse_of_Paul#:~:text=Ancient%20writers%20are%20generally%20hostile,apocryphal%20writing%20to%20be%20rejected.
It makes sense if Dante read the Apocalypse of Paul and used Paul's purported trip to the afterlife, including heaven "to bring us back assurance of that faith with which the way to our salvation starts."
Paul does mention (in 2 Corinthians 12:2) someone he knew who was caught up into Paradise, but he remains uncertain whether it was just a vision or not.
In the end, Dante has been chosen with his task and on great authority, Mary, full of grace. In his humbled station, Dante can overcome his fears and trust as the lilies of the field, (those little flowers) that the way is prepared for him and all shall be well because Love awaits him.
Really enjoying this. Thank you for sharing your insight with such openness. How often we don't try for fear of failure. Thank you for Your help!:)
Thank you for such a wonderfully detailed description of Canto ll. The added art is really nice. Being able to visually see these cantos in the art world enhances my reading experience. I chuckled when I saw the "you are here" on the map. This is going to be so helpful in the coming months. Your question that you asked midway "How much then, do we go through life fearing things that have no power over us?" really gave me pause today and was able to relate it back to an event at work. This canto makes me think that one must become our own hero. And for what it's worth, as an outsider looking in on you taking on this massive project...I think you have crushed any cowardice you were feeling. Looking forward to the next canto.
I so enjoyed this post. I loved the title of it, and this comment resonated so much: "How often have I undermined my noble aims through my own doubt? I wish I could say it happened only once in my life, but even when I planned this read-along seven months ago, I knew I was working toward something noble—yet I was still, to borrow Virgil’s words, ‘assailed by cowardice.’ There were many great minds who explored The Divine Comedy before me, who am I to attempt the same?"
When I started out on this Dante journey, I really doubted I could manage it. I've now had a first read up to Canto XX, love the chance to revisit one by one as we go along here. It therefore seemed time to invest more concretely by becoming a paid subscriber. Thank you so much, both of you, for being our Virgils on this journey.
Is the world I inhabit now, actually limbo? There is no way for me to know, so act accordingly 😊