A while back, a friend and I were talking and (somehow or other) Dante's Inferno came up in the conversation. I've always had an admiration for Dante, who (exiled from his native Florence for his political connections) wasn't afraid to speak truth to power, and did so loud and clear in his Divine Comedy. Our conversation got me thinking: if Dante was writing today, how would he tackle contemporary issues (such as rampant capitalism, globalization, and the environment?)
In particular, where would Dante put climate change deniers in his Inferno? (I don't mean people who are simply ignorant about climate science, or who are apathetic about the environment, or even who are genuinely convinced that anthropogenic climate change doesn't exist. I mean the so-called "scientists" who work for, say, the Heartland Institute, or Enbridge, or the Koch brothers, to deliberately confuse people and spread lies about climate change.)
After giving it some thought, I decided that Hell needed...a small expansion. So I pulled up a new document, channelled Dante (as best I could), and -- voila! A long-lost "Dante" canto, wherein climate change deniers finally receive the punishment their deeds deserve. (Incidentally, when I gave my friend the same challenge, he came up with a solution identical to mine.)
First, though, a short primer on Dante. (The initiated can skip down below the eternal orange flame right to the Canto, if you'd like.)
- The Inferno is only one of three books that form the "Divina Commedia (Divine Comedy)" -- a poem, originally in Italian, consisting of 100 cantos (rather like chapters). Together, they tell the story of Dante's (imagined) voyage through Hell, Purgatory, and finally Heaven. However, the Inferno (Hell) is undoubtedly the best known by far.
- Dante is both the author and the narrator within his own story. He (the character) is guided through Hell by the Roman poet Virgil. In my own "canto", I myself am the narrator and my "guide", accordingly enough, is Dante himself.
- The entire poem is written in three-line stanzas, or tercets. The tercets follow a rhyme scheme known as terza rima: ABA, BCB, CDC, DED, and so on. (This looks simple on paper but can actually be rather tricky to produce, since it's such an interconnected form!)
- Hell, far from being an amorphous mass of fire and brimstone, is actually a highly ordered place. Though Dante's system is quite complex, one simple rule more or less sums it up:
THE HIGHER THE CIRCLE NUMBER, THE DEEPER THE CIRCLE (level) and THE WORSE THE SIN AND THEREFORE THE PUNISHMENT.
So in Hell, the worst place you could be is Circle 9 -- the very bottom of hell, where traitors (to Dante's mind the worst sin) are trapped beneath a lake of ice. However, the souls way up on Circle 1 are guilty of nothing more but leading apathetic, self-centered lives and their only punishment is to chase an elusive banner in circles for eternity while pursued by stinging insects. (Yawn.) All other sins fall somewhere in between. In most cases, the punishment "mirrors" or represents the sin -- e.g. the Gluttonous are ripped apart by the monstrous three-headed Cerberus, Sowers of Discord are hacked to pieces, Flatterers sit for eternity in -- quite literally -- human excrement, and so on.
And finally, one very important disclaimer:
- Though there are many, many aspects of Dante's system that I disagree with (e.g. the idea that heresy or homosexuality are sins!) I nonetheless respect his work for its meticulous logic and complexity. And above all, for its beautiful poetry!
Still with me? Awesome. See you on the other side of the Gate of Hell!
Canto XXVII.1
Ah, Reader, now believe me when I tell
Of one more cleft, and of a wonder new --
For what I saw, none else have seen in Hell:
A black pit bubbling like a witch's brew,
Filled with a thickened haze as dark as night
That stooping figures slowly stumbled through.
Their hands outstretched like those bereft of sight,
They coughed and retched and gagged -- and I could hear
In desperate tones one pleading: "Light! Ah, light!"
I gazed in trembling pity mixed with fear;
Then -- thinking I might bring him what he sought --
I stepped towards the cry that drew my ear.
If any more than one breath I had caught
Of that vile smoke, as thick and black as ink,
All of my journey would have been for naught.
My senses failed, I reeled beneath the stink,
And nearly fell -- save that my master grasped
My arm, and pulled me safe back from the brink.
There, shaking still, clean air I quickly gasped.
"Why are they here? In your great poem you told
Not once of such a punishment..." I rasped.
A shadow crossed his brow. "Indeed, of old
There were none such. The people you see there
Deceived and lied, and ruined the Earth for gold.
The deadly fumes they pumped into the air
Brought heatwaves, famine, storms and rising seas --
Yet rising profits were their only care.
Then come with me, and think no more on these."
...Yet still I wavered -- torn between my guide
Who strode ahead, deaf to my voiceless pleas --
My gaze still drawn by those I saw inside
The cleft. At last he turned. "I plainly see
Your wonder; ask -- it shall be satisfied."
"Those wretches that must wander endlessly
Trapped in their own pollution in that pit --
Their punishment is doubly strange to me.
If avarice possessed them, they should fit
Above the marsh's watery murk and grime --
Nor should the ones who ravaged nature, sit
In this low ring! What was these poor souls' crime?
-- And when, you say, you first came to this place
They were not here. Does sin, then, change with time?"
The poet said, a smile upon his face,
"Your questions -- that might seem not one, but two --
Are twin dividing branches I shall trace
To ignorance's trunk. I say to you:
When I've explained the reason for their fate,
Such ghosts with pity you'll no longer view.
How came these souls to be in Circle Eight?
You think they erred through violence, or through greed.
Those sins, though grievous, are not half so great.
Such toil above with heavy weights indeed --
Or tread the desert sands 'neath burning rain.
Yet these are of a very different breed,
For other fumes they belched forth for their gain.
They mingled truth with half-truth and with lie,
And shut their ears as Reason called in vain;
Hearts barred as well to Nature's suffering cry,
With poisoned tongues made smooth by greed, they spewed --
Like reeking smog that darkens heaven's sky --
False whispers to beguile the multitude.
Now with their evil they're repaid in kind:
The thickest, darkest tar is not so crude
As all their vile pollutions of the mind
(Unseen above, but here, like oil, that spill)
In which they choke and drown and stumble blind.
And in a prison that lies deeper still
They would be placed -- save by one slim reprieve:
We answer only for the wrong we will.
Just like a spider, in its tangling weave
Itself ensnared, unable to break free --
Those who deceive oft, too, themselves deceive,
And know not black from white. ...But soon we'll see
Those who for gain, sold country, friend and kin --
Aware of all they did. Come, follow me."
…I shuddered, and we passed yet further in.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
And now a couple explanatory footnotes (because what's more fun than to write scholarly footnotes for your own work?)
"My senses failed, I reeled beneath the stink,/And nearly fell --" Dante (the character) spends a lot of time swooning and falling over in the original, at least on the upper circles -- though as he journeys lower into Hell he appears to toughen up a bit. Anyway, I couldn't resist adding one more instance.
"Your questions -- that might seem not one, but two --/Are twin dividing branches I shall trace/To ignorance's trunk." This isn't a metaphor Dante uses anywhere as far as I know, but I'm pretty sure I was inspired by Dante's two questions to Beatrice in Canto IV of Paradiso.
"Such toil above with heavy weights indeed --/Or tread the desert sands 'neath burning rain." The avaricious and those who were spendthrifts are punished by eternally battling one another with heavy weights; those who are violent "against nature" must walk on burning desert sands which are swept by firestorms.
"They mingled truth with half-truth and with lie,/And shut their ears as Reason called in vain." And therefore, I've placed climate change deniers in Circle 8 -- where the Fraudulent are punished -- right next to the Evil Counsellors in Bolgia 8.
"Now with their evil they're repaid in kind." This is more or less the central theme of the Inferno.
"And in a prison that lies deeper still/They would be placed --" i.e. Circle 9, where traitors are punished. Here "Dante" argues that deliberately casting doubt on climate change could very well be seen as treachery, due to the catastrophic consequences for one's own country (not to mention the world!)
"We answer only for the wrong we will." I don't believe Dante ever states this exactly -- but it certainly accords well with his general theme of justice (i.e. that people are only repaid for the crimes they knowingly commit.)