For the past few years, my cousin Taggy — the classics-lover — and I have developed a birthday tradition where we gift each other books that we’d always wanted to read but were too lazy to tackle alone, since massive books and tiny fonts always put us both off.
On my last birthday, one of the books that Taggy gifted me was the first part of Dante’s 'Divine Comedy: Inferno'. I have to say that I wasn’t expecting this book as she was more into French and Russian literature. Nevertheless, I was happy to receive it as I’d studied about it in school and always wanted to read it.
Taggy was enthusiastic about starting it while I complained about it being in a poetry form and written in a tiny font (forties speaking!). While reading the book, I was very impressed by Dante’s imagination and found the narrative very interesting.
Taggy was silent for some time. When she finally texted me her famous message “what’s this?” — always written in Saudi dialect for sarcastic emphasis — I warned her against abandoning the book halfway through, like she had with others before.
Unlike me, she found the book boring and Dante’s Italian contemporaries irrelevant. Yet she managed to finish it within days by skimming through it and won the reading competition as always.
In contrast, I enjoyed reading Inferno as it was filled with different characters from history and mythology. There were cliff hangers at the end of each chapter and a few funny characters and situations.
'The Divine Comedy' is a three-part book: Inferno, Purgatory and Paradise. Dante started writing the book in 1308 and finished it in 1321, shortly before he died. The book speaks about the soul’s journey based on Christian beliefs from hell to heaven.
Inferno starts on Good Friday’s eve of the year 1300, where we meet Dante the Pilgrim, searching for the way to salvation. The soul of Virgil (Dante’s favourite Roman poet) suddenly appears and informs him that he’ll be his guide. Virgil is sent by Beatrice — the love of Dante’s life — to guide him to heaven. Their journey starts in hell where it’s divided into three levels: limbo, upper and lower hell with various circles in each designated for different sins.
For example, upper hell is for the sin of incontinence which is divided into the following circles: the lustful, the gluttonous, hoarders and spendthrifts, wrathful and slothful. Whereas lower hell is for the sins of violence and fraud.
Dante passes hell’s circles and witnesses many torments, some were creative — flatterers being immersed in excrement in lower hell — while others were very disturbing to imagine or mention.
He gets the chance to speak to the sinners being tortured and they share their earthly stories that led them to this place. Many would ask about present times, their towns, and the families they left behind.
Devils, demons and monsters from Greek mythology are all present in hell either guarding or torturing the sinners. Muslims also make an appearance with Ibn Rushd, Ibn Sina and Saladin whom Dante considered great but couldn’t enter heaven for being heretics or unbaptised; which I thought was an understandable medieval Christian perspective.
The translation I read was of Mark Moosa, an American translator specialised in Italian literature. There were thirty-four cantos (poems) that describe Dante’s journey that were easy to understand, followed by translator’s notes to explain verses and characters’ stories.
I recommend this translation to anyone attempting to read the Divine Comedy collection. I’m looking forward to ordering the remaining two books: Purgatory and Heaven, that I’ll be definitely reading alone without Taggy’s delightful company!
RASHA AL RAISI
The writer is the author of The World According to Bahja
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