Divine Comedy Ch. 2: Dante's Crisis of

Dante Alighieri

Dante's Crisis of Confidence

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Summary

Day is departing. Animals rest. Dante is alone with pity and a perilous road, and he asks Virgil to consider whether his virtue is sufficient before the high enterprise begins. Aeneas went among the immortal tribes in corruptible flesh, and Paul travelled there as the chosen vessel. Dante says he is not Aeneas, not Paul, and that none will deem him worthy. Fear unresolves what he had so eagerly embraced. On the dun coast he wastes the journey in thought.

Virgil names the halt: vile fear, which makes a man recoil from a noble resolution like a beast at a false semblance in twilight. Then he tells why he came. He was among the suspended when a dame with eyes brighter than the star of day called him. Beatrice names Dante a friend, not of her fortune but of herself, hindered on the desert and turned by fear. Love brought her from a place revisited with joy. She does not dread the misery below because she is so framed that their flame does not touch her. A blessed dame in heaven sent Lucia; Lucia found Beatrice seated with Rachel and told her Dante was drowning in a torrent mightier than a sea.

Virgil asks why Dante still hangs back when three maids in the court of heaven have planned his safety. His vigour lifts like florets that had bent in frost and now rise on their stems. He tells Virgil to lead on: one only will is in them both. Guide, master, lord. When Virgil moves, Dante enters the deep and woody way.

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Why This Matters

Accept Help Already Sent

Comparison is a polite way to cancel a journey you already agreed to take. Dante says he is not Aeneas and not Paul, until Virgil tells him Beatrice came down because Mary sent Lucia, and three women in heaven have already planned his safety.

Before you withdraw from a task you accepted, write the names of three people who already moved for you, and tell one of them you will not waste what they started.

This chapter

Inside the Mind: Virgil

The living man is already backing out, so the dead poet must spend a descent that happened without him. Beatrice came because Mary sent Lucia. Three women have planned the safety. Virgil reports it because a pilgrim who can still refuse will not start on a rescue he invented alone.

Continue this thoughtThe Guide Who Cannot Enter

Coming Up in Chapter 3

The next portal is already lettered. Through me you pass into the city of woe, into eternal pain, among the people lost for aye. Dante will have to read the last line: all hope abandon ye who enter here.

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Original text

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Chapter 02

Dante's Crisis of Confidence

Now was the day departing, and the air, Imbrown’d with shadows, from their toils releas’d All animals on earth; and I alone Prepar’d myself the conflict to sustain, Both of sad pity, and that perilous road, Which my unerring memory shall retrace. O Muses! O high genius! now vouchsafe Your aid! O mind! that all I saw hast kept Safe in a written record, here thy worth And eminent endowments come to proof. I thus began: “Bard! thou who art my guide, Consider well, if virtue be in me Sufficient, ere to this high enterprise Thou trust me. Thou hast…

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Dante's Crisis of Confidence

Summary

Why This Matters