Dante, Statius, Virgil and the Nature of Being in Dante’s Divine Comedy

When one lets drip a drop of water into a placid lake, what happens? Circles ripple from the origin. What then is the drop of water, exactly? Is it the water which drops into and merges with the larger body of water, or is it the ripples it creates, material or efficient cause, as Aristotle would ask?

Analogously, does one judge a tree based on its height or the shade that it casts? And would one judge a human by the body he or she possesses or by the effects which he or she has on the world? The final words of Guillermo del Toro’s 2008 film, Pan’s Labyrinth, offer some insight into this question:

One imagines that the small traces of the princess’s time on earth are the effects of her selfless deeds rather than her physical remnants. In this light, consider then the relationship between Virgil and Dante in Dante’s Divine Comedy. Often, readers find it puzzling that Virgil, like a man holding a candle behind him, lights the way for others without himself receiving any benefit. He explicitly leads Statius to his religious conversion, and he literally leads Dante through hell and to Earthly paradise. Yet Virgil is himself "un-saved" and even damned to Hell until the Resurrection. And though his effects are so salutary, he himself returns to Hell prior even to the conclusion of the second canticle of the Divine Comedy.

The following question arises concerning the nature of Virgil’s being, thus: is “Virgil” (a) the shade that he leaves in Hell or (b) the effect he has had on his readers, like Statius and then Dante? If Dante and Statius are saved through Virgil’s wisdom, does Virgil really live on (a) through them or (b) as a shade damned to Hell? Though Dante did not have access to the works of Homer themselves, he did know Benoît de Sainte-Maure’s Roman de Troie which contained stories about and adjacent to the Trojan War and the returns of its heroes. So the answer may reside at the very end of Book XI of Homer's Odyssey (which we can see for ourselves, not just in summary) at the very end of Odysseus' journey to the underworld (Nekyia).

Here we learn that mighty Herakles (Hercules is his Romanized name), has left a shade in the underworld as well as become a god. How can this be? Like Orion and Minos, Herakles continues to do in death what he did in life: hunting down animals and accomplishing feats--in contrast to Achilleus’ hypothesis in Iliad who while living believed "We are all held in a single honour, the brave with the weaklings," (Il.9.319; Lattimore trans.). Later in the underworld in Homer’s Odyssey Achilleus claims that he would rather work as the thrall to a poor man rather than rule over all the "perished dead" (Od.11.489-491). Achilleus, as opposed to Orion, Minos, and Herakles is never happy with where he is, whether living or dead. And thus he is immortally discontent.

Herakles, Orion, and Minos, however, all continue to serve while dead in the same way that they did while they lived. And in Dante's Divine Comedy, Minos will receive the high honor of judging and placing the dead in Inferno. But what does it mean that Herakles "he himself was with immortal gods?" And how does that relate to whether Virgil’s being resides more in his shade in hell or the effect he has had on his “living” students?

The shade left behind—Virgil—represents the action of the person while he or she lived in imitation: so if such a person were happy, he remains happy: Orion, for example. If he were discontent, he remains so: Achilleus. If he were resentful, he remains so: Aias the Greater (who famously turns from Odysseus in the underworld rather than speaking to him). So what does it mean that Herakles became a god as well and is "with the Olympians" if his shade is an imitation of his living self? Just as Herakles ascends to the feasts of the gods, so does Statius ascend to Paradise (with God) at the end of Purgatorio. This suggests that the shades in Hell are simply embodied imitations whereas the souls which ascend from Purgatory to Paradise are themselves the essences of perished living people.

So, if Virgil left an effect or trace in this world (remember that Purgatory is on earth for Dante), it would be from his written works: the epic poem called The Aeneid, and also his pastoral and bucolic works, Eclogues and Georgics. From these works, Statius received the divine wisdom by reading them and absorbing the truth from them which turned him towards "the light" the light of his faith. Prior to reading Virgil, he was apparently unaware of eternal pursuits; somehow, then, something eternal within Virgil was then transmitted (in sort of a transmigratory way) to Statius? But how could Virgil have transmitted an eternal truth with the power of converting someone without himself having been converted by it?

Here it is likely that random historical circumstance prevented Virgil’s truth from having the effective value for him that it does for Statius. For though Statius and Virgil had the key, there was no door present for Virgil to unlock prior to Christ’s manifesting on earth, and Peter’s holy door remained closed to humanity. But if Statius ascends to heaven as an effect of Virgil's work, does not Virgil’s most essential attribute—his essence—ascend to heaven inside Statius, leaving only Virgil’s shade behind him?