Note 876 — CANTO XXXIV.

Land, as of yore, etc.: On the fall of Lucifer from the southern sky all the dry land of that hemisphere fled before him under the ocean and took refuge in the other; that is, as much land emerged in the northern hemisphere as sank in the southern. But the ground in the direct line of his descent to the centre of the earth heaped itself up into the Mount of Purgatory—the only dry land left in the southern hemisphere. The Inferno was then also hollowed out; and, as Mount Calvary is exactly antipodal to Purgatory, we may understand that on the fall of the first rebels the Mount of Reconciliation for the human race, which is also that of Purification, rose out of the very realms of darkness and sin.—But, as Todeschini points out, the question here arises of whether the Inferno was not created before the earth. At Parad. vii. 124, the earth, with the air and fire and water, is described as ‘corruptible and lasting short while;’ but the Inferno is to endure for aye, and was made before all that is not eternal (Inf. iii. 8).