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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 02 December 2020
A fascinating and too often neglected area of literature is the medieval visions of the Afterworld, the detailed conceptions of hell, purgatory, and paradise, which were to reach a culmination in Dante's Divina Commedia. Several of these visions became widely popular, both in Latin and in vernacular versions. They have been carefully studied for their possible influence on Dante's writing. I propose to explore one aspect of them, the threefold pains of punishment, and to show how this material was used by Milton and Shakespeare.
1 August Rüegg, Die Jenseitsvorstellungen vor Dante uni die übrigen literarischen Voraus-setzungen der “Divina Commedia” (Cologne, 1945), 2 vols., the most complete study; Rudolf Palgen, Dos mittelalterliche Gesicht der Göttlichen Komodie (Heidelberg, 1935); Alessandro d'Ancona, I Precursori de Dante (Florence, 1874); C. S. Boswell, An Irish Precursor of Dante (London, 1908) (Vision of Adamnan); Theodore Silverstein, “Dante and Vergil the Mystic,” Harvard Stud, in Philol. and Lit., xrv (1932), 51–59 (on the 4 rivers of hell).
2 Useful discussions are: Thomas Wright, Saint Patrick's Purgatory (London, 1844); J. A. MacCulloch, Early Christian Visions of the Other World (Edinburgh, 1911); St. John Seymour, Irish Visions of the Other World (London, 1930); Howard R. Patch, The Other World (Cambridge, Mass., 1950), with a comprehensive bibliography; J. J. L. Duyyendak, “A Chinese ‘Divina Commedia’,” Toung Pao (Leyden), xli (1952), 255–316 (many useful references).
3 Vincent de Beauvais, Speculum Bistoriale xxvii.88–104. For ME metrical version, see The Visions of Tundale, ed. W. B. D. D. Turnbull (Edinburgh, 1843).
4 Ch. iii. Reprinted in Miscellanea Cassinese (Montecassino, 1932), and in French by J. H. Marchand, L'Autre Monde au Moyen Age (Paris, 1940), pp. 117–183. For a detailed comparison with the Divina Commedia, see the edition of Catello de Vivo (Ariano, 1899); also Rüegg, i, 406–434. Alberic (Ch. iii) says he saw great heaps of ice, the cold from which burned the sufferers like fire. Cf. Paradise Lost, ii.590–595.
5 Wright, p. 168; James Mew, Traditional Aspects of Hell (London, 1903), p. 260.
6 Wright, p. 147; Patch, p. 112.
7 Ecclesiastical History, Bk. v, Ch. xii. In the OE Genesis B, sinners remain in one place, but the climate varies from extreme heat during the day to extreme cold at night. For additional instances in OE, see M. D. Clubb, ed. Christ and Satan (Yale Univ. Press, 1925), pp. 70–71.
8 The Revelation of the Monk of Evesham, Arber's Reprint, Ch. xvii.
9 Mew, pp. 97, 177, 185, 209; Encyclopedia of Religion and Ethics, ed. Hastings: “Descent to Hades,” “Eschatology,” “State of the Dead.”
10 I draw these quotations from a book of commonplaces, Joseph Langius Caesaremontanus, Loci Communes, sive Florilegium Rerum et Maleriarum Selectarum (Argentorati, [n.d.]), fol. 303r. My copy is inscribed on the title page: “Gerhardus â Weus me possidet 1617.” I cannot find a homily or commentary on Matt.vin in J. P. Migne's Palrologia Lalina, which I use for Gregory's other works.
11 Moralium (a commentary on Job), ix.66; in Pat. Lat., LXXV.915.
12 Ibid., ix.64, 65; p. 912. See also ix.65, p. 914.
13 Paradise Lost, ed. Himes (New York, American, n.d.), p. 255. Himes mentions none of the other parallels I have quoted. Among other editors, Hughes quotes St. Basil's Homily on Psalm 33 on the infernal “fire without brilliance, able to burn in darkness, destitute of light.” Masson notes Keightley's citation of Walker's History of Independency, Pt. i (1648): “Their burning zeal without knowledge is like Hell-fire without light.” See also PQ, xxviii (1949), 118–120, for Hughes' reply to T. S. Eliot's criticism of Milton's phrase.
14 Moralium, ix.66; pp. 915–916.
15 Dialogues, iv.39; in Pat. Lat., LXXVII.393–396. J. A. MacCulloch writes that Gregory's comment is the first explicit statement of the doctrine of purgatory—Medieval Faith and Fable (Boston, 1932), p. 187.
16 Rüegg (i, 305) states that Dryhthelm's vision (699) is the first to contain a clear distinction between hell and purgatory.
17 Visio Alberici, Ch. ix.
18 Moralia: “De Daemone Socratis,” Ch. xxii.
19 Ante-Nkene Fathers (Buffalo, N. Y., 1886), VIII, 579. For the medieval Latin version, see Theodore Silverstein, Visio Sancti Pauli (London, 1935). Cf. Dante's reference in Inferno n.32.
20 Cf. Wright, p. 122.
21 Douglas' Aeneid, Introd. to Bk. va. Cf. Aeneid vi.426–429, 477–534.
22 Rüegg notes several points of indebtedness but does not stress the fire-wind-water parallel.
23 Chs. xxxvii, xxxviii. Cf. Aeneid vi.430–431.
24 See Domenico Comparetti, Vergil in the Middle Ages (London, 1895).
25 See n. 15; also “Purgatory” and “Limbo” in the Catholic Encyclopedia.
26 Moralia: “De Tarditate Iustitiae Divinae,” Ch. xxii. Plutarch has a hot lake of boiling gold, a cold lake of lead, and a turbulent lake of iron, corresponding to Virgil's threefold purgation. Quoting Plutarch's essay, Natalis Comes (Natale Conti) refers to them simply as lakes of fire and ice (Mythologia iii.xi: “De Tartaro”). Cf. Patch, p. 81.
27 Mythologia iii.xi. Comes' work was a sourcebook for Spenser and was perhaps the most popular of Renaissance handbooks of mythology.
28 Here quoted from Virgil, Opera (Basle, 1586), p. 164c.
29 See my book Shakespeare's Derived Imagery (Lawrence, Kan., 1953), p. 136.
30 Summa Theologies, Pt. m (Sup.), App. ii.
31 Quoted in Vincent de Beauvais, Speculum Naturale iv.114.
32 Reproduced in C. M. Gayley, Classic Myths (ed. 1911), p. 358. Cf. Aeneid vi.616–617. For other fiery wheels, see Patch, pp. 84, 88, 92–93.
33 Speculum Bistoriale xxix.9. Cf. Patch, p. 117. Judas himself describes this wheel in the Voyage of St. Brandan, Ch. xii (Marchand, p. 59).
34 See Wright, p. 72; Duyvendak, p. SO.
35 Among recent editors, G. L. Kittredge rejects the suggestion. It is tentatively accepted by O. J. Campbell and by Hardin Craig.
36 “Viewless” means “invisible.” Invisibilis may be used as a near equivalent of inanis. In Gen.i.2, “without form and void” appears in the Vulgate as “inanis et vacua,” but in the Latin translation of the Septuagint as “invisibilis et incomposita.” The latter form is quoted by Ambrose, Augustine, and other early church fathers.
37 This wind has a certain resemblance to Milton's “violent cross wind” that blows the hypocrites from the gate of heaven to “the backside of the world,” into the Paradise of Fools on the outer shell of the cosmos (PL, m.487–497).
38 See lines 78–84 and Skeat's notes.
39 Commentarium in Somnium Scipionis ii.xvii.13–14 (ed. Eyssenhardt). I have used these passages before, in The Character of Hamlet and Other Essays (Chapel Hill, N. C, 1941), p. 221.
40 “The Ghost in Hamlet: A Catholic Linchpin,” SP, XLVIII (1951), 161–192. Cf. I. J. Semper's rejoinder, “The Ghost in Hamlet: Pagan or Christian,” Month, ix (1953), 222–234. See also J. Dover Wilson's introductory discussion to his edition of Hamlet in the New Cambridge Shakespeare (1936).
