MARTHA BAYLES: I'm standing outside the new Getty Center in Los Angeles. Below me are seven levels of parking that spiral down into the earth, and reserving a spot there is hard. But if I were standing in Dante's Italy, things would be different. There'd be a lot more below me than a parking garage. There would be nine circles of hell, the "Inferno". And reserving a spot there would be easy.
Here at the Getty recently, a theater group performs themes from Dante's great poem, the "Inferno." Taped by the Jewish Television Network, the performance was based on the award-winning translation by the poet laureate of the United States, Robert Pinsky. I asked Robert Pinsky what he thought about while translating into crisp and vivid English a 700-year-old poem about a citizen of Florence who, guided by the Roman poet Virgil, spends a week journeying through hell.
Mr. ROBERT PINSKY (Poet Laureate of the United States): It may be a sad commentary on me, but I didn't think about hell. I thought about rhyme and sentences and juicy words.BAYLES: Is the "Inferno" about punishment?
Mr. PINSKY: No, I don't think so. Punishment's not so interesting. The "Inferno" is about a much more interesting subject. It's about despair or depression as a self-inflicted wound.
BAYLES: The despairing have a place in Dante's hell, as do suicides. Their fate is to be immobilized as trees, trees that feel pain.Unidentified Actress (From Play): Why did you break me? Why have you torn me? Have you no pity then?
BAYLES: Dante does have pity. He weeps for many of the souls he encounters. Yet in his medieval Christian universe, they're all, including the suicides, sinners. To us, that can feel pretty alien.
BAYLES: We hurt ourselves, yes, but we also hurt others. And even though the "Inferno" is of uncertain size, it has plenty of room and a different kind of suffering for every wrong. The lustful, like the famous lovers, Paolo and Francesca, are blown about by winds as potent as their passions. Yet sins of the flesh and of feeling are not treated as harshly as those of the mind and the will. Seducers and flatterers are goaded by demons and buried in filth. The bodies of thieves fuse with those of serpents.
In the very pit of hell, where everything is ice, lie the betrayers, those who return evil for good. And there, Dante and Virgil meet Satan, who must be grappled with.
BAYLES: And so ends the "Inferno". With the wisdom of Virgil, the grace of heaven, and every ounce of courage we possess, it is possible to return from hell. Maybe Dante's universe is not so alien after all. For RELIGION & ETHICS NEWSWEEKLY, I'm Martha Bayles.
