Dante the Babbling Tower Builder:
Redeeming Nimrod, and Redirecting Language and Desire
Written by: Teelah Kreiselman
Directed by: Dr. R. Allen Shoaf
University of Florida
Class of 2015 Kreiselman 2
Acknowledgements
I would like to start off by thanking Professor Johansson at Eastern Florida State College for sparking my love for English and inspiring me to attend the University of Florida. I would also like to thank the University of Florida for providing me with the opportunity to utilize their extensive library resources. Thank you to Jeffrey Dickens for being hard on me when I was suffering waves of senioritis, and listening to me drone on about passages you have never read. I wish to thank my parents, Ben and Dawn Kreiselman, for keeping me focused and for their constant encouragement. I would also like to thank the Dickens family for giving me life advice and support when I needed it. Thank you Professor Ulanowicz for reading over my last minute drafts and your enthusiasm regarding my topic. Lastly, I would like to thank Professor Shoaf for motivating me to challenge myself more than I ever thought was possible, providing me with extensive help and knowledge, and for genuinely caring about my well-being.
Kreiselman 3
Table of Contents
Page
Acknowledgments……………………………………………………………………………….. 2
Introduction…………………………………………………………………………………….... 4
Chapter 1: Nimrod and Dante, the Tower Builders……………………………………………... 9
Chapter 2: Free Will, Redirected Language, and Desire………………………………………..15
Chapter 3: Dante, the Redeemed Nimrod……………………………………………………….22
Conclusion………………………………………………………………………………………31
Works Cited……………………………………………………………………………………..33
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Introduction: Dante’s Vision of Nimrod
The origin of language is a subject that undoubtedly interested Dante Alighieri, and can be seen within his De Vulgari Eloquentia (DVE), as well as throughout The Divine Comedy. In
DVE, Dante claims that Nimrod caused the confusion of language with his construction of the tower of Babel; however, he contradicts himself in Paradiso XXVI, when Adam claims that his language was confused after the fall of man. In scholars’ search for the meaning behind this, an analysis of Nimrod is often forgotten or set aside. Is Nimrod innocent of St. Augustine’s claims against him? Why is Nimrod important if he is exonerated by Adam near the end of the Comedy, yet still resides in Inferno with the rest of the giants? I believe the text shows that Nimrod used language too literally; he believed he could build a literal tower out of brick and mortar to overthrow God. Dante, like Nimrod, builds a literal tower out of letters that is intended to bring his audience’s desires back to God. Dante becomes the redeemed Nimrod by fulfilling the same task with a different intent and through a different medium. Dante’s presentation of Nimrod in
Inferno, the similar actions executed by both Dante and Nimrod, and the differences in their language reveal what Dante attempts to say about language and desire within The Divine
Comedy.
The different historical accounts of Nimrod, and their influence on Dante’s version of
Nimrod, must be considered. There are stark differences between Dante’s account of Nimrod and the tower of Babel in DVE and the one found in Genesis 11:1-9. In Genesis, the “men who moved to a plain in Shinar” are motivated to build the tower in order to “make a name” for themselves, and so they might not be scattered across the Earth (11:7). In DVE, Dante describes the people of Babylon: Kreiselman 5
…led astray by the giant Nimrod, [people] presumed in its heart to outdo in skill not
only nature but the source of its own nature, who is God (15).
Nimrod may not have been his real name, but rather a derogatory term meaning “the rebel” in
Hebrew, signifying his rebellion against his creator (Livingston). In Dante’s version of the tower of Babel, Nimrod rebels against God and gives the people the means to hope “to climb up to heaven, intending in their foolishness not to equal but to excel their creator” (DVE 15). The account in Genesis makes the people appear innocent, and unaware of the blasphemous nature of their actions, whereas Dante claims that Nimrod led his people to not only equal God, but also to overthrow him.
A key difference is that in Genesis, the builders’ language is given to the reader, but the language is lacking in Dante’s account. For instance, the builders are quoted twice within the otherwise short passage, “Come, let’s make bricks and bake them thoroughly,” and,
Come, let us build ourselves a city with a tower that reaches to the heavens so that we
may make a name for ourselves and not be scattered over the face of the whole earth
(Genesis 11:3-4).
With these quotes, readers have a primary source that allows them to determine whether or not the builders’ actions were malicious. What exactly does “make a name for ourselves” entail: earning God’s respect from the superficially impossible feat, demanding equality, or overthrowing God’s kingdom? It seems from Dante’s account in DVE, along with most of the
Christian community, that he has decided the act was intended to overthrow God’s kingdom. It is likely that Dante thought of these quotes as common knowledge, and therefore he omits them from his account in DVE. Kreiselman 6
The disparities between Genesis 11 and Dante’s version can be traced back to St.
Augustine’s City of God (Dronke 43). Arguably, the majority of Dante scholars agree that St.
Augustine influenced Dante’s writing and ideas. In City of God, St. Augustine concludes that
Nimrod led the building of the tower of Babel since it took place in Babylon. He supports his claim by interpreting Genesis 10:8-10 as if Babylon were run by Nimrod himself:
Nimrod, who grew to be a mighty hunter before the lord…the first centers of his
kingdom were Babylon (“Chapter 4”).
The preceding sentence, however, says, “Cush was the father of Nimrod” and later says, “The first centers of his kingdom were Babylon” (Genesis 10:8-10, emphasis mine). The word “his” in this instance in the Scripture is ambiguous; it is not clear whether it is Cush’s or Nimrod’s kingdom, and thus it could be argued that St. Augustine unjustly incriminated Nimrod.
Nonetheless, St. Augustine continues his argument against Nimrod through his claim that the
Greek word, ἐναντίον, was mistranslated “before,” when it should have been interpreted
“against” (“Chapter 4”). According to St. Augustine, this means the passage should be read “a mighty hunter against God” (“Chapter 4”). Although the language of the Scripture is ambiguous about whose kingdom Babylon was specifically, St. Augustine’s matter-of-fact conclusions gained, and have retained popularity within the Christian community.
Knowing that St. Augustine had an influence over Dante’s version of the tower of
Babel allows the reader to understand why the account went from Scripture’s objective description of the history, to Dante’s mythological-sounding depiction. While giants are referred to in Scripture as Nephilim, Nimrod is not described as one. It is tempting to give complete credit to St. Augustine for labeling Nimrod as a giant; however, Dante was certainly familiar with other books on Nimrod. For instance, Dante read the Historia Scholastica by Peter Kreiselman 7
Comestor, which is a Bible commentary dated to the twelfth century (Dronke 45). This is evident when Peter appears in Paradiso XII, “Petrus Comestor … who / shines down there in twelve volumes” (12.134-5). Comestor describes Nimrod in Historica Scholastica as a giant and a student of Ionithus, who showed him places in which he might reign. In this account, Nimrod is filled with a thirst to rule, and gains power over cities by deception (Dronke 46). It is notable that
Ionithus, described as a son of Noah in the Historia, is not present within Scripture, thus giving it a mythical aspect. This description of Nimrod, along with the mythical aspect of the account, coincides with Dante’s depiction of Nimrod in Inferno.
Peter Dronke, a renowned Medieval Studies scholar, states that Dante was familiar with another text, Jewish Antiquities by Flavius Josephus (46). Dante’s vision of Nimrod is similar to this text’s rendition, which presents a prideful and blasphemous leader (46). Dante alludes to
Book six of Josephus’s De Bello Judaico, in Purgatorio XXIII, “‘Behold the people who / lost
Jerusalem, when Mary put her beak into / her son’” (23.28-30). With this allusion present, it is not too bold to say that Josephus’s description of Nimrod could have influenced Dante’s Nimrod.
If anything, Josephus’s account arguably portrays a more cruel Nimrod than St. Augustine’s:
He persuaded them not to ascribe to God, as if it was through his means they were
happy…He also gradually changed the government into tyranny…He also said he would
be revenged on God, if he should have a mind to drown the world again (Josephus 46).
Josephus’s account is more accusatory, much like Dante’s account in the DVE, whereas St.
Augustine’s version attempts to explain a mistranslation of the scripture itself. While St.
Augustine might have inspired Dante’s first thoughts concerning Nimrod, I believe the above texts also influenced shaping Nimrod’s character within Inferno. Kreiselman 8
Readers can assume that Dante knew about these accounts of Nimrod given the textual evidence that he was at least familiar with these authors, as well as the similarities between their accounts of Nimrod. What readers are left with is the worst version of Nimrod: a giant who was prideful, disobedient of God’s commandments, misled his followers, and challenged God’s absolute power. So far, we have examined Scripture’s ambiguous representation of Nimrod from which all of the following negative accounts originated. Each author’s version becomes increasingly interpretive, mythical, and accusatory as it loses objectivity. Negative interpretations of Nimrod seemed to be the historical trend, yet given the ambiguity of Scripture one could certainly propose a positive portrait of Nimrod.
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Chapter 1: Nimrod and Dante, the Tower Builders
Remarkably, there is another textual account of Nimrod, the Liber Nemroth, which depicts him as the complete opposite of Virgil’s description of him in Inferno: he is neither a giant nor against God. Critics debate whether or not Dante was familiar with this text, and if so, whether or not he based his version of Nimrod on it. I would argue that the Liber Nemroth is founded on the ambiguity of Genesis 10:8-10 because it does not present Nimrod as a leader, prideful, or against God. In fact, this text presents Nimrod as an astronomer, pious, and seeking wisdom through cosmology (Dante’s Vision 50). Critic Richard Lemay debated that Dante was familiar with this text and that it helped Dante determine how to depict Nimrod in Inferno;
Dronke, however, argues that there is no relevant evidence to support Lemay’s claim (45).
If Dante knew about Liber Nemroth, why would he not consider the possibility of
Nimrod’s innocence, given the ambiguity of Scripture? I think Dante did precisely this, which caused him to change his former harsh accusations about Nimrod in DVE, to Adam indirectly exonerating him in Paradiso XXVI. In my opinion, there is no other explanation for Dante’s change-of-heart than his reconsideration of Nimrod’s guilt. I must make it clear that I believe
Dante still agrees with St. Augustine’s account of Nimrod: that Nimrod did build the tower, not
Cush. Dante does not forgive Nimrod of his guilt of building the tower, but of the charge that he caused the confusion of language.
One’s lack of knowledge of the law does not absolve one of his or her guilt. The same concept applies to Nimrod. Critics could ask why Nimrod resides in the eighth circle of Hell if
Dante had a revelation that he was innocent. Nimrod resides there for the same reason the philosophers dwell in Limbo: they lack a certain knowledge that could have saved them. In
Nimrod’s case, as I will argue, he was unaware of the metaphoric nature of language, and took Kreiselman 10 language at its most literal. From, “Come, let’s build ourselves a city, with a tower that reaches to the heavens,” readers can infer that Nimrod, or at the very least his followers, believed that they could literally build a tower that could reach the heavens. Within Inferno he must suffer eternal humiliation by speaking only as literally as possible: by combining letters in haphazard and unintelligible ways. The reader has direct evidence of this when Nimrod shouts, “Raphèl maì amècche zabì almì” (Inferno 31.67). If readers (and possibly even Dante himself) cannot make meaning from this, what is the point in including it within the text?
There has been no shortage of scholarship on this subject, with many critics attempting to insert meaning onto the words. For instance, Richard Lemay, in addition to his argument that
Dante was familiar with the Leber Nemroth, attempted to justify Nimrod’s cry as a
“perfectly intelligible phrase of Arabic, in which Nimrod laments the abyss to which his
science has brought him” (Dronke 47).
Dronke discusses how this would require Dante to have been a skilled Arabist, and instead considers the possibility and tradition of imaginary languages (47). While these might be possible avenues, I think focusing on the meaning behind Nimrod’s cry is more of a hindrance than a helpful study. A statement such as Nimrod’s is meant to be meaningless in order to emphasize the stupidity of Nimrod’s leadership, and his assumption that all things were possible through literal language. In not understanding what Nimrod is saying, the reader can see that language cannot be understood when it is reduced to its most basic level – the letters themselves. Kreiselman 11
Fig. 1. Nimrod’s Tower of Babel. “God’s Irony: Fig. 2. Dante’s Tower of Letters.
Gen. 11.” Outcast of Israel. Mormons for Jesus. Kreiselman, Teelah. 30 Mar.2015
30 Jun. 2014. Web. 30 Mar. 2015.
Nimrod and Dante both attempt to build a tower to seek God, yet with different intentions. Figure 1 depicts an artist’s rendition of Nimrod’s construction of the tower of Babel.
Figure 2 is a photograph I took of the three books of The Divine Comedy, with Inferno sitting appropriately at the bottom, Purgatorio in-between, and Paradiso at the top. What one should notice is that the medium that Nimrod and Dante use to construct their towers differs – one uses brick and mortar, and the other uses letters. A building of brick and mortar is hard to penetrate, and say, for instance, that the brick does absorb some water from rain, the water will never become part of the composition of brick and mortar; it will simply evaporate out. Dante’s medium is writing his letters with ink upon a page. The ink is absorbed into the page and becomes one product. This metaphor is equal to Dante’s intentions behind his creation: the desire to unite and become one with God. His desire for unity can be recalled in Paradiso: “if I could inyou / myself as you inme yourself” (9.80-81, emphasis mine). The biggest difference between the two building materials is that Nimrod’s is fixed, hard to penetrate, and nearly impossible to become one with, while Dante’s is fluid, absorbing, uniting, and binding. In this way, Dante redeems prideful tower building based on a “legitimate presumption that propels us toward our Kreiselman 12 maker” (Barolini 116). Their mediums also create a significant size difference between the two towers. Nimrod’s tower was intended to physically touch the heavens, whereas Dante’s is meant to reach God through the pleasing sound of words (i.e. combinations of letters that insist on certain meanings).
Considering the immeasurable fissure between God’s language and man’s, Dante’s poem is a failure (Hawkins 215). I have juxtaposed Figures 1 and 2 here so that the readers can see no matter what size the tower comes out to be, or how hard these builders worked, failure is imminent. Dante and Nimrod both set out on a futile task to reach God; the difference is in their intentions behind the task, as well as their expectations for success. Literary critics warn scholars from falling into the trap of the intentional fallacy; in Dante’s case, however, it is impossible to ignore his intention behind the Comedy, especially in contrast to Nimrod. It has already been established in the accounts discussed previously that Nimrod’s intent was to overthrow God.
Dante makes his intentions for the Comedy blatantly clear at the end of La Vita Nuova, “I hope to write of her that which has never been written of any other woman” (84). Beatrice can be credited with leading the pilgrim’s desire back to God through her actions that sparked the pilgrim’s journey; therefore, the Comedy is as much about beatifying Beatrice as it is about God.
She can only be viewed as an “emanation of God,” because to read her purpose in any other light is blasphemy (Curtius 378). Dante adheres to his original intent, therefore, and escapes idolizing
Beatrice by unceremoniously leaving her behind him as he approaches the vision of God at the end of Paradiso.
Dante’s words in the Comedy seem to have multiple intentions, unlike Nimrod’s. He beatifies Beatrice, corrects previous texts he had written (i.e. the Rime Petrose), and commemorates important people in his lifetime, to name a few of the many proposed intentions Kreiselman 13 behind the Comedy (Dante, Poet 44). Regardless of these, the most important, original intent is to bring his desires, and his readers’, back to God. The disparity between salvation and damnation comes from what Nimrod and Dante expected from their projects. Nimrod believed his task would result in success, and that he would overthrow God. His proud act, as well as his belief in its success, is what ultimately damns him. While writing the Comedy is inherently a proud act, Dante reminds his readers consistently that his words are merely an attempt to convey his message, and acknowledges his shortcomings. Dante believed that the divine Word lives within human speech (Hawkins 215). Instead of his words acting as literal representations of
Hell, Purgatory, and Heaven, he viewed his poem as a “call to vision” for his readers (Hawkins
215). The expectation at the end of the Comedy is that the pilgrim will not be damned because he recognizes that the outcome of his attempts to describe his journey, to lead others to the righteous path, and to please God are impossible to claim knowledge of.
The meaninglessness of Nimrod’s exclamation in Inferno not only makes the readers aware of every single letter of the text, but also it helps them to realize what it means when they do not understand the meaning of Dante’s words in the Comedy. If Dante’s words are not considered carefully, then the reader risks reducing Dante’s language to Nimrod’s level of unintelligibility. This is the paradox, however: the reader must and must not reduce Dante’s language to Nimrod’s. For instance, readers must reflect upon the deliberate nature with which
Dante wrote each letter onto the page in order to evoke meaning from the text, but must not reduce it to a combination of unintelligible jargon by misunderstanding or misreading the text.
Dante’s fear of his readers’ misunderstanding is implied when he attempts to teach his readers how to read his text throughout the Comedy. Kreiselman 14
Viewing Nimrod in the most negative light imaginable leaves room for inevitable redemption. Dante was aware that his tower of letters could become the scholarly empire that it is today. Dante’s act of building his tower (writing the Comedy) is a prideful act in and of itself – he claims to be the first to write a poem that aims to please God. It would be easy for Dante’s readers to be misled through the misinterpretation of his text, yet he continually attempts to guide his readers back to the original purpose: redirecting their desires to God and away from Earthly sins. This is the opposite intention of Nimrod, who, according to Josephus’s account, intended his followers to worship him “as if it was through his [Nimrod’s] means they were happy” (46).
As we will see, Dante takes Nimrod’s prideful act of building, and redeems it by carefully redirecting his language, as well as his followers’ desires, back to God.
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Chapter 2: Free Will, Redirected Language, and Desire
Throughout the entire Comedy Dante reminds the reader that it is his attempt, and acknowledges its inadequacy, whereas Nimrod believes his people can actually transcend God and build a tower that reaches the heavens. As leaders, the way Dante and Nimrod manipulate language makes them responsible for inspiring their followers towards damnation or salvation.
Dante alludes to Nimrod in Paradiso XXVI, not only to accentuate Nimrod’s abuse of language within his role of leadership, but also to highlight his own positive (i.e. tropical) use of language as he attempts to lead his readers back to God. After the fall of Adam and Eve, the literal becomes signification. In Eden, it is understood that there is no language, as we know it, before the fall (Hawkins 213). There is only one sign: the tree of knowledge of good and evil. Once the sign has been broken and the tree has been eaten from, good is only understood through its juxtaposition to evil – which led to signification as punishment. Adam outlines all of these events in Paradiso XXVI. Since the origin story is common knowledge, what is the purpose of Dante rehashing an overdone story? At this point, he can only be correcting his previous statements in
DVE, that language was confused after Nimrod built the tower of Babel. Within Paradiso XXVI,
Dante not only rewrites the account of the fall of man, but also outlines the fall of language with the introduction of man’s free will.
It is appropriate that the pilgrim discusses language with Adam in Paradiso XXVI because Adam is the first man to speak, “the name the man gave each living creature became its name” (Gen. 2.19). Without language, man would be like any other animal. Adam explains to
Dante that:
It is a natural operation that man speaks, but
whether in this way or that, Nature allows you to Kreiselman 16
do as it may please you (Paradiso 26.130-32).
The reader can interpret “Nature” as God’s accommodation of man’s free will. Man can freely make the choice to either obey God’s commandments, or not. Thus, man is as changeable as his desires, which are governed solely by his free will. Dante juxtaposes man’s instability to God’s absoluteness. Christians fundamentally believe the First Commandment, that God demands to be loved by his creations absolutely, and that they should not worship any other gods or idols. His rule is absolute, yet people are given the option to practice their free will, presumably so that when desire is expressed for God, the exclamation can be genuine depending on the context. The people who do not express genuine desire for God can be found in Inferno when they become signifiers of their sins. Similarly, the people who change their minds before death and decide they do desire God can be found in Purgatorio paying for their previous sins. As demonstrated by Cato, constant desire for the sight of God is required to shed worldly desires and to earn one’s entrance into Paradiso:
What negligence, what standing still is this? Run
to the mountain to shed the slough that keeps God
from being manifest to you (Purgatorio 2.121-3)
The reader will only find people whose desire for God is absolute within Paradiso – whether their desires were always fixed on God in life or the veil of unclean vision is lifted from their eyes upon completing their purgation.
It is not only man’s free will, but also language that differentiates him from beasts.
Humans need communication to survive; therefore, we must speak to one another. When a person speaks, it is because he or she desires to communicate an idea to the listener - no matter how unimportant or uninteresting the listener may find the point to be. Speech is founded upon Kreiselman 17 desire, and the desire communicated or shared between the speaker and the listener depends upon the limits of a language. These desires can be misunderstood, however, because everyone since the fall of man must interpret the signs within a language (Shoaf LIT 4930). Language’s flexibility makes it easier for the speaker to manipulate the meaning of words, especially when there are abstract meanings, generational uses of words, or cultural gaps. It is essential that Adam not only discusses that it is inherent that man should communicate with one another, but also emphasizes that man can exercise free will in terms of language. Human’s free use of language controls where human desires will be directed. For instance, Dante’s language in his Rime
Petrose supported and enabled his desire to lust for a woman, whereas the language used in the
Comedy corrected the focus of his desires and redirected them towards God (Dante, Poet 44). It is due to human’s free use of language that Nimrod was able to take the purest form of desire, the desire to be within the realm of God, and distort it into a different element of desire.
Human’s distorted desires are primarily seen within Inferno, but can be seen throughout the Comedy. For instance, Inferno, Purgatorio, and Paradiso XXVI are linked by fraudulence.
Reading through these three canticles provides an outline summary of the Comedy, with each canto showcasing a theme of fraudulent individuals and acting as a transition that sets up important plot points. The reader begins in Inferno XXVI in the eighth bolgia where the pilgrim meets Ulysses; later, the pilgrim meets pseudo-father Guido Guinizelli in Purgatorio XXVI, and finally speaks with Adam in Paradiso XXVI. It is the pilgrim’s experience with these three men that illustrates how Dante wrote the Comedy to redeem language and desire.
Accounts of Ulysses present him as a master manipulator and strategist. Some critics have argued that Ulysses is a “prelude to grace,” meaning that he represents the misguidance of the pilgrim before his journey with Virgil (Freccero 146). Virgil tells the pilgrim of three sins Kreiselman 18
Ulysses is guilty of: imagining and implementing the Trojan horse, coercing Achilles to join the forces against Troy, and his involvement with stealing the Palladium (Durling 410). Seeing
Ulysses placed in hell reminds readers that it is one thing to enjoy a story for what it is, but it is another to idolize the figures within the story. This is among one of the biggest mistakes the pilgrim makes in the entire Comedy.
I was standing erect on the bridge in order to see,
so that if I had not grasped a projection, I would
have fallen without being pushed (Inferno 26.43-45).
…see that I bend toward it with desire! (Inferno 26.68).
Virgil mistakes the pilgrim’s desire for a whimsical excitement to meet a famous literary figure.
Based on the above passage, however, one must consider the sexual connotation of the passage, as well as the pilgrim’s reaction. The image of the pilgrim’s unbalance when seeking the vision of Ulysses (not God!) evokes the trope of a lady swooning as a gentleman woos her, and the pilgrim bending towards the image evokes the trope of a moth drawn to the flame. The sexual connotation of the passage is strengthened when one considers that Purgatorio XXVI focuses on homosexual desire (among other sexually deviant desires), and how the homosexuals’ feeling of shame strengthens their purgation. An even stronger case is made because Ulysses was not faithful to his wife, Penelope, as she was to him. Perhaps if the pilgrim had lived in the same lifetime as Ulysses, then his sexual desires could have been fulfilled. Ulysses not only demonstrates the pilgrim’s misguided desires, but also serves a structural purpose: his tale anticipates the pilgrim’s journey to and through Purgatorio.
The pilgrim greets Guido Guinizelli with the same amount of desire that he had for
Ulysses. Dante adheres to the tradition of calling literary influences “father” when he says, Kreiselman 19
“when I hear our father name himself the father / of me” (Purgatorio 26.97-98). Although the pilgrim does not call him this aloud, the use of the familial term is inappropriate considering the purpose of his journey. Guinizelli is a pseudo-father, or fraudulent father, to the pilgrim – one that will only distract him from his ultimate purpose: seeing God, the eternal father. Guinizelli is not only a counterfeit father, but is fraudulent due to the nature of his profession in life: he was a poet. Poems could not exist without language’s ambiguity, and poets abuse words (signs) in order to make them sound beautiful, or evoke certain (sometimes multiple) meanings (Shoaf LIT
4930). Poets knowingly manipulate these signs, which according to Dante, depending on what they are saying, could damn them. The meaning of many poems can be changed just by the enunciation of certain words. Ironic meanings can be lost if not performed or read the proper way, if there even is a “proper” way of reading the poem. In this way, Dante purposely engages and educates his readers on how words can be manipulated to evoke multiple meanings. Dante’s own poetry in the Comedy is meant to act as a foil to Guinizelli’s, which consisted mostly of fin’ amors poetry. Dante shows that, while poetry might be fraudulent by nature, it can be redeemed if it serves the purpose of pleasing and desiring God, not just man.
When imagining what Heaven is like, readers would not expect fraudulence to reside within Paradiso. As I will discuss later, Dante constantly figures and disfigures images within
Paradiso to avoid idolatry and blasphemy, so that his words are pleasing to God. One of these fraudulent figures is Adam himself in Canto XXVI. While the pilgrim has just re-gained his sight, he is still unworthy of seeing Adam. The “wrappings” that the pilgrim supposedly is able to see through is just an image of an image – a projection of the real Adam (Shoaf LIT 3950). It is worth noting that Adam mentions Nimrod towards the end of his speech. Nimrod is relevant in this context because he, like Ulysses, committed fraud by misguiding and manipulating his Kreiselman 20 followers. One could see Adam’s projection as a simple metaphor for the Comedy: a fiction that speaks truths. In addition to this metaphor, the false image of Adam protects Dante from being accused of blasphemy, as well as connects the three canticles with a common theme.
The pilgrim’s encounter with Adam serves more than a thematic purpose, though;
Paradiso XXVI redeems and corrects the mistakes the pilgrim made within Inferno XXVI and
Purgatorio XXVI. Just as the pilgrim bent with desire towards Ulysses, he bends with desire towards Adam. This time, the pilgrim’s desire is appropriate because Adam is a figure that is blessed by God, and was purposefully rescued in the Harrowing of Hell. Ulysses will never get that chance because of his multiple sins; therefore, from Inferno XXVI to Paradiso XXVI, the readers see a correction of the pilgrim’s misguided desires: he begins to desire what is pleasing to God rather than what is pleasing to himself. The second correction is made from the pilgrim’s inappropriate use of the word “father” towards Guinizelli. In his greeting to Adam, the pilgrim exclaims, “O / ancient father” (Paradiso 26.91-92). The title is appropriate and pleasing to God because Adam truly is the father of all human life, whereas Guinizelli’s claim to fatherhood is merely a man-made literary tradition. From these examples, the readers are required to see how
Dante has forced the pilgrim to make these mistakes, and how these mistakes must be corrected.
Dante teaches his readers that in order to save themselves, their desires, as well as their language, must be used to please God and not for selfish purposes.
One of the important connections between Inferno and Paradiso XXVI is that Ulysses is a prelude to Nimrod. Ulysses is a diluted version of Nimrod, who we encounter in Cocytus in
Inferno XXXI. I also think it is fair to say that Nimrod is a prelude to Lucifer (Barolini 92), since both have a reputation of promoting chaos and confusion. It is no mistake that the same desire the pilgrim shows for Ulysses is alluded to when the pilgrim desires Adam, and then Adam Kreiselman 21 speaks of Nimrod. The interesting part is that Adam exonerates Nimrod. If Nimrod is innocent as
Adam says, “The language that I spoke was all extinct / before Nimrod’s people became intent on the / unfinishable work,” then Adam is saying that language has always been confused
(Paradiso 26.124-6). Thus, one person cannot take the fault for language’s inherent ambiguity, but rather a person can be guilty of using language’s ambiguity to misdirect others’ desires.
Kreiselman 22
Chapter 3: Dante, the Redeemed Nimrod
A closer reading of Nimrod and his actions are essential to readers because it teaches them to read the Comedy as a metaphorical, allegorical, and allusive text; for to read it literally would make the text blasphemous. Keeping the historical accounts of Nimrod in mind, I will now differentiate Nimrod from the various giants that he resides with in order to emphasize his unique purpose. Dante includes five other giants in Cocytus with Nimrod: Ephialtes, Briareus,
Antaeus, Tityos, and Typhon. These four giants are all included in classical Greek texts, except
Nimrod. Dante does not state this in Inferno, but one can recall from Greek mythology that
Ephialtes and Antaeus are both sons of Poseidon, and Briareus, Tityos and Typhon are sons of
Gaea (Mythology Dictionary). Gaea is also the mother of Antaeus, which makes these four giants related to one another by blood, marriage, and textual traditions of Greek mythology. An illustration of the familial relations of all the giants, excluding Nimrod, can be seen in Figure 3.
Fig. 3. Blood Relation of the Giants of Cocytus. Kreiselman, Teelah. 28 Mar. 2015.
When considering the logic behind grouping these six giants together, it is best to consider each giant’s purpose within the text. At first, it appears that Ephialtes and Nimrod are no different from one another; According to myth, Ephialtes and his brother, Otus (who is not included in Cocytus), stacked mountains on top of one another to attack heaven (Dronke 40).
The reader can see, however, that Ephialtes is not equal to Nimrod based on how quickly the subject of Ephialtes is passed over. Briareus, the giant supposed to have a hundred arms and hands, seems to exist in Inferno solely for Virgil to compare him to Ephialtes. The moment Kreiselman 23 incites a negative reaction from Ephialtes, “Never could rough earthquake so violently shake / a tower as Ephialtes suddenly shook himself” (31.106-7). Ephialtes’s reaction, I believe, is meant to reiterate the inexpressible anger, strength, pride, and jealousy the giants collectively feel against one another. This inexpressible anger becomes a fitting foil to Dante’s increasing ineffability within Paradiso.
Virgil passes over the sight of Ephialtes and Briareus as if they are the least interesting specimens within a museum. Robert Hollander, a well-known Dante scholar, argues that Virgil’s disinterest, specifically in Briareus, is Dante’s way of correcting the Aeneid: “Dante has forced his auctor to apologize for including such unbelievable rot in the divine Aeneid” (Hollander).
Hollander argues that Dante sees giants like Briareus as “rot” because they are not human. If this is the case, critics are forced to contemplate the human qualities of Dante’s giants and why he insists upon them, which will be discussed later.
Antaeus’s part in Inferno allows Dante to play with, as well as revise, the literary texts to which he is alluding. Hollander argues that Dante composed Virgil’s encounter with Antaeus playfully because Dante does not draw from the Aeneid to flatter Antaeus, but rather from Lucan.
The moment is supposed to be humorous because Virgil, in reality, only wrote of an Antaeus once, who only served the purpose of cannon fodder on the battlefield, and he must flatter the one he previously insulted (Hollander). Tityos and Typhon are only mentioned as an afterthought when Virgil thinks he will not succeed in flattering Antaeus. Not only does Dante not draw from
Virgil’s own text, but also uses another author’s legend to simultaneously correct and play with the texts he is familiar with. While Hollander claims that the episode is meant most likely for
Dante’s enjoyment and amusement, I believe there is more at stake. In addition to enjoyment, the moment becomes a perfect example of ironic meanings that underlie the words Dante has Kreiselman 24 written. Any of Dante’s readers who knew Virgil did not recount the tale that Antaeus fought the lion, and therefore was not present at one of the greatest Roman victories, could pick up on the ironic meaning behind Virgil’s words in Cocytus. The moment serves as a reminder to the reader to pay attention to not just what is being stated, but also to what is implied by these words.
Hollander has argued the ways in which Dante normalizes the “giantness” of the giants, and Dronke describes them as written about as if they were “outsize[d] humans,” and thus deprived of the “fabulous traits” given them within the classic texts (41). Dante’s humanization of the giants creates an interesting relationship between historical humans and mythological giants: if the giants can be humanized, humans can be like the giants found in Inferno.
Throughout the Comedy, the reader can see that the pilgrim is able to find his niche within every place he visits. For instance, when he looks at Ulysses in Inferno he tells Virgil, “see that I bend toward it with desire” (26.68). This is the type of behavior that will damn the pilgrim in the journey, and these mistakes can be seen throughout the entire Comedy. The pilgrim’s mistake in
Cocytus is when he wants to see Briareus, “If it can be, I would wish my eyes / to have experience of the immense Briareus” (Inferno 31.97-8). Dante corrects this mistake as previously discussed, by correcting the texts to which he alludes, and instead forces the pilgrim (as well as the readers) to consider the monstrous giant within his own human body (i.e. his pride).
There are six giants within Cocytus. It is well known that the number seven is a Biblical number, and the pilgrim’s presence within Cocytus could make him the seventh giant should he become swelled with pride. The readers already know that the pilgrim intends to write of his journey based on the promise made to Antaeus – should the pilgrim become prideful of his writing after his experiences in Inferno, he would become the seventh giant. Ernst Curtius strongly believes that critics must take Dante’s belief in his “apocalyptic mission” seriously Kreiselman 25
(377). I previously posited that writing the Comedy itself is a prideful act, and it becomes even more so when critics consider Dante’s strong belief in his mission. Dante only avoids the sin of pride by doing what Nimrod could not do: he directs his desire-saturated language towards God, and therefore escapes becoming the seventh giant.
Unlike the other giants in Cocytus, Nimrod is based on Hebrew myth and is best known from Scripture. According to Genesis, Nimrod was not a giant (Nephilim). He is not blood related with the other five giants and originates from a different culture entirely. The horn blast heard at the beginning of Inferno XXXI is assumed to be from Nimrod’s horn based on Virgil’s reaction to Nimrod’s later attempted speech:
…but I heard
the sound of a horn so loud (Inferno 31.11-12).
… Foolish soul, be
content with your horn, give vent with that, when
anger or some other passion touches you! (Inferno 31.70-72).
Nimrod’s horn-blast leads Virgil and the pilgrim to him, which parodies the leadership that damned him initially.
In addition to leading Virgil and the pilgrim to the right path, Nimrod has more lines written about him than the others and has dialogue – even if it is failed communication. If
Ephialtes and Briareus are passed over quickly, then it is because they are the least human of the giants; therefore, Antaeus and Nimrod are arguably the most human of the giants in Cocytus.
Virgil claims that Antaeus can speak; yet the reader is not given evidence of it. He obviously understands Virgil’s flattery and proposal because he lowers Virgil and the pilgrim without hesitation. The key is that he does not speak, and instead acts like a machine by doing the task he Kreiselman 26 has been programmed by Virgil to do. This makes Nimrod the most human-like giant in Cocytus in the sense that he directs and speaks to Virgil and the pilgrim. If Nimrod is so different from the other giants, then what purpose does he serve that the five others do not? Aside from the necessity to maintain Biblical references throughout the Inferno, Nimrod plays a role far more important than the other giants.
Presenting Nimrod like Briareus, a monster with fifty heads and fifty chests, would make it far easier for the reader to condemn Nimrod as deserving of the Hell he is placed in. Dante seems to have a different agenda, however, since he skips over the monstrous giant. Nimrod’s scene in Inferno XXXI is paradoxically comical and tragic. If read literally, one can easily see the comedy in a giant babbling incoherently and blowing through a horn as his only form of communication. There is tragedy behind this, however, because it is how Dante could be perceived should his readers not understand his metaphors or allusions. This can be seen in
Virgil’s description of Nimrod, “to him every language is like his to others, / unknown” (Inferno
31.80-1). Instead of presenting Nimrod as a monstrous being, I think Dante is interested in creating likeness between Nimrod and himself in order for his readers to consider their own sins of pride, which also brings his language back to the original intent to glorify God.
Nimrod’s giantness, therefore, is required to convey tropical meaning. Literally, Nimrod is a giant, is loud, and babbles nonsensical words. This is the eternal Hell that Nimrod must suffer, because he is incapable of seeing the symbolic behind the nature of his existence in
Inferno. For instance, Nimrod is a giant not only because he is represented as such in mythological texts, but also because it is a symbolic representation of Nimrod’s swollen pride,
“‘This proud one wished to prove his power / against highest Jove’” (Inferno 31.91-2). This would explain the disparity between Dante’s account and that in Genesis. His horn becomes the Kreiselman 27 representation of his leadership because it is an attention-grabber (i.e. leading Virgil and the pilgrim to him), and the loudness of this horn represents the limits/area of his leadership.
Nimrod’s babbling incoherence symbolizes Dante’s fear of miscommunication between his intended meaning, and his readers’ interpretation throughout the Comedy. In this way, Nimrod is the perverted, or failed, Dante as much as Dante is the redeemed, or successful, Nimrod.
One aspect that both Nimrod and Dante share is their vulgarity. Nimrod’s language is not only vulgar in the sense that it was available to everybody, but also because his abusive language was offensive to God. By idolizing themselves as deities, Nimrod’s people break the first of the
Ten Commandments, “You shall have no other gods before me” (Exo. 20.3). Nimrod makes vulgarity vulgar by abusing the common language. In DVE, Dante argues that the Italian vernacular is more beautiful than the scholarly Latin. The entire Comedy is vulgar in the sense that it is written in the Italian vernacular and is available to all Italians, not just scholars. The vulgarity of his text mirrors the fundamental Christian idea that anyone can be saved. Since
Dante’s goal was to redirect his readers’ desire to seek God, he wrote his poem so it was available to everyone, giving everyone an equal chance at being saved.
There are many ways in which Dante is Nimrod. It is seen in Inferno that a person is trapped with whatever idol he worships over God for eternity in Hell. Dante meets Nimrod in
Inferno before Adam mentions him in Paradiso. Nimrod abused the common language granted to him by the grace of God to idolize himself; therefore, his punishment is that only he can understand himself. In this way, someone who had the capability to inspire others to idolize themselves now can only babble words that are nonsensical to others. For example, there are some parts of the Paradiso that make no sense, or rather have no meaning, to the reader (Shoaf
LIT 4930). An instance of this would be Dante’s description of the sparks that come from the Kreiselman 28 river of light in Paradiso XXX. Critics and readers alike can attempt to envision the picture that is painted for them by Dante, and search for the meaning behind the image, but ultimately there is some aspect of misinterpretation of Dante’s language. Readers can only speculate over what
Dante’s image of this golden river of light looked like, as well as what it meant to Dante.
Scholars will research the meaning, but can never know the accuracy of their interpretation. Not knowing the accuracy of interpretation can leave the reader confused at some points because the meaning behind words, phrases, or multiple lines is ambiguous. Thus, Dante becomes like
Nimrod as his language becomes more ambiguous, harder to translate, and overall more confusing to the reader.
Nimrod’s greatest sin was not convincing his people to challenge or doubt God, but rather that he persuaded his people to think that they too could become God, and could even surpass God if they wanted to. Adam says in Paradiso, it is not the sin of eating from the tree, but rather it is the “going beyond the mark” (26.117). Nimrod and his people go beyond the mark of the Second Commandment, “You shall not make yourself an image of anything in heaven above” (Exo. 20.4), when they make idols of themselves and begin to build the tower. The phrase “going beyond the mark” evokes writing tropes, not only writing the letters themselves, but also in marking punctuation. The “mark” in this case can mean the period of a sentence. A period marks the absolute termination of a sentence. The power behind the period of a sentence can be described as such:
Like the syntactic silence that ends the sentence and gives meaning retrospectively to all
that went before, it is the moment of significance” (Freccero 138).
Christian’s believe that God’s rule is absolute and has no end. In this interpretation, just as Adam and Eve have written their fate past God’s absolute mark to not eat from the tree, Nimrod and his Kreiselman 29 people have also continued to write against God’s absolute rule. In contrast, Dante creates images in Paradiso that are constantly imagined, and then dissolved (Shoaf LIT 4930). Relying on the language of paradox is Dante’s way of avoiding accusations that he has created idols or false images of Heaven. For example, Dante describes the images of lights “shining much more / brightly. . .” and dissolves the images in the same sentence, “that have lapsed and fallen / from my memory” (Paradiso 20.11-12). This is merely one of many instances in which Dante uses his lack of memory to excuse himself of describing the indescribable, and also gives him a way to avoid leading himself or his readers to idolize the figures he has imagined.
One of the last things Beatrice says to Dante before she leaves him is that only children have faith and innocence because they are “still a babbler” (Paradiso 27.133). This phrase is repeated twice; it is twinned. The second use of the phrase is juxtaposed with the image of an adult that has “full command / of speech” (Paradiso 27.134-5). Beatrice is telling Dante that while humanity has free will in terms of the use of language, it is the babbling baby that is the most faithful and innocent because language has not yet manipulated its desire. Nimrod’s misuse of language forces him to become the grotesque, giant, babbling baby in Inferno, while Dante’s increasingly fantastical, unknowing, and ineffable descriptions of Heaven allow him to become like the most faithful and innocent babbling child:
Henceforth my speech will be briefer, even
about what I remember, than that of a child that
still bathes his tongue at the breast (Paradiso 33.106-8).
As Dante becomes the babbler, he mirrors Nimrod, except that his babbling is redeemed in its imagining and dissolution of Heavenly imagery. Nimrod’s full command of misdirected speech is what banished him to Hell to speak nobody’s language, and he is doomed to suffer confusion Kreiselman 30 for all eternity. The judgment there is absolute. In contrast, if readers are confused because they cannot picture what Dante’s visions of Heaven look like, it does not matter. The paradox is that
Dante’s language is necessary to spark the reader’s desire to seek God, yet it is not necessary to digest all the images that the language proposes because it all leads to the same conclusion:
Dante sees God at the end. Dante acknowledges that the images are only his ineffable, babbling imagination, and not the true vision of Heaven – for that would damn himself and his readers if they believed his visions were absolute.
Kreiselman 31
Conclusion:
Nimrod’s story progressed from the objective, historical account within Genesis, to a mythological, accusatory, and negative perspective. According to literary tradition, he is to blame when speakers or writers cannot seem to express their true sentiments, or when readers and listeners misunderstand them. Dante absolves Nimrod through Adam’s speech in Paradiso
XXVI, correcting even his own previous opinion regarding Nimrod in his De Vulgari Eloquencia.
Dante shows that one person cannot be guilty of confusing the language of the entire world; instead, one person can be guilty of misdirecting the desires of others. Dante redeems Nimrod by committing the same prideful act of tower building, with different intentions. Nimrod’s tower of brick and mortar is hard and impenetrable, whereas Dante’s tower of ink letters is fluid and conducive to oneness. Dante saves himself through his recognition that his poem (tower) is an attempt to call his readers’ vision back to God – an attempt that can fail at any time should his reader misunderstand his meanings, or should his action be displeasing to God. Dante and
Nimrod both use language to direct a group of people to an end goal. Nimrod’s proud and misdirected language defies God and is the cause of his damnation, whereas Dante’s proud language obeys God’s Commandments and leads to his unquestionable salvation.
The redemption of language and desire is seen through the connection of three canticles:
Inferno, Purgatorio, and Paradiso XXVI. Desire is corrected from literary, self-pleasing figures like Ulysses, to holy, God-pleasing figures, such as Adam. Language is corrected by Dante’s appropriate use of “father” when addressing Adam, verses following the man-made literary tradition of calling predecessors or influences “father.” In Paradiso XXVI, Dante also rectifies the mistakes that the pilgrim made within Inferno and Purgatorio XXVI. At this point, Nimrod is Kreiselman 32 relevant because Adam speaks of him as Dante redeems both language and desire – both of which Nimrod used for perverse, selfish motives.
Dante views Nimrod within the Inferno, identifies with him, learns from his mistakes, and uses language that is pleasing to God in order to become the most faithful and innocent babbling child. In this way, Dante has formed himself into the redeemed Nimrod. Dante’s figuring and disfiguring of the images he describes in heaven is a direct parallel to his language.
Once the reader realizes his text is directed entirely to God, there is no more room for ambiguity.
The meaning is absolute, punctuated, and mediated by God. This is the paradox, however, because Dante’s meanings are anything but absolutes. This is the nature of language and its significations since the fall of man. It is up to the reader to read it as absolutely or as ambiguously as one desires; therefore, it is up to the reader to decide whether or not Dante’s tower of letters is successful.
Kreiselman 33
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