A brief retelling of Dante's Divine Comedy. Foreign literature abridged. All works of the school curriculum in a brief summary

In two of Dante Alighieri’s greatest works - “New Life” and in “The Divine Comedy” (see its summary) - the same idea is carried out. Both of them are connected by the idea that pure love ennobles human nature, and knowledge of the frailty of sensory bliss brings a person closer to God. But “New Life” is just a series of lyric poems, and “ Divine Comedy” presents an entire poem in three parts, containing up to one hundred songs, each of which contains about one hundred and forty verses.

In his early youth, Dante experienced passionate love for Beatrice, daughter of Fulco Portinari. He saved it until last days life, although he never managed to unite with Beatrice. Dante's love was tragic: Beatrice died at a young age, and after her death great poet I saw in her a transformed angel.

Dante Alighieri. Drawing by Giotto, 14th century

IN mature years love for Beatrice began to gradually lose its sensual connotation for Dante, moving into a purely spiritual dimension. Healing from sensual passion was spiritual baptism for the poet. The Divine Comedy reflects this mental healing of Dante, his view of the present and the past, of his life and the lives of his friends, of art, science, poetry, Guelphs and Ghibellines, into political parties “black” and “white”. In The Divine Comedy, Dante expressed how he looks at all this comparatively and in relation to the eternal moral principle of things. In “Hell” and “Purgatory” (he often calls the second “Mountain of Mercy”) Dante considers all phenomena only from the side of their external manifestation, from the point of view of state wisdom, personified by him in his “guide” - Virgil, i.e. points of view of law, order and law. In "Paradise" all the phenomena of heaven and earth are presented in the spirit of contemplation of the deity or the gradual transformation of the soul, by which the finite spirit merges with the infinite nature of things. The transfigured Beatrice, a symbol of divine love, eternal mercy and true knowledge of God, leads him from one sphere to another and leads him to God, where there is no more limited space.

Such poetry might seem like a purely theological treatise if Dante had not peppered his journey through the world of ideas with living images. The meaning of the “Divine Comedy”, where the world and all its phenomena are described and depicted, and the allegory carried out is only slightly indicated, was very often reinterpreted when analyzing the poem. Clearly allegorical images meant either the struggle between the Guelphs and Ghibellines, or politics, the vices of the Roman Church, or events in general modern history. This best proves how far Dante was from the empty play of fantasy and how careful he was to drown out poetry under allegory. It is desirable that his commentators be as careful as he himself when analyzing the Divine Comedy.

Monument to Dante in Piazza Santa Croce in Florence

Dante's Inferno - analysis

“I think for your own good you should follow me. I will show the way and lead you through the lands of eternity, where you will hear cries of despair, see mournful shadows that lived on earth before you, calling for the death of the soul after the death of the body. Then you will also see others rejoicing in the midst of the purifying flame, because they hope to gain access to the dwelling of the blessed. If you wish to ascend to this dwelling, then a soul that is more worthy than mine will lead you there. It will remain with you when I leave. By the will of the supreme ruler, I, who never knew his laws, was not allowed to show the way to his city. The whole universe obeys him, even his kingdom is there. There is his chosen city (sua città), there stands his throne above the clouds. Oh, blessed are those who are sought by him!

According to Virgil, Dante will have to experience in “Hell”, not in words, but in deeds, all the misery of a person who has fallen away from God, and see all the futility of earthly greatness and ambition. For this purpose, the poet depicts in the “Divine Comedy” underground kingdom, where he connects everything he knows from mythology, history and his own experience about man’s violation of the moral law. Dante populates this kingdom with people who have never strived to achieve through labor and struggle a pure and spiritual existence, and divides them into circles, showing by their relative distance from each other the different degrees of sins. These circles of Hell, as he himself says in the eleventh canto, personify Aristotle’s moral teaching (ethics) about man’s deviation from the divine law.

On the night before Good Friday in 1300, Dante, who at that time was only 35 years old, became lost in the forest, which made him very frightened. From there he has a view of the mountains, and he tries to climb them, but a lion, a wolf and a leopard get in his way, and Dante has to return back to the dense thicket. In the forest, he meets the spirit Virgil, who says that he can lead him to Paradise through the circles of purgatory and Hell. The hero agrees and follows Virgil through Hell.

Behind the walls of Hell you can hear the groans of lost souls who, during their existence, were neither good nor evil. Further on there is a view of the Acheron River. It is the place where the demon Charon transports the dead to the first circle of hell, which is called Limbo. Limbo holds the souls of the wise, writers, and children who have not been baptized. They suffer because for them there is no way to heaven. Here Dante, along with Virgil, was able to walk through and talk with famous writers and meets Homer.

Descending below, to the next circle of hell, the heroes observe the demon Minos, who is busy determining which sinner should be sent where. Here they see how the souls of voluptuous people are carried away somewhere. Among them are Helen the Beautiful and Cleopatra, who died as a result of their own passion.

On the third circle of hell, travelers meet Cerberus - a dog. On this circle in the mud in the rain are the souls of those whose sin is gluttony. Here Dante meets his fellow countryman, Chacko, who asks the hero to remind those living on earth about him. On the fourth circle, executions take place for the stingy and those who were too wasteful; they are guarded by the demon Plutos. The fifth circle is a place of torment for those who were lazy and angry.

After the fifth circle, travelers find themselves near a tower, which is surrounded by a body of water. They cross it with the help of the demon Phlegias. Having crossed the pond, Dante and Virgil find themselves in the hellish city of Dit, but they cannot get into it, since the city is guarded by dead evil spirits. They were helped to move on by a heavenly messenger who suddenly appeared at the entrance to the city and curbed the anger of the dead. In the city, the travelers saw tombs on fire, from which the groans of heretics could be heard. Before descending from the sixth circle to the next circle, Virgil tells the hero about how the remaining three circles are arranged, which begin to narrow towards the center of the earth.

The seventh circle is located in the middle of the mountains, guarded by the Minotaur. In the middle of this circle there is a seething blood stream, in it those who were robbers or tyrants suffer terribly. There are thickets around, these are the souls of those who committed suicide.

Next comes the eighth circle, which consists of 10 ditches, which are called Zlopazuchi. In each of them, seducers of women, flatterers, sorcerers, soothsayers, bribe-takers, thieves, treacherous advisers and sowers of trouble are tormented. At the tenth ditch, the travelers went down through the well and found themselves at the center globe. There they appeared before an icy lake, where those who betrayed their relatives stand frozen. In the center of the lake was Lucifer, the king of hell. From it there is a small passage that leads to the other hemisphere of the earth. The travelers passed through it and came to purgatory.

Purgatory

Once in purgatory, the travelers washed themselves in the water and saw a boat with souls that did not go to hell sail up to them; it was controlled by an angel. The travelers swam on it to the foot of Mount Purgatory. Here they were able to talk with those who, before dying, managed to sincerely repent of their sins and therefore did not go to hell. Next, the hero falls asleep and is transported to the gates of purgatory.

In purgatory, the proud, envious, possessed by anger, the lazy, those who were too wasteful and stingy, gluttons and voluptuous people are cleansed of their sins. After passing through the circles of this place, Dante comes to a wall that is on fire, through which he must pass in order to get to Paradise. After passing this wall, Dante enters Paradise. He meets elders dressed in snow-white robes, everyone is dancing and having fun. Here he notices his beloved Beatrice, and then faints. A moment later, Dante wakes up in the river of oblivion of sins - Lethe. The hero approaches Evnoe, a river that helps strengthen the memory of good done, he washes himself in it and now he is worthy of rising to the stars.

The hero's journey now continues with his beloved, and they rise to the Heavenly circles. Immediately they meet nuns, their souls, who were forcibly married. Next they saw the shining souls of the righteous. In the third heaven are the souls of lovers. The fourth heaven is the home of the souls of the sages. Further dwell the souls of the just.

The travelers finally rose to the seventh heaven and found themselves on Saturn.

Next, the hero stood up and began to talk with the spirits of the righteous about such concepts as love, faith and hope. On the ninth circle, the first thing that was revealed to the travelers was a solar point, which represented a deity. Next, Dante ascended to the Empyrean, highest point in the Universe, where he saw the old man, then they sent him even higher. The old man, whose name was Bernard, became Dante’s teacher and the two of them remained here, where the souls of babies shine. Here, Dante saw the deity and found the highest truth.

He could not call his work a tragedy only because those, like all genres of “high literature,” were written in Latin. Dante wrote it in his native Italian. “The Divine Comedy” is the fruit of the entire second half of Dante’s life and work. This work most fully reflected the poet’s worldview. Dante appears here as the last great poet of the Middle Ages, a poet who continues the line of development of feudal literature.

Editions

Translations into Russian

A. S. Norova, “Excerpt from the 3rd song of the poem Hell” (“Son of the Fatherland”, 1823, No. 30);
F. Fan-Dim, “Hell”, translation from Italian (St. Petersburg, 1842-48; prose);
D. E. Min “Hell”, translation in the size of the original (Moscow, 1856);
D. E. Min, “The First Song of Purgatory” (“Russian Vest.”, 1865, 9);
V. A. Petrova, “The Divine Comedy” (translated with Italian terzas, St. Petersburg, 1871, 3rd edition 1872; translated only “Hell”);
D. Minaev, “The Divine Comedy” (LPts. and St. Petersburg. 1874, 1875, 1876, 1879, translated not from the original, in terzas);
P. I. Weinberg, “Hell”, canto 3, “Vestn. Heb., 1875, No. 5);
Golovanov N. N., “The Divine Comedy” (1899-1902);
M. L. Lozinsky, “The Divine Comedy” (, Stalin Prize);
A. A. Ilyushin (created in the 1980s, first partial publication in 1988, full publication in 1995);
V. S. Lemport, “The Divine Comedy” (1996-1997);
V. G. Marantsman, (St. Petersburg, 2006).

Structure

The Divine Comedy is constructed extremely symmetrically. It is divided into three parts: the first part (“Hell”) consists of 34 songs, the second (“Purgatory”) and the third (“Paradise”) - 33 songs each. The first part consists of two introductory songs and 32 describing hell, since there can be no harmony in it. The poem is written in terzas - stanzas consisting of three lines. This tendency towards certain numbers is explained by the fact that Dante gave them a mystical interpretation - so the number 3 is associated with the Christian idea of the Trinity, the number 33 should remind of the years of the earthly life of Jesus Christ, etc. In total, there are 100 songs in the Divine Comedy (the number is 100 - a symbol of perfection).

Plot

Dante's meeting with Virgil and the beginning of their journey through the underworld (medieval miniature)

According to Catholic tradition, the afterlife consists of hell, where eternally condemned sinners go, purgatory- the location of sinners atoning for their sins, and heaven- abode of the blessed.

Dante details this view and describes the device the afterlife, recording with graphic certainty all the details of its architectonics. In the opening song, Dante tells how, having reached the middle life path, once got lost in a dense forest and, like the poet Virgil, having saved him from three wild animals that blocked his path, he invited Dante to travel through the afterlife. Having learned that Virgil was sent to Beatrice, Dante’s deceased beloved, he surrenders without trepidation to the poet’s leadership.

Hell

Hell looks like a colossal funnel consisting of concentric circles, the narrow end of which rests on the center of the earth. Having passed the threshold of hell, inhabited by the souls of insignificant, indecisive people, they enter the first circle of hell, the so-called limbo (A., IV, 25-151), where the souls of virtuous pagans reside, who have not known the true God, but have approached this knowledge and beyond then freed from hellish torment. Here Dante sees outstanding representatives ancient culture- Aristotle, Euripides, Homer, etc. The next circle is filled with the souls of people who once indulged in unbridled passion. Among those carried by a wild whirlwind, Dante sees Francesca da Rimini and her lover Paolo, fallen victims of forbidden love for each other. As Dante, accompanied by Virgil, descends lower and lower, he witnesses the torment of gluttons forced to suffer from rain and hail, misers and spendthrifts tirelessly rolling huge stones, angry ones getting bogged down in the swamp. They are followed by heretics and heresiarchs engulfed in eternal flames (among them Emperor Frederick II, Pope Anastasius II), tyrants and murderers floating in streams of boiling blood, suicides turned into plants, blasphemers and rapists burned by falling flames, deceivers of all kinds, torment which are very diverse. Finally, Dante enters the final, 9th circle of hell, reserved for the most terrible criminals. Here is the abode of traitors and traitors, the greatest of them - Judas Iscariot, Brutus and Cassius - they are gnawing with his three mouths Lucifer, the angel who once rebelled against God, the king of evil, doomed to imprisonment in the center of the earth. Ends with a description of the terrible appearance of Lucifer the last song the first part of the poem.

Purgatory

Having passed the narrow corridor connecting the center of the earth with the second hemisphere, Dante and Virgil emerge on the surface of the earth. There, in the middle of an island surrounded by the ocean, a mountain rises in the form of a truncated cone - purgatory, like hell, consisting of a number of circles that narrow as they approach the top of the mountain. The angel guarding the entrance to purgatory allows Dante into the first circle of purgatory, having previously drawn seven Ps (Peccatum - sin) on his forehead with a sword, that is, a symbol of the seven deadly sins. As Dante rises higher and higher, passing one circle after another, these letters disappear, so that when Dante, having reached the top of the mountain, enters the “earthly paradise” located at the top of the latter, he is already free from the signs inscribed by the guardian of purgatory. The circles of the latter are inhabited by the souls of sinners atoning for their sins. Here the proud are purified, forced to bend under the burden of weights pressing on their backs, the envious, the angry, the careless, the greedy, etc. Virgil brings Dante to the gates of heaven, where he, as someone who has not known baptism, has no access.

Paradise

In the earthly paradise, Virgil is replaced by Beatrice, seated on a chariot drawn by a vulture (an allegory of the triumphant church); she encourages Dante to repentance, and then takes him, enlightened, to heaven. The final part of the poem is dedicated to Dante's wanderings through the heavenly paradise. The latter consists of seven spheres encircling the earth and corresponding to the seven planets (according to the then widespread Ptolemaic system): the spheres of the Moon, Mercury, Venus, etc., followed by the spheres of the fixed stars and the crystal sphere, - behind the crystal sphere is the Empyrean, - the infinite the region inhabited by the blessed contemplating God is the last sphere that gives life to all things. Flying through the spheres, led by Bernard, Dante sees the Emperor Justinian, introducing him to the history of the Roman Empire, teachers of the faith, martyrs for the faith, whose shining souls form a sparkling cross; ascending higher and higher, Dante sees Christ and the Virgin Mary, angels and, finally, the “heavenly Rose” - the abode of the blessed - is revealed before him. Here Dante partakes of the highest grace, achieving communion with the Creator.

"Comedy" - the latest and greatest mature work Dante.

Analysis of the work

In form, the poem is an afterlife vision, of which there were many in medieval literature. Like the medieval poets, it rests on an allegorical core. So dense forest, in which the poet got lost halfway through his earthly existence, is a symbol of life’s complications. The three animals that attack him there: a lynx, a lion and a she-wolf are the three most powerful passions: sensuality, lust for power, greed. These allegories are also given a political interpretation: the lynx is Florence, the spots on the skin of which should indicate the enmity of the Guelph and Ghibelline parties. The lion is a symbol of brute physical strength - France; she-wolf, greedy and lustful - papal curia. These beasts threaten the national unity of Italy, which Dante dreamed of, a unity cemented by the dominance of the feudal monarchy (some literary historians give Dante's entire poem a political interpretation). Virgil saves the poet from the beasts - reason sent to the poet Beatrice (theology - faith). Virgil leads Dante through hell to purgatory and on the threshold of heaven gives way to Beatrice. The meaning of this allegory is that reason saves a person from passions, and knowledge of divine science brings eternal bliss.

The Divine Comedy is imbued with the author's political tendencies. Dante never misses an opportunity to reckon with his ideological, even personal enemies; he hates usurers, condemns credit as “usury”, condemns his age as the age of profit and love of money. In his opinion, money is the source of all kinds of evil. He contrasts the dark present with the bright past of bourgeois Florence - feudal Florence, when simplicity of morals, moderation, knightly “courtesy” (“Paradise”, Cacciaguida’s story), and a feudal empire reigned (cf. Dante’s treatise “On the Monarchy”). The terzas of "Purgatory" accompanying the appearance of Sordello (Ahi serva Italia) sound like a real hosanna of Ghibellinism. Dante treats the papacy as a principle with the greatest respect, although he hates its individual representatives, especially those who contributed to the consolidation of the bourgeois system in Italy; Dante meets some popes in hell. His religion is Catholicism, although a personal element is woven into it, alien to the old orthodoxy, although mysticism and the Franciscan pantheistic religion of love, which are accepted with all passion, are also a sharp deviation from classical Catholicism. His philosophy is theology, his science is scholasticism, his poetry is allegory. Ascetic ideals in Dante have not yet died, and he considers free love to be a grave sin (Hell, 2nd circle, the famous episode with Francesca da Rimini and Paolo). But for him it is not a sin to love, which attracts to the object of worship with a pure platonic impulse (cf. “ New life", Dante's love for Beatrice). This is a great world force that “moves the sun and other luminaries.” And humility is no longer an unconditional virtue. “Whoever does not renew his strength in glory with victory will not taste the fruit he obtained in the struggle.” And the spirit of inquisitiveness, the desire to expand the circle of knowledge and acquaintance with the world, combined with “virtue” (virtute e conoscenza), encouraging heroic daring, is proclaimed as an ideal.

Dante built his vision from pieces real life. The design of the afterlife was based on individual corners of Italy, which are placed in it with clear graphic contours. And there are so many living ones scattered throughout the poem human images, so many typical figures, so many vivid psychological situations that literature even now continues to draw from there. People who suffer in hell, repent in purgatory (and the volume and nature of sin corresponds to the volume and nature of punishment), are in bliss in paradise - all living people. In these hundreds of figures, no two are identical. In this huge gallery of historical figures there is not a single image that has not been cut by the poet’s unmistakable plastic intuition. It was not for nothing that Florence experienced a period of such intense economic and cultural growth. That acute sense of landscape and man, which is shown in the Comedy and which the world learned from Dante, was possible only in the social environment of Florence, which was far ahead of the rest of Europe. Individual episodes of the poem, such as Francesca and Paolo, Farinata in his red-hot grave, Ugolino with the children, Capaneus and Ulysses, in no way similar to ancient images, the Black Cherub with subtle devilish logic, Sordello on his stone, still produce strong impression.

The concept of Hell in The Divine Comedy

Dante and Virgil in Hell

In front of the entrance are pitiful souls who did neither good nor evil during their lives, including “a bad flock of angels” who were neither with the devil nor with God.

1st circle (Limbo). Unbaptized Infants and Virtuous Non-Christians.
2nd circle. Voluptuaries (fornicators and adulterers).
3rd circle. Gluttons, gluttons.
4th circle. Misers and spendthrifts (love of excessive spending).
5th circle (Stygian swamp). Angry and lazy.
6th circle (city of Dit). Heretics and false teachers.
7th circle.
- 1st belt. Violent people against their neighbors and their property (tyrants and robbers).
- 2nd belt. Rapists against themselves (suicides) and against their property (gamblers and spendthrifts, that is, senseless destroyers of their property).
- 3rd belt. Rapists against deity (blasphemers), against nature (sodomites) and art (extortion).
8th circle. Those who deceived those who did not trust. It consists of ten ditches (Zlopazukhi, or Evil Crevices), which are separated from each other by ramparts (rifts). Toward the center, the area of the Evil Crevices slopes, so that each subsequent ditch and each subsequent rampart are located slightly lower than the previous ones, and the outer, concave slope of each ditch is higher than the inner, curved slope ( Hell , XXIV, 37-40). The first shaft is adjacent to the circular wall. In the center yawns the depth of a wide and dark well, at the bottom of which lies the last, ninth, circle of Hell. From the foot of the stone heights (v. 16), that is, from the circular wall, stone ridges run in radii, like the spokes of a wheel, to this well, crossing ditches and ramparts, and above the ditches they bend in the form of bridges or vaults. In Evil Crevices, deceivers are punished who deceived people who are not connected with them by special bonds of trust.
- 1st ditch Pimps and Seducers.
- 2nd ditch Flatterers.
- 3rd ditch Holy merchants, high-ranking clergy who traded in church positions.
- 4th ditch Soothsayers, fortune tellers, astrologers, witches.
- 5th ditch Bribe takers, bribe takers.
- 6th ditch Hypocrites.
- 7th ditch Thieves.
- 8th ditch Crafty advisors.
- 9th ditch Instigators of discord (Mohammed, Ali, Dolcino and others).
- 10th ditch Alchemists, false witnesses, counterfeiters.
9th circle. Those who deceived those who trusted. Ice Lake Cocytus.
- Belt of Cain. Traitors to relatives.
- Antenor's belt. Traitors to the motherland and like-minded people.
- Tolomei's Belt. Traitors to friends and table mates.
- Giudecca Belt. Traitors to benefactors, divine and human majesty.
- In the middle, in the center of the universe, frozen into an ice floe (Lucifer) torments in his three mouths the traitors to the majesty of the earthly and heavenly (Judas, Brutus and Cassius).

Building a model of Hell ( Hell , XI, 16-66), Dante follows Aristotle, who in his “Ethics” (Book VII, Chapter I) classifies the sins of intemperance (incontinenza) into the 1st category, and the sins of violence (“violent bestiality" or matta bestialitade), to 3 - sins of deception ("malice" or malizia). In Dante, circles 2-5 are for intemperate people, circle 7 is for rapists, circles 8-9 are for deceivers (the 8th is simply for deceivers, the 9th is for traitors). Thus, the more material the sin, the more forgivable it is.

Heretics - apostates from the faith and deniers of God - are specially singled out from the host of sinners filling the upper and lower circles into the sixth circle. In the abyss of lower Hell (A., VIII, 75), with three ledges, like three steps, there are three circles - from the seventh to the ninth. In these circles, anger that uses either force (violence) or deception is punished.

The concept of Purgatory in the Divine Comedy

The three holy virtues - the so-called "theological" ones - are faith, hope and love. The rest are the four “basic” or “natural” (see note Ch., I, 23-27).

Dante depicts it as a huge mountain rising in the southern hemisphere in the middle of the Ocean. It looks like a truncated cone. The coastal strip and the lower part of the mountain form the Pre-Purgatory, and the upper part is surrounded by seven ledges (seven circles of Purgatory itself). On the flat top of the mountain, Dante places the deserted forest of the Earthly Paradise.

Virgil expounds the doctrine of love as the source of all good and evil and explains the gradation of the circles of Purgatory: circles I, II, III - love for “other people's evil,” that is, malice (pride, envy, anger); circle IV - insufficient love for true good (despondency); circles V, VI, VII - excessive love for false benefits (greed, gluttony, voluptuousness). The circles correspond to the biblical mortal sins.

Prepurgatory
- The foot of Mount Purgatory. Here the newly arrived souls of the dead await access to Purgatory. Those who died under church excommunication, but repented of their sins before death, wait for a period thirty times longer than the time they spent in “discord with the church.”
- First ledge. Negligent, who delayed repentance until the hour of death.
- Second ledge. Negligent people who died a violent death.
Valley of the Earthly Rulers (not related to Purgatory)
1st circle. Proud people.
2nd circle. Envious people.
3rd circle. Angry.
4th circle. Dull.
5th circle. Misers and spendthrifts.
6th circle. Gluttonies.
7th circle. Voluptuous people.
Earthly paradise.

The concept of Heaven in the Divine Comedy

(in brackets are examples of personalities given by Dante)

1 sky(Moon) - the abode of those who observe duty (Jephthah, Agamemnon, Constance of Normandy).
2 sky(Mercury) is the abode of reformers (Justinian) and innocent victims (Iphigenia).
3 sky(Venus) - the abode of lovers (Charles Martell, Cunizza, Folco of Marseilles, Dido, “Rhodopean woman”, Raava).
4 heaven(Sun) is the abode of sages and great scientists. They form two circles (“round dance”).
- 1st circle: Thomas Aquinas, Albert von Bolstedt, Francesco Graziano, Peter of Lombardy, Dionysius the Areopagite, Paulus Orosius, Boethius, Isidore of Seville, Bede the Venerable, Rickard, Siger of Brabant.
- 2nd circle: Bonaventure, Franciscans Augustine and Illuminati, Hugon, Peter the Eater, Peter of Spain, John Chrysostom, Anselm, Aelius Donatus, Rabanus the Maurus, Joachim.
5 sky(Mars) is the abode of warriors for the faith (Joshua, Judas Maccabee, Roland, Godfrey of Bouillon, Robert Guiscard).
6 sky(Jupiter) is the abode of just rulers (biblical kings David and Hezekiah, Emperor Trajan, King Guglielmo II the Good and the hero of the Aeneid, Ripheus).
7 heaven(Saturn) - the abode of theologians and monks (Benedict of Nursia, Peter Damiani).
8 sky(sphere of stars).
9 sky(Prime Mover, crystal sky). Dante describes the structure of the heavenly inhabitants (see The ranks of angels).
10 sky(Empyrean) - Flaming Rose and Radiant River (the core of the rose and the arena of the heavenly amphitheater) - the abode of the Deity. Blessed souls sit on the banks of the river (the steps of the amphitheater, which is divided into 2 more semicircles - the Old Testament and the New Testament). Mary (Mother of God) is at the head, below her are Adam and Peter, Moses, Rachel and Beatrice, Sarah, Rebecca, Judith, Ruth, etc. John is sitting opposite, below him are Lucia, Francis, Benedict, Augustine, etc.

Scientific points, misconceptions and comments

Hell , XI, 113-114. The constellation Pisces rose above the horizon, and Voz(constellation Ursa Major) inclined to the northwest(Kavr; lat. Caurus- the name of the north-west wind). This means there are two hours left before sunrise.
Hell , XXIX, 9. That their route is twenty-two miles around.(about the inhabitants of the tenth ditch of the eighth circle) - judging by the medieval approximation of the number Pi, the diameter of the last circle of Hell is 7 miles.
Hell , XXX, 74. Baptist sealed alloy- Florentine gold coin, florin (fiormo). On the front side was the patron saint of the city, John the Baptist, and on the reverse side was the Florentine coat of arms, the lily (fiore - flower, hence the name of the coin).
Hell , XXXIV, 139. Each of the three cants of the Divine Comedy ends with the word “luminaries” (stelle - stars).
Purgatory , I, 19-21. Beacon of love, beautiful planet- that is, Venus, eclipsing with its brightness the constellation Pisces in which it was located.
Purgatory , I, 22. To the spine- that is, to the celestial pole, in in this case southern
Purgatory , I, 30. Chariot- Ursa Major hidden behind the horizon.
Purgatory , II, 1-3. According to Dante, Mount Purgatory and Jerusalem are located at opposite ends of the earth's diameter, so they have a common horizon. In the northern hemisphere, the apex of the celestial meridian (“midday circle”) crossing this horizon is above Jerusalem. At the hour described, the sun, visible in Jerusalem, was setting, soon to appear in the sky of Purgatory.
Purgatory , II, 4-6. And the night...- According to medieval geography, Jerusalem lies in the very middle of the land, located in the northern hemisphere between the Arctic Circle and the equator and extending from west to east by only longitudes. The remaining three quarters of the globe are covered by the waters of the Ocean. Equally distant from Jerusalem are: in the extreme east - the mouth of the Ganges, in the extreme west - the Pillars of Hercules, Spain and Morocco. When the sun sets in Jerusalem, night approaches from the direction of the Ganges. At the described time of year, that is, at the time of the spring equinox, the night holds scales in its hands, that is, it is in the constellation Libra, opposing the Sun, located in the constellation Aries. In the fall, when she “overcomes” the day and becomes longer than it, she will leave the constellation Libra, that is, she will “drop” them.
Purgatory , III, 37. Quia- a Latin word meaning “because”, and in the Middle Ages it was also used in the sense of quod (“that”). Scholastic science, following Aristotle, distinguished between two types of knowledge: scire quia- knowledge of existing - and scire propter quid- knowledge of the reasons for existing things. Virgil advises people to be content with the first kind of knowledge, without delving into the reasons for what exists.
Purgatory , IV, 71-72. The Road Where the Unlucky Phaeton Ruled- zodiac.
Purgatory , XXIII, 32-33. Who is looking for "omo"...- it was believed that in the features of a human face one could read “Homo Dei” (“Man of God”), with the eyes depicting two “Os”, and the eyebrows and nose representing the letter M.
Purgatory , XXVIII, 97-108. According to Aristotelian physics, “wet vapors” generate atmospheric precipitation, and “dry vapors” generate wind. Matelda explains that only below the level of the gates of Purgatory are such disturbances generated by steam, which “following the heat,” that is, under the influence of the sun’s heat, rises from the water and from the earth; at the height of the Earthly Paradise, only a uniform wind remains, caused by the rotation of the first firmament.
Purgatory , XXVIII, 82-83. Twelve venerable elders- twenty-four books of the Old Testament.
Purgatory , XXXIII, 43. Five hundred fifteen- a mysterious designation for the coming deliverer of the church and restorer of the empire, who will destroy the “thief” (the harlot of Song XXXII, who took someone else’s place) and the “giant” (the French king). The numbers DXV form, when the signs are rearranged, the word DVX (leader), and the oldest commentators interpret it this way.
Purgatory , XXXIII, 139. The score is due from the beginning- In the construction of the Divine Comedy, Dante observes strict symmetry. Each of its three parts (cantik) contains 33 songs; “Hell” also contains one more song, which serves as an introduction to the entire poem. The volume of each of the hundred songs is approximately the same.
Paradise , XIII, 51. And there is no other center in the circle- There cannot be two opinions, just as in a circle only one center is possible.
Paradise , XIV, 102. The sacred sign was composed of two rays, which is hidden within the boundaries of the quadrants- segments of adjacent quadrants (quarters) of a circle form a cross sign.
Paradise , XVIII, 113. In Lilley M- Gothic M resembles a fleur-de-lis.
Paradise XXV, 101-102: If Cancer had a similar pearl...- WITH

. The “Divine Comedy” is the fruit of the entire second half of Dante’s life and work. This work most fully reflected the poet’s worldview. Dante appears here as the last great poet of the Middle Ages, a poet who continues the line of development of feudal literature, but has absorbed some features typical of the new bourgeois culture of the early years.

Structure

The surprisingly consistent composition of The Divine Comedy reflects the rationalism of creativity that developed in the atmosphere of the new bourgeois culture.

The Divine Comedy is constructed extremely symmetrically. It breaks down into three parts; each part consists of 33 songs, and ends with the word Stelle, that is, stars. In total, this produces 99 songs, which, together with the introductory song, make up the number 100. The poem is written in terzas - stanzas consisting of three lines. This tendency towards certain numbers is explained by the fact that Dante gave them a mystical interpretation - so the number 3 is associated with the Christian idea of \u200b\u200bthe number 33 should remind of the years of earthly life, etc.

Plot

According to Catholic beliefs, the afterlife consists of hell, where eternally condemned sinners go, purgatory - the abode of sinners who atone for their sins - and heaven - the abode of the blessed.

Dante describes with extreme precision the structure of the underworld, recording with graphic certainty all the details of its architectonics. In the introductory song, Dante tells how, having reached the middle of his life, he once got lost in a dense forest and how the poet Virgil, having delivered him from three wild animals that blocked his path, invited Dante to travel through the afterlife. Having learned that Virgil was sent to Beatrice, Dante surrenders to the poet’s leadership without trepidation.

Hell

Having passed the threshold of hell, inhabited by the souls of insignificant, indecisive people, they enter the first circle of hell, the so-called limbo, where the souls of those who could not know the true God reside. Here Dante sees outstanding representatives of ancient culture -, etc. The next circle (hell has the appearance of a colossal funnel consisting of concentric circles, the narrow end of which rests on the center of the earth) is filled with the souls of people who once indulged in unbridled passion. Among those carried by a wild whirlwind, Dante sees Francesca da Rimini and her lover Paolo, fallen victims of forbidden love for each other. As Dante, accompanied by Virgil, descends lower and lower, he witnesses the torment of those forced to suffer from rain and hail, misers and spendthrifts tirelessly rolling huge stones, angry ones getting bogged down in the swamp. They are followed by heresiarchs engulfed in eternal flame (among them the emperor, Pope Anastasius II), tyrants and murderers floating in streams of boiling blood, turned into plants, and rapists burned by falling flames, deceivers of all kinds. The torments of deceivers are varied. Finally, Dante enters the final, 9th circle of hell, reserved for the most terrible criminals. Here is the abode of traitors and traitors, the greatest of them - and Cassius - they are gnawing with his three jaws, the king of evil who once rebelled, doomed to imprisonment in the center of the earth. The last song of the first part of the poem ends with a description of the terrible appearance of Lucifer.