They were not, as had always been thought, Hell's entry point. Although countless petitioners over the centuries had turned up outside them, and still came. The more recent, perhaps, sent by Rodin, the artist that has embellished them according to his own and Dante's whims. Any mob that gathers, growing in number one by one, mostly chanting the same three words: “Let us in! Let us in!” in the vain hope this might have some magical effect, that they will be the chosen ones to not only see but return from the bowels of Hell. A risk, it seems, they are willing to run, as others, too, have attempted it and been successful, in classic literature that is, though nowhere in their hellish myths were mentioned gates quite like this.
At six metres high and four metres wide, on which had been cast one hundred and eighty figures, they stood ready to receive all who might approach, not to admit them, as forementioned, but rather to admonish them. To fill those who walked up to them with awe; warn them that here, all hope must be abandoned. That ignorant sinners should think earnestly of everlasting punishment. That all those who had hovered on the threshold of genius but hadn't made it were also welcome; welcomed in particular by Despair. That, beyond these gates, should they open, was hunger, pain, degradation, and cruel torture. And to look, to closely inspect some of the figures this vision of Hell was adorned with: Paolo and Francesca fleeing one another; Ugolino and his children; the Old Courtesan, with her aged, naked female form; The Thinker, stuck permanently in his thinking pose; and The Three Shades, transgressing their sins.
Chains! All in chains, of some form or another, clanking them together or dragging them around, and on occasion making low, dismal groans, to comfort or torment themselves further as much as to be heard. Their soul trapped; their last spark of life not yet left.
And it is through this vision newcomers wish to be escorted, to be met at the gates, by a guide – a Rodin, a Dante or a Virgil – and once inside, taken on a whistle-stop tour, shown all the damned souls as depicted and more.
So desperate are some to experience this attraction, they have walked varied paths and up different flights of stairs to gain entrance: Zurich, Paris, the United States of America, Mexico City, Tokyo, and yet at each destination, in spite of their faithful demonstration as outlined above, the Gates of Hell would not open.
Their aspiration unrealisable, regardless of how hard they wished it otherwise, for Hell was in their mind; Hell was Earth.
Picture credit: The Gates of Hell, 1917, Auguste Rodin (Source: WikiArt).
Written July 2021.
