The angels who took no side
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Mischiate sono a quel cattivo coro de li angeli che non furon ribelli né fur fedeli a Dio, ma per sé fuoro.
Mingled are they with that base choir of the angels who were neither rebels nor faithful to God, but were only for themselves.
Mingled with the neutral souls is the base choir of angels who, in the war in heaven, were neither rebel nor faithful, but only for themselves.
When Lucifer rebelled, Dante's tradition says, not every angel chose a side. A third company stayed neutral — <i>non furon ribelli né fur fedeli</i> — and their neutrality was its own kind of treason: <i>ma per sé fuoro</i>, they were for themselves.
That last phrase is the sin of the whole vestibule in four words. To be <i>per sé</i>, only for oneself, when a choice between good and evil is demanded, is to refuse the one thing a moral creature exists to do. Heaven and Hell both spit these angels out, and the human neutrals are fittingly mixed in with them.
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