Hiawatha CD Booklet
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Dante The Inferno from The Divine Comedy POETRY Read by Heathcote Williams GREAT EPICS NA431712D 1 Canto I 7:43 2 Canto II 7:27 3 Canto II 7:45 4 Canto IV 8:02 5 Canto V 8:16 6 Canto VI 6:55 7 Canto VI 7:44 8 Canto VI 7:28 9 Canto IX 7:34 10 Canto X 7:29 11 Canto XI 5:51 12 Canto XI 7:03 13 Canto XI 7:21 14 Canto XI 7:50 15 Canto XV 5:58 16 Canto XV 7:39 17 Canto XV 6:30 18 Canto XV 7:36 2 19 Canto XI 6:35 20 Canto XX 6:29 21 Canto XX 6:18 22 Canto XX 7:11 23 Canto XX 8:00 24 Canto XX 7:45 25 Canto XX 7:17 26 Canto XX 7:36 27 Canto XX 6:22 28 Canto XX 7:43 29 Canto XI 7:10 30 Canto XX 7:57 31 Canto XX 7:55 32 Canto XX 6:35 33 Canto XX 8:34 34 Canto XX 8:30 Total time: 4:10:08 Cover picture: Dante and Virgil in Hell, by Eugene Delacroix (1798–1863). Courtesy of AKG, London. 3 Dante The Inferno from The Divine Comedy The Divine Comedy is an epic poem in three not in merely abstract terms, but in relation to parts, describing the poet’s imagined journey actual people and events, many of them of through Hell, Purgatory and Paradise, and titillating contemporary relevance. Because of this culminating in his vision of God. many of the names encountered mean nothing to To this extent it has much in common with the modern readers, and this is one of the reasons epic masterpieces of Homer and Virgil whose roots why most editions of Dante incorporate many are in history and myth; but the Commedia is also pages of notes for each page of text (a practice an allegory, dealing with nothing less than man’s which began, incidentally, within a few years of relationship with and place within the universe. the poem’s first publication). The main purpose, Dante’s universe was, of course, a medieval one in however, is not to point the finger or poke fun at which the sun and stars revolved around the friends and enemies (though there is undoubtedly Earth, and while the Commedia takes account of an element of this, especially in the Inferno ), but contemporary science in minute detail, his vision to examine the reality of man’s human and of the way in which the regions of the afterworld spiritual nature in all its various and complex might be contained within this framework is manifestations. brilliant in its originality. Hell (the Inferno ) is One of the principal characters in the Divine conceived as a tapering funnel plunging down Comedy (though she does not actually appear in into the earth beneath the northern hemisphere. the Inferno ) is Beatrice, whose significance in At its deepest point a passage leads out into the Dante’s life needs to be understood. Dante first southern hemisphere, where Mount Purgatory – met and fell in love with Beatrice Portinari when its shape mirroring that of Hell – tapers upwards she was eight and he nine years old. He towards Heaven. Paradise itself is conceived as a worshipped her from afar until her early death at series of ten ‘spheres’ encircling the Earth, with the age of twenty-four. (The full story of this God somewhere beyond the tenth, merely strange ‘love affair’ is told by Dante in his La Vita glimpsed by Dante as consciousness ebbs from Nuova .) Beatrice then came to symbolise for him. Dante all that is pure and worthy. In the This colossal construction is subdivided to Commedia it is Beatrice who sends the poet Virgil create a zone for every facet of human nature. In to guide Dante through Hell and Purgatory. There Hell and Purgatory a place is allotted for every sin she herself assumes responsibility for his journey and foible which exists within the world, while in of discovery, and it is she who reveals to him the Paradise the pure and just, the saints and the Holy splendours of Paradise, leading him eventually to Trinity are arranged in a strict hierarchy. Dante “that love that moves the Sun and other stars”. peoples each region with figures from literature, Dante calls the three books of the Divine history and from his own contemporary society. Comedy ‘canzoni ’. Each contains 33 chapters or This allows him to comment on issues of morality ‘cantos’, except Inferno which has an additional 4 introductory canto – making 100 cantos in all. Listeners to this reading of the Inferno may be Each canto contains roughly 150 lines composed struck, too, by Dante’s extraordinary vision when, according to a strict metrical and rhyme scheme. in Canto XXV, a serpent and sinner combine and The language of the poem is, importantly, not transform one another in a way which, it might be Latin (as was customary for high art in Dante’s supposed, was invented by computer ‘morphing’. day) but the language used by educated people in And no horror film has yet surpassed the frozen 14th-century Florence. In addition Dante made wastes of the deepest region of Dante’s Hell, liberal use of archaic language and regional where the tears of the damned make their eyes dialects, all of which makes life very difficult for freeze over, and where the mortal body of a sinner the modern translator. But Dante’s purpose was to can begin its torture even before the point of make his work readable by the ‘ordinary’ reader – actual death. Be warned. not merely clerics and academics – for despite its Roger Marsh lofty theme and layers of symbolism, the Divine Comedy is intended to speak to us directly Dante Alighieri was born in Florence in 1265 through the power of Dante’s imagery and into a family of the city’s lesser nobility in reduced narrative skill. circumstances. They were Guelphs, a party This work has not only endured, but has originally identified with the claims of papal exerted a powerful influence on Western thought authority and opposed by the Ghibellines, who for almost seven centuries, especially perhaps the offered allegiance to the German Emperors in Italy. Inferno , whose characters and images can be By Dante’s time both parties had developed into found peppered throughout literature and art vehicles for feud and private interest. In 1302 right up to the present day. Tchaikovsky’s control of Florence fell into the hands of ‘Black’ Francesca da Rimini and Puccini’s Gianni Schicci Guelphs and Dante was exiled by the faction. It are borrowed from it. Illustrations for Dante was during this permanent exile from Florence the editions inspired well-known masterpieces by Divine Comedy was written, completed the year of Botticelli, Blake and Doré, while the pre-Raphaelite his death in Ravenna, 1321. painter Dante Gabriel Rossetti – (his first name an obvious choice for a father who was a Dante Canto I scholar and reputedly able to recite the entire Dante awakens in a gloomy wood. He tries to Commedia from memory) – returned time and leave climbing a sunlit mountain but is driven back again to Dante for inspiration, notably in the by three beasts (Leopard, Lion and She-wolf, enigmatic “Beata Beatrix”. Samuel Beckett’s plays symbolising worldly pleasure, ambition, and and novels are full of allusions to both Inferno avarice). He meets Virgil, the poet, who offers to and Purgatory – shades walking slowly weighed guide him. down by leaden cloaks (Inf. Canto XXIII), creatures swimming in mud poking and whistling at one Son of Anchises: This was Aeneas. In the Aeneid another (Inf. Canto XXII), and indolent characters Virgil retells the story of Aeneas’ flight from Troy with little inclination to struggle any further (Purg. after its defeat by the Greeks and his foundation Canto IV). of the city which would become Rome. 5 “Ah! who could relate how wild this wood was?” (Canto I) 6 A soul worthier than I: Beatrice who, in Lucan and the great poets, heroes and Purgatory, will take over the role of guide from philosophers of antiquity. Virgil. A Man of Power: Christ. Canto II they are not sinners: The virtuous souls of Limbo Late that evening. Dante doubts his worthiness for are suspended between the joys of Heaven and the journey. Virgil comforts him explaining that he the pains of Hell. was sent by Beatrice. Dante takes heart and they The master of men of knowledge: Aristotle. set out. Canto V Silvius’ father : Aeneas, who also journeyed to They descend to the Second Circle where the the underworld (in the Aeneid ) where he met his lustful are carried aloft in a violent wind. Minos, father who prophesied his son’s role in the future who judges the dead and assigns them their place glory of Rome. in Hell, bars their way. Dante hears Francesca da the dead … in suspense: see Canto IV Rimini’s tale of love and death and faints with pity. a noble Lady: the Virgin Mary, signifying compassion. Interceding on behalf of the Pilgrim Semiramis: the Assyrian empress, rumoured Dante, she begins the process of his rescue by guilty of incest with her son. Divine Grace, without which he would be lost. That other one: Dido, who broke her oath of Lucia is Illuminating Grace. Beatrice, whose name fidelity to her dead husband by falling in love with means blessedness or salvation appears to reveal Aeneas.