35 Passages From Dante’s Divine Comedy That Are Strikingly Relevant Today

Nearly 700 years old and hailed as a masterpiece of world literature, Dante Alighieri’s epic poem ‘The Divine Comedy‘ has been fascinating readers for centuries. It’s an allegorical interpretation of a 35-year-old Dante’s journey through the depths of hell, purgatory, and paradise from the medieval perspective of his time, and yet the poem has remained famous in the present day for its grand scope and illustrious prose.

The poem was originally written in the Tuscan language and presented in ‘terza rima’, a three lined rhyming scheme. Unfortunately, the integrity of the rhyming is lost in translation to most foreign languages (including English), and localized rhyming interpretations are often dismissed as inauthentic. Nonetheless, the work has never failed to impress those who give it a proper shot.

Upon reading ‘The Divine Comedy’ for the first time in recent months, it was inevitable I would be viewing and interpreting the work from an early 21st century lens. Soon enough, I found an abundance of material which could have either comical or frightening allegories to the so-called progressive or ‘social justice’ attitudes of our modern world, and realized that this work was ripe for a dissident right-wing parody.

Maintaining Dante’s poetic spirit of ‘terza rima’ or three lined stanzas, here is a collection of prose taken directly from Henry Wadsworth Longfellow’s interpretation of the ‘Inferno’, which are then juxtaposed with recent photographs and artwork. ‘Inferno’ (hell) is without doubt the most famous section of the poem, so grab your red pill and get ready…

1.

I entered on the deep and savage way. (Canto II)

2.

The infamous “Big Red” of Toronto

Behold the beast, for which I have turned back;

Do thou protect me from her, famous Sage,

For she doth make my veins and pulses tremble. (Canto I)

3.

“Thee it behoves to take another road,”

Responded he, when he beheld my weeping,

“If from this savage place thou wouldst escape; (Canto I)

4.

Through every city shall he hunt her down,

Until he shall have driven her back to Hell,

There from whence envy first did let her loose. (Canto I)

5.

“All hope abandon, ye who enter in!” (Canto III)

6.

Trump-hating homeless people in San Francisco

“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.” (Canto III)

7.

San Francisco LGBTQ Pride

“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.” (Canto III)

8.

Belle Knox

To sensual vices she was so abandoned,

That lustful she made licit in her law,

To remove the blame to which she had been led. (Canto V)

9.

If were the King of the Universe our friend,

We would pray unto him to give thee peace,

Since thou hast pity on our woe perverse. (Canto V)

10.

So we passed onward o’er the filthy mixture

Of shadows and of rain with footsteps slow,

Touching a little on the future life. (Canto VI)

11.

Mmmmmmm!! No-fault divorce tastes so good!!

Your knowledge has no counterstand against her;

She makes provision, judges, and pursues

Her governance, as theirs the other gods. (Canto VII)

12.

And I said to him: “With weeping and with wailing,

Thou spirit maledict, do thou remain;

For thee I know, though art all defiled.” (Canto VIII)

13.

All of their coverings uplifted were,

And from them issued forth such dire laments,

Sooth seemed they of the wretched and tormented. (Canto IX)

14.

South Africa… London Police recruits… The US Postal Service…

And as thou wouldst to the sweet world return,

Say why that people is so pitiless

Against my race in each one of its laws?” (Canto X)

15.

And there, by reason of the horrible

Excess of stench the deep abyss throws out,

We drew ourselves aside behind the cover (Canto XI)

16.

Violence can be done the Deity,

In heart denying and blaspheming Him,

And by disdaining Nature and her bounty. (Canto XI)

17.

Darth Soros

Hypocrisy, flattery, and who deals in magic,

Falsification, theft, and simony,

Panders, and barrators, and the like filth. (Canto XI)

18.

Based Stickman smites the Antifa Devils

Clearly wilt thou perceive why from these felons

They separated are, and why less wroth

Justice divine doth smite them with its hammer.” (Canto XI)

19.

There do the hideous Harpies make their nests,

Who chased the Trojans from the Strophades,

With sad announcement of impending doom; (Canto XIII)

20.

Old rumor in the world proclaims them blind;

A people avaricious, envious, proud;

Take heed that of their customs thou do cleanse thee. (Canto XV)

21.

Antifa terrorists

Towards us came they, and each one cried out:

“Stop, thou; for by thy garb to us thou seemest

To be someone of our depraved city.” (Canto XVI)

22.

Antifa terrorists set police officers on fire in Paris (2017)

Ah me! what wounds I saw upon their limbs,

Recent and ancient by the flames burnt in!

It pains me still but to remember it. (Canto XVI)

23.

The agent of Satan who wants to destroy your nations sovereignty and your 2nd amendment

“Behold the monster with the pointed tail,

Who cleaves the hills, and breaketh walls and weapons,

Behold him who infecteth all the world.” (Canto XVII)

24.

Fatherless households have become a major problem since Dante’s time…

There did he leave her pregnant and forlorn;

Such sin unto such punishment condemns him,

And also for Medea is vengeance done. (Canto XVIII)

25.

“Suck muh dick and maybe I’ll give you that acting job young Shiksa“

Art thou so early satiate with that wealth,

For which thou didst not fear to take by fraud

The beautiful Lady, and then work her woe?” (Canto XIX)

26.

I would make use of words more grievous still;

Because your avarice afflicts the world,

Trampling the good and lifting the depraved. (Canto XIX)

27.

Ye have made yourselves a god of gold and silver;

And from the idolater how differ ye,

Save that he one, and ye a hundred worship? (Canto XIX)

28.

Behold Tiresias, who his semblance changed,

When from a male to a female he became,

His members being all of them transformed; (Canto XX)

29.

Behold the wretched ones, who left the needle,

The spool and rock, and made them fortune-tellers;

They wrought their magic spells with herb and image. (Canto XX)

30.

If thou art as observant as thy wont is,

Dost thou not see that they do gnash their teeth,

And with their brows are threatening woe to us? (Canto XXI)

31.

Shaun King

And the Friar: “Many of the Devil’s vices

Once heard I at Bologna, and among them,

That he’s a liar and the father of lies.” (Canto XXIII)

32.

Satan spawn comes to your child’s school bearing rainbows and “love”

And notwithstanding that mine eyes might be

Somewhat bewildered, and my mind dismayed,

They could not flee away so secretly (Canto XXV)

33.

But said Virgilius: “What dost thou still gaze at?

Why is thy sight still riveted down there

Among the mournful, mutilated shades? (Canto XXIX)

34.

(((Lazar Kaganovich))). Communist mastermind of the Ukraine Holodomor and a worthy substitute for Dante’s Satan.

Were he as fair once, as he now is foul,

And lifted up his brow against his Maker,

Well may proceed from him all tribulation. (Canto XXXIV)

35.

The nightmare is over!

Thence we came forth to rebehold the stars. (Canto XXXIV)

Final Statement

Dante’s Divine Comedy continues to resonate with readers, not just because it gives us front row seats to the freak show, but because, the scenes delineated are recognizable. Though couched in the stuff of nightmares, some of what Dante sees has an all too human reality about it. Our knowledge of hell may be belated, but Dante’s vision remains, because it is a work of art which recognises humanity’s darkest fears, and deepest dreams. It is the poem that has become the palimpsest in which all other latter-day works of art are scribed. – The Road To Xanadu

Read More: Is Return Of Kings Really The Most Repugnant Website On The Internet?