Excerpts From My Own Journey

The midways of life are appropriately times of realization and reflection, but really, we can never be sure when we're there. The opening lines of the Inferno, "In the middle of the journey of our life, I came to myself in a dark wood, for the straight way was lost" (Inf.I.1-3) bring us into Dante's journey, wondering what has been and what will be, like Milton in his sonnet from which I stole my blog title. I doubt that I've passed the middle of my life yet, but many times I've found myself in a dark wood, wondering what use or purpose there is for me. Without full answers to those questions, it is still certain that part of the movement forward is to be reading, thinking and writing. Below are the first several paragraphs of my Dante preceptorial paper. Enjoy?

“Surely I wept, leaning on one of the rocks of the hard ridge, so that my guide said to me: ‘Are you still one of the other fools? Here pity lives when it is quite dead: who is more wicked than one who brings passion to God’s judgment?’” (Inf. XX. 25-30). Virgil’s criticism makes it clear that weight is given to how Dante will respond to the souls he observes in his travels through hell. These souls are beyond hope or redemption; they are disturbing visions, ultimate and eternal realizations, of sin. Before the wayfarers even set out, Virgil describes the horror of this journey: “you will hear the desperate shrieks, you will see the ancient suffering spirits, who all cry out at the second death” (Inf. I.115-8). As he journeys, hearing and seeing these sins and their eternal judgment, how ought Dante to respond? If pity as a response to God’s judgment is evidence of folly and wickedness, what ought we to bring to the judgment of God?

The tension related to pity is to be expected on this journey. After Dante’s commitment to follow Virgil, we read, “I alone prepared myself to undergo the war both of the journey and of pity, which memory, unerring, will depict” (Inf. II.3-6). The invoking of memory reminds us that the Poet who knows from experience, and not simply the Pilgrim who speculates from anticipation, describes the experience as a “war.” Not a word for a mild tension, war conveys immense struggle that will cease only in death and victory. We can now expect skirmishes and battles, violence and loss, weapons and tactics. At first glance, it seems as though these are two separate wars, one pertaining to the journey, perhaps between stagnancy or retreat and moving forward, and the other pertaining to pity, perhaps between different inclinations or recipients of pity, or perhaps simply between whether to feel pity or not. The word for war, la guerra, however, is singular. The struggle of pity and the struggle of the journey are one action; to triumph in pity is to move forward in the journey.

To explore these notions of pity both as a war and an inappropriate response to God’s judgment, it seems helpful to explore what pity is. The first mention is of Dante’s own state wandering lost in the dark wood; he describes the night passing with so much “anguish.” The Italian word is pieta, the same that is translated elsewhere as pity (Inf. I.21). Going far beyond our modern notions of a weak, nearly patronizing attitude toward someone beneath us in situation, this is a darker, but also more familiar, experience of the soul. Here, pity is suffering and anguish, the act of wandering in error and darkness, and a great sense of hopelessness.

More than the firsthand experience of suffering, Virgil and Dante also express pity as a response to the pain of others. As Virgil leads them both forward into the abyss, Dante notices the paleness of his face, and Virgil explains that, “the suffering of the peoples who are here below, paints on my face that pity which you perceive as fear” (Inf. IV.19-21). Later, upon hearing the names of the many famous carnal sinners in the second circle, Dante narrates, “pity came upon me, and I was almost lost” (V.11-12). In both of these situations, pity or suffering is acting upon the pilgrim and his guide; Dante had appropriately described this war of pity as something he prepared to “undergo” (II.3). The action is particularly war-like in its attack and near victory on Dante. He is almost lost, but continues to listen, even as Paolo and Francesca praise his “pity on our twisted pain” (V.92-93) and as pity brings forth his own tears (V.116-7). As he continues to listen to the tale and weeping of the lovers, he is overcome, “for pity I fainted as if I were dying, and I fell as a dead body falls” (V.140-2). Though a response to the suffering of others, this is still pity as anguish, wrapped up in the torment and sorrow of sin.

Yet we must also ask, is this truly a pity that is centered on the pain of the other? Virgil may grow pale for the suffering of those below, but we must remember that he is of them and will himself return to them. Likewise, Dante seems to understand the experience of Paolo and Francesca quite well, pondering perhaps too deeply “how many sweet thoughts, how much yearning led them to the grievous pass” (V.112-4). Here, he is not a removed observer; he knows this passion and desire, and his final climax of pity reads as a literal capitulation—a fall that is like death. Pity seems to include both the knowledge and the anguish of sin, the guilt and the experience of justice.

Surely this is not the quality that Dante ascribes toward Beatrice after hearing Virgil’s account of her plan for his rescue: “Oh full of pity [pietosa] she who has helped me!” (Inf. II.138). The pity of Beatrice is not only quite different from the anguish of wandering in darkness or wallowing in sin, it also goes beyond mere sentiment or even deep feeling of suffering in empathy. This conception of pity is tied to a love that moves forward in action to change the circumstances of the one in anguish.