Dante’s Lucifer is the ultimate sinner, dwelling in the bottom of the ninth ring of hell. His surprisingly short appearance in the 34th canto is unimaginative: he says nothing, shares no story, flaps his wings and is half frozen in ice. This canto, or song, represents the conclusion of the first third of the epic trilogy and complicates many of the interpretations developed in the rest of the book about sin and traitors. Our very own Columbia University’s Department of Italian has curated an online resource titled Digital Dante as a “venue for research and ideas on Dante” (Editorial Board). While Columbia’s dantisti have a wonderful selection of commentary, I attempt to broaden the discussion of the 34th canto and engage with Teodolinda Barolini’s belief that Lucifer represents an inanimate death in her interpretation of the Divine Comedy. In her essay, titled “Satanic Physics and the Point of Transition,” she asserts that Lucifer is “inanimate [and] without soul” (Barolini). I claim this has two primary problems: first, Satan shows characteristics of a moving and living soul, and second, Dante’s contrapasso would be diminished if only Satan’s body and not soul was being punished for eternity.
First, Barolini presents the claim that an “animated death seems to be what is at stake for Dante in his idea of Lucifer.” This strong claim is based primarily on the giants’ cognitive abilities, stating “the giants differ from Lucifer in that they are not yet devoid of all cognitions.” This is interesting in two ways: it asserts the giants are thinking and emotive and also claims the devil himself is devoid of a soul and persona. The giants are an inadequate foil to Lucifer though, because they are described more inanimate than the devil himself. First, they are mistaken for towers (31.31), where it takes Dante another 8 lines for this error to “flee him” and then for Dante Pilgrim to become fearful (31.39). Again, Dante invokes imagery of Montereggioni, “crowned with towers” and Mandelbaum goes as far to double down on the sensory invocation as to translate “so they towered here” (Montereggion di torri si corona/ così la proda che ‘l pozzo circonda) (31.40-42). Surely, Dante isn’t meaning for these Giants to be the ideal foil to a supposedly inanimate Lucifer; these Giants are largely described as inert buildings and stone towers. The vibrant winds of Lucifer’s wings can be felt far away, a reminder of his prowess and strength in movement. Even when Dante Poet first describes how Lucifer “raised his brows” against God (34.35), he is showing his emotional strength. Dante metaphorically compares the Giants to towers, so what about Lucifer? Dante compares his wings to that of a ship’s sails and has shown the reader in the previous canti, the cold winds that they can produce. :
Sotto ciascuna uscivan due grand’ ali,
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quanto si convenia a tanto uccello:
vele di mar non vid’ io mai cotali.
Non avean penne, ma di vispistrello
era lor modo; e quelle svolazzava,
sì che tre venti si movean da ello:
(Inf 34.46-51)
Beneath each face of his, two wings spread out,
As broad as suited so immense a bird:
I’ve never seen a ship with sails so wide.
They had no feathers, but were fashioned like
A bat’s; and he was agitating them,
So that three winds made their way out from him —
The comparison to bats might be supportive of Barolini’s inanimate claim – but they are also very quick, animate creatures occasionally as well. But few sinners in the inferno are as immobile as Dis . Comparatively, he is quite inanimate; but to claim then he is soulless because of that seems like a stretch. Most notably, the suicides in Canto XIII are unable to move and are stuck in their non-human forms. But this is the opposite of Professor Barolini’s claim that an inanimate being would be soulless. In this case, the immobile suicide forest is branded a “spirito incarcerato” or imprisoned spirit (13.87). The tree-humans maintain their souls and thus, must deal with the pain of their contrapasso. After Dante snaps off a branch, the portrayal of their souls is explicit:
Da che fatto fu poi di sangue bruno,
ricominciò a dir: “Perché mi scerpi?
non hai tu spirto di pietade alcuno?
Uomini fummo, e or siam fatti sterpi:
ben dovrebb’ esser la tua man più pia,
se state fossimo anime di serpi.”
And then, when it had grown more dark with blood,
It asked again: “Why do you break me off?
Are you without all sentiment of pity?
We once were men and now are arid stumps:
Your hand might well have shown us greater mercy
Had we been nothing more than souls of serpents.”
The beautiful, yet disturbing imagery of the “souls of serpents” is unambiguous that these are still souls that exist in hell and are being punished. This makes sense for a theme of retributive justice. Would individuals really suffer their contrapasso if their soul wasn’t there to feel the agony? If Satan truly has no cognitive abilities and no soul as Barolini interprets, then only his physical and grotesque body is there to suffer. Seemingly, he would have escaped the punishment of his soul that everyone else in hell must endure. Dis’ tears show otherwise:
Con sei occhi piangëa, e per tre menti
gocciava ‘l pianto e sanguinosa bava.
(Inf 34.53-54).
He wept out of six eyes; and down three chins,
tears gushed together with a bloody froth.
A soulless giant, chewing on three traitors would have no reason to cry. Instead, Lucifer maintains an identity for which he is punished, half-frozen in ice in the furthest place away from God. Also, if Dante wanted us to envision Lucifer as completely unemotive and soulless, why would he leave half of the arch-traitor partially free and not frozen like the rest of those in Guidecca? Because Lucifer is out of the ice, Dante Pilgrim can share the pain and justice that is brought to the devil, assuming he has a soul. In fact, a soulless hell would invalidate the purpose as inscribed on the entry gates.
fecemi la divina podestate,
la somma sapïenza e ‘l primo amore.
Dinanzi a me non fuor cose create
se non etterne, e io etterno duro.
Lasciate ogne speranza, voi ch’entrate.”
(Inf. 3.5-9)
To “endure eternally” requires the presence of a soul to burden that punishment. Is Lucifer an exception to the rule because he doesn’t have a soul and if so, why does he get the privilege? I would assume Satan’s soul should be burdened with the most grieving. More theologically, Lucifer needs a soul because he is a divine creation in the eyes of Dante. The theory goes, even the bottom creatures of hell were once a creation of God, so it must share some cognition and divine beauty. Barolini says Dante “actively participates in the doctrine of evil as merely the absence of good.” Even Lucifer is painted with some references that scholar Robert Hollander says Dante “even now reminds us of [Satan’s] divine origin. . . as a parodic version of Christ crucified” (Hollander on Inf 34.37-38). Mandelbaum translates the devils triune of faces to meet at the “Crown”, parodic of Jesus’ humble crown of thorns. Even the first line of the Canto is representative of the banners of God’s kingdom. Would Dante want to portray a divine creation as so inanimate and devoid of cognition, even someone as evil as Satan? I think this question is really left to the reader’s interpretation of the Divine Comedy. It appears to me that the farther from God we go (Lucifer being the furthest), the less joy and love we see and experience. While heat and fire are intermixed in parts of hell, even the pleasure of warmth and radiance of this light is gone. In this case, the soul of Lucifer is still present in his grotesque and monstrous body, enduring the ultimate punishment at the bottom layer of hell.
A soulless Satan also complicates the question we see in every rung of hell, do the sinners want to be remembered in the real world? For traitors in the 9th circle, “some lie flat and others stand erect, one on his head, and one upon his soles,” all in ice. In this case, the truly unanimated death (immobile, unable to talk and frozen like Han Solo in carbonite) can be rewarding; none of them will be named back on Earth for their horrible sins. Towards the bottom, sinners share their story only with confidence in anonymity or without a belief their story will return to Italy. Lucifer presents an erroneous exception: Satan himself not able to describe or share his story like so many other figures. Even Pier delle Vigne in the Suicide forest wanted to be named and share his story.
Professor Barolini’s argument grows in complexity when she incorporates souls that appear in hell while their bodies remain on earth. The traitors of Tolomea, she says “can appear to be alive on earth, while their souls are already lost, already in Hell”
trovai di voi un tal, che per sua opra
in anima in Cocito già si bagna,
e in corpo par vivo ancor di sopra.
(Inf. 33.155-57)
I found one of you such that, for his acts,
in soul he bathes already in Cocytus
and up above appears alive, in body.
She concludes that because the sinner’s body “appears alive up above”, “thus, we are in the presence of [an] animated death.” I take issue with this in a few ways. First, we have met many other animate deaths that both have the body and soul present in hell. This definition doesn’t really work because if the defining trait of an animate death was only having a soul in hell, then the entire suicide forest would be the most animate. Secondly, just proving the contrary, that animate deaths exist, doesn’t mean that Lucifer is an inanimate soulless creature. She supports her claim with physical characteristic, “Lucifer masticates, but he does not speak: lack of speech signifies the lack of that spark of cognition preserved in the giant Anteo. Lucifer is ‘inanimate’, without soul, but he moves, bats his wings, drools, and chews.” I would disagree that speech is the only way to convey cognition. If I had a loving penguin that drooled, chewed and batted its wings (to no avail), I can’t just conclude it is soulless. Could it be an interesting contrapasso if the Satan, the archangel that blemished heaven with his arrogance, is now unable to speak? Satan is described by Dante to have “raised his brows/ against his Maker” (Inf. 34.35-36). It seems that the inability to talk may be a carefully constructed punishment for the rejected prideful angel, along with pelleting the taste of human flesh and bones.
With Dante beginning his comedy with the Inferno, the only way to go is up. In his symbolically 3-day long journey, he finally meets a surprisingly dull and uneventful Lucifer. Being at the end, and the worst sinner in Hell, Lucifer is intrinsic to the larger interpretation of the work and how contrapasso and punitive justice function. Dante’s inferno notably lacks excruciating punishment for some horrible sins such as lust and never punishes the pegan philosophers, but that treatment doesn’t seem right for the devil himself. In such a case, I argue that the silence we see in the beast is representative of his own contrapasso due to his blasphemy and arrogance, rather than a lack of cognition. He maintains his soul so that he can preserve the pain that accompanies his time frozen in the bottom rung of hell, unlikely to ever uscire a riverder le stelle.
