The Inferno

by Dante

  The place he needs to describe is the center of the entire universe (at least it is in the geocentric view). If he had the right words, he would be able to set forth more adequately what he indeed fully understands, i.e., his conception does not come short of the nature of these things (see v. 12), but his words may. Dante draws this distinction with some care. To repeat, his “conception” is one matter, his description of it another (it is the “juice” that he must “squeeze” from the “fruit” of his experience). And the setting of that experience into verse is no light task (impresa—for the importance of this word, referring variously to Dante’s journey and to his poem, see Holl.1969.1, p. 230, citing its other three occurrences in the poem [Inf. II.41 and II.47; Par. XXXIII.95]), not one for a tongue capable only of “babytalk.” For the linguistic program concerning “babytalk” found in the Commedia and its oppositional relation to that previously advanced by Dante in De vulgari eloquentia, see Holl.1980.2. Here Dante is including two words, “mommy” and “daddy,” that he himself had explicitly proscribed from the illustrious vernacular (Dve II.vii.4). [return to English / Italian]

  10–12. This is Dante’s second invocation. For the program of invocation in the poem as a whole, see note to Inferno II.7–9. Here the poet seeks aid only from the Muses and only for his ability to find the right words for his difficult task in rendering such unpleasant matter. His “conception” (see v. 4), we may understand, is already formed (in Inf. II.7 he implicitly asked for that, as well).

  The reference to the poet Amphion probably derives from the Ars poetica of Horace (vv. 394–396), a work well known to Dante. Amphion was able, through the magic of his inspired lyre-playing, to compel the rocks of Mt. Cithaeron to move down the mountain and, of their own accord, create the walls of Thebes. Dante, describing the Infernal “city of destruction,” the ninth Circle, home of Lucifer, asks for the help of the Muses in order to build, not the physical city, but his image of it in words that do justice to the conception he has been given. [return to English / Italian]

  13–15. The poet’s address to all the denizens of Cocytus seems to have been aimed particularly at the arch-sinner punished here, Judas, by its reference, first noted by Pietro di Dante, to Matthew 26:24, Christ’s words to Judas, for whom it had been better “not to have been born.” [return to English / Italian]

  16–18. The narrative of this ultimate part of the first cantica has been held in abeyance for nine self-conscious opening lines about the poet’s craft, for an invocation, and then for an apostrophe. The visit to the pit of the universe has finally begun. However, Dante’s failure to manage these details more clearly has rattled his readers. Do the giants stand on the icy floor of Cocytus? Apparently not. Here Dante asserts that he and Virgil find themselves far below the feet of Antaeus. They do not seem, however, to have themselves descended that distance. Rather, it seems more likely that Antaeus has set them down just about where they find themselves now. Some commentators object, since most humans, and certainly most giants, are probably not limber enough (or long-armed enough) to bend at the waist and deposit a burden well below the level of their feet. Do we learn where the giants stand? No. Is Dante concerned lest their feet become chilled on the ice? No. Might they be standing on some sort of ledge? Yes. Can we be certain that they are? No. Might Antaeus have longer arms than we like to think? Yes. Can we know that he does? No. This is a poem, and, especially when it deals with the marvelous, while it is at times amazingly precise, it is also, at other times, exasperatingly (to certain readers) imprecise. As a result, beginning perhaps with Bianchi (1868), commentators have invented a ledge for Antaeus, and hence all the giants, to stand on. It has become part of the furniture of the poem, even if Dante did not construct it. [return to English / Italian]

  19–21. The identity of this voice has long puzzled readers. Torraca, essentially alone in this opinion, opts for Virgil; many for an unnamed sinner; many others for one (or both) of the Alberti brothers, whom we see in vv. 41–51. Benvenuto da Imola, followed only by his student John of Serravalle, makes probably the best surmise: the voice is that of Camicione de’ Pazzi, a position that seems sensible, as we shall see as we move through the scene, but has had no success among the commentators. [return to English / Italian]

  22–24. Dante had been looking back up in the direction of Antaeus and wondering at the height of the wall he now stood beneath. The voice calls on him to attend to his surroundings, as he now immediately does, realizing that he is standing on a frozen lake. [return to English / Italian]

  25–30. A double simile describes the thickness of the ice, greater than even that found on the Danube or the Don, so thick that even had a mountain (whether Tambura or Pania, in the Apuan Alps above Lucca) fallen upon it, it would not have even creaked. [return to English / Italian]

  31–36. A second simile reflects the protagonist’s new awareness that there are sinners in this ice, looking like frogs in summer (and how they must wish for summer, these shades), with just their snouts out of the water, and their teeth sounding like the clicking bills of storks. [return to English / Italian]

  37–39. This first group of sinners (we will learn eventually that there are four groups, each in a somewhat different posture) have their heads facing downwards. Their mouths clatter with the cold, their eyes run with tears (as we shall find out, that is a better condition than that enjoyed by those lower down in the ninth Circle). We are in Caïna, named for Cain, the first murderer (of his brother Abel). [return to English / Italian]

  46–51. These two (we will shortly learn that they are brothers) lift up their heads to behold Dante, which causes their tears to spill over their faces and onto their lips (instead of onto the ice), thus gluing them together still more firmly when their tears become gelid. Frozen into a parody of the Christian kiss of peace, they respond by moving the only part of them they can, their foreheads, which they use to butt one another in anger. Once we hear who they are, we will understand the reason for such hatred. [return to English / Italian]

  54–69. The speaker is Camicione de’ Pazzi. Nothing much is known of him except that he, from near Florence (the Val d’Arno) murdered his relative Ubertino. His is the only voice we hear in this first zone of Cocytus, the prime reason to believe that it was he who spoke at vv. 19–21. Having warned Dante to be careful as he began walking, lest he kick the inseparate heads of the two brothers, he now identifies them for Dante. Alessandro and Napoleone degli Alberti, counts of Mangona, were also “neighbors” of Dante’s, living in the countryside near Prato. While little is known of them, they apparently killed one another in the 1280s as the result of a dispute over their inheritance from their father.

  Also here, says Camicione, is Mordred (vv. 61–62), who killed King Arthur and was slain by him, as recounted in the Old French Morte d’Arthur. The blow of Arthur’s lance left a hole clear through Mordred’s body so that a ray of sunlight passed through it—and thus through his shadow as well. And Focaccia is here (v. 63). That was the nickname (see Aher.1982.2) of Vanni dei Cancellieri of Pistoia, a White Guelph reputed by various commentators to have murdered various of his relatives, most probably at least his cousin Detto, a member of the Black Guelphs, ca. 1286. Also present is Sassol Mascheroni (vv. 63–66), another Florentine who murdered a relative in a quarrel over an inheritance. After he identifies himself, Camicione says that his relative, Carlino, will commit a still greater sin, betraying a White stronghold in the Val d’Arno to Black forces for money—a sin fit for the next zone, Antenora, where political treachery is punished, thus making (in his own eyes, at least) Camicione’s sin seem less offensive.

  Carlino’s treachery and death took place only in 1302; therefore, Camicione is using the power of the damned to see into the future, of which we were told in Inferno X.100–108. The staging of a future damnation just here perhaps has consequence for Francesca’s projected damnation of her husband in 1304 to precisely this circle and zone: Gianciotto is headed here, according to her (Inf. V.107). Si
nce Dante uses this occasion precisely to predict the later coming of a damned soul currently still alive, we may be reminded of Francesca’s similar prediction. And we sense how easy it would have been for Dante to have had Camicione, guilty of the same sin as Gianciotto, tell of his future presence in Caïna, thus “guaranteeing” Francesca’s prediction. And he, like Francesca in this, tries to exculpate himself to some degree by insisting that the person he refers to is more guilty than he is, and will be punished still lower down in hell. [return to English / Italian]

  70–72. We have crossed a border without knowing it. The ice of Cocytus is not marked, as were the Malebolge, with clear delineators that separate one sin from another. This difference may result from Dante’s sense of the essential commonality of all sins treacherous in nature, so utterly debased (they are referred to as “matta bestialitade” in Inf. XI.82–83).

  The four areas of Cocytus make concentric circles, each lower in the ice than the last, as we move toward the center. We understand that we have reached a new zone only because the faces of the damned look straight out at us (and are not bent down, as they were in Caïna). This zone is named after Antenor, the Trojan who, a grandson of Priam, in the non-Virgilian versions of the story of the Trojan War, urged that Helen be given back to Menelaus. After Paris refused to give her back, Antenor, in such sources as Dictys Cretensis, is responsible for betraying the city to the Greeks. He escaped from the city and founded Padua (see Purg. V.75). [return to English / Italian]

  73–78. The protagonist’s footwork has raised questions in many. Did he kick Bocca on purpose? The language is such that answering is not easy. Was the blow the result of will (his own) or fate (destiny, as determined by God) or chance (mere accident, a thing of no consequence to the Divine Mind)? These three alternatives offer a range of genuine and separate possibilities, which is not true for all the hypotheses that one may consult in the commentary tradition. As Bosco/Reggio argue, that Dante kicks the head hard makes it difficult to believe that his will was not involved. [return to English / Italian]

  79–81. The victim of Dante’s kick, we will learn at v. 106, is Bocca degli Abati. Bocca’s betrayal occurred on the battlefield at Montaperti (1260) when he, a member of the Florentine Guelph army, cut off the arm of the standard-bearer at the height of the battle. The ensuing disastrous defeat of the Guelphs at the hands of the Ghibellines was sometimes laid at his door, as it is here by Dante. [return to English / Italian]

  82–85. The protagonist thinks he knows that this might well be Bocca, and gets Virgil’s permission to question him. We recall how stern Virgil was in his rebuke of Dante for listening to the “tenzone” between Master Adam and Sinon in Canto XXX.131–132. Here he stands complacently to one side as Dante gets involved in a fairly violent “tenzone” himself. But now, one might argue, he is actively engaged in remonstrating with a wrongdoer and thus has Virgil’s full support. [return to English / Italian]

  87–112. This “tenzone” is in five parts. (1) Dante begins it with a rebuke for Bocca’s bad manners (a sinner in the depth of hell should treat mortal special visitors better than he has done); Bocca answers with continuing complaint. (2) Dante offers fame—for a price; Bocca answers rudely. (3) Dante moves to a threat of physical assault; Bocca defies him. (4) Dante begins pulling out Bocca’s hair; Bocca “barks,” thus moving another sinner there present to name him (he is answering in Bocca’s place, as it were). (5) Dante rejoices in his victory over Bocca; Bocca remains sullen.

  The Italian at v. 90 is, in itself, ambivalent. Because of the conjugation of the imperfect subjunctive, “se fossi vivo” can either mean “were I alive” or “were you alive.” Since Bocca, like Camicione (if he is the speaker of vv. 19–21), seems to be able to tell that Dante is in the flesh, e.g., from the sound of his footfall on the ice, from the force of his kick, it would make no sense for him to doubt Dante’s presence as a living being. Further, Dante’s response would seem to follow better if Bocca’s words are understood as meaning, “were I alive.” Our translation runs accordingly. (There are those who dispute this reading.)

  At vv. 103–105 Dante is playfully citing his own vengeful and sexually charged desire to pull the hair of the “stony lady” in one of his Rime petrose, “Così nel mio parlar,” vv. 66–73. For the most recent discussion see Pasquini (Pasq.1999.1), pp. 31–33, noting as well various other resonances of the “stony rhymes” in this canto. See also the study of Durling and Martinez (Durl.1990.1) for a wider view. [return to English / Italian]

  113–123. Bocca’s revenge for his “betrayal” by Buoso da Duera is to reveal the names of others in Antenora so that they may join him in infamy as a result of Dante’s eventual report to the living, the first of these, naturally, being Buoso himself (vv. 114–117). Buoso was a Ghibelline (he is “paired” with the Guelph Bocca) who, entrusted by Manfred’s high command to hold the high passes near Parma against the invading army of Charles of Anjou in 1265, apparently accepted a bribe in order to let the Guelph forces reach Parma without a fight.

  Tesauro de’ Beccheria (vv. 119–120), abbot of Vallombrosa, a Ghibelline, was accused of treacherously assisting the Florentine Ghibellines, banned from the city in 1258, to reenter Florence. He was beheaded for betraying the city.

  Gianni de’ Soldanieri (v. 121), also a Ghibelline, joined the popular uprising against the Ghibelline leaders of Florence just after the defeat and death of the great Ghibelline leader, Manfred, at Benevento in 1266. He thus was seen as betraying his own party.

  Ganelon (v. 122) treacherously betrayed Charlemagne’s rear guard at Roncesvalles in 778. See Inferno XXXI.16–18.

  Tebaldello Zambrasi of Faenza (v. 122), also a Ghibelline, betrayed his fellow Ghibellines of Bologna who, having been exiled, had taken refuge in Faenza. In 1280 Tebaldello opened a gate of his city, just before dawn, to a war party of Bolognese Guelphs so that they might avenge themselves upon their fellow citizens. Tebaldello himself died in 1282 in another battle. [return to English / Italian]

  124–125. A sudden change in the protagonist’s attention reveals the pair of sinners whom we will shortly know as Ugolino and Ruggieri (vv. 13–14 of the next canto), the one with his head above the other’s. [return to English / Italian]

  127–132. Again Dante blends an unadorned “ordinary” scene (a hungry man wolfing down a loaf of bread) with classical material (a passage from Statius’s Thebaid VIII.751–762) in a double simile. The moment in Statius describes Tydeus, dying in battle, asking his men to cut off for him the head of Melanippus, whom he had just slain, but who had first given him his own mortal blow. They do so (Capaneus [Inf. XIV] is the one who carries the body to him). With savage joy Tydeus, dying, chews upon the head of the man who had killed him. [return to English / Italian]

  133. For the “bestial sign” as reflecting the words of St. Paul, see Freccero’s essay, “Bestial Sign and Bread of Angels” (Frec.1986.1), p. 160: “But if you bite one another, take heed or you will be consumed by one another” (Galatians 5:15). The cannibalistic scene before us here introduces the concerns with starvation that will be so prominent in the first half of the next canto. [return to English / Italian]

  135–139. Dante offers to present to the world this sinner’s case (so that it may judge whether or not his wrath is justified) if he will but reveal his name and the offense committed by the other sinner. Dante fulfills this promise in the following canto, and the world—or at least the Dantean part of it—has been arguing about that case ever since.

  There is also a dispute over the exact meaning of the last line of Dante’s oath. A number of understandings have been offered: “as long as I do not die first” (the choice of many of the early commentators); “as long as my tongue does not fail me” (also popular among the early commentators); “if this cold [of Cocytus] does not wither it” (only Torraca and Pietrobono; probably not worth serious consideration); “if my words do not die” (Grabher and Fallani); “if it does not become paralyzed” (Steiner and quite a few mo
dern commentators). It seems clear that Dante, in this vernacular and pithy oath, swears on his life that he will carry out his promise. Tozer (1901) paraphrases adequately: “If I live to recount it.” Recently Guglielmo Gorni has tried an entirely new tack: “if my Florentine vernacular survives” (Gorn.1996.1), but this seems more venturesome than necessary.

  When we finish reading this canto we may reflect on the singular fact that, for the first time since he entered the poem in its sixty-seventh verse, Virgil has not spoken in an entire canto. See note to Inferno XXX.37–41. [return to English / Italian]

  INFERNO XXXIII

  1–3. The complications of political intrigue lie behind the story that we are about to hear. For a review, in English, see Singleton’s commentary to vv. 17–18. The main particulars are as follows. Count Ugolino della Gherardesca (ca. 1220–89) was of a Ghibelline family of Pisa. In 1275 he joined with the Guelph Visconti family in order to advance his own political ambitions, but failed to do so when his plans became known and he was banished. He returned to Pisa and now joined with the Archbishop, Ruggieri degli Ubaldini (grandson of Ottaviano degli Ubaldini [see Inf. X.120]), a Ghibelline, and conspired with him against Judge Nino Visconti, a Guelph, and, in Dante’s eyes, a good man (we see him, on his way to salvation, in Purg. VIII.53). In 1288, Ugolino and Ruggieri managed to force Nino to leave the city, thus allowing them a free hand. At this point, however, Ruggieri decided to be rid of Ugolino, and had him accused of “betraying” Pisa by giving some of its outlying castles to the Florentines and the Lucchesi (he had in fact been trying to negotiate a political advantage to Pisa in these dealings). With that as an excuse, Ruggieri had Ugolino imprisoned in the summer of 1288, along with two sons and two grandsons (Dante has made the tale more pathetic by making all four of the children young—but Ugolino was in his sixties when the five of them were imprisoned). They were starved to death in February 1289.