The Afterlife in the Classical and Italian Traditi

After the discussion on guides last Friday I was looking at the first canto of Inferno, where Dante meets Vergil. Although Dante-the-character is overjoyed to meet Vergil, whom he admires immensely as a poet, I think Dante-the-poet makes it clear that at least in some ways, he intends to surpass his hero.

Amid Dante-the-pilgrim’s excitement (he gushes: l. 82 and following) at seeing Vergil, one of the first things Vergil says is that he was born in “the season of the false and lying gods.” (l. 72) And again, while he can help Dante through Hell and Purgatory, “a soul more worthy” will have to guide him in Paradise. (l. 122)

There’s definitely pathos in Dante’s admiration, as both poet and pilgrim, for Vergil, and the fact that Vergil can never attain Paradise - as Abi pointed out. But Dante-the-poet also makes it plain that, since he can reach greater heights through the combination of faith with reason, his poem will be correspondingly more ambitious. I think there’s a bit of a literary game here, as well: as Vergil elaborated on Homer’s structure and stories, Dante doesn’t just want to rewrite Vergil’s vision of the afterlife, he wants to do it better. But, as Vergil’s protective care for Dante-the-character and Dante’s admiration show, it’s only with divine aid that Dante can go farther.

After Friday’s discussion I began to think about how Virgil and Beatrice are considered as guides, how they facillitate Dante’s goal(s?) and also how they exit La Commedia. Beatrice from the outset in Inferno is a goal in and of herself for Dante,both literal and allegorical: As a man in love, he seeks his one true love and also she represents the true moral path from which he had strayed and in following her he would be united with The One.

Summoned by Beatrice, Virgil intercedes to facillitate Dante’s journey to enlightenment. Although reason allows him to guide Dante almost to the peak of Purgatorioto, he is unable to receive divine grace and therefore is obliged to return to Limbo. Virgil’s departure slips under the radar barely noticed until Dante seeks out his ‘father’ for reassurance when he is overwhelmed by the arrival of Beatrice: “But Virgil deprived us of himself, Virgil, the gentlest father, Virgil, he to whom I gave myself for my salvation” Purg.30 v. 49-51. It is an achingly poignant moment for Dante who has to say goodbye but I feel sad too for Virgil who cannot proceed further. However, Dante is once again compelled to move onwards and upwards and not to ‘weep’ because greater delights are in store for him.

In Paradiso, Beatrice is his guide to the Truth, however it emerges by Canto 31 that she is neither the end result, nor the ultimate guide. In Empyrean, Beatrice hands Dante over to St. Bernard who takes Dante all the way! However, whilst Beatrice slips silently away, just as Virgil, when Dante looks for her he is reassured by seeing her smile down at him: “If you look up and to the circle that is third from that rank which is highest, you will see her on the throne her merits have assigned her.” Par. 31 v 66-69. So while she is no longer by his side, her presense is still felt. Also her ‘resting place’ is one of eternal bliss, unlike that of Virgil’s which is one of eternal longing. So the final destination for one of Dante’s ‘hero’ guides makes me feel even sadder for the other by the end of the poem. Poor old Virgil!!!!

During the discussion last Friday, the question of the purpose of the afterlife was brought up. The main arguments that were brought up for this were that in the Classical tradition the afterlife acts as a place for souls to be rehabilitated, while in the Christian tradition it is a place for punishment. It seems to me that in the Christian tradition the afterlife is more about justice than punishment. In the Christian tradition one may sin, but still be allowed into Heaven. If one believes and asks for forgiveness it will be given, even up until the last moment of life.

The main example of this in our readings is the story of Manfred in Canto III of Purgatorio. Manfred says that “My sins were ghastly, but the infinite Goodness has arms so wide that it accepts who ever would return, imploring it” (l. 121-123). In his heart Manfred was good, but, like many people, he made some mistakes in his life. He did not deserve to go to Hell for what he did, so he was forgiven and sent to Purgatory and eventually Heaven. While Purgatory may seem a sort of punishment for misdeeds I think it is more closely related to justice. Souls that have committed sins can’t go straight to Heaven without some sort of discipline, which they receive in Purgatory. Therefore I believe that the afterlife in the Christian tradition can be viewed in a similar way to a system of justice with Heaven being the free and innocent, Purgatory being the small time offenders, and Hell being those guilty of capital or other equally serious crimes.

Win and Nicole’s dialogue on Friday discussed the importance of the community’s role of the transportation of a soul. Again, in this weeks readings of the Odyssey, characters stress the urge for the proper rituals to be done to the dead in order for the soul to depart. In book 10 of the Odyssey, we learn of the death of Elpinor, the youngest member of Odysseus’ crew, who in a drunken state, had fallen off the roof. In book 11, when Odysseus travels to the realm of the dead, Elpinor is one of the first souls he encounters. Elpinor reminds Odysseus that his body still lays on Circe’s island and he begs Odysseus to return and give him a proper burial. Elpinor asks Odysseus that “you remember me, and do not go and leave me behind unwept, unburied, when you leave,… but burn me there with all my armor that belongs to me, and heap up a grave mound beside the beach of the gray sea” (line 72).

Additionally, the importance of honorable/traditional preparations for the soul to depart the body is again stressed in book 11 of the Odyssey. Agamemnon is speaking with Odysseus about how he was murdered by his wife and while describing his death, he tells Odysseus “but with the sluttish woman turned away from me and was so hard that her hands would not press shut my eyes and mouth though I was going to Hades” (line 425). This tradition of closing the eyes and mouth is one of the first of the preparations for the funeral rites. This is also present in Homer’s Iliad with the burial of Patroklos.

After talking in class about the Platonic belief in some kind of afterlife and also the tradition of resurrection of the soul as we saw in the Phaedo, I found it interesting that in Plato’s The Apology no provision was made for souls to return to the mortal world.

Socrates says “Death is one of two things. Either it is annihilation, and the dead have no consciousness of anything; or as we are told, it is really a change: a migration of the soul from one place to another.”

Firstly, Plato considers the potential ‘nothingness’ of death where no afterlife exists, only a”dreamless sleep.” Secondly his reference to metempsychosis is quite explicit and specific “death is a removal from here to some other place.” This place, unlike Homer’s Hades full of ‘zombies’, is a chance to meet historical greats and engage them in lively intellectual discussion “their company and conversation…would be unimaginable happiness.” and this would be for Socrates a “rewarding place to settle” where they become “immortal for the rest of time.”

Thirdly, I found it fascinating that in The Phaedo Plato refers to the philosophers as the top dogs of the afterlife hierarchy, however in The Apology he adds the element of one single omnipotent god “…which of us has the happier prospect is unknown to anyone but God.”

So with these slight inconsistencies is it completely justified to refer to one single Platonic tradition?

In a similar vein of Dante’s advise for his readers, I have a warning for all those who read on: “O you who are within your little bark, eager to listen, following behind my ship that, singing, crosses deep seas, turn back to see your shores again, do not attempt to sail the seas I sail: you ma, by losing sight of me, be left astray.” (Paradiso, Canto II, lines 4-6.)

It would appear that I am the last to comment on the dialogue of last Friday. Just as well, I suppose. I have been muddling over several points made during Abby and Sophie’s dialogue, several of which have been poking and proding at my psyche in seemingly greater torment than any of the demons in Inferno….

The first comment I would like to make regards the nature of the soul of Patroklos in opposition to the nature of Dante’s souls in La Divina Commedia. The comment was made during the dialogue that when Patroklos appears to Achilles in real life, although dead, he lacks an substantive breath of life. I found this entirely antithetical to the nature of the souls as they speak and appear to Dante throughout the Divina Commedia, but especially in Inferno. One of the first, and certainly not the last descriptions of the underworld Dante transcribes to us is with a line from Canto II of Inferno, “Here sighs and cries and wails coiled and recoiled on the starless air, pulling my soul to tears. A confusion of tongues and monstrous accents toiled in pain and anger. Voices hoarse and shrill and sounds of blows, all intermingled, raised tumult and pandamonium….” (lines 22-27.) The souls in Dante possess a breath of life that seem equal if not surpassing that of the living in their anguish, despair and even their exaltation. This point about the “alive souls” was addressed by the first post of Wynn, and a point I think worthy of reiterating. It is interesting to consider how the souls of the dead have acquired more lively characteristics as we progress from the classical to medieval literature.

Another issue raised during the dialogue was the aspect of a hierarchy among the dead. It was stated that obviously there exists an extreme hierarchy of the dead within La Divina Commedia. However it was also that in antiquity the dead are equal. I’m not sure I agree with this entirely. As we look through The Aeneid or Plato’s Phaedo there is a clear distinction between the “reasoned,” “enlighted” souls versus the “heavy,” “unenlightened” souls. There is an element of seperation and hierarchy in antiquity, whether it is along the divide of reason or the traditional good/bad earthly life. So in this respect I would argue that there is a hierarchy of the dead in both classical and italian traditions, yet the causes for such hierarchies do differ.

I would like to go back to Friday’s dialogue between Abby and Sophie. They discussed the Dante’s Devine Comedy and how he addresses that there are no classes amongst the shades. Instead, each individual soul has the same power as another, with each shade serving God. I wanted to compare this with this weeks reading, Phaedo, in which Socrates gives a detail description of the afterlife, and the different rivers that serve as the destination of a soul’s fate. While I was reading Socrates’ description, I couldn’t help but think these souls were infact, anything but a “democracy.” On page 194, part b, Socrates describes the souls who are guilty of sins that are curable. He writes how they “come past the Acherusian Lake, there they cry aloud and call upon those whom they have killed or violently abused, and calling, beg, and entreat for leave to pass from the stream in the lake,and be received by them. If they prevail, they come out and there is an end of their distress; but if not, they are swept away once more” I believe this quote directly contradicts with Dante’s Devine Comedy. Here, the fate of this “curable souls” is in the hands of other souls. They must ask for forgiveness from the souls they have afflicted and only from the power of these souls, can the “curable” souls be saved.

During the discussion on Friday I thought the idea of a template for physical contact between the dead and living was an interesting topic to explore. While thinking about this I started thinking about the idea of guides or guardian spirits in the texts we are reading. In each text we have read there has been a shade that has led a living character to the answers that they are seeking, or helped them in some other way. The most obvious example is that of Vergil leading Dante through the underworld and constantly explaining the workings of the afterlife. Though I am not very familiar with the Comedy, it would seem to me that Vergil is like a teacher to Dante throughout the narrative. Vergil acts as Dante’s guide in Inferno and Purgatorio, but then it seems that Beatrice leads him through Paradiso. However, both help Dante greatly in his search for knowledge and his journey through the afterlife.

The next example is that of Aeneas and his father, Anchises. Anchises does not lead Aeneas into the underworld; however, he does help Aeneas with the question that he came to answer about Rome. He tells Aeneas of the future glory of the city and through this helps to renew Aeneas’ faith in his journey. Without his descent into the underworld and Anchises’ guidance, Aeneas may have given up his mission.

Two other examples come from Plato and the Iliad. Socrates mentions the idea of a guardian spirit in Plato’s Phaedo. This idea seems very similar to that of the guide, though it seems that this guardian spirit acts mainly as a guide after a person dies. In the Iliad Patroclus can be seen as a guide for Achilles, however this connection is not as strong. Patroclus tells Achilles to give him funeral rites though there is no descent into the underworld by Achilles at this point. All of this made me wonder if guides or guardian spirits are essential to mortals when they descend into the underworld looking for knowledge. It would seem that they are if one seeks a certain knowledge. It also makes perfect sense that these guides are shades, after all, who better to lead somebody through the afterlife than a dead person?

Upon re-reading my notes in class, I spent some time musing about some points that stuck in my head:

Teiresias is blind in life, cogent in death.
Shades get progressively more “alive” (have more personality, act more like we, living people, do) From Homer to Virgil, to Dante.
What are the etymological roots of “Gibber”?

Contemplating the first point just led to a MSPaint drawing of zombie shades. (Speaking of which, I also scribbled something about Statius being a Virgil-Fanboy.)
Searching for information on the third point only led to “inconclusive origins.”

So I settled on the curious pattern of dead people being mostly like alive people, just dead. The idea of the afterlife certainly got more complex during the time between Homer and Dante, so the mere progression of time probably contributed to the more sophisticated dead people in Dante’s Divine Comedy. Since hindsight is always easy, I find that it’s pretty likely that poets would have improved upon their predecessors, so Virgil improved the gibbering shades, and by the time the dead got to Dante, he added much more flair. The context of where we see the dead people also contributes to their personality seems hard to be much more than hollow shades when the afterlife is dead boring. But with Dante (it’s much easier to compare Homer and Dante, being more extreme), there are whole realms of really Bad people, People Being Saved and Saved People, and this gives him a much richer context in which to put his characters. Much of what Dante’s characters express are tied in with where the soul is in Inferno/Purgatorio/Paradisio, so the deepening of the soul’s personality comes with the expansion of the afterlife itself.