8 (p. 21) honorable: The encounter of the Pilgrim and the great pagan poets continuously plays upon variants of the word ”honor,“ underlying the fact that Dante considered poetry to be the highest human vocation.
9 (p. 21) ”All honor be to the pre-eminent Poet“: The reader ultimately realizes that this address is actually intended for Virgil, but this line suggests it is also meant for Dante. This ambiguity is surely intentional, underscoring Dante’s high regard for his own poem.
10 (p. 21) Four mighty shades ... the last is Lucan: Although Dante was unable to read Greek, he shared Virgil’s opinion that Homer represented the greatest achievement in classical poetry. Here Homer is pictured with a sword, underlining the bellicose content of his two epics, the Iliad and the Odyssey. Dante celebrates Horace for his satirical poetry. In Dante’s time and afterward, Ovid’s Metamorphoses represented the most popular treatment of classical mythology. Lucan’s Pharsalia, an epic poem about the Roman civil wars between Caesar and Pompey, was popular in Dante’s time but is not widely read today.
11 (p. 21) of the song pre-eminent: Dante believed that epic poetry was the noblest form of poetry.
12 (p. 22) one of their own band: While few poets have ever dared to compare themselves with the likes of Homer or Virgil, as Dante does here, subsequent estimations of Dante’s accomplishments in The Divine Comedy would affirm the Florentine poet’s high estimation of his genius. However, the works he completed before his Christian epic would not have stood comparison with Homer, Virgil, Horace, or Ovid (Lucan is perhaps a borderline case).
13 (p. 22) We came unto a noble castle’s foot ... through portals seven I entered with these Sages: The picture of a noble castle with seven walls and seven gates, with a surrounding stream over which the great poets walk as if it were dry land, invites an allegorical interpretation. Medieval allegory, in which things represent abstract ideas, is extremely rare in Dante’s poetry. The castle itself seems to reflect the highest degree of noble life possible without the benefit of Christian illumination. A number of suggestions have been made to explain the seven walls and gates: the seven liberal arts (the quadrivium of music, arithmetic, geometry, and astronomy and the trivium of grammar, logic, and rhetoric) or perhaps the seven virtues (the three Christian virtues of faith, hope, and charity and the four cardinal, or classical, virtues of justice, prudence, fortitude, and temperance).
14 (p. 22) Electra: This is the mother of Dardanus, founder of Troy, and not the female protagonist of several classic Greek tragedies.
15 (p. 22) Hector and Aeneas: Two Trojan warrior heroes: In the Iliad, Hector is the champion who Achilles kills in battle; according to Virgil’s Aeneid, Aeneas founded Rome with other refugees from the destroyed Trojan capital.
16 (p. 22) Caesar in armor with gerfalcon eyes: Dante considered Julius Caesar (101-44 B.C.) to be Rome’s first emperor; the Roman biographer Suetonius described Caesar as falcon-eyed.
17 . (p. 22) Camilla: See canto 1, note 17.
18 (p. 22) Penthesilea: This warrior maiden and Queen of the Amazons came to the aid of Troy in the Trojan War and was killed by Achilles.
19 (p. 22) King Latinus, who with Lavinia his daughter sat: In the Aeneid, Lavinia, daughter of Latinus, king of Latium, marries Aeneas after the Trojan champion defeats the forces of Turnus.
20 (p. 22) Brutus: Lucius Junius Brutus, called the ”first Brutus“ to distinguish him from the Brutus who assassinated Julius Caesar many years later, roused Rome against Tarquin the Proud after Tarquin had violated Lucretia’s honor. As a result, the monarchy was abolished and the Roman Republic established. Dante’s source is Livy’s history of republican Rome, Ab urbe condita.
21 (p. 22) Lucretia, Julia, Marcia, and Cornelia: Julia, daughter of Julius Caesar, married Pompey in 54 B.C. to further her father’s political ambitions; Marcia was the second wife of Cato of Utica; Cornelia was the daughter of Scipio Africanus. These three Roman matrons, plus the previously mentioned Lucretia, who committed suicide after losing her honor, symbolize the maternal virtues of ancient Rome.
22 (p. 22) the Saladin: Completely breaking with Church dogma, Dante places this famous ”infidel“ opponent of the Christian Crusaders (C.1138-1193) in Limbo, accepting the medieval reputation Saladin enjoyed for courtesy, clemency, and tolerance. Saladin’s great antagonist in the Holy Land was Richard the Lion-Hearted, king of England.
23 (P. 23) the Master I beheld of those who know.... There I beheld both Socrates and Plato: Aristotle (384-322- B.C.), called the master philosopher, was the most important thinker for Dante’s time. As a result of the Scholastic philosophy of Thomas of Aquinas, Aristotle’s works were reconciled, in large measure, with Christian philosophy. It is significant that Dante has both Socrates and Plato pay homage to Aristotle, recognizing his preeminence.
24 (p. 23) Democritus: This Greek philosopher from Thrace (C.460-C-370 B.C.), a contemporary of Socrates, proposed a theory that explained the formation of the universe by the random encounter of atoms.
25 (p. 23) Diogenes, Anaxagoras, and Thales: The Greek philosopher Diogenes the Cynic (C.412-323 B.C.) believed in attaining virtue through self-control and scorned normal social conventions. Anaxagoras (500-428 B.C.) is a Greek pre-Socratic philosopher; in Il Convivio (The Banquet), Dante contrasts his explanations about the creation of the universe with theories of the Pythagoreans. Thales (born C.640 B.C.) founded the Greek Ionian school of philosophy and believed that water was the basis of all things.
26 (p. 23) Zeno, Empedocles, and Heraclitus: The three are Greek philosophers. Zeno (C.336-264 B.C.) was one of the founders of Stoic philosophy; Empedocles (C.490-430 B.C.) proposed that the four basic elements of the world are fire, air, earth, and water; and Heraclitus (C.540-480 B.C.) believed that fire was the basic form of matter.
27 (p. 23) the good collector, Hight Dioscorides; and Orpheus: Dioscorides, a Greek scientist (first century B.C.), wrote De materia medica, which until 1500 or so remained the authoritative work on the medicinal properties of herbs and plants. Orpheus is a mythical Greek poet who uses his lyre to charm men and animals; he descended into the Underworld in a futile attempt to rescue his wife, Eurydice.
28 (p. 23) Tully and Livy, and moral Seneca: Tully is the celebrated Roman orator, writer, and statesman Marcus Tullius Cicero (106—43 B.C.). Linus is a mythical Greek poet who Virgil identifies as the inventor of pastoral poetry. Lucias Annaeus Seneca (died A.D. 65), Roman philosopher, dramatist, and tutor to the Emperor Nero, wrote moral essays as well as dramatic works; Dante clearly indicates a preference for Seneca’s moral essays by calling him ”moral Seneca.“
29 (p. 23 Euclid, geometrician, and Ptolemy: Euclid (fourth and third centuries B.C.) is a Greek mathematician from Alexandria whose Elements forms the basis of geometry. Ptolemy (active in Alexandria, A.D. 127-C-170) is a Greek mathematician and astronomer whose Almagest provided the dominant interpretation of the heavenly bodies and the universe’s structure until overtaken by the Copernican system in the late Renaissance. Dante’s views of the cosmos are heavily indebted to Ptolemy’s theories, particularly the view that the planets and the sun revolve around the earth.
30 (p. 23) Galen, Hippocrates, and Avicenna: Galen (A.D. 129—C.201), a Greek physician who practiced in Alexandria and Rome, wrote numerous medical treatises that formed an important body of medical knowledge. Hippocrates (C.460-377 B.C.), the Greek physician, is considered to be the founder of the medical profession. Avicenna, or Ibn Sina (A.D. 980-1037), the best-known philosopher and physician of Islam in the Middle Ages, wrote numerous treatises in Persian and Arabic, including important commentaries on the works of Galen and Aristotle.
31 (p.23 Averroes: Also known as Ibn Rushd, this twelfth-century Arab scholar (C.1126-1198) from Moorish Spain wrote commentaries on Aristotle that were key texts for the medieval Christian, or Scholastic, understanding of the Greek philosopher; Thomas Aquinas, for instance, wrote important commentaries on his interpretations of Aristotle. Dante’s inclusion of three �
��infidels’—Saladin, Avicenna, and Averroes—in Limbo represents a courageous intellectual choice, one that did not reflect the opinion of the Catholic Church. Nevertheless, Dante does not hesitate to condemn Mu hammad (C.570—632, the founder of Islam, to the punishments of Hell (canto XXVIII: 22-31) with the sowers of religious discord. So, even though Dante was generous with his intellectual tolerance, there were limits to his religious tolerance.
CANTO V
1 (p. 25) Down to the second: As Virgil and Dante the Pilgrim descend, they enter the second circle of Hell, where, properly speaking, the real punishments begin. Carnal lust and sins of the flesh are punished here, and it is important to remember that although Dante considers these sins to be the least serious (because they are punished in a location that is closest to the top of Hell), they are still heinous enough to merit eternal damnation. The second circle occupies, or “begirds,” less space, because the pit of Hell is shaped like an inverted funnel that gets smaller and smaller the farther down one descends.
2 (p. 25) There standeth Minos.... as grades he wishes it should be thrust down: As is frequently the case in the Inferno, Dante employs a figure from classical mythology—here Minos, the son of Europa and Zeus—to supply the monsters that populate his Christian Hell. Minos was supposedly so just that he was made judge of the dead, a function he serves in the Aeneid, Book VI. However, Dante has transformed him from a human being into a frightening monster who serves as Hell’s gatekeeper and determines the circle of Hell in which a sinner belongs. He wraps his tail around the sinner the number of times equivalent to the circle in which the sinner must be condemned, then flings the unfortunate wretch to the appropriate location. Like Charon, he is splendidly depicted in Michelangelo’s Last Judgment in the Sistine Chapel.
3 (p. 25) “Look how thou enterest, and in whom thou trustest, ... and ask no further question”: Minos is trying to shake the Pilgrim’s trust in his guide. Meanwhile, in rebuking Minos, Virgil employs the same words that he used earlier with Charon in canto III: 95—96.
4 (p. 26) The infernal hurricane: The punishment of the “carnal malefactors” in the second circle involves a hellish wind that blows the sinners about as they wail, just as their subjugation of reason to lust in life tossed them around like the birds (starlings and cranes) Dante mentions in the famous similes just below, in 11. 40-48.
5 (p. 26) before the precipice: In the orignal Italian, the term that Longfellow translates as “precipice” is ruina, which usually means “ruin”; this term and its interpretation have provoked a great deal of critical discussion. Later, in canto XII, Dante uses the word to refer to the crack in the wall of Hell caused by the earthquake that accompanied Christ’s Crucifixion and Harrowing of Hell. Similar results of that unique event can also be seen in cantos XXI and XXIV.
6 (p. 26) Semiramis: This legendary and lustful Queen of As-syria assumed power upon the death of her husband, Ninus; her territory encompassed the lands governed in Dante’s times by Islamic sultans.
7 (p. 27) “The next is she who killed herself for love, and broke faith with the asbes of Sichaeus”. In the Aeneid, Dido, the founder and Queen of Carthage, vows to remain faithful to the memory of her dead husband, Sichaeus. Her passion for Aeneas, however, leads to her suicide when he abandons her to continue his journey. Dante offers no reason for not including Dido with the other suicides he mentions in canto XIII.
8 (p. 27) Cleopatra the voluptuous: The daughter of the last king of Egypt before Rome conquered that territory, Cleopatra was famous for her lustful liaisons with Julius Caesar and Mark Antony. When her charms failed to move the much colder Octavianus (later Emperor Augustus), Cleopatra committed suicide. Again, Dante offers no reason why he does not include her with his other suicides in canto XIII.
9 (p. 27) Helen I saw, for whom so many ruthless seasons revolved: According to Greek mythology and Homer’s Iliad, Helen, wife of King Menelaus of Sparta, launched the Trojan War when Paris carried her off to Troy.
10 (p. 27) the great Achilles, who at the last hour combated with Love: Dante could not read Greek and therefore did not read Homer’s Iliad or any of the Greek tragedies dealing with the aftermath of the Trojan War. His knowledge of the Trojan War comes primarily from the Aeneid (which contains far more information about what happened in the aftermath of the war than the Iliad does). He also knew a number of sources that were popular in the medieval period, such as Dictys the Cretan’s Diary of the Trojan War (a Latin version of what was supposedly a Greek diary written by a soldier in the war) and Dares Phrygian’s Latin History of the Destruction of Troy, which presents a personal account of the conflict from the Trojan side. Both works appeared during the fourth through the sixth centuries and were based upon earlier Greek originals. Based on these works, Dante understood Achilles to be a knight fatally in love with Polyxena, Priam’s daughter. According to the non-Homeric and non-Virgilian sources Dante followed, Achilles died because of lust and his place here is appropriate. Thinking he was to meet Polyxena in the Temple of Apollo, Achilles was lured into an ambush by Paris, who killed him by shooting an arrow into the only place he was vulnerable, his heel.
11 (p. 27) Paris: The son of Priam, king of Troy, Paris is more famous for his way with women than for his skills as a warrior, and the fact that his passion for Helen, wife of the King of Sparta, began the Trojan War is more than sufficient reason to place him in this second circle.
12 (p. 27) Tristan: According to a number of Old French romances with versions in both German and Italian, this courtly knight and nephew of King Mark of Cornwall, has a love affair with Mark’s betrothed, Iseut, or Isolt.
13 (p. 27) “O Poet, willingly speak would I to those two”. Thus begins what is the most famous and most misunderstood encounter Dante the Pilgrim experiences in his journey toward Paradise. Francesca da Polenta, daughter of the ruler of Ravenna, was the wife of Gianciotto Malatesta, second son of the Lord of Rimini. However, she carried on a love affair for years after her marriage with Paolo Malatesta, Gianciotto’s brother, before Gianciotto discovered this and killed them. The highly rhetorical style of Francesca’s speech to the pilgrim is clearly designed to win his sympathy, just as her references to Love in three different tercets make reference to Dante’s own lyric poetry composed before The Divine Comedy. Like generations of readers afterward (especially in the Romantic period), Dante the Pilgrim forgets the righteous indignation he should feel for any sin—no matter how attractively it is presented, as in Francesca’s monologue—and he is carried away by his feelings for her plight. Perhaps the Pilgrim should have asked himself why Paolo, the other unhappy lover of the pair, says nothing and only wails during their encounter—unlike Francesca, who wants to win the pilgrim’s sympathy, Paolo acts as miserable as she pretends not to be, no doubt because Francesca may be lying and he knows the bitter truth.
14 (p. 28 “Caïna waiteth him who quenched our life!”: Gianciotto Malatesta is still alive when Dante supposedly takes his journey in 1300. As one who betrayed and murdered his kin, there is already a spot reserved for him in Caïna, one of the four parts of Cocytus, the lowest part of Hell. Malatesta died in 1304.
15 (p. 29) “Galeotto was the book and be who wrote it. ”: Because of this verse, galeotto came to mean “panderer” in Italian. In the Old French romance Lancelot du Lac, Galeotto, or Galehot, was a go-between in the love affair of Queen Guinevere and Lancelot. Thus both the book Paolo and Francesca read and its author were panderers in the passion that sprung up between the couple.
16 (p. 29) And fell, even as a dead body falls: While Francesca’s seductive words cause Dante the Pilgrim to faint from pity, Dante the Poet is unswayed by her rhetoric and has placed her where she belongs—in Hell. However, the Poet is not above using this reaction on the Pilgrim’s part as a convenient transitional device to the first line of the next canto, “At the return of consciousness.”
CANTO VI
1 (p. 31) the third circle: In the third circle of Hell, the gluttons are pun
ished. Like the people they once were on Earth who thought of nothing but wallowing in food and drink and producing nothing but garbage and offal, they are now condemned to wallow in filth for eternity.
2 (p. 31) Cerberus, monster cruel and uncouth... the great worm: Dante’s model is the three-headed dog guarding the entrance to the underworld in Virgil’s Aeneid, Book VI. Dante has given his Cerberus some human features (in particular, a beard). Three heads with three mouths make an appropriate guardian of the gluttons, but the number three also prefigures the appearance of Lucifer in canto XXXIV. where in 1. 108 Dante refers to the ruler of Hell as a “fell,” or evil worm, just as he calls Cerberus “the great worm.” Lucifer has one head with three faces, thus resembling the physical appearance of the three-headed infernal guard dog.
3 (p. 32) Took of the earth... threw it into those rapacious gullets: In the Aeneid, Book VI, the Sibyl leading Aeneas through the underworld tosses Cerberus some honey cakes. Now Virgil, the author of that poem, manages the same feat with simple dirt.
4 (p. 32) We passed across the shadows: The physical laws governing Hell are often strange. While the shades, or shadows, of the damned are not material, they can nevertheless suffer physical punishment or, as here, support the Pilgrim’s weight (Virgil, of course, is weightless). It is also important to remember that although Dante passes through a number of hideous punishments (such as the terrible rain in the third circle), he and Virgil do not usually feel this or any other punishment during the journey. In other words, the physics of Hell follow laws that Dante himself invents to suit his poetic purposes.
5 (p. 32) “Thyself wast made before I was unmade”: That is to say, “You were born before I died.” The shade expects Dante the Pilgrim to recognize him, since they were both alive at the same time in Florence.
The Inferno (Barnes & Noble Classics Series) Page 19