- An important plot innovation: in the encounter with the devils at the gates of Dis, Dante-author scripts a fallible role for the guide who thus far has been “mar di tutto ’l senno” : “the sea of all wisdom” (Inf. 8.7)
- Narratological points of interest: Inferno 8 begins with a narratological twist, a flashback (first employed in Inferno 2), and it concludes with a new narratological feature, an ending that occurs in medias res
- The narratological innovations of Inferno 8 also include an interpolated story within the larger story and the Commedia’s first address to the reader
- Dante creates a textual environment of dense semiosis, in which infernal denizens are equipped with signs and are sophisticated semiotic players
- The sinners have sign-systems that they use to communicate, as do the devils, as of course do the travelers
- In this canto Dante deploys for the first time a new and more complicated narrative structure: an overarching storyline that is punctuated by a briefer interpolated story
- The overarching storyline is the story of the travelers Dante and Virgilio, who try to enter the city of Dis and are rebuffed by devils; this storyline begins in the last verse of Inferno 7 and concludes with the arrival of the angel in Inferno 9
- The overarching storyline accommodates an interpolated shorter narrative in which the pilgrim, while traversing the River Styx, is accosted by a wrathful soul: the Florentine magnate Filippo Argenti
- The complex narrative transition of Inferno8–9 echoes the original transition of Inferno 1–2, and it simultaneously anticipates the even more complex narrative transition of Inferno 16–17
- An Aristotelian vice/virtue spectrum with respect to wrath, begun with the tristi at the end of Inferno 7, is completed by the rabid Filippo Argenti in Inferno 8
- The overarching storyline of the travelers trying to enter the city of Dis is also an important installment in the ongoing narrative of Virgilio, whose pre-history as witness of the harrowing of hell is here recalled
[1] In the last verse of Inferno 7 the travelers come to the foot of a tower: “Venimmo al piè d’una torre al da sezzo” (We came at last upon a tower’s base [Inf. 7.130]). At the beginning of Inferno 8 we learn of an infernal system of communication: we receive the disquieting information that signals have been exchanged between the tower of canto 7 and another watchtower, further off. These are fortified towers of the sort found in Italian cities of the period, and the signals mark the onset of hostilities.
[2] Those engaged in communicating through signals are hostile to Dante and his guide, and consider the travelers to be trespassers without license to pass through their territory. We do not yet know who the signalers are. They will turn out to be the devils who guard the city of Dis, keeping watch from their fortified towers on the River Styx, which surrounds Dis like a moat around a castle keep.
[3] The surrounding moat, the Styx, is circle 5 of Dante’s Hell; the fortified city is circle 6.
[4] Inferno 8 constitutes the first moment in a complex narrative arc. Inferno 8 is part of an extended story-line that begins with the watchtower in the last verse of Inferno 7 and that is not completed until the arrival of the heavenly intercessor toward the end of Inferno 9. Inferno 8 contains the encounter with Filippo Argenti, an interpolation that adds to the narrative complexity of the canto. The Filippo Argenti episode constitutes a short story enfolded within the longer narrative.
[5] Dante-narrator comes to the fore in Inferno 8-9. These are canti that feature a “display of the author’s narrative prowess”, as I noted in The Undivine Comedy (p. 69). Accordingly, Dante introduces assertively self-conscious narrative techniques into Inferno 8.
Narrative techniques in Inferno 8:
[6] 1. Self-referential incipit
The first is the narrator’s assertively self-referential incipit to Inferno 8: “Io dico, seguitando” (I say, continuing [Inf. 8.1]). The forceful and ex abrupto presence of this opening is such that it gave rise among early commentators to a biographical theory of this canto’s authorship, whereby Dante here resumed writing the Inferno after a long pause (“seguitando”). This fanciful ancient theory, without empirical foundation, has recently been exhumed in order to advance equally fanciful modern biographical theories regarding the composition of Inferno, equally without empirical foundation. When one puts the opening of Inferno 8 into context, instead of treating it like the hidden key to unlock the door of biographical dates, one sees that the entire canto — not simply the opening verses — is self-consciously focused on the author’s narrative art, and that indeed narrative itself is thematized in Inferno 8.
[7] 2. Authorial flashback
The second is the startling and self-conscious insertion of an authorial flashback with which Inferno 8 begins:
assai prima che noi fossimo al piè de l’alta torre, li occhi nostri n’andar suso a la cima per due fiammette che i vedemmo porre e un’altra da lungi render cenno (Inf. 8.1-5)
Long before we two had reached the foot of that tall tower, our eyes had risen upward, toward its summit, because of two small flames that flickered there, while still another flame returned their signal
[8] The above authorial flashback informs us that “long before” (“assai prima” in verse 1 above) the travelers had arrived at this point, signals had been exchanged between two towers: these two towers are, first, the tower registered in the last verse of Inferno 7 and, subsequently, the second tower that is posited in the opening verses of Inferno 8. Here the narrator asserts a prior occurrence that was not registered at the time that it occurred, but that is now inserted into the diegesis, as an authorial flashback.
[9] This insertion of a prior occurrence as a flashback is different in scale from the long and complex authorial flashback that makes up Inferno 2, but not really different in kind. There Virgilio lets us know of an event (the descent of Beatrice into Limbo) that occurred while the pilgrim was lost in the dark wood of Inferno 1, and that offers a relevant pre-history with respect to the events of Inferno 2. Here the author lets us know of an event that occurred only shortly prior to the events being recounted, and that he omitted to reveal when it occurred.
[10] The trope of omission was featured in Inferno 4.103-5, where the narrator tells us that the poets spoke of things that he finds it “beautiful” not to share with us, and will be thematized even more overtly at the beginning of Inferno 21: “Così di ponte in ponte, altro parlando / che la mia comedìa cantar non cura, / venimmo” (We came along from one bridge to another, / talking of things my Comedy is not / concerned to sing [1-2]).
[11] 3. Authorial self-assertion: “Narro”
The third noteworthy narratological moment is the author’s reassertion of narrative control in verse 64. At this moment in the diegesis, at the conclusion of the interpolated Filippo Argenti episode, Dante inserts the authorially preemptive verse: “Quivi il lasciammo, che più non ne narro” (We left him there; I tell no more of him [Inf. 8.64]). Here the narrator’s prowess is foregrounded in the Commedia’s first use of the verb narrare, which — remarkably, but perhaps not surprisingly — Dante unveils in none other than the first-person singular of the present tense: “narro” (64). Moreover, the narrator is foregrounded in such a way as to emphasize his control, his ability to withhold, to deny us what he has thus far given unstintingly: “più non ne narro” (I tell no more of him).
[12] 4. First address to the reader
The fourth new narrative technique deployed in Inferno 8 is the narrator’s first address to the reader. In Inferno 8 we encounter the first example of one of the most significant authorial tropes of the Commedia, discussed in classic essays by Auerbach and Spitzer (for my analysis of the analyses of Auerbach and Spitzer, see The Undivine Comedy, p. 14). Here Dante speaks directly to the reader:
Pensa, lettor, se io mi sconfortai nel suon de le parole maladette, ché non credetti ritornarci mai. (Inf. 8.94-96)
Consider, reader, my dismay before the sound of those abominable words: returning here seemed so impossible.
[13] As we can see from the above verses, an address to the reader is an opportunity for metapoetic commentary, in which the author meditates openly on his poetic process.
[14] 5. Ending in medias res
Finally, the narrator creates suspense at the end of Inferno 8, inaugurating another new narratological technique. He creates suspense by ending the canto abruptly, stopping the action in medias res: in the middle of the action. As compared to the end of Inferno 1, where the narrator tells us that the journey is underway, and then reveals only in Inferno 2 that the journey has in fact paused, at the end of Inferno 8 the narrator does something new and different, telling us at the end of the canto, and with great fanfare, that the action has paused.
[15] Flaunting his narrative control, in this canto the narrator plays with narrative time. We see this assertion of control first in the narrative flashback at the beginning, where the poet invokes an event that he now tells us had occurred previously but was unrecorded at the time of its occurrence. Similarly, Dante asserts narrative control at the end of Inferno 8, interrupting the narrative line at the moment of maximum suspense as the travelers await the arrival of a savior.
[16] Using the future tense and the little adverb “già” (already), a potent tool in the poet’s narrative toolbox for creating suspense (later it will be a potent tool for finessing the metaphysical by creating slippages in narrative time; thus we find “già” at the end of Paradiso 33), Dante ends Inferno 8 in the middle of a complicated narrative. He leaves his narrative literally suspended: at canto’s end the travelers still fearfully await the arrival of the being who will save them from the devils and open the gate of Dis.
* * *
[17] Filippo Argenti, from the magnate Florentine family of the Adimari, is one of the wrathful souls whom Dante sees in Inferno 8, where the wrathful inhabit the River Styx. Dante and Virgilio traverse the Styx in the boat of the classical guardian Phlegiàs (as earlier he had traversed Acheron in the boat of the classical guardian Charon). The result is a nautical sequence that functions as an anticipation of the more extended nautical — indeed aeronautical — sequence of Inferno 16-17, which will involve the monster Geryon.
[18] While traversing the Styx, Dante-pilgrim is accosted by a sinner, who turns out to be fellow Florentine Filippo Argenti. There follows a brief and effective exchange of insults, which escalates from Filippo’s initial demand to know who is it who comes to this place to the pilgrim’s scorching response that he comes but will not stay. Dante ultimately lets Filippo know that he recognizes him, despite the mud that covers him, anticipating the many scenes in lower hell where souls will not want to be recognized. Filippo stretches out his arms threateningly toward the boat, but Virgilio pushes him away, back into the Styx.
[19] Dante thus participates in the bitterly wrathful exchange of insults with Filippo Argenti, provoking the question as to whether the pilgrim in some way participates in or mirrors the sin that he is witnessing. According to the Aristotelian template that I suggest at the end of my commentary to Inferno 7, the pilgrim here models righteous anger, the virtuous midpoint between the sad melancholics and the rabid wrathful. The scheme of this new Aristotelian template, less fully wrought than the one that embraces misers and prodigals, is as follows:
melancholic tristitia ⇤⇤⇤⇤ righteous anger ⇥⇥⇥⇥ rabid wrath
[20] Other examples of righteous anger may be found in the Commedia. For instance, in Purgatorio 8 the narrator refers to the measured and righteous anger that inflames Nino Visconti: “quel dritto zelo / che misuratamente in core avvampa” (that forthright zeal which, / in measured fashion flames within the heart [Purg. 8.83-4]).
[21] Virgilio strongly endorses the pilgrim’s punitive behavior toward Filippo Argenti. The guide praises the pilgrim’s disdain for the sinner, addressing Dante-pilgrim approvingly as “disdainful soul”: “Alma sdegnosa” (Inf. 8.44). The approbation that Virgilio shows for the pilgrim’s disdain suggests that the pilgrim is here behaving correctly, performing righteous anger. This interpretation is then confirmed by the subsequent association of disdain with a divine force, the angel who will arrive in Inferno 9, of whom Dante-narrator writes “How full of high disdain he seemed to me!”: “Ahi quanto mi parea pien di disdegno!” (Inf. 9.88). The pilgrim in his disdain for Filippo Argenti is performing the dritto zelo that in Purgatorio 8 is ascribed to Nino Visconti (Purg. 8.83).
[22] Virgilio’s somewhat over-the-top expression of approbation for Dante’s behavior, which includes his inflated evangelical language “benedetta colei che ’n te s’incinse” (blessed is she who bore you in her womb [Inf. 8.45]), suggests that the pagan poet is carefully aligning himself with Christian values, showing his distance from the sinners and his endorsement of divine judgment. By the same token, however (as we shall see in the next canto and as discussed in Dante’s Poets, pp. 207-8), Virgilio’s performance of Christian values in this episode only highlights his subsequent pagan failure in Inferno 9.
[23] After Filippo Argenti is attacked by other sinners, Dante and Virgilio approach the city of Dis, whose skyline is notable for its fiery mosques:
E io: “Maestro, già le sue meschite là entro certe ne la valle cerno, vermiglie come se di foco uscite fossero”. (Inf. 8.70-73)
I said: “I can already see distinctly— master—the mosques that gleam within the valley, as crimson as if they had just been drawn out of the fire”.
[24] The reference to the mosques — “meschite” of Inf. 8.70 — of the diabolic city constitute one of the most negative characterizations of Islam in the Commedia: the characteristics of the infernal city of Dis are the characteristics of a Muslim city. Here is the note of a fourteenth-century commentator, Francesco da Buti, on the word “meschita”, which he describes as “a Saracen word”:
S’intende: Maestro; cioè Virgilio, lo quale chiama in più nomi simili e convenienti a lui, come appare nel processo del libro. già le sue meschite; cioè torri, o campanili della città predetta. Meschita è vocabolo sarainesco, et è luogo ove li Saracini vanno ad adorare; e perché quelli luoghi ànno torri a modo di campanili ove montano li sacerdoti loro a chiamare lo popolo che vada ad adorare Idio, però l’autore chiama le torre di Dite meschite. (Francesco da Buti, Commento all’Inferno, cited from the Dartmouth Dante Project)
Meschita is a Saracen word, and it refers to the place where Saracens go to pray; and because those places have towers (similar to our bell-towers) where their priests climb to call the people to prayer, therefore the author calls the towers of Dis meschite.
[25] Inferno 8’s association of mosques with devils anticipates Dante’s negative treatment of Mohammed in Inferno 28 and should be compared to the positive treatment, for instance, of Saladin, Averroes, and Avicenna, who reside in Limbo (Inf. 4.129 and 134-144). The presence of the Muslim virtuous pagans in Limbo is discussed in the Commento on Inferno 4.
[26] As noted previously, the entire episode between Dante and Filippo Argenti takes place within the ongoing narrative arc, which extends into Inferno 9, about the travelers’ attempts, initially thwarted, to enter the city of Dis. To that story Dante now returns his attention.
[27] When Dante and Virgilio disembark in front of the gates of Dis, Virgilio for the first time deals with infernal guardians whom he cannot dominate. The mythological creatures whom he had encountered thus far were easily subdued. They are from his own, pagan, world, and his knowledge has been sufficient to allow him to control them.
[28] But now, faced with the determined resistance of Christian devils, Virgilio for the first time shows his limits and is unable to get license to pass. This encounter with the devils is the first such encounter in the poem and it is an important installment in another, even longer, narrative arc. The unfolding story that tells of Virgilio’s strengths and limitations in the role of Dante’s guide through Hell and Purgatory is one of the great overarching narratives of the Commedia.
[29] In the episode at the gates of Dis, Dante-poet for the first time underscores the limitations of Virgilio as a guide. This will be a key topic in the next canto, and indeed going forward in Inferno.
[30] Chapter 3 of Dante’s Poets analyzes in great detail how Dante constructs a plot for Virgilio that undercuts the Latin poet’s intellectual authority while simultaneously causing the affective ties between Virgilio and Dante-pilgrim to become ever stronger. By the time Virgilio leaves Dante in Purgatorio 30 he has become “Virgilio dolcissimo patre” (Virgilio, sweetest father [Purg. 30.50]). But, simultaneously, his intellectual limitations as guide have been harshly highlighted, especially in Purgatorio and after the encounter in Purgatorio 1 with fellow Roman Cato of Utica, a pagan who — unlike our beloved Virgilio — is nonetheless saved.
[31] In this way, Dante-poet creates a poignant, dynamic, and tension-filled plot-line at the heart of the Commedia, one that will culminate in the pilgrim’s experience of profound loss. The undermining of Virgilio’s authority is a key plot element of Inferno:
Despite Vergil’s very real preeminence in the first canticle, he is not immune from an implicit critique even within its bounds; in other words, he does not lose his authority all at once, at the beginning of the Purgatorio when Cato rebukes him, but in a more subtle fashion, step by step from the moment he enters the poem. When Vergil arrives an hourglass is set, and the grains of sand fall one by one until, in Purgatorio XXX, the glass is empty. (Dante’s Poets, p. 202)
[32] The encounter with the devils at the gate of Dis in Inferno 8 is thus a first installment in Dante-poet’s construction of a plot designed to undermine Virgilio’s authority and demonstrate his fallibility. The writer of the Commedia undermines the authority of the guide whom he chose, while simultaneously making sure that the pilgrim’s love for his guide grows stronger and more evident: the analysis of this narrative, scripted by Dante-poet as a key plot-line of the Commedia, will be one of the recurring thematic emphases of this commentary.
[33] Dante describes the guardians of the walls of Dis as “da ciel piovuti” — “rained from heaven” (Inf. 8.83) — thus reminding us that devils were once angels. The devils of Inferno 8 “rained down” from heaven when they followed the rebellious Lucifer. This history is evoked in Inferno 3, where Dante locates a vestibule of Hell that houses those angels who, as moral cowards, did not take a side during Lucifer’s rebellion. According to Inferno 3’s delineation, there are three categories of angels. There are those who rebelled and followed Lucifer, becoming devils; those who were faithful to God, and are in heaven; and those miserable nothings who were only for themselves:
quel cattivo coro de li angeli che non furon ribelli né fur fedeli a Dio, ma per sé fuoro. (Inf. 3.37-39)
the coward angels, the company of those who were not rebels nor faithful to their God, but for themselves.
[34] Following the indications of Inferno 3, Virgilio in Inferno 8 is now in the position of negotiating with angels who were rebels to God: angeli che furon ribelli a Dio. This is a class of being utterly alien to the Roman poet.
[35] The devils challenge the pilgrim’s right to undertake this journey. They do so with the rhetorical flourish of a question, an interrogative that drips with scorn for the misguided living traveler who dared to enter their domain. In this fashion they let Virgilio know that Dante, as a living man, should not be in the realm of the dead: “Chi è costui che sanza morte / va per lo regno de la morta gente?” (Who is this that without death / goes through the kingdom of the people dead? [Inf. 8.84-5]).
[36] The devils seem not to know that the pilgrim has been issued a passport by the Highest Authority, the Authority than Whom there is none higher. After all, they have not had the advantage of reading Inferno 2! The devils’ speech, however, is very attuned to the lexicon and thematics of Inferno 2. The devils seem to know all the buttons to push to reawaken the fear that the pilgrim experienced in that preliminary canto. They seek to separate the pilgrim from his guide, instructing Virgilio to remain with them while the pilgrim returns back alone — “solo” — along the path by which they have come, which they call the “folle strada” or “mad pathway”: “Sol si ritorni per la folle strada: / pruovi, se sa; ché tu qui rimarrai” (Let him return alone by his mad road; Try, if he can; for thou shalt remain here [Inf. 8.91]).
[37] The injunction to the pilgrim to go back alone — “Sol si ritorni” — echoes the opening of Inferno 2, where the narrator describes his past self on the threshold of Hell as “io sol uno” (I myself alone [Inf. 2.3]). With their use of the thematically-laden adjective “folle” (“la folle strada”), the devils echo the pilgrim’s fear of illegitimacy and trespass from Inferno 2, as expressed in the verse “temo che la venuta non sia folle” (I fear my venture may be wild and mad [Inf. 2.35]).
[38] The dilemma of being blocked by the devils, unable to proceed on his voyage through Hell, provokes the poet’s first address to the reader, in which he articulates his fear at never returning to the world of the living:
Pensa, lettor, se io mi sconfortai nel suon de le parole maladette, ché non credetti ritornarci mai. (Inf. 8.94-96)
Consider, reader, my dismay before the sound of those abominable words: returning here seemed so impossible.
[39] The author’s first-person and present-tense intervention signals a moment of unusual significance. And, indeed, the pilgrim, who has lost his bearings altogether, begs Virgilio to give up on their journey so that they can retrace their steps together: “ritroviam l’orme nostre insieme ratto” (let us retrace our steps together, quickly [Inf. 8.102]). However, Virgilio insists, correctly, that their journey has been vouchsafed by Such A One — “da tal” — that it cannot be impeded: “ché ’l nostro passo / non ci può tòrre alcun: da tal n’è dato” (no one can hinder / our passage; One so great has granted it [Inf. 8.104-5]).
[40] The drama continues to play out. Despite the pilgrim’s fears, Virgilio leaves Dante to go off and negotiate with the devils, telling his charge to wait, to comfort himself with “speranza buona” (good hope), and reassuring him that he will not leave him behind (“non ti lascerò” in verse 106):
Ma qui m’attendi, e lo spirito lasso conforta e ciba di speranza buona, ch’i’ non ti lascerò nel mondo basso. (Inf. 8.106-108)
But you wait here for me, and feed and comfort your tired spirit with good hope, for I will not abandon you in this low world.
[41] Contrary to the explicit stipulation that the pilgrim will not be abandoned, the verb abbandonare will immediately be used by the narrator to mark Virgilio’s departure: “Così sen va, e quivi m’abbandona / lo dolce padre” (So he goes, and there my sweet father abandons me [Inf. 8.109–10). Here we have another precise echo of the pilgrim’s fearful state in Inferno 2, where he thinks of this journey as an abandonment: “se del venire io m’abbandono” (if I abandon myself to this journey [Inf. 2.34]).
[42] We also see how, in a carefully wrought authorial pattern that I delineate in Dante’s Poets, moments of intellective stress in Virgilio’s performance of his duties as guide are marked by the narrator with heightened affect: in verses 109–10, affect is present not only in the narrator’s recall of the feeling of being abandoned but also in the overtly affective use of “dolce padre” for Virgilio. The intellective stress, the limitations of Virgilio’s capacities to deal with the world that the travelers are in, is also immediately stressed, for the devils now shut the gate in Virgilio’s face, causing him to return to Dante with his confidence shaken: “Li occhi a la terra e le ciglia avea rase / d’ogne baldanza” (His eyes turned to the ground, his brows deprived / of every confidence [Inf. 8.118–19]).
[43] Dante is always a poet who will seek to heighten tension, which here he does around the figure of Virgilio, making him more loved and needed precisely as he begins to show fallibility. Given that this technique is already being applied to the “mar di tutto ’l senno” — the “sea of all wisdom” as Virgilio was called in verse 7 of this very canto — we can begin to appreciate how much tension will accrue by the time we reach Virgilio’s departure.
[44] But that moment is a long way off. At this point in the story, Virgilio regroups, and he does so by going back to the touchstone of Christ’s Harrowing of Hell: a unique punctuation mark in the eternity of Hell (the only punctuation until we reach the Last Judgment), and one that Virgilio happened to witness. Virgilio now reminds himself and his charge of the conquest that he witnessed first-hand as an inhabitant of Limbo: the conquest of Christ over Hell.
[45] The devils are as insolent now, he says, as they were once before when they attempted to block the entrance to “a less secret gate” (“men segreta porta” [Inf. 8.125]). The “secret gate” is the gate of Dis, where the travelers are now, which is “secret” because it is deep inside hell. The “less secret gate” is the gate of Hell itself, which the pilgrim encountered at the beginning of Inferno 3, a gate that was thrown wide open by Christ when he entered Hell. As Virgilio underscores, the gate of Hell still now remains open, a clear sign of Christ’s puissance and the devils’ impotence: “la qual sanza serrame ancor si trova” (a gate that is still without its bolts [Inf. 8.126]). In other words, the devils failed to block Christ’s entrance into hell, in the past, and the devils will fail now in their attempt to block Dante and his guide.
[46] In his pointed reference to a less secret gate that is still unlocked, Virgilio is recalling the time when he, as resident of Limbo, saw the gate of Hell itself swung open by an omnipotent Christ as he harrowed Hell: the event in which, it was believed, Christ entered Hell after the crucifixion and released from the first circle the Old Testament worthies, whom he raised with himself to Paradise. We also recall that Virgilio has referenced this event already, in Inferno 4, and precisely in terms of Christ’s potency, his power: “ci vidi venire un possente, / con segno di vittoria coronato” (I saw hither come a Mighty One, / with sign of victory incoronate [Inf. 4.53-54]). Christ is “un possente” in Inferno 4.53 — a “powerful one” — and this fact is remembered now as reassurance of the truth: the divine and its emissaries are powerful, evil and its emissaries are impotent.
[47] Dante is doing something else here: he is also adding to the density of his Virgilio storyline, by constructing a pre-history for his character, one that Virgilio will share as the journey proceeds. We note the deeply personalized and idiosyncratic nature of the pre-history that Dante creates for his deeply personal and idiosyncratic character, Virgilio: the pre-history that Dante creates for Virgilio is profoundly dependent on Virgilio being a dweller in Limbo. Never before (or since) has there been an avatar of the Roman poet Vergil who could claim to have witnessed Christ’s Harrowing of Hell, because never before (or since) has there been a figuration of Limbo that conceptualizes it as the dwelling of virtuous pagans.
[48] From Virgilio’s memory of the arrival in hell of the “powerful one, crowned with sign of victory” (Inf. 4.53-54), who flung open the very gate of hell, we move to Virgilio’s assertion that there will arrive a being who will similarly open the more secret gate of Dis: “tal che per lui ne fia la terra aperta” (the one who will lay open this realm for us [Inf. 8.130]). We thus move from Virgilio’s memory of a past conquest of hell to his newly confident assertion regarding a future conquest of hell. Moreover, he is confident that the event will take place in the immediate future, because the one (“tal”) who will fling open the gate is already on his way.
[49] Virgilio and Dante now wait, an unprecedented activity in the unfolding diegesis of the Inferno. Their waiting is suspenseful, giving us an unprecedented opportunity to witness Dante-poet create suspense in his overdetermined plot. Inferno 8 ends by signalling a transition that does not occur immediately, leaving — for the first time in the diegesis of the Commedia — a canto suspended: in medias res, in the middle of the action, in the middle of an unfolding plot.
[50] The end of canto 8 is suspended, literally held in suspense, like the souls in Limbo: “gente di molto valore / conobbi che ’n quel limbo eran sospesi (I had seen some estimable men / suspended in that limbo [Inf. 4.44–45]). Although Dante did not use the word “sospeso” in the sense of suspended narrative, it is noteworthy that his first moment of suspended narrative involves a soul who is suspended for eternity in Limbo.
[51] In Inferno 8’s final verses, Virgilio’s words are projected forward, as he uses the future tense and the telling adverb “già” — “already” — to peer into the future: “e già di qua da lei discende l’erta [. . .] tal che per lui ne fia la terra aperta” (and already on this side of the gate of hell there descends down the steep path the one who will unlock this realm for us [Inf. 8.128 and 130]). The adverb già is a potent tool in Dante’s narrative arsenal for generating suspense, and will be discussed again in this light in the Commento on Inferno 23. In this way, using già and the future tense of the verb essere (”fia”), Virgilio forecasts the imminent arrival of the mysterious being who will unlock the gate:
e già di qua da lei discende l’erta, passando per li cerchi sanza scorta, tal che per lui ne fia la terra aperta. (Inf. 8.128-30)
and now, already well within that gate, down the steep path and across the circles without escort the one who will unlock this realm for us.
[52] Significantly, “the one” who has the requisite power to cast open the gate of Dis remains unnamed. (The word “tal” in verse 130 is glossed by Chiavacci Leonardi as “someone such that, i.e. who has the power to”: “qualcuno tale che, cioè che ha tanto potere da”.) Here we have another potent authorial bid to build suspense. Moreover, the one who will come down the steep path to help the travelers needs no guide or escort: he (the gender is specified: the gate will be opened “per lui”, “by him”) passes “per li cerchi sanza scorta” (across the circles without escort [Inf. 8.129]). In Virgilio’s conjuring, this being moves unimpeded; no one can stop him, and he needs no escort.
[53] The next canto will reveal the cause of this being’s potency: he is “sent from heaven”, “da ciel messo” (Inf. 9.85). In other words, the travelers now await the arrival of an angel. I gender this angel male because Dante clearly uses the masculine: the masculine pronoun in “per lui” in Inferno 8.130 and the masculine past participle “messo” in Inferno 9.85.
[54] But where is this heavenly being? In a narrative first-time occurrence, and in another sign of the narratological complexity of a canto whose beginning looks backward (via flashback) and whose ending looks forward (via suspense), Inferno 8 concludes in medias res. The last verse of Inferno 8 leaves our travelers literally suspended, in the middle of an anxiety-ridden plot development that is not yet near resolution.
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