When Hell Freezes Over
Wednesday June 24, 2009
In Bonn, West Germany, on June 24, 1963, while signing a charter establing the German Peace Corps, President John F. Kennedy misquoted Dante Alighieri when he claimed: "Dante once said that the hottest places in hell are reserved for those who in a period of moral crisis maintain their neutrality."
In fact, Dante placed those who "non furon ribelli né fur fedeli"—were neither for nor against God—in a special region near the mouth of Hell; the lowest part of Hell, a lake of ice, was for traitors. The passage is from La Commedia Divina (specifically Inferno: Canto III, lines 35–42).
Maybe Dante knew that Hell had already frozen over!
Comments
Please explain why Dante chose to name his masterpiece “The Divine Comedy.” Did the word “comedy” mean the same thing to him that it means to us in the 21st century?
Thank you.
Some scholars think Dante chose to call his poem a comedy (commedia in Italian) because it ends happily.
How coincidental that you chose Il Principe by Macchiavelli as a top pick. I just happened to pick it up at a bookstore in Rome during my recent visit. I also picked up Siddharta in both book- and audio form.