Dante is in danger. It is easy to presume that
Dante the character is traveling on a path without perils because he makes it clear at the outset
that his journey is allegorical and represents the life of every man. Readers often think that
in the story of the divine comedy nothing can happen to him as a character because there's
no real narrative of an actual physical journey. We assume he'll get home safely after all
the lion and she-wolf and leopard at the beginning don't attack him physically. Canto
eight is the moment in which Dante the poet lets us see that Dante's physical safety is not
guaranteed. Of course physical danger indicates spiritual danger in the Comedy but now we see
Dante's not just a spectator in the Inferno he's participating somehow in this journey
and unlike Virgil he's not yet dead and is not incapable of injury. Several times in
canto 8 characters comment on the fact that Dante the pilgrim is still a living vulnerable human
being. Coming after a more static canto 7 canto eight is filled with action, much
of the action indicates Dante's danger. It also contains hints that the denizens of hell
feel threatened by his presence or perhaps simply want to entrap him. Imagine the effect of the
lighting of the watchfires of the city of Dis on the newly arrived pilgrim. Dante the poet never has
Virgil answer his questions about these signals so they remain mysterious and threatening. Are there
two fires to indicate two unwelcome arrivals Dante pilgrim and Virgil his guide? Are the watchfires
lit for all arrivals or just specifically for them? In the gloom the reader like Dante remains
unenlightened even if light has just inexplicably appeared in the utter dark. We share Dante's
experience of confusion. We turn to Virgil as he does for confident action reassurance and we
hope and ability to break through the blockade the taunting fallen angels refuse to lift. Virgil may
prove weaker than his adversaries at this point but Dante the writer still gives him a poignant
authority as Virgil refers to the event of the harrowing of Hell that traditionally also saw
the demons of Hell opposed to someone's entrance. In this case however it was Christ's as he
descended to the dead after his death on the cross thus Dante the writer likens the animosity
Virgil and Dante encounter at the gates of Dis to that which greeted Christ who overmastered
the devils wanting to keep him out. Virgil knows the power of God can break through
this obstacle. He may not have the power in himself but he knows God does and that all they have to
do is wait for the assistance promised from Heaven. Virgil may not be able to overcome the fallen
angels but he trusts that God who harrowed Hell before can accomplish what he cannot. The moment is
fraught with meaning Virgil who died without faith in the true God shows faith in him here. Virgil who
was left behind when Jesus harrowed Hell explicitly recalls the harrowing as a promise for aid on
Dante's journey and not as a sadness for himself. Virgil who together with Dante read
the inscription over the gate of Hell that inscription whose hopeless message applies to
him and not to the living Dante offers the proof of the open gate there as a sign of hope for Dante.
Dante had found the words of the inscription hard or harsh; Virgil reminds him of Christ's power
and mercy. Dante is building up the character Virgil investing him with deep pathos even as
he shows his weakness and foreshadows his loss. This canto also features the altercation
between Filippo Argenti and Dante that makes us realize that Dante's a character is in physical
danger in the poem. This event is one of the most controversial in the entire Comedy because it's
hard to determine from the cues Dante gives us if he and Virgil act properly here; because Filippo
seems to be trying to get into their boater to capsize it, it seems right for Dante to push Filippo
back into the river to which he has been condemned. However commentators have for centuries noted
that Dante might be demonstrating his own vengeful anger toward a personal enemy a fact of which the
writer is either unconscious or conscious. If he is unconscious of his own vindictiveness Dante
is using his poem to retaliate against Filippo. Legend says Filippo insulted him perhaps even
slapping Dante in the face and that Filippo's brother profited by the confiscation of Dante's
property when the poet was exiled from Florence. If Dante the writer is conscious of the potential
meaning of Dante the pilgrim's angry retaliation however the episode could mean one of two things:
either Dante believes Filippo truly was bad enough to deserve his punishment of being dismembered
in the river Styx and thus he would not have felt guilty for publicly humiliating his memory here or
Dante is engaged in some kind of self-examination in the circle of the wrathful. Dante the pilgrim
himself is violent toward Filippo in this episode and moreover takes delight in the violence
Filippo suffers as his punishment saying that seeing Filippo being torn
apart as a site so pleasing to him that quote "even now I praise and thank God for it"
in line 16. Virgil had just quoted the gospel according to Saint Luke praising Dante for his
deed of pushing Filippo back into the river. That is Virgil addresses Dante the pilgrim with
words directed originally to Jesus the son of God indicating that Dante's anger is righteous and his
attitude toward the center pious because Dante had earlier erred in showing too much sympathy with
Francesca and Paolo many readers take this passage to mean Dante is now aligning himself with the
way God sees sin. However this canto also shows us Virgil blocked at the gates of Dis and we also
wonder if the Dante we just saw similarly blocked at the foot of the mountain six cantos ago has
advanced so rapidly towards sanctity as to merit being identified with Jesus himself. Jesus responds
to the praise he hears "yea rather blessed are they who hear the word of God and keep it." Does Dante
mean the pilgrim is keeping the words of God here? Or that he is not doing so by showing wrath the
sin punished in this very location in the Inferno? As with many episodes in the Inferno Dante
leaves us without clear answers to our questions merely forging ahead once God's angel fanning
away the missed and unpleasant fumes of Hell opens the locked gates with a mere touch of
his wand. The angel is disdainful of the feudal opposition of the denizens of Dis but does nothing
to increase their punishment an attitude that also makes us reflect upon Dante's actions towards
Filippo. As we near the end of the Canto with its deliberate use of suspense Dante poeta turns to
us and speaks to us drawing us as never before in the first few cantos in the Inferno. "Pensa, lettor, se io mi sconfortai / nel suon de le parole maladette, / ché non credetti ritornarci mai" "Consider reader my dismay before the sound of
those abominable words that I couldn't believe I'd ever return again." Dante shares his emotions
with us and asks us to put ourselves in his place. Lest we think that Dante the pilgrim is a mere
spectator in the Inferno the poet lets us know how much he feared for his future at that moment;
a future which might have been spent in Hell as prisoner. The thought of being stuck in Hell is
introduced to us in many ways in this cantica in order to de-familiarize the concept.
Dante certainly knows the reader is aware of the teaching on the eternity of Hell
but moments like this catch us unaware and we are left to wonder if the quote
"accursed words" are prophesying Dante's own fate. This strategy is one of many Dante uses to
make the concept of being entrapped in how less conventional less dismissible than it is for
anyone in the audience who is so used to the idea that it can become even a joke. Dante's awareness
of his own peril as a character grows in the journey with Virgil. He's not even sure where he
is at the outset now he knows there might not be a way out. This obstruction is terrifying and even
Virgil does not know what to do next. What does it mean to encounter an obstacle on the path to God?
The Divine Comedy is full of stories about these obstacles and the pilgrim Dante himself encounters
many even in the first few cantos of the Inferno. This is the first time however his guide has
not known how to proceed and many commentators point out that this is the first time Dante sees
a weakness in Virgil. It is interesting that Dante did not want us to presume that this discovery
would shake Dante's faith in and admiration for Virgil; on the contrary as Dante's progress
continues and Virgil's weaknesses become more apparent even as we move into purgatory. Dante's
affection for his master will rather deepen and become more personal more filial. However if Virgil
represents human reason as some think the halt at the gates of Dis means reason unassisted
cannot deal with the evil that lies within.
