In Canto 3 we come to some of the standard
settings and images that we would expect in any good account of the underworld: the looming gates
of hell, the river Acheron which you may know under the more roman name of Styx, and the ferry
boat across that river captained by the terrifying Charon. Many of these images that we begin to
encounter here are set pieces that Dante inherited from classical greco-roman mythology especially
as they were recorded in the writings of his trusty guide Virgil. now so far in the Divine
Comedy we've been given symbols that were either pure archetypes like the dark wood or socially
significant like the leopard and the greyhound or personal for Dante like the first
mention of the mysterious Beatrice but here in canto 3 we get to see Dante take
over important images from the great greco-roman classical tradition these are inherited images
over which he has complete mastery that he partially transmits them to us and partially
transforms them for us. For a traditional poet like Dante both transmission and transformation
of the ancient materials are important. The more you care about the descent to the
underworld and homer's Odyssey and virgil's Aeneid the more you'll care about it as its elements
are transmitted to us in Dante's book but on that foundation we can also pay some attention to
the way Dante transforms these hellish set pieces the most obvious way Dante transforms what he
transmits is of course that he christianizes it he puts the pagan imagery to work
within a christian vision of reality. Now i know that to say christian eyes to a 21st
century audience is risky because it might sound like what Dante is up to is just slapping a Jesus
bumper sticker on a secular car or turning a love song into a praise song by changing the words baby
baby baby to Jesus Jesus Jesus but that is not what it means for Dante to take up pagan imagery
in his christian epic. Instead Dante christianizes his pagan materials by setting them within a
larger more comprehensive context of thought. Anybody who's binged on greco-roman
mythology knows that all the pieces from all the different eras of myth don't quite
fit together into a complete overall system. Dante is in the business of establishing so
comprehensive a synthesis of all truth that he is able to put everything where it belongs in
relation to the ultimate truth. No polytheist could do this but they didn't even really try
- that's kind of the point of pagan polytheism. So for all the complexity and all the surprises
Dante brings Christian order to these pagan mythological elements. He retells as many
of the old stories as he can possibly fit in but he approaches them with better understanding
and greater context he shines a new light on as many settings as he can like the underworld
itself and as many characters as he can like charon. and that light is the light of
Christian theology. The two major examples of this in Inferno canto three are the gates of hell
and the ferry man Charon. First the gates of hell. This terrifying portal to the underworld
stands under a triple inscription nine lines which include the most famous line in
all of Dante: "abandon all hope ye who enter here" the inscription is written in the first person
"through me the way into the city of woe" as one translation has it. The effect is that this
piece of architecture voices itself as a character it silently speaks these lines of carved dialogue
three claims in a row about its identity: I am the way into the city of woe I am the way into eternal
pain I am the way to go among the lost. Then three claims about its causes: justice caused my high
architect to move, divine omnipotence created me, the highest wisdom and the primal love, and then
finally a statement on its antiquity before me there were no created things but those that last
forever as do I. Abandon all hope you who enter here. The first thing to say is that Dante
promotes these gates to a place of prominence they have never before had in visionary accounts
of the underworld. We can't quite call the gates of hell Dante's own invention because if you read
the classics carefully you can just find them. But here they loom they speak they dominate and they
stand out in the whole world's memory of what's in Dante's Inferno and it makes perfect sense that
the poet who sets the underworld in a monotheistic christian context would be the one to focus
on their gates that is the boundary the limit the way in which the sprawling kingdom of the
underworld is nevertheless contained in its place the pagan imagination could set the underworld
off in another kingdom truly other truly a kingdom under another god but for Dante there is finally
no such thing as another god so he can and must set himself a larger task. As a theological
poet the christian imagination can ask bigger questions than the pagans could and stipulate
boundaries no polytheist could ever conceive of, distinctions of which they could never dream. So
when someone who's never read Dante only knows one line of Dante, abandon all hope ye who enter
here they're really onto something significant. As G.K. Chesteron said "popular
misconceptions are almost always right." The biggest of the bigger questions
Dante asks at the gates of hell is about justice and cosmic order: what moved
the architect to establish these gates justice what power made them divine omnipotence from what
source the highest wisdom to what end primal love? Now the leading idea is justice which at this
infernal level primarily manifest itself as order when the gates claim that before me there were
no created things but those that last forever they are evoking the absolutely primal materials
and principles of created reality in the christian theology of creation especially as expounded
by Augustine and Aquinas there are precisely two created things that were made by God
but which exist outside of time. Those two things are the formless matter and the
matterless form of the created world. The absolutely formless matter is outside of time
because it's so unstructured that it can't change. It can't go as physics would say from state
a to state b because it's so disordered that it's not in a state it's pure stuff it's the
substrate of everything physical but you can't do physics about it. You might say it does not
rise above the threshold of being inside of time. Augustine calls this in book 10 of the
Confessions the earth of the earth. The other thing is what Augustine calls the heaven
of heavens it is the mighty spinning movement of the world soul yearning to be near God it moves
so rapidly in its clinging to its divine cause that it too escapes change you might say
it rises above the level of being in time we'll be hearing a lot more about
this world sphere in Dante's Paradiso. These two created things are before the gates of
hell in the sense of being logically prior to them but here as the very next thing after these
two ultimate entities stand the gates of hell before me there were no created things but those
that last forever as do I. Dante gives the gates of hell a cosmological function as the very
first manifestation of cosmic order things are ordered and in their places in the christian
cosmos and these gates establish that boundary by the way it's worth noting that there's no need
to have a corresponding set of gates for paradise i mean there are some doors and boundaries
throughout purgatory but Dante will not be showing us a similarly imposing
speaking set of the gates of heaven. They're not necessary in a true cosmos
order anywhere means order everywhere and gates are not as fitting a symbol
of heaven as they are of hell under the comprehensive heading of justice
the gates make a further triple claim they are formed by power wisdom and love. Now this
threefold inscription is subtly trinitarian just just a little bit teasingly, hintingly alluding
to the Almighty Father the wisdom of God who had become incarnate and the love of the Holy
Spirit not much more can be said about that at this point in the inferno we never hear very
directly about Jesus or even Mary the Trinity likewise remains as a name not yet spoken but only
shadowed forth in these lower shadowy regions. Now what about Charon the Ferryman? Here Dante's
pagan poetic predecessors have given him a lot more detail to work with and he faithfully
transmits this powerful mythological character but even here the light of greater understanding
shines on the ancient pagan symbolism in Virgil's Aeneid the only way to convince
charon to take a living passenger across the river was to bring along the offering of the golden bow. Here in Dante Charon is persuaded not by a
charm but by the invocation of divine authority. Ultimately the Almighty God in the highest
heaven stands behind the summoning of Dante to this strange journey as Virgil tells Charon
this has been willed where what is willed must be. Charon yields to the argument: pagan
myth yields to christian instruction. Our author Dante transforms all this pagan
material by bringing christian teaching to it but starting here in canto 3 we see his technique
as a teacher. Dante the poet knows everything and is always speaking his voice is behind every voice
you hear Dante the character or the pilgrim as we say understands very little at first especially
down here in the underworld and is constantly asking questions which the other characters
answer for him to the best of their ability Dante the poet is the ideal teacher Dante the
pilgrim is the ideal student together they dramatically catechize us as readers making our
way through the puzzling darkness of the inferno. you
