Those who lived without blame or praise
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Ed elli a me: « Questo misero modo tegnon l’ anime triste di coloro che visser sanza ’nfamia e sanza lodo.
And he to me: “This miserable condition is held by the sad souls of those who lived without infamy and without praise.
Virgil explains: this wretched state belongs to the souls who lived without infamy and without praise.
These are the souls no one remembers — the ones Dante has invented a name for by refusing them any name at all. They earned neither <i>infamia</i> nor <i>lodo</i>, neither disgrace nor honor, because they never committed to anything, good or evil.
They have not even entered Hell proper. They are held in its vestibule, a place for people who, in life, held themselves in a similar nowhere. Dante's judgment is quiet and total: a life that risked nothing and stood for nothing does not even rise to the dignity of damnation.
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Inferno 3.34 — The Great Library Project interlinear edition · greatlibraryproject.com/book/dante-inferno/3.34/