In the less exposed middle of the canto...

In the less exposed middle of the canto, Dante reveals that the great poets of antiquity are not suffering at all in Limbo, but have achieved a state of emotional equanimity that comports quite well with the classical idea of greatness of soul they seem to represent.12 Dante's sympathy with and admiration for the virtuous pagans is even more evident in his treatment of the ancient philosophers in Limbo, the last group of inhabitants he presents.

We learn nothing about whether they are suffering, only that Aristotle is being honored by the [End Page 142] rest of the company. With everyone from Socrates and Plato to Democritus and Zeno present, the philosophers are positioned for an eternity of debating the great issues that divided them.13 Now, for anyone who has ever been stuck in a late afternoon philosophy seminar, this may seem like precisely the formula for hell at its most horrific.

But from the point of view of the philosophers themselves, it is difficult to conceive of a situation more perfectly suited to their wishes than the one Dante grants them in Limbo.

In a famous passage in Plato's Apology, Socrates, faced with the prospect of death, outlines a view of the afterlife that seems to be a blueprint for Dante's Limbo: if death is like a journey from here to another place, and if the things that are said are true, that in fact all the dead are there, then what greater good could there be than this, judges? . to associate with Orpheus and Musaeus and Hesiod and Homer, how much would any of you give? .

To converse and to associate with them and to examine them there would be inconceivable happiness. 14 Dante did not read Greek, and it is unlikely that Plato's Apology was available to him in any form of translation. But he frequently displays knowledge of Plato's works,15 and this passage may be a source for Dante's conception of Limbo.

But whether or not Dante had this passage in mind, the fact is that he punishes the ancient philosophers by placing them in a situation which Plato had Socrates picture as the greatest reward possible. In that sense, Dante's Limbo points ahead to the portrait of Hell in a more clearly unorthodox writer, Christopher Marlowe. His Doctor Faustus tells the devil Mephistopheles: Nay, and this be hell, I'll willingly be damned here. What!