Lucy Bamboo · July 16, 2026
I spent an entire weekend last fall comparing twelve different English translations of nine Italian lines. Nine lines — the Gate of Hell inscription from Dante’s Inferno, Canto III. By Sunday night my desk had disappeared under paperbacks, and the nine lines had become twelve different gates. Each translator made choices that altered Hell’s entrance. … Read more
Lucy Bamboo · June 27, 2026
The gate speaks first. Nine lines of self-description in the first person — built by Power, Wisdom, and Primal Love — end with the instruction to abandon all hope. Dante reads them and tells Virgil they are hard. Virgil’s reply is the opposite of hard: here you must leave all hesitation behind. That the entrance … Read more
Lucy Bamboo · June 23, 2026
Most readers remember “Abandon all hope” — the last line of the inscription on Hell’s gate in Canto III. Few stop on the line that precedes it, the one that is, in some ways, the most philosophically and theologically dense of the nine: Dinanzi a me non fur cose create se non etterne, e io … Read more
