Poll of the Day > The abandoning of hope for people who enter a place

(+) Yeah! (+)

I have discovered that the "hope" and "all" are sometimes interchanged in this saying, which is clearly wrong because one of these statements is obviously the correct way to say it, while the other one just sounds funny.

We will see if PotD agrees.
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Depends on what you mean. The first can be read as "all of you" whereas the second is "all hope". There are two distinctly differently meanings. As such, I favor the latter.
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Technically, it's "Lasciate ogne speranza, voi chintrate." That's what Dante wrote.

Every other version of it you've ever seen is a translation, and is somewhat open to interpretation.

The original translation was something like "All hope abandon, ye who enter here." Which was later rearranged into "Abandon all hope, ye who enter here."

The more literal translation is something like "Leave every hope, you that enter".

I'd argue that "Abandon all hope ye who enter here" not only retains the original meaning better, but also flows better in English. The alternative ("Abandon hope all ye who enter here") is still technically correct, it's just putting the emphasis on a different part of the phrase (namely, all who enter, as opposed to the entirety of one's hopes).

(I was a huge Dante nerd in high school. I actually wrote that quote out - the Italian version - on a sign I hung over my bedroom door for a while.)


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Also, the full text of the sign (that almost no one ever quotes) is even more badass, if a bit emo:

http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Inferno_(Dante)#Canto_III:_The_Gate_of_Hell


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ParanoidObsessive posted...

I actually wrote that quote out - the Italian version - on a sign I hung over my bedroom door for a while.)

Hopefully on the outside, upon entering I assume.
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ParanoidObsessive posted...

(I was a huge Dante nerd in high school. I actually wrote that quote out - the Italian version - on a sign I hung over my bedroom door for a while.)

While I get the appeal, that really sends mixed messages.
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neither.

a comma is needed.
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Abandon all hope

madadude posted...

Hopefully on the outside, upon entering I assume.

Yes.

Though considering my general cynicism and misanthropy, I could probably have just as easily put it over the inside of the door going out, and it would have retained its meaning.

It could have been like in Hitchhikers' Guide to the Galaxy (which I'd definitely read by that point), where a character calls his house "Outside of the Asylum", because he feels like everyone else in the world is crazy, so he puts them all in an asylum for their own good. Which involves him building an odd sort of backwards house that makes it look like, when you're going outside, you're actually going inside. Because leaving his house is going INTO the asylum.



Zeus posted...

While I get the appeal, that really sends mixed messages.

Ehh, it's not like I was bringing any girls home at that point anyway.

I mean, I think that was only a few years removed from the point where I'd put a ton of blue construction paper over my door to make two flaps, so it looked like you were entering a TARDIS (and I built a control panel inside out of old computer parts and Speak & Spells with Christmas lights all over). And probably around the same time I was trying to figure out how to build a light enough bookcase and put it on hidden rails so it could slide away to reveal a hidden door (I never did, sadly).


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