by Dante
INFERNO XVIII
1–18. The extended introductory passage interrupts the narrative in order to set the new scene: Malebolge, the eighth Circle, with its ten varieties of fraudulent behaviors. Only in Inferno does an equal number of cantos (17 and 17) create a precise center for a cantica in the space between two cantos, and we have just passed it. The last canto ended with a sort of “comic” conclusion to Dante’s dangerous voyage on Geryon. He has now traversed precisely half of the literary space devoted to the underworld. Thus, fully half of the cantica, Cantos XVIII to XXXIV, is dedicated to the sins of Fraud. That division tells us something about the poet’s view of human behavior, namely that it is better typified by the worst of sins than by the lesser ones.
The poetry of Malebolge, studied by Sanguineti (Sang.1962.1), is strikingly self-confident. One has the feeling that Dante, having finished his apprenticeship, now has achieved a level of aesthetic performance that may have surprised even him. In the seventh canto he had conjoined two kinds of sinners, the avaricious and the prodigal; but these are two sides of the same sin. Here for the first time, as something of a tour de force, he includes two entirely separate categories of sin in a single canto, one of them itself subdivided into two groups, as in Canto VII—all of this in 115 lines. The precision of the operation is noteworthy, and may be represented as follows:
(1) panders & seducers (2) flatterers
disposition of both (22–39) disposition (100–114)
modern exemplar (52–66) modern exemplar (115–126)
classical exemplar (82–99) classical exemplar (127–136)
The hellscape offers a gray stone circular wall surrounding a stone “field,” which in turn surrounds a pit (the “keep” of this “castle”); the field is divided into ten valleys, which resemble moats set around a castle. The analogy is complete, but works in reverse, since a castle rises above its surroundings, while this “castle” is a hole leading into hell. Our first view of Malebolge (the name is a Dantean coinage made up of words meaning “evil” and “pouches”) makes it seem like a vast, emptied stadium, e.g., the Colosseum, which Dante might have seen in 1301 if he indeed visited Rome then, or the arena of Verona, which he probably saw at least by 1304. The former hypothesis is attractive in that the second image of the canto is also modeled on Roman architecture: the bridge over the Tiber between the Vatican and the city. [return to English / Italian]
19–21. The narrative is now joined to the action concluding the last canto and the poets resume their leftward circling movement. [return to English / Italian]
22–27. The panders, moving from left to right as Dante views them, are moving in a direction contrary to his; the seducers, moving from his right to his left, and thus moving in parallel with him, are going faster than he; but then he has no demons lashing him with whips. [return to English / Italian]
28–33. The simile, reflecting the Roman invention of two-way traffic in 1300 for the crowds thronging to the holy places, on the bridge across the Tiber, from the city (to St. Peter’s, after they pass Castel Sant’Angelo) and back again (to the area of Monte Giordano, just off the Tiber), has caused some to argue that Dante had been in Rome during the Jubilee. It is more likely that he was in fact there in 1301 and heard tell of this modern wonder of crowd control. That the first city that Malebolge calls to mind is Rome in the Jubilee Year is not without its ironic thrust, especially since it had been Pope Boniface VIII, so hated by Dante, who proclaimed this great event (the first in the Church’s history). [return to English / Italian]
35. In his commentary to the passage Benvenuto da Imola suggests that the panders are punished by horned devils because their actions resulted in the cuckoldry of others. [return to English / Italian]
50. Venedico was an important political figure of Bologna in the second half of the thirteenth century. His sin was in selling his own sister to Opizzo of Este (see Inf. XII.111). He actually died in 1302, although Dante obviously believed he had died before 1300. [return to English / Italian]
58–61. Venedico’s pleasantry insists that there are more Bolognesi in this zone of hell than currently populate the city itself. “Sipa” is ancient dialectical Bolognese for “yes,” and thus the phrase means “have grown up speaking Bolognese dialect” between the rivers that mark the eastern and western confines of the city. [return to English / Italian]
66. The demon’s rough remark is variously understood: either “there are no women here to defraud” (as Venedico did his sister), or “there are no women here for sale” (to offer to Dante). And there may also be a hint of slang words for female genitalia. In our translation we have tried to keep both of the first meanings possible. [return to English / Italian]
72. The circlings of the whipped sinners, not of the ditches themselves, are almost certainly what is referred to, just as Francesco da Buti, in his commentary to this passage, said centuries ago. However, it was only some eighty years ago that Enrico Bianchi (Bian.1921.1) brought such a comprehension back to the verse, thereby increasing its power: the reference is to the Florentine custom of whipping a condemned man along the route to his execution. Most contemporary commentators accept this reading. [return to English / Italian]
73–78. At the high point of the bridge over the ditch on their way toward the next bolgia the travelers stop to observe the second set of sinners in this one, whom they have not been able to examine because these were going along in the same direction as were they, and at a faster clip. [return to English / Italian]
83–85. Like Capaneus (Inf. XIV.46–48), the heroic Jason is allowed to keep some of his dignity and his stoical strength. [return to English / Italian]
86–96. Jason, who will be remembered in Paradiso in a far more positive light, as the precursor of Dante in his having taken a great voyage and returned with the golden fleece (Par. II.16–18; XXV.7; XXXIII.94–96), is here presented as the classical exemplar of the vile seducer. Dante has Virgil condense the lengthy narrative of Jason’s exploits found in Ovid (Metam. VII.1–424) into two details, the seductions of Hypsipyle (daughter of the king of Lemnos) and of Medea (daughter of the king of Colchis).
For the resonance at v. 91 of Beatrice’s description of Virgilian utterance as “parola ornata” see the note to Inf. II.67. As for Jason’s segni (signs of love), Dante may be thinking of his ability to move Medea by tears as well as words (see Metam. VII.169). [return to English / Italian]
100–114. The second ditch is filled with supernatural excrement (it only seems to have come from the toilets of humans). What do flatterers do? It is unnecessary to repeat the slang phrases that are used in nearly all languages to characterize their utterance. What they did above, they do below, wallowing in excrement, their faces ingesting it as animals guzzle food from their troughs (see v. 104). [return to English / Italian]
122. Alessio Interminei is the first Lucchese whom we encounter, but there will be others, below. Dante seems systematically to include in hell representatives of all the major Tuscan cities. [return to English / Italian]
133–135. Thaïs is a courtesan in Terence’s comic play Eunuchus, and had a reputation even into the Middle Ages as a flatterer. Whether Dante is citing Terence directly (most currently dispute this) or through Cicero (De amicitia XXVI.98—a text that Dante assuredly did know and which explicitly associates Thaïs with flattery, though there and in Terence she is the one flattered, not the flatterer) is a matter that still excites argument. For the most recent claims for Dante’s knowledge of Terence see Villa (Vill.1984.1); but see also the countering arguments of Bara´nski (Bara.1993.1), pp. 230–38. [return to English / Italian]
INFERNO XIX
1–6. “In the Bible, Simon Magus was a sorcerer of Samaria who was converted by the preaching of Philip the evangelist (see Acts 8:9–13). When he subsequently attempted to buy the power of conferring the Holy Ghost, he was severely rebuked by the apostle Peter for thinking that the gift of God might be purchased with money (see Acts 8:14–24). From the name S
imon is derived the word ‘simony,’ which is applied to all traffic in sacred things, especially the buying or selling of ecclesiastical offices” (Singleton’s comment).
For the intrinsic and striking distinction between the man named Simon, who was a magus (Acts 8:9), and the apostle Peter, also named Simon (Simon Petrus—John 20:2, 20:6), see Singleton (Sing.1965.1) as well as Herzman and Stephany (Herz.1978.1), pp. 40, 46. Nicholas is seen as the follower of Simon Magus, while Dante presents himself as the follower of Simon Peter.
For studies of the canto as a whole see Fost.1969.1 and the third chapter of Musa.1974.1. [return to English / Italian]
16–21. Some have argued that this passage is not credible if taken literally and, therefore, must be understood as metaphorical. See Spitzer (Spit.1943.1) and, more recently, Noakes (Noak.1968.1), who argues that the public vow of adherence to the French king taken, in the baptistry and thus in proximity to the font, before Charles of Valois entered Florence in 1302, is what Dante now confesses he “broke.” The language of the passage is so concrete that it seems difficult to credit such an ingenious solution.
Mazzoni (Mazz.1981.1) affirms the literal meaning of the passage, while leaving in doubt the nature of the act that Dante claims to have performed. Reviewing the commentary tradition, he supports the view of most of the early commentators that the noun battezzatori refers to the priests who performed baptismal rites. Mirko Tavoni (Tavo.1992.1) gives reasons for believing that it refers to the fonts themselves. That question is probably not resolvable, as the noun can have either meaning.
All the early commentators take the incident referred to here as actually having occurred, when a child, playing with other children, became lodged in one of the smaller baptismal fonts of the Florentine baptistry. Castelvetro has perhaps the most believable explanation; in his view the baptismal font and its several little pozzetti were protected by a thin wooden covering in order to protect the holy water from sight (and desacralizing droppings?). It is this and not the marble of the font (which Benvenuto da Imola has Dante breaking with an axe brought to him by a bystander) that the poet broke, thus saving the near-drowned child. His solemn oath, reminiscent of the language describing papal bulls and their seals, now stakes his authority as Florentine and poet on the charitable nature of his act, which others had apparently characterized as sacrilegious. Whatever explanation we find most acceptable, it seems clear that Dante is referring to an actual event that his former fellow-citizens would remember. [return to English / Italian]
22–24. We shall later learn that Dante here comes face to feet with a pope, Nicholas III (vv. 69–72). The inverted figure, like Judas in the central mouth of Lucifer (Inf. XXXIV.63), has his head within, his legs without. Dante’s use of bocca (mouth) for the opening of the hole into which he descends suggests that eventually Nicholas will be eaten and digested by hell itself once the next simoniac pope comes to his eternal station. [return to English / Italian]
25. For the parodic inversion of Pentecostal fire in the punishment of sins that involve the perversion of the gift of the Holy Spirit, in particular as manifest in the misuse of extraordinary gifts of persuasion found among those punished as heresiarchs, sodomites, simoniacs, and false counselors, see Reginald French (Fren.1964.1), pp. 8–10. [return to English / Italian]
28–30. For the oil referred to here as indicative, parodically, of the anointing unction that priests offer those who suffer, see Herzman and Stephany (Herz.1978.1), pp. 49–51. Unction is usually associated with the head, not the feet; the ironic point is clear. [return to English / Italian]
35. The further bank of the bolgia is not as high as the nearer one because the slope of the Malebolge cuts away the topmost part of each successive pouch. For this reason Virgil will lead Dante over the third bolgia to the fourth embankment only to climb down into the third from this vantage point. [return to English / Italian]
37–39. Dante’s submissiveness to his lord, acknowledging Virgil’s awareness of his wishes, is surely meant to contrast with Nicholas’s rebellious offense to his. [return to English / Italian]
46–47. The pope’s situation is reminiscent of St. Peter’s upside-down crucifixion (see Herzman and Stephany [Herz.1978.1, p. 44]), but also refers to the Florentine mode of dispatching convicted assassins, “planting” them upside down in a hole and then suffocating them when the hole is filled back up with earth: “Let the assassin be planted upside down, so that he may be put to death.” [return to English / Italian]
49–51. Dante now assumes the role of confessing friar. The last verse of the tercet has caused controversy. While cessare, used transitively, ordinarily in Dante means “to avoid,” most agree that here it means “delay.” In our translation we have tried to hedge, using “stay” in such a way as to allow it to be interpreted either as “put off (for a while)” or “put a stop to.” [return to English / Italian]
52–53. The first naming of Pope Boniface VIII (Benedetto Caetani) in the poem. Succeeding Celestine V in January 1295 and dying in October 1303, he greatly strengthened the power of the papacy, while also asserting its temporal power in the realm Dante allowed to empire alone. His support of the Black Guelphs and the French forces in Florence earned him Dante’s unflagging enmity. Nicholas’s taking Dante for Boniface is grimly yet hilariously amusing. [return to English / Italian]
54. Some have suggested that the condition of future knowledge alluded to by Farinata (Inf. X.100–108) pertains only to the heretics; this passage would seem to indicate clearly that others, as well, and perhaps all those in hell, have some sense of the future but none of the present. Nicholas had “read” in the “book of the future” that Boniface would be on his way to hell as of 1303, and is thus now confused, as he expects no one else to pile in on top of him but Boniface. [return to English / Italian]
57. The beautiful Lady is, resolved from metaphor, the Church, Christ’s “bride.” [return to English / Italian]
69–72. Pope Nicholas III (Giovanni Gaetano Orsini) served from 1277–80, openly practicing nepotism in favor of his relations. His references to the “she-bear” and her “cubs” reflect his family name, Orsini (orsa means “bear” in Italian), one of the most powerful of Roman families. [return to English / Italian]
79–87. Clement is compared to Jason, brother of the high priest Onias. From the king of Syria, Antiochus IV Epiphanes, he bought his brother’s position and then brought pagan practices to Jerusalem (see II Mach. 4:7–26). In short, to Dante he seemed a Jewish “simoniac pope,” prefiguring the corrupt practices of Clement. Dante condemns, as Durling points out (Durl.1996.1, p. 300), a number of Clement’s actions, including “his role in Philip’s destruction of the Templars, Purg. XX.91–93; the removal of the papal see to Avignon, Purg. XXXII.157–160; his simony, Par. XVII.82; and his betrayal of Henry VII, Par. XXX.142–148.”
This is perhaps the crucial passage for those who debate the internal dating of the composition of the poem. First, one should explain its literal meaning. Nicholas has now been “cooking” for twenty years (1280–1300). The Frenchman Bertrand de Got, who served as Pope Clement V from 1305–1314 and who supervised the papacy’s removal to Avignon in 1309, an act that caused much Italian outrage (and notably Dante’s [see Purg. XXXII.157–160; Epist. XI.21–26]), will replace Boniface as topmost simoniac pope before Boniface spends twenty years in that position of punishment, i.e., before 1323. If the first cantica was composed, as many, but not all, propose, between 1306–07 and 1309–10, Dante here is either making a rough (and chancy) prediction that Clement, who suffered from ill health, would die sometime before 1323, or he is knowingly referring to the death of Clement in 1314. However, most, observing Dante’s general practice in “predicting” only things actually known to him, argue that this is a prophecy post eventum, i.e., that the passage was written after April of 1314, when Clement died. If that is true, then either the traditional dating of the poem’s composition is incorrect, and it was written later (and much more quickly) than
is generally believed (ca. 1313–1321), or Dante inserted this passage while he was revising Inferno in 1315 before circulating it. This is Petrocchi’s solution (Petr.1969.1), and many follow it. For an opposing view, see Padoan (Pado.1993.1). And for a summary of the question and bibliography see A. E. Quaglio, “Commedia, Composizione,” ED (vol. 2, 1970), pp. 81–82.
That this is the only reference to Clement before well into Purgatorio lends support to the idea that this passage is a later interpolation. In a paper written in 1999 Stefano Giannini (Gian.1999.1), a graduate student at Johns Hopkins University, examined all the references to events occurring after 1300 in Inferno. His provisional results are as follows: 22 references to events occurring between 1300 and 1304; 4 references to events occurring between 1306 and 1309 (all between Cantos XXVI and XXIX); this sole reference to an event occurring in 1314. These results would certainly seem to support those who maintain that this passage is a later interpolation and that Inferno was essentially completed during the first decade of the fourteenth century. [return to English / Italian]