Essays


On Virgil: Constructed Replies to the Denizens of Hell | May 10, 2006
By Waldo van Dis

In Dante’s Inferno, Virgil guides the pilgrim through the circles of Hell, providing safety, support, and answers for the pilgrim’s questions. As a long-time resident of Limbo, Virgil’s knowledge of Hell is firsthand, and he eventually reveals to the pilgrim that he has traversed other areas of Hell in the past. During their journey, Virgil and the pilgrim encounter the souls of the damned and also some important fixtures of Hell. These permanent residents of Hell function as gatekeepers, overlords of circles, and guardians of waypoints connecting the circles. Several of them interact with Virgil and the pilgrim in some fashion, and Virgil’s responses illustrate a standard of rhetoric that borders on formulaic, and beg the question of Virgil’s actual knowledge of events surrounding the Inferno. Virgil knows more than he lets on, and his control over the pilgrim’s experience is total enough to make Virgil an arm of God, if not God himself.

Virgil clearly commands the journey from the moment he and the pilgrim set out. In Canto 1, it is Virgil and not the pilgrim who makes the decision to journey: “This for your good I think and judge that you / shall follow me, and I shall be your guide, and I will / lead you from here through an eternal place” (Inferno 1. 112-114). From this moment onwards, the pilgrim’s experience lies entirely in the hands of his guide. The choice is not the pilgrim’s, who falls under Virgil’s control immediately, and after this point the pilgrim is rendered with no choices of consequence. Rather, Virgil determines the pair’s actions, and the pilgrim can but listen and obey. Like any good illusionist, however, Virgil presents his involvement in the journey as simply obeying a natural law. In this case, he claims the law is handed down by Beatrice, who speaks only through Virgil’s mouth, “I am Beatrice who cause you to go; I come from / the place where I long to return; love has moved me / and makes me speak” (Inferno 2. 70-72). Beatrice functions as a part of the holy trinity in her proximity (literal and metaphorical) to Jesus Christ, which makes the directive of the journey a holy command and not to be disobeyed. From the pilgrim’s point of view, this reasoning for the trip is more than convincing and thus goes unquestioned. Yet, the only proof of any of this comes from Virgil, whose reputation as a poet precedes him (Inferno 1. 79). I contend the journey is in fact a holy command, but that God or some part of the trinity in the form of Virgil accompanies the pilgrim, and the evidence of Virgil as God lies in his speech patterns when addressing the important figures of Hell.

Canto 3 features the first encounter between Virgil and a gatekeeper, Charon. As the pilgrim and Virgil approach the banks of the Acheron, the oarsman calls out to them:
Woe to you, wicked souls!
Never hope to see the sky: I come to lead you to
the other shore, to the eternal shadow, to heat and
freezing.
And you who are over there, living soul, separate
yourself from these here, who are dead. (Inferno 3. 83-90)
Charon’s speech contains a mix of standardized rhetoric and potentially new locution for him (it’s not common for the living to journey to Hell). His rhetoric contains formulas of speech, as the descriptions of the shades’ destination are epithets modifying the “other shore.” Even Charon’s greeting to the shades drips with the countless times he’s given that part of the speech prior to this iteration. He does not forbid the pilgrim’s entering of Hell as other gatekeepers will, but he is in no hurry to facilitate it, and he admits this much to the pilgrim: “By another way, through other ports will / you come to shore, not by crossing here: a lighter / vessel must carry you” (Inferno 3. 91-93). This is a telling moment because it is laced with Charon’s acquiescence to the as-yet-unmentioned reason for the pilgrim’s journey. Charon seems to anticipate Virgil’s response: “Charon, do not torture / yourself with anger: this is willed where what is / willed can be done, so ask no more” (Inferno 3. 94-96). According to Durling and Martinez, “Virgil quells protest by invoking the theological commonplace of God’s omnipotence” (67). Charon immediately backs down, offering no further protests. Virgil’s speech is clearly a formula, as it and its variants are used in several other places in the Inferno. They function as a password of sorts, a subterranean “Open sesame!” producing in Virgil a mystical ability that lies beyond all other shades.

After Charon, it is clear that Virgil’s speech holds some sort of power, a point reinforced in the second circle of Hell. There, Virgil and the pilgrim encounter Minos, the “connoisseur of sin” (Inferno 5. 8). Minos’s speech to the wayfarers is more of a warning: “beware how you enter and to whom you entrust / yourself: be not deceived by the spacious entrance!” (Inferno 5. 19-20). Minos’s advice is clear on the surface though exegetically obtuse; he warns of dangers on the journey in the form of deception. But who can be deceived in Hell, as the fates and suffering are lucidly laid out? This warning, I believe, is the first evidence that Virgil is recognizable to some denizens of Hell as a subversive instrument of God. Minos knows that Virgil is more than a mere shade, and his cryptic message is for the pilgrim. Virgil’s response to Minos reiterates the response to Charon, a formula of apparent magic that shuts down Minos’s rhetoric at first utterance (Inferno 5. 21-24). Minos’s inability to contradict Virgil makes complete sense, because if Minos recognizes Virgil’s power as a God-figure, he would not dare counter Virgil’s words, indeed, could not counter the will of God.

Not all of the gatekeepers and lords of Hell actually speak with Virgil, as evidenced by Cerberus. An amalgamation of human and animal features, Cerberus may not have the ability to speak, but his interaction with Virgil could not be clearer:
When Cerberus, the great worm, caught sight of
us, he opened his mouth and showed his fangs; not
one of his members held still.
And my leader opened his  hands, took up earth,
and with both fists full threw it into those ravenous
pipes. (Inferno 6. 22-27)
The image here is of Jesus fending off a demon with an earthly miracle, reminiscent of the Harrowing of Hell. Cerberus’s display halts as soon as Virgil throws the dirt in his maw, extending Virgil’s mystical powers beyond his rhetorical formulas to his very actions. Why not use his powers of speech on Cerberus? The indeterminate status of Cerberus as a mix of man and beast reveals the doubts concerning his ability to reason or even understand Virgil’s words. However, a mouthful of blessed earth, since that which Jesus touches becomes blessed, is sign enough of the holy mandate of the journey for even Cerberus to understand. What’s more, Virgil’s dirt comprises a form of deception. Cerberus “looks and struggles only to / devour it” (Inferno 6. 29-30). The dirt functions as a distraction, letting Virgil lead the pilgrim deeper into the third circle and adding to Virgil’s growing powers of deception. Thus far in the journey, nothing has impeded the progress of Virgil and the pilgrim.

The encounter with Plutus at the beginning of Canto 7 is marked by Plutus’s incomprehensible remarks and Virgil’s lengthy reply. While the exact meaning of Plutus’s words cannot be divined, Virgil’s words may shed some light on the semantics. To the pilgrim, he says, “Let not your fear harm / you; for whatever power he [Plutus] may have shall not / prevent us from going down this cliff” (Inferno 7. 4-6). Taken at face value, Virgil’s words indicate that Plutus seeks to prevent the passage of Virgil and the pilgrim. None can gainsay this, since Plutus’s rhetoric is unfathomable. But Virgil’s words can be taken as law because he is law. To Plutus, Virgil replies;
Silence, cursed wolf! consume yourself with
your rage within.
Not without cause is our descent to the depths; it
is willed on high, where Michael avenged the proud
onslaught. (Inferno 7. 8-12).
Plutus instantly stops his babbling, and “fall[s] / to earth” (Inferno 7. 14-15). Defeated by the words of Virgil and laid low by his passage, the form of Plutus is again reminiscent of the Harrowing of Hell, reinforcing the image of Virgil as a God-figure, or as analogous to Jesus Christ. This is also the first of Virgil’s replies to a gatekeeper of lord of Hell that includes a direct reference to Heaven, described here as “on high, where Michael avenged the proud / onslaught” (Inferno 7. 11-12). It seems that no longer will Virgil’s previous formulae work, due to the insight or perhaps increasing daring of the progressively more powerful lords of Hell. It takes a depth of four circles for Virgil to begin invoking anything more than the sense of the will of God whom he has not yet named to his obstruents in his encounters.

The deeper Virgil and the pilgrim progress, the more likely they are to run into barriers, though they are never fully stopped for very long, and not without benefit to the idea of Virgil as God-figure. In Canto 8, Virgil and the pilgrim meet Phlegyas, the oarsman who ferries souls across the Styx. Phlegyas seems anxious to do his duty, as he greets them with “Now you are caught, wicked soul!” (Inferno 8. 18). By not naming a specific soul, his rhetoric can be extended to other souls and thus comprises a formula, like Charon’s, saturated with the repetition of all the previous times it has been uttered. Phlegyas, like Charon, is reading a script, and not until Virgil responds does he notice that he will not get his way: “Phlegyas, Phlegyas, you are shouting uselessly / … this time, you will have us no longer / than passing over the bog” (Inferno 8. 19-21). Virgil’s tone here and use of nominal doubling is distinctly patronizing. There will be no argument about his words, as in his previous responses to others, but the repetition of Phlegyas’s name is the first of its kind in Virgil’s rhetoric. He does not explicitly say that Phlegyas will transport them across the Styx; his meaning is implied in his final clause. Dante makes it clear that Phlegyas, for his part, recognizes the word of God in Virgil’s speech: “As one who hears of a great deception done to / him and the mutters of it, so became Phlegyas in / his contained anger” (Inferno 8. 22-24). Phlegyas, like the pilgrim, has been deceived by Virgil’s appearance, and his contained anger is evidence of this. Of course, he does not reveal Virgil’s status to the pilgrim, for to do so would be to counter the will of God, which is impossible.

On the other side of the Styx, the pilgrim and Virgil are finally stopped, though only temporarily, by the residents of Dis. They decry the entering of the pilgrim: “Who is he there, that without death / goes through the kingdom of the dead?” (Inferno 8. 84-85). Virgil, comforting the frightened pilgrim, says, “Do not / fear, for our passage no one can prevent, it is granted / by such a one” (Inferno 8. 103-105). He again invokes the idea that the journey is a holy crusade, executed simply under the omnipresence and omniscience of God. Virgil follows this with a directive for the pilgrim to “strengthen your weary / spirit, feeding it with good hope” (Inferno 8. 106-107). This benevolent command serves a dual purpose. The pilgrim’s safety is reinforced, and Virgil’s ability to command such safety is aligned with the ultimate benevolence, God. Virgil’s confidence is not shaken by the closing of the gates of Dis, and he tells the pilgrim:
You, though I am angered, do
not be dismayed, for I will overcome this test,
however they scurry about inside to prevent it.
This overweening of theirs is nothing new; they used it
once before at a less secret fate, which still cannot be barred:
above it you saw the dead writing. (Inferno 8. 121-127).
Virgil refers to the Hell Gate of Canto 3, and here we finally detect Virgil’s own admission that he is analogous to Jesus during the Harrowing of Hell. Virgil knows full well how the events will play out; the attempted barring of the passage of the pilgrim will be halted by an angel from Heaven, just as an army of angels broke through the Hell Gate following Christ’s death.

Virgil’s knowledge is the ever-present clue to his role as a God-figure. The pilgrim describes him as “that noble sage, who / knew all things” (Inferno 7. 2-3) and as “the sea of all wisdom” (Inferno 8. 7). The knowledge that Virgil has access to is infinite; all his predictions for the journey through Hell are accurate; all of his words facilitate the passage through Hell. When he and the pilgrim are blocked from entering Dis, he never speaks to the residents of Dis nor commands them to open their gates, but merely “made a sign” to the city’s inhabitants (Inferno 8. 86). I construe this as part of Virgil’s plan to amaze the pilgrim with the power of a holy imperative: the angel which bears down on Dis can be accurately called impressive. Virgil seems to be in complete control of the journey not because he has a holy directive as a motive, but because he is holy. The sense is of a deity, proud of the (under) world he has created, showcasing the horrors of Hell to an ever-amazed pilgrim. What better way for God to warn against sin than to take someone on a personal tour of Hell?

All citations of canto, verse, chapter or page number are of Durling, Robert M. Inferno. New York: Oxford University Press, 1996.
Oh, the glow of a city...