canto i

Probably one of the most important things to remember as we started reading "Inferno" is that it's about a man who is going through a mid-life crisis.

The first canto of "Inferno" sets the story at halfway through Dante's life, roughly around the time he was 35. Dante's family were associated with the White Guelfs, which political alliance had fallen out of favor with the ruling class in Florence, forcing him into exile away from his wife and children. To some extent, though the poem is thoroughly imbued with religious meaning, the despair that marks this first canto reflects the sense of grievous wrong Dante feels he has suffered and his hopes that justice one day will prevail, both spiritually and politically.

The canto begins in a dark wood, where Dante has been suffering deeply, and where he encounters a brace of wild animals. First, a beautiful leopard blocks his way for all that it is enchanting to look at; secondly, a fierce lion; and lastly a terrifying she-wolf also oppose him. The animals all keep Dante from mounting the hill that he is trying to climb, presumably to escape the fearsome woods and gain some perspective on where he is.

It's a common device to use animals to represent either an attitude that matches that animal's demeanor, or at least a person who possesses that attitude. The notes in my copy of "Infero" mention that these animals all represent political powers -- the leopard, Florence; the lion, the royal house of France; and the wolf, no less than the papal see. Yet the same three also correspond to mortal vices: worldly pleasure, ambition, and avarice.

At this point, Virgil arrives and explains to Dante that he can never make it up the hill, because the she-wolf (Rome and avarice) eats all who pass that way and becomes only the hungrier for having eaten. Dante's only escape is downward, through the depths of hell, where he will witness the torments of those confined to eternal fire; but of greater importance to the poet Dante, it seems, is the coming of the Greyhound that will destroy the she-wolf and return her to hell from whence she was set loose, and that will deliver Italy.

The writing about this Greyhound is decidedly messianic in style, to the point that the greyhound feeds on virtues like wisdom, love and "manfulness," which fits the other apocalyptic imagery of the canto. But it also works on a political level, apparently, since it may refer to any number of other political figures from Dante's life, especially given the rather limited range of the Greyhound's dominion.

I've always found Dante's choice of Virgil for his guide to be interesting, but in many regards it makes sense. Dante was Italian, and Virgil himself was an Italian, from the Golden Age of the Roman Empire. As a scholar, Dante doubtless had studied Virgil's "Aeneied" extensively, and in any event, he refers to himself as Virgil's disciple and student.

One thing that is mildly worth noting: Virgil's epic "Aeneid" also depicted a trip to the Underworld, as Aeneas sought counsel from the shade his father Anchises, as the Greek hero Odysseus also once had done. Anchises spoke of a coming golden age for Aeneas' descendants. The terms of Virgil's prophecy were clearly intended to describe Augustus Caesar, but some people have tried to interpret them around Christ.

Which of course is only fitting. The messianic expectation is archetypal, common to all people; just as we all believe that things used to better Once Upon a Time, we all have the hope that One Day Things Will Be Better Again.

And I suppose, when we're in a situation where our hopes and dreams have been thwarted by political machinations and bad luck, as many of Dante's had been, such an expectation and hope only makes sense.


Copyright © 2008 by David Learn. Used with permission.


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Deucalion and Pyrrha, and Noah: Different takes on Judgment

The ancient Greeks once told the story of a great flood that destroyed the earth.

The story goes that the gods saw the abundant wickedness of humanity and destroyed everyone but Deucalion and his wife, Pyrrha, with a great flood. It's the same basic myth as Noah, though Deucalion and Pyrrha did not save any animals and brought no children with them. There is no new beginning, no redemption of the human race, no new start seen through the lives of their children and grandchildren.

Deucalion and Pyrrha see their world annihilated and watch a new race usurp their place in the world. Noah and his wife took their sons and daughters-in-law on the Ark; Deucalion and Pyrrha saw the gods create an entirely new race of humanity from the rocks the two of them threw over their shoulders.

Imagine the grief they must have felt. They witnessed the genocide of their entire human species, and then watch as their land was taken over by a new people whom they had no relationship with. To make it more insulting, they were the instruments chosen to create their replacements.

Like the Greeks, the Hebrew writer of Genesis also imbued the tale with a moral meaning. Unlike the Epic of Gilgamesh, where the Deluge came because a god was being kept awake by humanity's noise, the Genesis account links the Deluge to humanity's wickedness. But the author of Genesis gives the Supreme Being a level of compassion and commitment notably lacking in Zeus.

Yes, the mythological Noah witnesses the destruction of his whole world, but he also sees a God who is committed to his creation, and who gives it a second chance. The pledge that there will be no other Flood comes with a repetition of the Eden commands to fill the earth and subdue it, to be fruitful and to multiply, with the implication that the earth has been renewed.

(The Apostle Peter refers to this in one of his epistles, where he links the Flood to baptism, which in Christian circles is seen as a symbol of cleansing and resurrection.)

And unlike Zeus, who wipes his original human race off the slate, God keeps Adam's race in the running.

sisyphus

The ancient Greeks had some pretty morbid ideas of what hell would be like. In the Greek view of things, which influenced later Christian writers like Dante, hell was populated by people who knew they were dead and who continued in death to be punished day and night for the sins they committed while they were still alive. So we had men like Tantalus, who would reach for grapes to end his hunger, only to have the branch move out of his way; or we had kings like Sisyphus, who had schemed against and outwitted the gods, and was punished accordingly.

Sisyphus' punishment was particularly grotesque. He was placed at the bottom of a hill in Hades and given a large boulder. All he had to do was to roll that boulder up to the top of the hill, and his punishment would be over. It's an effort doomed to failure, for with some pathetic fallacy the rock doesn't want to get to the top. It fights back with every tortured step he takes. No matter how he strains his muscles, no matter how far up the hill he manages to get the boulder, it wrests itself out of his grasp and rushes downhill again.

How wearying this must be! I imagine for the first few months, maybe for the first several years even, Sisyphus bore this in good humor. After all, he has all eternity before him to try and try again. So he learns from his failures, sees the missteps that incite the rock to work against him, and he does everything he can to avoid repeating his errors. He coaxes the rock, speaks kindly to it, tries to understand the particular gravity that pulls the rock down with such force just when they're almost at the top, and perhaps he even grins and laughs at his own folly when the rock tumbles past, smacking his shin or crushing his foot.

But the sun never sets in Hades, and there is no rest as the years turn as slowly and painfully as Ixion's wheel. Sisyphus begins to realize that he's not going to get that boulder up to the top of the hill as easily as he first thought. Does he try to carry it? Does he throw his whole self into it, scraping arms, legs, chest and back as he bodily lifts the boulder over one rock and another? Does he ever curse himself for the choices he made in life that led the gods to partner him with this rock for all eternity? Does he curse the rock, or rail at the gods? What does he do when, no matter how he tries, he just can't progress past a certain point? What does he do when it becomes evident that there will be no relief gained by getting to the top of this hill, because the rock will not consent to go there with him?

I wonder if Sisyphus ever wants to say "to hell with it" (perhaps he even appreciaties the irony of such a sentiment, given his situation) and tries to leave the rock. I wonder, too, if merely saying "to hell with it" would suffice. He's been pushing that rock for so long that he probably can't imagine existence without it; he's practically married to it. Even if he wanders off through Hades and finds happiness in the Elysian Fields, he'll probably still be haunted by memories of that rock, and he'll wonder if he could have found peace and happiness the way the gods had promised, if he hadn't given up. I imagine a sense of failure would haunt him, even in Elysium, if he walked away from the boulder.

And there's the matter of the gods. Didn't they decree that he was to get that rock up the hill? Maybe in their mercy and understanding, they'll allow him to leave the rock at the bottom of the hill -- surely they knew when he took the task that it was beyond his ability, and they'll forgive him his weakness. But then, these are the gods we're talking about. Unless they're just cruel without limit, there must be a way for him to succeed, and if there is, surely in their wisdom, they saw that he could do it, and they truly have kept their best waiting for him for when he completes the task.

I wonder if Sisyphus ever wants to just give up and sit at the bottom of the hill for all eternity, next to that rock that the gods put with him. It's not like he'd be leaving it, so you'd have to give something for integrity and perseverance for not deserting his post. But I can't say it would be much fun to sit at the bottom of a hill, next to a rock that's going to run over your foot every few minutes if you don't move, for all eternity, in hell.

The Greeks saw Sisyphus forever trapped in this cruel arrangement, where nothing he could do would improve his situation. The rock for its part provides no companionship, and every time he nearly gets it to the top of the hill, it rolls back down again, until numb and unfeeling, he staggers back down to get the rock and start moving it uphill again. If that goes on long enough, he's going to reach the point that no longer believes that anything will happen when he reaches the top of the hill, that there are Elysian Fields waiting somewhere for him. Keep it up long enough, and not only won't he believe in the gods, he won't be able to feel anything either. All he'll know is that he has to get the rock up the hill, but he wouldn't be able to tell you why if you asked him.

For my part, as I consider all these different options -- walking away, falling into despair, and doing the same damn thing every day -- I can't help thinking there must be something else he could try. And I wonder what it is.

mythology

As long as I can remember, I've been reading ancient stories about humanity's distant origins and our relationship with the gods.

I started in ancient Europe, but I've traveled North to lands of frost and ice giants; and I've journeyed south, to where the Nile flows and floods. I've traversed the seas in long canoes guided by Maui, and listened to the tales of Mȃth as sung by Celtic bards. I've drawn swords with Arthur and fought the devil in Brazil. I've seen floods caused by gods distressed at humanity's wickedness or tired out by all their noise and once by a monkey who pulled a cork from a bottle.

I love mythology.

It started back when I was a kid. The elementary school had a large yellow book of D'Aulaires' "Book Greek Myths" that I probably checked out more than any other volume while I was a student there.

The most important stories to the ancient Greeks were Homer's poems about Troy and Odysseus, but the bulk of the myths the D'Aulaires told came from writers other than Homer, who told tales about the Argo, about Heracles and Theseus and Orpheus, with the result that "The Iliad" and "The Odyssey" feel like afterthoughts to me. They're the Greek myths I'm least familiar with.

I got turned on to Norse mythology through Marvel Comics and its superhero Thor, particularly when Walt Simonson wrote and illustrated the comic in the mid-1980s. He was on the title for about five years, and wrapped his entire run around the mythic Ragnarok, the Twilight of the Gods where the Nine Worlds perish in flame.

Simonson had a deep passion for Norse myth that redefined the series. I think he's also a Christian, or at least is very familiar with Christian thought, based on the ways he reinterpreted some of the myths and Thor in particular.

One of these days I want to get a translation of the Elder Edda, since that's our only source of Norse mythology outside the comics.

I've read some Egyptian mythology, but since their cycle of mythology was thousands of years old, I can't even pretend to have more than a passing familiarity with it. It was also years ago. The only Celtic myths I've read are contained in "The Mabinogion," and my interest in that primarily is due to its contributions to the Arthurian cycle of literature.

Polynesian myths also are interesting. I have a collection of Maori myths compiled by Anthony Alpers that I picked up while I was living in New Zealand. It features Maui, a trickster similar to the Coyote of American Indian lore.

The little American Indian mythology I've been able to pick up has been snippets here and there, since it really wasn't in vogue to teach back in the 1970s, when I was in elementary school.

On the other hand, I did manage to find and devour a book on Latin American mythology when I was in high school, and got to read the myths of the Incans, Aztecs and Mayans. It was interesting, although I'm afraid I don't recall much of it.

What was striking was that the Mayans appeared to have had contact with Christian missionaries before the Europeans officially arrived, based on the Christian symbolism and motifs already found in their myths, such as the Devil and the use of the cross as a holy symbol.

I don't know much about Celtic myths, but I heartily recommend "The Mabinogion." It's a collection of Welsh tales with names many fruit-smoothie people have tried to appropriate, such as Rhiannon, Annwn and the horned god whose name escapes me at the moment, but it's still interesting reading.

The myths about Mȃth and Gwydion gradually give way to some of the oldest known Arthurian legends we have, old to the point you're not likely to recognize the names of most of his knights and companions unless you're already familiar with the cycle of literature. "Cei" is relatively easy to figure out (because it's also spelled Cai, which suggests Sir Kay the sensechal, and he acts as boorish), but there are others like Gwalchavad, Gwalchmei, Peredur and Bedwyr that aren't as easy.

These are some of the storis that have enthralled, shaped and defined me for a season or for longer. As God is my witness, they are stories that my daughters will know too.

Orpheus and Eurydice

It's no secret that I love Greek myth. One of my favorite myths, though, is the story of the unfortunate Orpheus and Eurydice.

Although Orpheus appears in older Greek words, the familiar story of his journey into the underworld to rescue his wife, Eurydice, comes to us from the Roman poet Virgil. As the story goes, Eurydice is bitten by a venomous snake on her wedding day; and Orpheus, unable to accept his bride's death, descends into the Underworld and asks Hades and Persephone to let Eurydice return to the land of the living with him.

Persuaded by the power of his music -- which was strong enough that it eased the suffering of the damned and even caused the Furies to weep -- Hades agreed to let Eurydice return to the surface world with Orpheus on one condition. Orpheus had to walk straight out and not look back the entire time. Eurydice, he told Orpheus, would follow him like a shadow.

Orpheus walked for hours in silence, hearing no evidence that Eurydice was following, and wondering if Hades had lied to him. At last he reached the entrance to the surface world, convinced he had been lied to, and he looked back -- just in time to see Eurydice's shade disappear back into the Underworld. Orpheus later dies when he refuses to join the Bacchante in their orgies and they rip him to pieces.

It is a tremendous tale, one I've loved ever since I read it in "D'Aulaires Book of Greek Myths." I've recognized subtle nods to it in other works I've read, and as is true of other retold stories, I've enjoyed seeing the story revisited by later authors.

One such retelling came in a Sandman comic for DC Comics, later collected in the trade paperback "Fables and Reflections." There Orpheus' father is Morpheus, Dream of the Endless, rather than Apollo; and his mother is Calliope, the muse of poetry.

Despite these slight modifications to fit Neil Gaiman's ensemble of characters, his and Eurydice's story is essentially the same as in Virgil's tale. The chief exception is that his head survives being ripped from his body. Morpheus sets his son up with caretakers who become de facto priests to the Orpheic mysteries that spring up around him and he plays a significant part in one issue set during the French Revolution, and starring Johanna Constantine; and in the collection "Brief Lives."

My personal favorite retelling of the story is "Sir Orfeo," one of three poems written by an anonymous poet of the 13th or 14th century, in a dialect of Middle English spoken north of London and away from the court where Geoffrey Chaucer wrote his tales about rhyming pilgrims. The two other poems are "Pearl" and "Gawain and the Green Knight." They are written on the same scroll, of which just one copy has survived to the present day.

The forgotten author of "Sir Orfeo" creates a Christian allegory by mixing the Greek mythology of Orpheus and Eurydice with Celtic mythology and legends of fairies to give us what is also a rollicking good fairy tale.

In this story, Sir Orfeo is both balladeer and king. His wife is Heurodis, and the elf-king has taken a fancy to her. When Orfeo's best efforts to protect Heurodis fail and the elf-king steals her away, Orfeo goes mad with grief. He leaves his kingdom in the hands of his steward and wanders off into the forest to mourn his lost wife.

After 10 years, the grieving Orfeo wanders into the elf-king's camp. He sings so movingly of his loss that the elf-king returns Heurodis. Reunited with his queen, Orfeo regains his wits and they return to his kingdom, where he retains his disguise as a wandering minstrel in order to test the character of his steward.

The steward honors the minstrel for the memory of his departed king, and Orfeo reveals himself. He is restored to his former glory, Heurodis at his side, and makes the steward his heir. Like I said, despite its allegorical nature -- Orfeo for Christ, Heurodis for the church -- it's a neat version of the story.

drawing monsters

I'm not an artist, but I can imagine the monsters in my mythology books must have posed some challenges for the artists. Take the hydra. How easy can it be to place nine heads on a single creature and have it appear to be natural? How do you find space for nine necks on the same piece of paper?

And yet a nine-headed hydra must be easy compared to some of the monsters the Greeks came up with. Remember Typhon? He was one of the creatures who opposed Zeus when the gods overthrew the Titans. If I remember correctly, he had 100 heads, and some of his siblings had even more.

I wonder how the heads reached an agreement. Did they argue back and forth like the three-headed knight in "Monty Python and the Quest for the Holy Grail," was it a simple majority rules, or did each head control a different part of the body?

Then there was hundred-eyed Argus. I can only imagine the headaches he got with that many eyes. And can you imagine what would happen if he were cross-eyed or some of his eyes got glaucoma? His optometrist must have loved sending *him* bills.

(I would wager he was available to watch Io for Hera because he never had a girlfriend. After all, would you want to date someone who poked you in the eye every time they hugged you?)