Hmmm...it seems that I can't even spell "lunch", which is not very promising, sorry!
Back to the question, where was I....
Dante keeps to the tradition as far as Ulysses exploits go (the Trojan Horse idea, the theft of the Palladium, the greif of Achilles wife Deidamia etc.) but he places it within a Christian moral/spiritual structure. In some ways I think we may be able to say that he adapts or uses the pagan ideas as part of his Christian outlook. (I don't know, they seem to be intertwined in Dante's conception). For example when Ulysses makes the journey on in search of more experience and knowledge he goes beyond the boundaries of the known world- i.e. past the Pillars of Hercules:
I and my companions were old and slow when we
came to that narrow strait which Hercules marked
with his warnings
so that one should go no further; on the right
hand I had left Serville, on the other I had
already left Ceuta.
(Inferno XXVI, ll.106-111)
The Pillars of Hercules refers to the mountains that Hercules is said to have raised while on one of his labours to mark his progress/warn of dangers beyond in an area which is now known as the Straits of Gibraltar. For more info see this website (scroll down to paragraph 5): http://ancienthistory.about.com/library/bl/bl_text_bullfinch_19.htm
In his Inferno Dante seems to use these mountains as representative of a divine warning/ boundary. Although apparently placed there by a pagan divine power (a pagan God or demi-God), they seem very much to still stand for a Christian boundary as well. That is, Dante seems to transfer the idea into Christain terms, or maybe in a way superimpose the Christian meaning over the original pagan one. For in going beyond these set limits Ulysses is not only going against Hercules' warnings, but unwittingly venturing into "the world without people" (Inferno, XXVI, ll.115-116), that is the afterlife. Remeber what happens:
My companions and I made so sharp for the voyage,
with this little oration, that after it I could hardly
have held them back;
and turing our stern toward the morning, of our
oars we made wings for the mad flight, always
gaining on the left side.
Already all the stars of the other pole I saw at
night, and our own pole so low that it did not rise
above the floor of the sea.
Five time renewed, and as many diminished, had
been the light beneath the moon, since we had
entered the deep pass,
when there appeares to us a mountain, dark in
the distance, and it seemed to me higher than I
had seen.
(Inferno, XXVI, ll.121-135).
As many commentators note this mountain is identified by Dante as Mt Purgatory where repentent(during life on Earth) souls go to redeem themselves. Here Ulysses is breaching a divine/divinely placed boundary or limit. As a living person he has no right to travel into the world of the dead/ where souls go after death and further more as a pagan (one who does not believe in the Christian God) he has no right to appraoch Mt Purgatory- somewhere he shall never be entitled to go (all pagans, even virtuous ones end up somewhere in Hell). For him the only fate is destruction and divine retribution is swift:
"we rejoiced, but it quickly turned to weeping; for
from the new land a whirlwind was born and struck
the forequarter of the ship.
Three times it made the ship to turn about with all
the waters, at the fourth to raise its stern aloft and
the prow to go down, as it pleased another,
until the sea had closed over us."
(Inferno, XXVI, ll.136-142).
In fact all the signs point towards doom- surpassing divine boundaries, the passing of "five" days (symbollic of the five senses or purely worldly knowledge in opposition to the spiritual), keepng to the "left" (the left seen in traditional Christian doctrine as in opposition to God (the right side)) and the emphasis on the light of the moon and night as opposed to the sun and day which are symbolic of God. The turing of the ship three times is also significant, being symbolic of the Holy Trinity or of God and here emphasising that the destruction of the ship is divine retribution. (As you can see number symbology was a big thing during Dante's time).
I hope this example explains a bit how the Christian and ancient mythology are put together by Dante in the Inferno.
In general Dante uses the Greek/Roman figures, as depicted in the sources avialable to him, but places them within a Christian context or world view. He maintains the old myths (as told by the Romans), but applies traditional Christian moral doctrine to them. For Ulysses doesn't just breach physical boudaries in going past the Pillars of Hercules. We can take these physical boundaries as symbolic of the spiritual and moral limits that he is breaching or has breached during his life. For example, in choosing not to return to home to his family including his son, father and wife Penelope, Ulysses is foegoing his moral obligations towards them and placing his love for them below that of this search for knowlegde and experience of the world:
neither the sweetness of a son, nor sompassio for
my old father, nor the love owed to Penelope, which
should have made her glad,
could conquer within me the ardor that I had to
gain experience of the world and of human vices and
worth...
(Inferno, XXVI, ll.94-99)
He is also denying the responsibility he owes to his homeland as the ruler of his people. These obligations are strongly tied to Christain moral virtues. Ironically when Ulysses says he wants to travel beyond the set limits in order to learn of "human vices and worth"(l.99) he is travelling into "the world without people"(ll.115-116) and thus the only human vices or worth he can learn of are his own.
Patrick Boyde in his excellent analysis of Ulysses ("The worth and vices of Ulysses: a case study" in 'Human Vices and Human Worth in Dante's Comedy', Cambridge University Press, 2000) also poses the idea that Ulysses is breaching another limit- that associated with his age. He cites Dante's view, put forward in his unfinished philosophical treatise the 'Convivio', that various virtues are assigned to different times of life. Dante refers to the popular idea which separated man's life into different 'Ages':
This arc, however, is not characterized in written
works solely by reference to its midpoint, but is
divided into four parts, according to the four
combinations of the contrary qualities that
comprise our composition, to which combinations--I
mean to each individually--one part of the course
of our life seems to correspond, and these are
called the four ages. The first is adolescence,
which corresponds to the hot and moist; the second
is maturity, which corresponds to the hot and dry;
the third is old age, which corresponds to the cold
and dry; and the fourth is senility, which
corresponds to the dry and moist, as Albert states
in the fourth book of the Meteorics.
(Convivio, Bk.IV, xxiii) Taken from website:
http://dante.ilt.columbia.edu/library/index.html
Basically Boyde points to Ulysses' age and the fact that he says he and his companions were "old and slow" by the time they reached the Pillars of Hercules and must have been entering their 'Fourth Age'. Dante writes of the Fourth Age later in the Convivio:
After the section previously discussed we must
proceed to the last one: that is, to the one which
begins And then in the fourth phase of life, by
which the text proposes to show how the noble soul
acts in the last age of life (that is, in
senility). It says that the noble soul does two
things: first, that it returns to God as to that
port from which it departed when it came to enter
into the sea of this life; second, that it blesses
the journey that it has made, because it has been
straight and good and without bitterness of storm.
Here it should be observed that a natural death,
as Tully says in his book On Old Age, is, as it
were, a port and site of repose after our long
journey. This is quite true, for just as a good
sailor lowers his sails as he approaches port and,
pressing forward lightly, enters it gently, so we
must lower the sails of our worldly preoccupations
and return to God with all our mind and heart, so
that we may reach that port with perfect
gentleness and perfect peace. Here our own nature
accords us a great lesson in gentleness, for in
such a death as this there is no suffering or any
harshness; but just as a ripe apple drops from its
bough gently and without violence, so without
suffering our soul separates itself from the body
in which it has dwelled. Hence in his book On
Youth and Old Age Aristotle says that "death that
takes place in old age is without sadness."(160)
And just as a man returning from a long journey is
met by the citizens of his city as he enters its
gates, so the noble soul is met, as it should be,
by the citizens of the eternal life. This they do
by means of their good works and thoughts: for
having already surrendered itself to God and
disengaged itself from worldly matters and
preoccupations...
(Convivio, Bk.IV, xxviii - again from above website)
Basically, during the Fourth Age the soul is meant to rest, to cease its travels and to return to God- it seems a very spiritual Age in Dante's conception and is specifically related to religious (Christian) faith. Again, Ulysses goes against what he should do- he keeps on travelling, completely oblivious of any spiritual purpose or relationship with God, and thus his is a "mad flight" (l.125) ending only in death.
Well I'll stop here- I've said too much, but I hope this has given you some ideas about how Dante fits the Greek/Roman myths into Christine doctrine, that is how he subverts the ancient pagan tradtion to his own religion, but doesn't deny it.
Good luck with it all! :)
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