ESCAPING FROM DEVILS

Harvard Art Museum
Illustrations to Divine Comedy
Hell Canto 23
Dante and Virgil Escaping from the Devils

 The more attractive illustrations Blake made to Dante's Divine Comedy are those in which the pilgrims succeed in passing through threats or impediments. Although a large share of the illustrations involve cruel punishments realistically portrayed, there are beautiful images too. The trust and friendship between Virgil and Dante is apparent in this image of the two of them escaping from the devils. 

Divine Comedy

HELL Canto 23

28  "For even now your thoughts have joined my own;
in both our acts and aspects we are kin—
with both our minds I’ve come to one decision.

If that right bank is not extremely steep,
we can descend into the other moat
and so escape from the imagined chase.”

He’d hardly finished telling me his plan
when I saw them approach with outstretched wings,
not too far off, and keen on taking us.

My guide snatched me up instantly, just as
the mother who is wakened by a roar
and catches sight of blazing flames beside her,

will lift her son and run without a stop—
she cares more for the child than for herself—
not pausing even to throw on a shift;

and down the hard embankment’s edge—his back
lay flat along the sloping rock that closes
one side of the adjacent moat—he slid.

No water ever ran so fast along
a sluice to turn the wheels of a land mill,
not even when its flow approached the paddles,

as did my master race down that embankment
while bearing me with him upon his chest,
just like a son, and not like a companion.

His feet had scarcely reached the bed that lies
along the deep below, than those ten demons
were on the edge above us; but there was

nothing to fear; for that High Providence
that willed them ministers of the fifth ditch,
denies to all of them the power to leave it."

---

Jerusalem, Plate 91, (E 251)

"I have tried to make friends by corporeal gifts but have only 

 Made enemies: I never made friends but by spiritual gifts; 

By severe contentions of friendship & the burning fire of thought. 

He who would see the Divinity must see him in his Children 

 One first, in friendship & love; then a Divine Family, & in the midst 

Jesus will appear; so he who wishes to see a Vision; a perfect Whole 

 Must see it in its Minute Particulars;"

Milton, Plate 29 [31], (E 127)

"And every Seven Ages is Incircled with a Flaming Fire.

Now Seven Ages is amounting to Two Hundred Years
Each has its Guard. each Moment Minute Hour Day Month & Year.
All are the work of Fairy hands of the Four Elements
The Guard are Angels of Providence on duty evermore
Every Time less than a pulsation of the artery
Is equal in its period & value to Six Thousand Years.
PLATE 29 [31]
For in this Period the Poets Work is Done: and all the Great
Events of Time start forth & are concievd in such a Period
Within a Moment: a Pulsation of the Artery."

Jerusalem, Plate 45 [31], (E 194) 

"What shall I do! what could I do, if I could find these Criminals
I could not dare to take vengeance; for all things are so constructed    
And builded by the Divine hand, that the sinner shall always escape,
And he who takes vengeance alone is the criminal of Providence;
If I should dare to lay my finger on a grain of sand
In way of vengeance; I punish the already punishd: O whom
Should I pity if I pity not the sinner who is gone astray!       
O Albion, if thou takest vengeance; if thou revengest thy wrongs
Thou art for ever lost! What can I do to hinder the Sons
Of Albion from taking vengeance? or how shall I them perswade.

So spoke Los, travelling thro darkness & horrid solitude:"