dante 7

 Vestibule of Hell

This from Illustrations from Dante:

In the Divine Comedy (Divina Commedia) Dante narrates the story of his journey out of the dark forest where he found himself in the middle of his life. With the Roman poet Virgil as guide he travels through Hell (Inferno) and Purgatory before finally reaching Paradise. The Inferno is described as a conical structure with successive circles, each reserved for particular categories of sinners. Purgatory is a mountain, on top of which is the Earthly Paradise where Dante finally meets his beloved Beatrice. Dante completed the Divine Comedy shortly before his death in 1321. It is one of the great texts of European culture and continues to inspire artists.

 water color Illustrations 

Blake's watercolour illustrations were commissioned in 1824 by John Linnell, friend and patron of his last years. They were executed at a time when Dante's masterpiece was being made more widely known through translation and critical re-evaluation. Henry Cary's first complete translation was published in 1814 and Blake owned a copy of it. He also taught himself Italian in order to be able to read the original. In the late 18th century the sublime and terrible passages of the Inferno were illustrated and singled out for praise, however, by the 1820s a new appreciation of the beauties of Purgatory, and especially Paradise, had emerged. Blake's originality as an illustrator of the Divine Comedy lies in his literary and visionary approach to the text. One of the ways he maintains a continuity of narrative throughout the series is by consistently showing Dante dressed in red (denoting experience) and Virgil in blue (denoting the spirit). Between 1824 and 1827, when he died, Blake completed 102 watercolours which survive in varying stages of completion. He intended to engrave the series - as Flaxman had done with his illustrations in the early 1800s - but managed to partially complete only seven plates.

Vestibule of Hell
Blake's Illustrations
wiki commo

Inferno: Canto III 

  All hope abandon, ye who enter in!"

These words in sombre colour I beheld
  Written upon the summit of a gate;
  Whence I: "Their sense is, Master, hard to me!"

And he to me, as one experienced:
  "Here all suspicion needs must be abandoned,
  All cowardice must needs be here extinct.

We to the place have come, where I have told thee
  Thou shalt behold the people dolorous
  Who have foregone the good of intellect."

And after he had laid his hand on mine
  With joyful mien, whence I was comforted,
  He led me in among the secret things.

There sighs, complaints, and ululations loud
  Resounded through the air without a star,
  Whence I, at the beginning, wept thereat.

Languages diverse, horrible dialects,
  Accents of anger, words of agony,
  And voices high and hoarse, with sound of hands,

Made up a tumult that goes whirling on
  For ever in that air for ever black,
  Even as the sand doth, when the whirlwind breathes.

And I, who had my head with horror bound,
  Said: "Master, what is this which now I hear?
  What folk is this, which seems by pain so vanquished?"

And he to me: "This miserable mode
  Maintain the melancholy souls of those
  Who lived withouten infamy or praise.

Commingled are they with that caitiff choir
  Of Angels, who have not rebellious been,
  Nor faithful were to God, but were for self.

The heavens expelled them, not to be less fair;
  Nor them the nethermore abyss receives,
  For glory none the damned would have from them."

And I: "O Master, what so grievous is
  To these, that maketh them lament so sore?"
  He answered: "I will tell thee very briefly.

These have no longer any hope of death;
  And this blind life of theirs is so debased,
  They envious are of every other fate.

No fame of them the world permits to be;
  Misericord and Justice both disdain them.
  Let us not speak of them, but look, and pass."

And I, who looked again, beheld a banner,
  Which, whirling round, ran on so rapidly,
  That of all pause it seemed to me indignant;

And after it there came so long a train
  Of people, that I ne'er would have believed
  That ever Death so many had undone.

When some among them I had recognised,
  I looked, and I beheld the shade of him
  Who made through cowardice the great refusal.

Forthwith I comprehended, and was certain,
  That this the sect was of the caitiff wretches
  Hateful to God and to his enemies.

These miscreants, who never were alive,
  Were naked, and were stung exceedingly
  By gadflies and by hornets that were there.

These did their faces irrigate with blood,
  Which, with their tears commingled, at their feet
  By the disgusting worms was gathered up.

And when to gazing farther I betook me.
  People I saw on a great river's bank;
  Whence said I: "Master, now vouchsafe to me,

That I may know who these are, and what law
  Makes them appear so ready to pass over,
  As I discern athwart the dusky light."

And he to me: "These things shall all be known
  To thee, as soon as we our footsteps stay
  Upon the dismal shore of Acheron."

Then with mine eyes ashamed and downward cast,
  Fearing my words might irksome be to him,
  From speech refrained I till we reached the river.

And lo! towards us coming in a boat
  An old man, hoary with the hair of eld,
  Crying: "Woe unto you, ye souls depraved!

Hope nevermore to look upon the heavens;
  I come to lead you to the other shore,
  To the eternal shades in heat and frost.

And thou, that yonder standest, living soul,
  Withdraw thee from these people, who are dead!"
  But when he saw that I did not withdraw,

He said: "By other ways, by other ports
  Thou to the shore shalt come, not here, for passage;
  A lighter vessel needs must carry thee."

And unto him the Guide: "Vex thee not, Charon;
  It is so willed there where is power to do
  That which is willed; and farther question not."

Thereat were quieted the fleecy cheeks
  Of him the ferryman of the livid fen,
  Who round about his eyes had wheels of flame.

But all those souls who weary were and naked
  Their colour changed and gnashed their teeth together,
  As soon as they had heard those cruel words.

God they blasphemed and their progenitors,
  The human race, the place, the time, the seed
  Of their engendering and of their birth!

Thereafter all together they drew back,
  Bitterly weeping, to the accursed shore,
  Which waiteth every man who fears not God.

Charon the demon, with the eyes of glede,
  Beckoning to them, collects them all together,
  Beats with his oar whoever lags behind.

As in the autumn-time the leaves fall off,
  First one and then another, till the branch
  Unto the earth surrenders all its spoils;

In similar wise the evil seed of Adam
  Throw themselves from that margin one by one,
  At signals, as a bird unto its lure.

So they depart across the dusky wave,
  And ere upon the other side they land,
  Again on this side a new troop assembles.

"My son," the courteous Master said to me,
  "All those who perish in the wrath of God
  Here meet together out of every land;

And ready are they to pass o'er the river,
  Because celestial Justice spurs them on,
  So that their fear is turned into desire.

This way there never passes a good soul;
  And hence if Charon doth complain of thee,
  Well mayst thou know now what his speech imports."

This being finished, all the dusk champaign
  Trembled so violently, that of that terror
  The recollection bathes me still with sweat.

The land of tears gave forth a blast of wind,
  And fulminated a vermilion light,
  Which overmastered in me every sense,

And as a man whom sleep hath seized I fell.