Canto V of Inferno<\/p>\n
And so descending from first to second circle, Dreadful Minos stands there snarling I tell you that when a condemned soul Recognises a just destination in Inferno So many standing always before him, When Minos glimpsed me there Be careful who you trust as you come in Don\u2019t attempt to thwart his footsteps; Shrieks of anguish rose now through the air I reached the place where all light shrank No pausing in this buffeting of Hell As they arrive to face their violent ruin I recognised that in this place those Like starlings whirling round in murmuration Hither and thither, round and round they spin; Like cranes that pass above with chanting lays, Those shadows borne aloft on a turmoil of winds \u201cThe leader there,\u201d my Master gave reply, So corrupted by her deep desire for vice She was Semiramis, who as legend tells us, That other is she who murdered herself for love See there Helen who launched so many See Paris, Tristan\u201d\u2026thousands more shadows When I had heard my teacher utter names of all I called out: \u201cPoet, I so wish to speak And he gave answer \u201cAll now shall be clear As the gale swept them down towards us As doves compelled by their desire Those shades parted from the rank and file of Dido \u201cO living human, charming and benign, if the ruler of Eternity were friends with us To what you wish to ask and wish to know The city of my birth rests on the shore-line Love which kindles soon in tender heart Love, releasing no loved one from loving, Love led us then to our death together: And as I listened to those tortured words After pausing I gave reply \u201cAlas, Turning then to face them I began to speak: But tell me, on the breath of your sweet sighs, And she in turn replied: \u201cNo pain can be more great But if you wish so ardently to glimpse One day for our delight we read of Lancelot With moment chasing moment we exchanged glances It was when that much-sought smile beckoned down Trembling kissed my mouth. Whilst the one spirit was speaking these words My body sank in seeming lifelessness.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Dante and Beckett.<\/strong><\/p>\n Samuel Beckett\u2019s interest in Dante\u2019s Commedia is clear from his choosing the name Belacqua for the protagonist of the early short stories More Pricks Than Kicks and it is sustained in the near-immobility of many of his characters as they speak from dust-bins, mounds, urns and desolately empty landscapes. Many of them are compelled to pour forth accounts of their anguish in a \u2018hellish half-light\u2019 (Play, 1964). The landscape within which Beckett\u2019s characters are dwarfed is not only taken from Inferno but also from his close understanding of the visual arts and his love of Flemish emptiness. Salomon Ruysdael\u2019s enormous skies weigh down on the diminished activity of figures who beetle about their own business in the lowest section of his paintings and as he wrote in a letter to his friend Tom MacGreevy in 1934 in Ruysdael\u2019s Entrance to the Forest \u2018there is no entrance anymore nor any commerce with the forest, its dimensions are its secret and it has no communications to make\u2019. A little dinghy, on the river, I resting on my oars, they lolling <\/p>\n <\/p>\n Ian Brinton\u2019s most recent publications include Islands of Voices, selected poems of Douglas Oliver (Shearsman Books, 2020). His translation of Paul Val\u00e9ry\u2019s selected poems, with a Preface by Michael Heller, appeared in early 2021 from Muscaliet Press and Paris Scenes, a translation of Baudelaire\u2019s \u2018Tableaux Parisiens\u2019 has just appeared from Two Rivers Press. He reviews for The London Magazine, PN Review, Long Poem Magazine, Golden Handcuffs Review and co-edits the magazine SNOW. Alongside J.H. Prynne he assists in running the Modern Poetry Archive at Cambridge University Library.<\/span><\/p>\n <\/p>\n Canto V of Inferno And so descending from first to second circle, I was led to tighter confined space where greater torment pricks the soul to wail. Dreadful Minos stands there snarling peering at the guilty in the gateway; grasping himself he judges and dispatches. I tell you that when a condemned soul stands before […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":7166,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"footnotes":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false},"categories":[63,12],"tags":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/glasfrynproject.org.uk\/w\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/11\/images-2.jpeg","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p42xiC-1KT","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/glasfrynproject.org.uk\/w\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6751"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/glasfrynproject.org.uk\/w\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/glasfrynproject.org.uk\/w\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glasfrynproject.org.uk\/w\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glasfrynproject.org.uk\/w\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6751"}],"version-history":[{"count":13,"href":"https:\/\/glasfrynproject.org.uk\/w\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6751\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7518,"href":"https:\/\/glasfrynproject.org.uk\/w\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6751\/revisions\/7518"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glasfrynproject.org.uk\/w\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/7166"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/glasfrynproject.org.uk\/w\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6751"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glasfrynproject.org.uk\/w\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6751"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glasfrynproject.org.uk\/w\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6751"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
\nI was led to tighter confined space<\/span>
\nwhere greater torment pricks the soul to wail.<\/span><\/p>\n
\npeering at the guilty in the gateway;<\/span>
\ngrasping himself he judges and dispatches.<\/span><\/p>\n
\nstands before him it confesses all;<\/span>
\nand when that specialist in sin<\/span><\/p>\n
\nhe winds his tail about himself<\/span>
\nto reveal the floor to which it must descend.<\/span><\/p>\n
\neach one facing sentence in his turn,<\/span>
\nspeaks, hears and then is hurled below.<\/span><\/p>\n
\nhe paused in his great work to say<\/span>
\n\u2018O you, new arrival at this grief-struck home,<\/span><\/p>\n
\nand don\u2019t be misled by the width of the gateway!\u2019<\/span>
\nBut my guide faced him down with \u2018What\u2019s your grouse?<\/span><\/p>\n
\nthey are prompted by the place where power and will are one<\/span>
\nso seek no further to disrupt his passage.\u2019<\/span><\/p>\n
\nlamentations reaching up to me<\/span>
\nas wailing swept in waves against my ears.<\/span><\/p>\n
\nand as at sea a hurling tempest tore and bellowed<\/span>
\nbeaten each way by the winds.<\/span><\/p>\n
\nas ravished spirits driven forward by the wind<\/span>
\nare whirled and battered without relief.<\/span><\/p>\n
\neach shrieks lamenting grief out loud<\/span>
\nhurling curses in the face of divine virtue.<\/span><\/p>\n
\nguilty of carnal sins faced their torment:<\/span>
\nthose who had permitted lust to stifle reason.<\/span><\/p>\n
\nflocking crowded through the broad cold air<\/span>
\nthese evil souls are swept along in gales.<\/span><\/p>\n
\nno comfort of any rest is ever offered,<\/span>
\nno prospect of a moment\u2019s ease of pain;<\/span><\/p>\n
\nbeating in endless lines through air and<\/span>
\nmoving on with long-drawn cries. I saw<\/span><\/p>\n
\nprompting me to speech: \u201cMaster who are these<\/span>
\nwhose flight is scourged in this black air?\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n
\n\u201cwhose story you would know<\/span>
\nwas empress of a range of lands and tongues.<\/span><\/p>\n
\nshe licensed every lust by deed of law<\/span>
\nsanctioning all the scandal she then spread.<\/span><\/p>\n
\nsucceeded her husband Ninus to control<\/span>
\nall those lands which now the Sultan rules.<\/span><\/p>\n
\nafter betraying the ashes of Sichaeus<\/span>
\nand there is Cleopatra steeped in luxury.<\/span><\/p>\n
\nyears of strife and there great Achilles<\/span>
\nwhose final test was ensnared by love.<\/span><\/p>\n
\nwere then displayed and each one named<\/span>
\nwhom love had cut clear from our life.<\/span><\/p>\n
\nthose lords and ladies from an antique land<\/span>
\nsuch pity caught me in the throat that I stood bewildered.<\/span><\/p>\n
\nwith those two there who move together<\/span>
\nweightless on the air.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n
\nas they approach close to us; beseech them<\/span>
\nby what binds them and they will draw near.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n
\nI called aloud \u201cO souls in torment<\/span>
\nshare your tale if that is not forbidden.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n
\nto return with gliding wings to their shared home<\/span>
\ndownwards sweeping through the air<\/span><\/p>\n
\nto glide towards us through the filthy air,<\/span>
\ndrawn by the magnet of my earnest call.<\/span><\/p>\n
\nwho through this darkness of lost air<\/span>
\ncan visit us who stained the earth with gore,<\/span><\/p>\n
\nwe would offer prayers of peace for you<\/span>
\nfor the pity you have shown here for our fate.<\/span><\/p>\n
\nwe shall listen and give clear reply<\/span>
\nsheltered from the blast as it is here.<\/span><\/p>\n
\nwhere all tributaries of the river Po<\/span>
\nwind their channels downwards to the sea.<\/span><\/p>\n
\nwas swiftly roused in this man by my fair beauty,<\/span>
\nripped from me in a way that pains me still.<\/span><\/p>\n
\nseized me in return as captive to his charm<\/span>
\nand as you see binds me yet close to him.<\/span><\/p>\n
\nCaina awaits the one who spilled our blood.\u201d<\/span>
\nThese words were carried on the wind to us.<\/span><\/p>\n
\nI stooped my head and held it bowed so long<\/span>
\nthat the poet called \u201cWhat are your thoughts?\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n
\nthe weight of such sweet thoughts and such desire<\/span>
\nhas led these people to this world of pain!\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n
\n\u201cFrancesca, what you now suffer brings tears<\/span>
\nof grief and pity to my eyes.<\/span><\/p>\n
\nhow love led you to acknowledge and then<\/span>
\nact upon your guilty desires.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n
\nthan from this place of loss to recall<\/span>
\nsuch fleeting happiness and that your teacher knows.<\/span><\/p>\n
\nthe first stirring of our love I shall reveal it to you<\/span>
\nthough weeping through my tale:<\/span><\/p>\n
\nand how he had become entangled in love\u2019s web;<\/span>
\nwe were alone and expected no intrusion.<\/span><\/p>\n
\nas the colour slowly drained from our faces<\/span>
\nuntil the point arrived when we must yield;<\/span><\/p>\n
\na kiss from such a lover that he<\/span>
\nwho never more can part from me<\/span><\/p>\n
\nA Galeotto was both writer and his book<\/span>
\nand we read in it no further on that day.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n
\nthe other wept and pity struck me down,<\/span>
\nswooning as if I\u2019d died;<\/span><\/p>\n
\nIn the world of Beckett we travel through the mud of How It Is (1964) to glimpse a recognisable memory or yearning and in Not I (1972) we meet the floating earless face, the \u2018Boca\u2019 or \u2018Mouth\u2019 of Dante\u2019s Canto XXXII. However, it is that \u2018hellish half-light\u2019 of Play, dominated by Canto V\u2019s circle of the lustful, that has haunted me over the years: a world of compulsion and concision. A little similar to Coleridge\u2019s Ancient Mariner Dante\u2019s figures speak to command our attention and the urgency of their presentation is compelled by their awareness that as lost souls they may never again have an opportunity to express themselves in language different from that which they now use. As Erich Auerbach put it in Mimesis this is an aspect of the situation which \u2018impels many to express themselves with the utmost intensity\u2019 bringing into the changelessness of their eternal fate \u2018a moment of dramatic historicity.\u2019
\nIn Play the three protagonists in the adulterous affair are revealed sitting in \u2018identical grey urns about one yard high\u2019 and from each \u2018a head protrudes, the neck held fast in the urn\u2019s mouth\u2019. They offer no verbal awareness of the existence of each other and as the one spotlight is turned on them each in irregular turn so they speak. When the spotlight returns to them they continue their despairingly vivid account of sordid betrayal as though they had never been interrupted. In Dante\u2019s Canto V Francesca feels the need to recount the particular moment of her passionate adultery and her words are linked to the intensity of pain felt in present grief as she is confronted with the memory of past happiness. It is the haunting lyricism of her expression that is echoed in Beckett\u2019s Man who recalls<\/p>\n
\non air-pillows in the stern\u2026sheets. Drifting. Such fantasies.<\/p>\nClick here to go back to:\u00a0Contributors and Links to Pages 1 – 4<\/a><\/h4>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"