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Inferno of Dante, The
Robert Pinsky

Number of quotes: 28


Book ID: 235 Page: 7

Section: 2B2

Canto I lines 61-65

---

“Then are you Virgil? Are you the font that pours

So overwhelming a river of human speech?”

I answered, shamefaced. “The glory and light are yours,

That poets follow – may the love that made me search

Your book in patient study avail me, Master!

Quote ID: 5860

Time Periods: 07


Book ID: 235 Page: 11

Section: 2E6

Canto I lines 6-8

---

Help me escape this evil that I face,

And worse. Lead me to witness what you have said,

Saint Peter’s gate, and the multitude of woes-”

Quote ID: 5862

Time Periods: 07


Book ID: 235 Page: 15

Section: 2A4

Canto II lines 6-8

---

O Muses, O genius of art, O memory whose merit

Has inscribed inwardly those things I saw-

Help me fulfill the perfection of your nature.

John’s note: Prayer to the Muses

Quote ID: 5863

Time Periods: 7


Book ID: 235 Page: 15

Section: 2E6

Canto II lines 16-19

---

Such favor on him befits him, chosen for glory

By highest heaven to be the father of Rome

And of Rome’s empire-later established Holy,

Seat of great Peter’s heir.

Pastor John’s note: Aeneas

Quote ID: 5864

Time Periods: 07


Book ID: 235 Page: 19

Section: 2E5

Canto II lines 78-84

----

To Lucy she said: “Your faithful follower

Needs you: I commend him to you.” Lucy, the foe

Of every cruelty, found me where I sat

With Rachel of old, and urged me: “Beatrice, true

Glory of God, can you not come to the aid

Of one who had such love for you he rose

Above the common crowd?

Pastor John notes: John’s note: ? Mary prompts Lucy; Lucy sends Beatrice; Like Hera!!

Quote ID: 5866

Time Periods: 7


Book ID: 235 Page: 29

Section: 2B2

Canto III lines 67-68

---

Then, at the river - an old man in a boat:

White-haired, as he drew closer shouting at us,

Pastor John’s note: charon

------

lines 87-92 (Does this fall under 2E7?)

With wails

and tears they gathered on the evil shore

That waits for all who don’t fear God. There demon

Charon beckons them, with his eyes of fire;

Crowded in a herd, they obey if he should summon,

and he strikes at any laggards with his oar.

Quote ID: 5868

Time Periods: 07


Book ID: 235 Page: 47

Section: 2B2

Canto V lines 1-9

----

So I descended from first to second circle -

Which girdles a smaller space and greater pain,

Which spurs more lamentation. Minos the dreadful

Snarls at the gate. He examines each one’s sin,

Judging and disposing as he curls his tail:

That is, when an ill-begotten soul comes down,

It comes before him, and confesses all;

Minos, great connoisseur of sin, discerns

For every spirit its proper place in Hell,

Quote ID: 5869

Time Periods: 07


Book ID: 235 Page: 49

Section: 4B

Canto V lines 55-57

---

And wanton Cleopatra. See Helen, too,

Who caused a cycle of many evil years:

And great Achilles, the hero whom love slew

Pastor John’s note: Dido - The poem is glutted with mixture of mythical and historical people

Quote ID: 5870

Time Periods: 07


Book ID: 235 Page: 57

Section: 2B2

Canto VI lines 10-17

Steadily through the shadowy air of Hell;

The soil they drench gives off a putrid odor.

Three-headed Cerberus, monstrous and cruel,

Barks doglike at the souls immersed here, louder

For his triple throat. His eyes are red, his beard

Grease-black, he has the belly of a meat-feeder

And talons on his hands: he claws the horde

Of spirits, he flays and quarters them in the rain.

Quote ID: 5871

Time Periods: 07


Book ID: 235 Page: 61

Section: 2A3

Canto VI lines 85-90

“He will not wake again,” my master said,

“Until the angel’s conclusive trumpet sounds

And the hostile Power comes-and the waiting dead

Wake to go searching for their unhappy tombs:

And resume again the form and flesh they had,

And hear that which eternally resounds.”

Quote ID: 5872

Time Periods: 07


Book ID: 235 Page: 71

Section: 2B2

Canto VII lines 75-78; 92-95

Your wisdom cannot resist her; in her might

Fortune, like any other god, foresees,

Judges, and rules her appointed realm. No truces

Can stop her turning. Necessity decrees

.....

Where a foaming spring spills over into a fosse.

The water was purple-black; we followed its current

Down a strange passage. This dismal watercourse

Descends the grayish slopes until its torrent

Discharges into the marsh whose name is Styx.

Quote ID: 5873

Time Periods: 07


Book ID: 235 Page: 89

Section: 2B2

Canto IX lines 35-36; 46-47; 54-56

For at its glowing top three hellish Furies

Suddenly appeared:

....

“O let Medusa come.” the Furies bayed

As they looked down, “to make him stone!

.....

...O you whose mind is clear:

Understand well the lesson that underlies

The veil of these strange verses I have written

Quote ID: 5876

Time Periods: 07


Book ID: 235 Page: xi

Section: 5D

Foreword

In spite of Dante’s reputation as the greatest of Christian poets

Quote ID: 5857

Time Periods: ?


Book ID: 235 Page: xi

Section: 2E6

The moral system of Hell owes more to ancient philosophy than it does to medieval classifications of virtues and vices, while the landscape of the underworld derives from Virgil more than from the poetically impoverished visions of the Middle Ages.

Quote ID: 5858

Time Periods: 07


Book ID: 235 Page: 155

Section: 1B

Canto XV lines 72-73

In which the sacred seed is living yet

Of Romans who remained when Florence went wrong,

Quote ID: 5877

Time Periods: 1


Book ID: 235 Page: 181

Section: 2A4

Canto XVIII lines 27-28

As when the Romans, because of the multitude

Gathered for the Jubilee.

Pastor John’s note: AD 1300 1st Christian Jubilee. Dante died in 1321

Quote ID: 5878

Time Periods: 7


Book ID: 235 Page: 197

Section: 3C

Canto XIX lines 108-111

Ah Constantine! What measure of wickedness

Stems from that mother- not your conversion, I mean:

Rather the dowry that the first rich Father

Accepted from you!”

Pastor John notes: John’s note: Donation of Constantine

Quote ID: 5879

Time Periods: ?


Book ID: 235 Page: 211

Section: 2A3,2B2

Canto XXI lines 28-35

Hurrying from behind us up the rock

Was a black demon. Ah, in his looks a brute,

How fierce he seemed in action-running the track

With his wings held outspread, and light of foot:

Over one high sharp shoulder he had thrown

A sinner, carrying both haunches’ weight

On the one side, with one hand holding on

To both the ankles.

Quote ID: 5880

Time Periods: 07


Book ID: 235 Page: 241

Section: 2E6

Canto XXIII lines 105-118

For as I spoke my eye was caught by one

Upon the ground, where he was crucified

By three stakes. When he saw me there he squirmed

All over, and puffing in his beard, he sighed;

Fra Catalano, observing this, explained:

“The one impaled there you are looking at

Is he who counseled the Pharisees to bend

The expedient way, by letting one man be put

To torture for the people. You see him stretch

Naked across the path to feel the weight

Of everyone who passes; and in this ditch,

Trussed the same way, are racked his father-in-law

And others of that council which was such

A seed of evil for the Jews.”

Pastor John’s note: Caiaphas the high priest

Quote ID: 5881

Time Periods: 017


Book ID: 235 Page: 253

Section: 2E6

Canto XXIV lines 104-106

Resumed on the ground, the dust spontaneously

The Phoenix in is flames, great sages agree,

To be born again every five hundred years;

Quote ID: 5882

Time Periods: 07


Book ID: 235 Page: 321

Section: 2B2

Canto XXX lines 96-98

. . . This false one made

Her accusation defaming Joseph; the other

Is the false Sinon, Trojan Greek,” he responded.

Quote ID: 5883

Time Periods: 07


Book ID: 235 Page: 331

Section: 2E5

Canto XXXI lines 37-41

....here, arrayed

All round the bank encompassing the pt

With half their bulk like towers above it, stood

Horrible giants, whom Jove still rumbles at

With menace when he thunders.

Quote ID: 5884

Time Periods: 7


Book ID: 235 Page: 333

Section: 2E6

Canto XXXI lines 87-89

“This proud one had a wish to test his power

Against supreme Jove: this is how he is paid,”

My guide said. “Ephialtes is his name;

Quote ID: 5885

Time Periods: 0


Book ID: 235 Page: 335

Section: 4B

Canto XXXI lines 121-124

This man can yield

The thing that’s longed for here; therefore bend down

And do not curl your lip. He can rebuild

Your fame on earth.

Quote ID: 5886

Time Periods: ?


Book ID: 235 Page: 341

Section: 2E5

Canto XXXII lines 10-11

May the muses help my verse

As when they helped Amphion wall Thebes

Pastor John notes: John’s note: Prayer to the muses

Quote ID: 5887

Time Periods: 7


Book ID: 235 Page: 345

Section: 4B

Canto XXXII lines 89-92

“Alive is what I am,”

I told him, “and if fame is what you crave,

Then you might value having me note your name

Among the others.”

Quote ID: 5888

Time Periods: ?


Book ID: 235 Page: 367

Section: 1B

Canto XXXIV lines 61-66

“That soul,” my master said, “who suffers most,

Is Judas Iscariot; head locked inside,

He flails his legs. Of the other two, who twist

With their heads down, the black mouth holds the shade

Of Brutus: writhing, but not a word will he scream;

Cassius is the sinewy one on the other side.

Quote ID: 5889

Time Periods: 17


Book ID: 235 Page: 426

Section: 2B2

Notes: Cantos XXXIII-XXXIV

65-66. In 44 B.C., Marcus Junius Brutus and Gaius Cassius Longus conspired to kill Julius Caesar. Their crime was seen in the Middle Ages as an offense not only to the murderers’ great benefactor, but to the progress and history of the Roman Empire and the Church.

Quote ID: 5891

Time Periods: 07



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