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. the will of God to Virgil and Dante. the couple who fly together: Francesca di Rimini and Paolo Malatesta, brother of Francesca’s Canto III husband Gianciotto, lord of Rimini. Paolo became The Poets arrive at the door of Hell and pass her lover, until Gianciotto surprised them in through to the antechamber. Within are shades who flagrante delicto and murdered them. achieved neither praise nor blame in life, rejected by Caïna’s depths: one of the four divisions of Heaven and Hell. Charon, who ferries the souls of Cocytus, the lowest (ninth) circle of Hell. the damned to Hades, refuses to ferry the living soul Galahad: the name of Lancelot and Guinevere’s across the Acheron. Dante falls unconscious. go-between in Lancelot du Lac, the medieval romance. good of intellect: souls who lost sight of the ‘Supreme Truth’ or God. Canto VI great refusal: either Pontius Pilate or Celestine V Dante awakens in the Third Circle where the who abdicated in favour of Boniface VIII. Gluttonous are tormented by freezing filthy rain Canto IV and the three-headed dog Cerberus, the Dante awakens in the First Circle, or Limbo whose watchdog of Hell. Ciacco recognises Dante. He inhabitants were virtuous but lived without makes a prophecy. Virgil describes The Final Christianity. He encounters Homer, Horace, Ovid, Judgement.

7 “The winds changed course. They were blown towards us.” (Canto V)

8 solid human flesh: shades only appear to have Canto VIII corporeal form, although they feel actual physical Still in the Fifth Circle Dante and Virgil come to a pain. tall tower. They cross the Styx with Phlegyas, your city: Florence. encountering Filippo Argenti. They draw near the Tell me, if you know: a passage referring to red-hot walls of the city of Dis. Their progress to events in Italy, especially Florence, after 1300, the lower Hell is obstructed. year of Dante’s descent through Hell. Shades in Hell see the future and the past but know nothing Phlegyas: … guardian and ferryman of the Styx. of the present. Ciacco is referring to the struggle Until I was in: Dante, a mortal, has weight. Virgil, between factions of the Guelph party. Pope a shade, does not. Boniface VIII whose sail trims to any breeze Filippo Argenti: an enemy of Dante’s. Little else is waited for an overall victor before committing his known. support. Ciacco’s ‘prophecy’ is accurate, because the city of Dis: Dis was the Roman name for the events had already taken place. Pluto god of the underworld. Here it is applied to Farinata: a Florentine politician. Farinata is in the Lucifer and the city whose walls mark the circle of Heretics (Canto X); Tegghiaio and boundary between upper Hell and lower Hell. Jacopo Rusticucci are among the Sodomites (Canto XVI); Mosca is with the Sowers of Discord Canto IX (Canto XXVIII); Arrigo , does not re-appear. At the gate of Dis. Virgil tries to calm Dante’s fear. great adversary: in Hell the enemy is Christ. The Furies appear and Virgil warns Dante not to look at Medusa. The divine messenger arrives and Canto VII orders the demons to let the poets through. They The poets meet Plutus at the entrance to the enter Dis and reach the Sixth Circle where they Fourth Circle. Here the Avaricious and the encounter the Arch-heretics in their red-hot Spendthrifts roll weights against each other in sepulchres. opposing semi-circles. They descend to the Fifth Circle where the Wrathful tear at each other and three Furies: Tisiphone, Megaera and Alecto, the Slothful bubble beneath the Styx. bringers of retribution and torment. The Queen of endless misery is Hecate, wife of Pluto. Plutus: god of wealth in myth. The words are Let Medusa come: one of the three Gorgon gibberish. sisters whose hair was turned into snakes by Michael took his vengeance: against the Minerva. Theseus, the Athenian hero, descended rebellious angels. to Hell to kidnap Hecate but was kept by Pluto in Charybdis: the whirlpool in the straits of Messina. the Chair of Forgetfulness. Hercules set him free. These tonsured ones: the avaricious are mostly Cerberus: when Hercules rescued Theseus he priests. dragged Cerberus up from Hell by a chain, Styx: second of the five rivers of Hades. The stripping the fur from his throat. Acheron emerges from underground as the spring.

9 “The lid of each tomb was pushed to one side, And rising from within came cries of grief…” (Canto IX)

10 Canto X Canto XII Still in the Sixth Circle the poets come to the The Seventh Circle, First Round: the Violent Heretics and the Epicureans. Farinata degli Uberti Against their Neighbours. The Minotaur and the explains that souls in Hell know nothing of the Centaurs, half man, half horse, led by Chiron. present but are able to remember the past and Nessus guides them across the boiling blood of foresee the future. Phlegethon where the Tyrants and Murderers are immersed. Jehosephat: a valley near Jerusalem where the Last Judgement will take place and souls will be infamy of Crete: the Minotaur, part-man, part- reunited with their bodies. bull born of Queen Pasiphaë who satisfied her lust Farinata: di Jacopo degli Uberti, a Ghibelline (pro- with a bull. He was killed by Theseus duke of imperial) leader in Florence, died 1264. The Athens. Ghibellines drove the (pro-papal) Guelph’s from before he came: Christ, in the harrowing of Hell. Florence on two occasions , but by 1300 the Chiron: … centaur celebrated for his wisdom, Guelphs had returned to the city. tutor to the Greek heroes. her whose eyes: Beatrice. Nessus: centaur killed by Hercules after attempting to rape his wife Deianara. As Nessus Canto XI died he gave her a robe dipped in his blood which, Dante and Virgil pause beside Pope Anastasius’ he said, would preserve Hercules’ love. She tomb before descending to the Seventh Circle. hanged herself when the robe poisoned Hercules. Virgil explains the arrangement of punishment in God’s sanctum: In 1272, Guy de Montfort Hell. Violence in the three rounds of the Seventh avenged his father, killed by Edward I of England, Circle; ordinary fraud in the Eighth Circle and by murdering Edward’s cousin Prince Henry. complex fraud in the Ninth. Having passed Henry’s heart was set up on a column on London through the circles punishing the (lesser) Mortal Bridge to be venerated. sins of Incontinence, Lust, Gluttony, Avarice, Sloth, Pyrrhus: son of Achilles. Sextus , pirate son of and Wrath, the sins prompted by Envy and Pride Pompey the Great. lie ahead. Rinier da Corneto: highwayman of Dante’s time, as was Rinier Pazzo, who made a habit of Anastasius: Pope 494-498. Held as heretic attacking clerics. because of his support for Photinus of Thessalonica who denied Christ’s divine birth. Canto XIII Aristotle’s Ethics: a work on politics, the Physics Seventh Circle, Second Round: the Violent against his work on natural science. Themselves. The Wood of Suicides. Harpies and Genesis: Man is to work and earn his bread by The Profligates, hunted by hounds. the sweat of his brow. Usurers do not, hence usury is sin. Cecina and Corneto: the limits of the Maremma, a Tuscan swamp. The tree spoke: Pier delle Vigne, advisor to 11 “We were men once, though we’ve become trees…” (Canto XIII)

12 Emperor Frederick II. Disgraced in 1248 he was Canto XV imprisoned and committed suicide. That whore is Seventh Circle, Third Round: Sodomites (scholars envy; Caesar’s household is Frederick’s court; and clerics) eternally moving across the burning Augustus is the Emperor i.e., Frederick II. sand beneath a rain of fire. two figures: Profligates who deliberately destroyed their wordly goods. Pier delle Vigne, is Brunetto Latini: the Florentine, Guelph Arcolano da Squarcia of Padua. Toppo , a famous statesman–politician and writer 1212-94 wrote defeat of the Sienese in 1288, at which Lano Livres dou Tresor, an encyclopaedic work and wilfully refused to retreat, dying rather than living Tesoretto a didactic poem. He was in some way an in poverty. Giacomo da Sant’Andrea is reputed early mentor of Dante. to have thrown money into the river Brenta to Fiesole: the hill town where Catiline took refuge while away the time. against Caesar. After its destruction the survivors, my home city: Florence, whose first protector with a number of Roman families, were used to was Mars, changed to John the Baptist when people Florence. This mix was seen as the root of the citizens became Christian. In revenge Mars Florentine civil discord. punishes Florence with constant fighting, allowing Priscian: a sixth-century Latin grammarian. it to rebuild itself so long as fragments of his Francesco d’Accorso: (1225-94) a celebrated statue remain at Arno. Florentine jurist. Servant of Servants: Pope Boniface VIII, who Canto XIV transferred the well-known sodomite Andrea de’ Seventh Circle, Third Round: the violent against Mozzi, bishop of Florence to Vicenza. God, Nature and Art. Blasphemers, supine on the burning sand. The Ancient Man of Crete whose Canto XVI tears form the rivers of Hell. Seventh Circle, Third Round: Sodomites (warriors and leaders). The decadence of Florence. Capaneus: one of the Seven who besieged Phlegethon plummets over the precipice. Dante’s Thebes was struck by Jove’s thunderbolt after cord summons a monstrous figure. blaspheming that the gods could not defeat him. ancient man: an allegory for the ages of man and Guido Guerra and Tegghiaio Aldobrandi: the decline of human nature from Golden Age to Guelph leaders. Little is known of Jacopo Age of Iron. The statue in Crete, the centre of the Rusticucci. My downfall was my wife suggests known world, is midway between the pagan East he was driven to homosexuality by her. (Darmatta , an Egyptian seaport) and the Christian the centre: to Cocytus, the centre of the earth West, Rome . The fissure which cracks every part and the lowest part of Hell. except the head is the sorrow in every Age but the first. The tears are the source of the rivers Canto XVII Acheron, Styx and Phlegethon which collect at Geryon. Seventh Circle Third Round: Violent Cocytus, the lowest point of Hell. Against Nature and Art. Usurers with their purses. Lethe: river of forgetfulness. Virgil and Dante descend to the Eighth Circle. 13 the monster: Geryon was the mythological pregnant. The men of Lemnos were slaughtered Spanish giant king killed by Hercules in the course because they had brought home Thracian of his Labours. concubines. Hypsipyle gulled the other women Arachne: the weaver whose work rivalled by hiding her father, Thoas, the king, pretending Minerva’s. She was turned into a spider. she had slain him. Later Jason married Medea , the beaver dips its tail: the beaver was supposed to sorceress, but abandoned her too. Medea took catch fish by dangling its tail in the water. her revenge by killing Creusa, for whom Jason had The sovereign cavalier: held to be Gianni abandoned her and murdered her own children. Buiamonte di Becchi, a usurer who held high office in Florence. Canto XIX Phaeton: begged Apollo to let him drive the Sun- The Eighth Circle, Third Ditch: the Simonists set chariot. He was unable to control it and burnt the head down into holes in the rock, flames streak of sky known as the Milky Way. tormenting their feet.

Canto XVIII Simon Magus: tried to buy the power of the Holy The Eighth Circle, Malebolge, with Ten Ditches Spirit from Peter and John. The sin of simony, the containing those who committed Fraud against fraudulent use of the Church and sale of its offices mankind in general. The First Ditch; Panders and for money or power, derives from his name. Seducers, scourged by demons. The Second Ditch; Whoever you may be: Pope Nicholas III. Flatterers immersed in filth. vile assassin: in the Florence of Dante’s time murderers were executed by being placed upside Malebolge: a word invented by Dante meaning down in a hole which was then filled with earth. ‘evil pouches’, where sinners are pocketed in a set Is that you Boniface: … the soul, able to see the of concentric ditches. future knows Boniface VIII will take his place on Jubilee year: 1300, when Boniface VIII granted his death, in 1303. Since it is 1300 Nicholas thinks absolution to those who made a pilgrimage to the writings lied; Boniface is early. Boniface tricked Rome. Many thousands came and a traffic control Celestine V into abdicating the See of St Peter and system was instituted. was infamous for simony. Venedico Cacciamenico: a Bolognese Guelph Fairest of Women: the Church. who procured his sister Ghisolabella for the great mantle: the papacy. Marchese of Ferrara. one of the she-bear’s sons: Nicholas III was a sipa: the word for ‘yes’ in the Bolognese dialect. degli Orsini, which means of the little bears (orsa = Caccianemico suggests there are more Bolognese bear), notorious for simony and nepotism – his in the ditch than in Bologna. desire to advance the bear-cubs . other misbegotten spirits: seducers, who lawless shepherd: another corrupt pope, defraud the innocent for their gain. Clement V, puppet of Philip, King of France. Jason: leader of the Argonauts, who captured the golden fleece. Sailing home he stopped at Lemnos where he seduced Hypsipyle, but abandoned her, 14 “Look, the monster with its sharpened tail…” (Canto XVII)

15 “Out of the mouth of each hole there emerged A sinner’s feet and his legs up to the calf.” (Canto XIX)

16 “Grappled him by his sticky, pitchy hair, And hauled him up…” (Canto XXII)

17 Canto XX Campaldino 1289, when Guelphs from Florence Eighth Circle, Fourth Ditch: Soothsayers, and Lucca defeated Ghibellines from Arezzo. Astrologers, Magicians, whose heads are twisted Gomita: a Sardinian friar hanged when it was so that they look only backwards. Virgil explains discovered he was selling prisoners freedom. the origin of Mantua. Don Michele Zanche: governor of another Sardinian district, Logodoro. Murdered in 1275 by amazing deformation: these sinners who his son-in-law Branca d’Oria. attempted to divine the future, are forced to look backwards eternally. Canto XXIII Amphiareus: another of the seven kings who Eighth Circle, Fifth Ditch: Barrators. Pursued by assaulted Thebes and a seer. demons, Dante and Virgil escape by scrambling Tiresius: a soothsayer of Thebes. down the bank into the Sixth Ditch where the Michael Scott: a Scottish philosopher (1175- Hypocrites file along beneath cloaks of lead. The 1235). Reputedly a magician. Jovial Friars of Bologna. Cain with his thorns: the medieval Italian equivalent of ‘the man in the moon’. King Frederick’s: a punishment instituted by Emperor Frederick II for traitors. They were given a Canto XXI leaden cape, which was melted on their bodies. Eighth Circle, Fifth Ditch: Barrators, swindlers in Jovial Friars: the nickname of a religious Order of civic and public office, plunged beneath boiling Knights dedicated to the Virgin; disbanded pitch guarded by demons. A new arrival from because of scandalous corruption. Lucca. Dante and Virgil proceed, escorted by nailed down figure: Caiaphas, High Priest of the demons. Pharisees urged the death of Jesus. Annas, Caiaphas’ father-in-law, is one of the counsellors Malebranche: the generic name for the demons. who seeded so much evil ; the destruction of Sacred Face: a crucifix at the cathedral in Lucca. Jerusalem and the dispersal of the Jews. The Serchio is a nearby river – perhaps the sinner is lying on his back in the pitch with his arms Canto XXIV open. A difficult passage to the Eighth Circle, Seventh smashed to bits: broken by the earthquake at Ditch. The Thieves. The sinner bitten by a serpent the death of Christ. turns to ash, then resumes his shape. Vanni Fucci, and his prophecy. Canto XXII Eighth Circle, Fifth Ditch Barrators. The demons heliotrope: a stone that protected the wearer fork out a Navarrese barrator from the pitch. The from snake bite. Navarrese plays a trick; two demons end up in the Vanni Fucci: violent bastard of Fuccio de’ Lazarri, pitch. a leader of the Black Guelph faction in Pistoia. He is here because of his theft of treasure from the You Aretines: Dante was at the battle of chapel of Saint James in Pistoia. Vanni’s ‘prophecy’

18 meant the Florentine White Guelphs would help burn in the flames that enclose them. Ulysses and the White Pisoians score a victory over the Blacks Diomedes share a flame. Ulysses describes his final in May 1301. That autumn Charles of Valois voyage. arrived in Florence, sided with the Blacks and turfed out the Whites. Moroelo Malaspina, lord of avenged by bears: Elisha, mocked by some boys Lunigniana ( Valdimagra ), is the fiery who were later eaten by bears. He saw Elijah thunderbolt , who drove the Whites from their ascend to heaven in a fiery chariot. last stronghold in Tuscany. Eteocles and his brother: Polynices, sons of Oedipus, so hated each other the flames on their Canto XXV joint funeral pyre refused to mingle. Eighth Circle, Seventh Ditch: the Thieves. The Ulysses: (Odysseus) the Greek hero who fought at centaur Cacus. Three Florentine thieves arrive, Troy with Diomedes and devised the stratagem of then two more in the form of snakes. Bizarre the Wooden Horse. Deïdamia was the daughter metamorphoses occur. of king of Scyros and mother of Achilles’ child. The Palladium was the sacred symbol of Troy and Pistoia: was supposedly founded by the remnants guarantee of its safety: its theft meant the city of the army of Catiline, composed of criminals and would fall. brigands. Leaving Circe: journeying home from Troy, fell from Thebes rampart: … Capaneus. Ulysses was detained by the sorceress Circe. Cacus: the son of Vulcan and Medusa. Dante Gaëta: a promontory near Naples Aeneas named makes him a centaur. after his nurse, Caita. deceitful robbery: Cacus stole the oxen of narrow strait: Gibraltar, where the pillars of Geryon belonging to Hercules. Hercules marked the westernmost end of the from where unborn we feed: the navel. known world. Lucan be silent here: in the Pharsalia Lucan tells a mountain: the Mount of Purgatory. of two soldiers bitten by snakes; Sabellus was reduced to a puddle of liquid, the other Nassidius Canto XXVII swelled up until he died. Ovid describes Cadmus Eighth Circle, Eighth Ditch: Fraudulent Counsellors. turning into a snake and Arethusa into a fountain. The state of Romagna. Guido’s tale of self- Puccio Sciancato: ‘Sciancato’, the nickname of deception. Puccio dei Galigai, a Florentine thief. Gaville: a village in the Arno valley. Francesco dei As the torturer’s Sicilian bull: Perillus of Sicily Cavalcanti was killed by the inhabitants. His family constructed a brass bull as an instrument of avenged his death. torture for the tyrant Phalaris. Victims were roasted inside the bull so fashioned that their cries Canto XXVI sounded as if the bull itself was bellowing. Perillus They leave the Seventh Ditch for the Eighth Ditch, was its first victim. Dante, condemns Florence. The poets view the Those hills between Urbino: a region called Eighth Ditch, where those who counselled fraud Montafeltro. The speaker is Guido da Montefeltro. 19 If I believed: Guido was known as one of the Mosca: Moscadei Lamberti fomented Guelf- wiliest soldiers and politicians of his time. He Ghibelline strife in Florence. fought successfully for the Ghibellines against Bertran de Born: twelfth-century troubadour. Papal and Guelph forces in Romagna between Stirred up animosity between Henry II of England 1274 and 1282. Excommunicated and banished and his son. he returned to Pisa to lead its Ghibellines, but was reconciled with the church by 1296 and became a Canto XXIX Franciscan friar. Eighth Circle, Ninth Ditch: sowers of discord. Prince of Pharisees: Boniface VIII, who rather Dante expects to see an ancestor. He and Virgil than crusading against the traditional enemies of cross the bridge into the Tenth Ditch where the the church, Saracens or Jews, chose to subdue Falsifiers lie with their hideous diseases. The the Colonna family, who refused to recognise his Alchemists. papacy. “He asked me for my counsel…”: The Colonna Geri del Bello: kinsman of Dante and family took refuge in their fortress of Palestrina, troublemaker. Altaforte is Bertran de Born. near the Lateran , the papal palace in Rome. Maremma to Sardinia: … an area famous for Advised by Guido da Montefeltro, Boniface falsely breeding malaria. promised them a pardon. They surrendered and Capoccio: burned for alchemy in Siena, in 1293. lost everything. The two keys: symbols of papal authority. Canto XXX Eighth Circle, Tenth Ditch: the Falsifiers. Gianni Canto XXVIII Schicchi and Myrrha (impersonators); Master Eighth Circle, Ninth Ditch: the sowers of discord Adamo (counterfeiter) Potiphar’s wife and Sinon perpetually circling wounded after each turn by a the Greek (perjurers). The quarrel between Adamo demon. Mohammed and Ali. Warnings to those and Sinon. still alive. Apulia’s fateful earth: to Dante ‘Apulia’ Semele: a Theban princess seduced by Jupiter. In described southern Italy, scene of the following revenge Juno drove mad Semele’s brother-in-law wars. Athamas. He took his wife Ino for a lioness and Mohammed: founder of Islam, was traditionally their children for cubs then killed them. held to be a Christian schismatic. Mohammed’s Hecuba: wife of Priam, taken prisoner after the son-in-law Ali was responsible for the Sunni- fall of the Troy, went mad when her children Shi’ite schism in Islam. Polyxena and Polydorus were killed. Fra Dolcino: lead a dissenting sect preaching Gianni Schicchi: a Florentine mimic, who cheated simplicity and community of property. the family of Buoso Donati out of a mare. Pier de Medecina: … stirred up the feud between Myrrha: tricked her father into incest and gave the houses of Polenta and Malatesta. Guido and birth to Adonis. Angiolello were drowned off the Adriatic coast, Master Adamo: falsifier of money. by Malatesta. false wife: Potiphar’s wife. 20 “The corpse was carrying its hacked off head By the hair, swinging it like a lantern.” (Canto XXVIII)

21 Sinon: who pretended to swap sides in the Trojan blow that pierced his body so sunlight shone war so the Trojans would take in the Wooden Horse. through the hole onto his shadow. Focaccia: a Pistoian who murdered his cousin Canto XXXI through greed. Dante and Virgil descend to the Ninth Circle, the Sassol Mascheroni: murdered his nephew to gain well at the bottom of the abyss. Around it the his inheritance. Giants are visible from the waist up. Dante sees Camiscon de’ Pazzi: murdered a kinsman Carlino, Nimrod and Ephialtes. Antaeus lowers them to the a relative, betrayed his party, the White Guelphs frozen Lake of Cocytus, fourth river of Hell. surrendering a castle for money; his fate will be worse. Achilles: Achilles and his father Peleus possessed Bocca degli Abati: betrayed his party at Montaperti a lance that could heal the wounds it inflicted. by cutting off the Guelph standard-bearer’s hands, Roland’s horn: From the medieval epic Le throwing his troops into confusion. Chanson de Roland , the blast on Roland’s horn da Duera: a Ghibelline who sold Parma to the was heard eight miles away. French. Raphèl maì: nonsense language spoken by Beccharia: Pope Alexander IV’s legate decapitated Nimrod , builder of the Tower of Babel. for plotting against the Guelphs. Ephialtes: he and his brother Oti attempted to Gianni de’ Solanieri: betrayed the Ghibellines invade Heaven by placing Mount Pelion on Mount during a Guelph uprising. Ossa. Ganelon: betrayed Charlemagne and the rearguard Briareus: a monster with fifty heads and a in the Chanson de Roland, hundred arms who attacked Mount Olympus. Tebaldello: opened the gates of Faenza to enemy Anteus: another Titan, unchained since he did Guelphs. not take their part against the gods. He lived in Tydeus: … one of the Seven against Thebes. Libya on a diet of lions, in the valley where Scipio Mortally wounded by Menalippus, who he managed defeated Hannibal. to kill before dying, Tydeus gnawed on his skull. Canto XXXII Canto XXXIII Ninth Circle, First Ring: Caïna, named after Cain, Ninth Circle, Second Ring. Ugolino’s tale of his who killed his brother Abel. Traitors to their kin death. Virgil and Dante proceed to the Third Ring, immersed in ice up to the neck. The Second Ring: named ‘Tolomea’ after Ptolomy, the captain of Antenora, named after the Trojan traitor. Betrayers Jericho, who killed his guests as they ate with him. of their country. Dante encounters two traitors, The traitors to hospitality, eyes sealed by frozen one gnawing at the other’s head. tears. Some alive on earth but already in Hell. those ladies: the muses. Count Ugolino: a Ghibelline of Pisa, betrayed Bizensio: The two are the Alberti brothers who Pisan strongholds to Florence and Lucca in 1284. killed each other over an inheritance in the Bizensio Later, plotting with Archbishop Ruggieri and the valley. Gualandi , Sismondi and Lanfranchi families Arthur: struck his treacherous nephew Mordred a against his kinsmen the Visconti, he was betrayed 22 “It is a ring of giants, not towers, Each one sunk to his navel in the pit.” (Canto XXXI)

23 “He sat us down gently on the bottom, Within the pit that swallowed Lucifer and Judas.” (Canto XXXI)

24 by Ruggieri who imprisoned him in the Tower of Judas Iscariot: who betrayed Christ; Brutus and Hunger to starve. Cassius conspired to kill Caesar. Friar Alberigo: a Jovial Friar who murdered his grasped the shaggy flank: Dante and Virgil enemies at a banquet to which he had invited climb feet first down Lucifer’s leg. But since them, the signal for the act being an order for the Lucifer’s navel is the world’s centre of gravity, once fruit. past it they must turn round to clamber up Atropos: one of the three Fates. towards Lucifer’s feet. Gravity is acting now in Ser Branca: aided by his unnamed kinsman, reverse. murdered his father-in-law Michel Zanche, a the side covered by dry land: the northern guest. hemisphere. The southern hemisphere contains no dry land except the Mount of Purgatory. Canto XXXIV The final division of Hell. Ninth Circle, Fourth Ring; Notes by Benedict Flynn Judecca, named after Judas Iscariot. Traitors to their benefactors totally immersed in ice. Lucifer rending Judas, Brutus and Cassius. Descent of the poets down Lucifer’s body, to the southern hemisphere. The stars.

25 “The emperor of that realm of despair Towered above the ice from mid chest up.” (Canto XXXIV)

26 The Gloomy Jerusalem Wood The Gates of Hell Acheron Limbo Lust Gluttony Avarice Anger Heresy Violence Deceit Malebolge Treachery

Cocytus (Lucifer, The centre of the Earth)

Mount Purgatory

27 The music on this recording is taken from the NAXOS catalogue

CHOMINCIAMENTO DI GIOIA 8.553131 Virtuoso dance-music from the time of Boccaccio’s Decamerone Ensemble Unicorn GREGORIAN CHANT FOR GOOD FRIDAY 8.550952 (In Passione et Morte Domini) Nova Schola Gregoriana/Turco CANTIGAS DE ST. MARIA 8.553133

Music programming by Roger Marsh

28 Translation by Benedict Flynn. Produced by Roger Marsh ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. UNAUTHORISED PUBLIC PERFORMANCE, Post production: Simon Weir, The Classical Recording BROADCASTING AND COPYING OF THESE COMPACT DISCS PROHIBITED.

p time Company 1996 NAXOS AudioBooks Ltd. © 1996 NAXOS AudioBooks Ltd. Made in Germany.

Engineer (speech): Alan Smyth, Bucks Audio Cassettes 4:10:30 otal T – for won itten rate) ng t ead wr ek Der l also allegory t a his torment me original ed epar is ersatile Falli e and edemption n r v r ch’in , al firs pr A and i fo ealism. r ade hav n oet the gh vo urt, had as g p e. r m w ation reading.” etern ou e Co to Here N equally slatio th plays has thoughtful anza rifyin thr that known fer y d ome s the oem literatu ter , or ds, p C Hi tran suf sper Royal ere W ues to . been and or best Whale com is of s ’ justice e act at he to w s t i o. osper Pr th s: ntin ou Y nt has ogne estern n i en full ne and co ing vin ou He intensity med , h W li he h bject drama d London n w Wish oo ciate in acc su Di played o hten an hic , d rounded at T as does ields. ns w – Autogeddon an f (Las actor he EN husky frig adds D obooks. ue he ose ey ivid i N a ise an ch v visio th playwright and T PE earth. ese og E time, l Orlando urn n HERE nmental many le always as As n whi th ND jo o I in e ta oduced pr Parad music with to aud in a poet, ar HE s , c show , T same les o envir translation DC with ong . Hour l and o om fr ENTER markab o r . tury Elephant ms lf he ur ams mitted on t ry s Naxos’ O e r reads and AC/ he o ibution ned t lia li cen Ha mages l i at empest red gil nax T WH com of . s, s Flynn’ Wil orable ontr i ast most his with Vir Sac Wi no c L blazo iew t ns e 14th poems i , Purgato

The si notably k, V e part he by YOU ot em t s k’ contemporary mem ant Williams E the er m, hs oc of fic usual tel and thc first ages, ai ng

www

ough olphin of s man’ cl tended is lin e D HOP Benedict ed thr dept one a Jar Hanc taki ac ex a signi Hea the ur ars 3 audioboo as – s i ut

is

Inf ye he cot eath ALL f

l hibit t o for on H ly N -317- o ex

under Hel ly and, ati and “Heathcote ear int s by productions,

fern 634 DO ial

is e nt ng e ices In N: v h evel

B a AN r th

IS spellbound.

or o or n f The Passi down t espec f i Dante’ Read AB e Th D

978-962- CD