Bequeathed to air

There are certain things that mankind perennially seeks, whether they be ultimate goods, partial goods, or simply perceptions of the good. Among these persistent desires of man are two rooted in truth but frequently twisted from their source: fame and immortality. Countless stories and histories attest to the fervor with which men seek these two goods, and understanding why we have these desires, what they point toward, and ways they may be perverted can help us understand where our happiness lies. Dante’s journey in the Divine Comedy, contrasted with his guide Vergil and other characters he encounters, can help us to see what is a true, good sense of fame and to distinguish immortality from false, earthly visions of it.

As Dante and Vergil climb through the eighth circle of Hell in Canto XXIV of the Inferno, Dante finds himself exhausted and out of breath, and he sits down upon a stone to rest. In the very next line of the poem, Vergil addresses him:

“Now you must cast aside your laziness,”
my master said, “for he who rests on down
or under covers cannot come to fame;

and he who spends his life without renown
leaves such a vestige of himself on earth
as smoke bequeaths to air or foam to water.”

Vergil does not allow the poet-pilgrim to rest for even a moment on this journey and reasons that Dante will not achieve fame if he does not press on continually. Dante must continue without rest so that he will attain earthly renown, so that he may leave a “vestige,” a footprint of himself on earth when he dies.

There is a way in which we can see the soundness of Vergil’s reasoning. To achieve something great, creating literature or art or anything that will be remembered, takes profound effort and determination. Vergil emphasizes here the labor that was so important to him in his life and in the Aeneid and Georgics. In this sense, Vergil calls Dante on to a good and virtuous work.

In another sense, though, there is a subtle condemnation of Vergil and his pagan logic in this line—a logic that all too often pervades our twenty-first century minds. As a pagan in the outer circle of Hell, Vergil spends his eternal afterlife with no hope of ever reaching Heaven. For Vergil, there is no hope of eternal life, of ever attaining something greater than his work on earth. His poetry and his fame are all that Dante’s Vergil have to hold onto. For him, it makes sense to exhort Dante on to greater labor, to achieve all that he can through his work while he lives so that there may be a footprint of him left on earth when he dies. Fame and immortality are inextricably tied to each other and to life on earth for Vergil. But for Dante and for all of us who know Christ and have hope of Heaven, the greater good is eternal life with God. It is not the thought of fame and earthly renown or any specific work we may accomplish that should make us rise and continue our pilgrimage, but the promise of beatitude in Heaven.

Canto XXIV creates a rich tension in the distance between Dante the poet, looking back and recounting this journey, and Dante the pilgrim, who is partway through the first of three canticles. Throughout the Inferno, Dante the pilgrim seems to believe that Vergil speaks the truth about fame and that it is through his writing that Dante ought to achieve immortality. In Canto XV, Dante meets Brunetto Latini, a poet mentor whom he greatly reveres, and tells him, “you taught me how man makes himself eternal.” At this point in his journey, Dante still sees one’s work as the thing that promises immortality to the poet. Even though the poet will die, his works will live on. This is a constant theme throughout history, from Dante to Shakespeare (see for example Sonnets fifty-five and eighty-one) to Bob Dylan (see excerpts from a 1977 interview with Allen Ginsberg). The interesting thing for us to note is how fully Dante seems to believe this vision of art and immortality when he speaks to Brunetto. Brunetto, too, shows himself to believe in this vision of art when he tells Dante, “Let my Tesoro, in which I still live, / be precious to you; and I ask no more.” Brunetto, hopeless in Hell, can only cling to the fame that his poetry may still have on earth.

The bitter irony that we can see at a remove of eight hundred years is that while Dante and Vergil are still read, Brunetto’s work is mostly forgotten. The same is true of other great poets that we meet throughout the Commedia, such as Guido Guinizzelli in Canto XXVI of the Purgatorio. The vast majority of poets and artists—indeed, of anyone—who achieve great fame in their own day will sooner or later be forgotten. To pin one’s dreams of immortality to one’s work is to build a house on the sand. In time, it will certainly be washed away.

But while Dante seems to agree with Vergil’s pagan vision of fame throughout the Inferno, there is a moment early in the Purgatorio where this begins to shift. In Canto II, at the shores of Purgatory, Dante meets a soul who recognizes the poet and begins to sing to him one of Dante’s own poems. Dante is moved by the “sweetness” of this singing, and the whole crowd of souls, newly arrived in Purgatory, stop and listen. Cato, who stands watch over the shores, rebukes them:

What have we here, you laggard spirits?
What negligence, what lingering is this?
Quick, to the mountain to cast off the slough
that will not let you see God show Himself!

This rebuke echoes Vergil’s own admonishment of Dante in the Inferno, chastising them for laziness, exhorting them to continue on their journey. But here we see an important difference: Cato calls them on not for the sake of fame or renown, but to reach their true end, the beatific vision of God Himself. The true end of fame to which Cato calls the pilgrims on is not to be praised by others but to be known by God—as C.S. Lewis says in “The Weight of Glory,” it is the approval or appreciation of God that we seek and that is twisted into desire for approval or appreciation by men. After Cato’s rebuke, the company “[leave] the song behind” and continue their journey.

Dante must continue not only his pilgrimage through the afterlife but also his own purification, and we see another important step in this journey in Canto XI. On the first terrace of Purgatory, the prideful are cleansed, and we see Dante’s recognition of himself in this sin. Oderisi, an artist who illustrated manuscripts in life, tells Dante, “Worldly renown is nothing other than / a breath of wind that blows now here, now there.” This is in clear and strong contrast to Vergil’s exhortation in the Inferno. While Vergil sees worldly renown as the only thing one can work for, the reason to continue on so that one is not forgotten, Oderisi insists that worldly renown is fickle and passing. We can see from Oderisi’s place in Purgatory, being purged of the sin of his pride, that worldly fame was not the end worth striving for that Vergil presented it to be. For Oderisi, it was the thing that led him to sin and from which he must now be purged.

Dante recognizes himself in this pride, and here is the important change we see Dante the pilgrim undergoing:

…Your truthful speech has filled
my soul with sound humility, abating
my overswollen pride…

Dante responds to the chastisement of Cato and of Oderisi, recognizing the pride that Vergil, who is not fully oriented toward God, could not make him see. While the pagan Vergil could only exhort Dante toward labor and fame, and the eternally damned Brunetto taught Dante to seek immortality in his work, Cato and Oderisi, who are ordered toward God, teach him to recognize his pride and to put his hope of immortality not in his work but in Christ.

We, too, in whatever earthly work we do, must remember to stake our hope in that which truly gives hope. Our hope should not be invested in any earthly future. Our immortality does not derive from any earthly thing, whether that is our fame, our work, our progeny, or anything else of the world. We have hope in an eternal, immortal God who offers us a share of that immortality. The root of our earthly desire for fame is our desire to be known by God, to be loved and glorified by Him and in Him in Heaven. Fame as artists, as politicians, even as evangelists will not do us any eternal good and can easily distract us from the true good. Let us not seek after an earthly renown that, as intoxicating as its offers are, cannot last, but let us move with the pilgrim Dante toward the divine, toward a vision of eternal beatitude that fulfills our deepest hope.