The Inferno

by Dante

  40–49. The first two similes of the canto (and see the third one, vv. 82–85) associate the lustful with birds, a natural association given their condition, driven by the wind, and one in accord with the medieval view that lust is the property of beings less than human, and indeed frequently of birds. [return to English / Italian]

  40–43. The first vast group of the “ordinary” lovers is compared to a flock of starlings, with their ragged, darting, sky-covering flight on a winter’s day. (T. S. Eliot’s typist and house agent’s clerk in The Waste Land, vv. 222–248, would eventually be assigned here, one imagines.)[return to English / Italian]

  46–49. The group in the second simile of the canto is more select, the “stars” of lustful living. Where the starlings are as though without individual identities, the “masses” of the lustful, as it were, each of these has a particularity and a certain fame, and is thus worthy of being treated as exemplary. (For a discussion of exemplary literature in the middle ages see Delc.1989.1, with special attention to Dante, pp. 195–227.) Padoan (commentary), on the other hand, suggests that this second group is distinguished from the first on moral grounds, since they all died by their own hand or at the hand of others, and are as a result more heavily punished. The evidence for such a view does not seem present in the text.

  For the cranes see Aeneid X.264–266 as well as Statius, Thebaid V.11–16. [return to English / Italian]

  58–67. This is the second important “catalogue” that we find in Inferno. The first named the forty identified inhabitants of Limbo (see note to Inf. IV.102—at the end of that note). In the Circle of lust we find these seven identified sinners and two more: Francesca and Paolo, who bring the total to nine. As Curtius argued quite some time ago, given the importance for Dante of the number nine (the “number” of his beloved Beatrice), it seems likely that these nine souls who died for love are associated with her by opposition (Curt.1948.1, p. 369).

  It is also notable that Dante’s catalogues are unlike (and pronouncedly so in this case) later humanist catalogues of the famous, which thrive on additions, in display of “erudition”: the more the better seems to be the motto of such writers. Dante, on the other hand, frequently sculpts his groupings to a purpose.

  One of the insistent poetic topoi that we find in medieval writers—and certainly in Dante—is that of translatio. This is the notion that certain ideas or institutions have their major manifestations in movement through historical time and space. The two most usually deployed examples of this topos are translatio imperii (the movement of imperial greatness from Troy to Rome to “new Rome”—wherever that may be in a given patriotic writer’s imagination [in Dante’s case the empireless Rome of his own day]) and translatio studii (the development of serious intellectual pursuit from its birth in Athens, to its rebirth in Rome, to its new home [Paris, according to some, in Dante’s day]). It is perhaps useful to think of Dante’s catalogues as reflecting a similar sense of history, of movement through time and space. In this one, a sort of translatio amoris, we have three triads: Semiramis (incestuous paramour of her own son), Dido (partner of Aeneas, abandoned by him), Cleopatra (lover of Julius Caesar and of Mark Antony), all three lustful queens of the African coast; Helen and Paris (Greek and Trojan lovers whose lusts brought down a kingdom) with Achilles (Greek lover of the Trojan woman Polyxena); Tristan (a man caught up in destructive passion for King Mark’s wife, Isolde, in the court of Cornwall, as we move into Europe and toward the present); Francesca and Paolo (lovers from the recent past [ca. 1285] in Rimini, here in Italy). [return to English / Italian]

  58. Semiramis was the legendary queen of Assyria (Dante has confused the name of her capital, Babylon, for that of the Egyptian city, and thus misplaced her realm). She was supposed to have legalized incest in order to carry out her sexual liaison with her son. For more about her see Samu.1944.1 and Shap.1975.1. [return to English / Italian]

  61–62. Dante’s use of periphrasis (circumlocution) represents one of his favored “teaching techniques,” in which he (generally, but certainly not always) offers his readers fairly easy problems to solve. Use of periphrasis has a second effect: it tends to emphasize the importance of the person or thing so presented. The “Dido” that we scribble in our margins, remembering that her husband’s name was Sichaeus, stands out from the page, partly because it is we who have supplied the name. That Dido is the quintessential presence in this “flock” is underlined by v. 85, where she is the only named presence in it, having previously been alluded to only indirectly. [return to English / Italian]

  61. Dido’s presence here frequently upsets readers who think that she ought to be found in Canto XIII, since she committed suicide. It is clear that Dante thinks of the psychology of sin with a certain sophistication, isolating the impulse, the deeper motive, that drives our actions from the actions themselves. In Dido’s case this is her uncontrolled desire for Aeneas. She does not kill herself from despair (as do the suicides in the thirteenth canto), but rather to give expression to her need for her lover—or so Dante would seem to have believed. [return to English / Italian]

  62. Virgil’s similar one-line description of Dido’s “infidelity” occurs at Aeneid IV.552, where she admits that she had not “kept the faith promised to the ashes of Sichaeus.”[return to English / Italian]

  63. For Dante’s knowledge that Cleopatra committed suicide by having an asp bite her, see Paradiso VI.76–78. [return to English / Italian]

  65. It is important to remember that Dante, Greekless, had not read Homer, who only became available in Latin translation much later in the fourteenth century. His Achilles is not the hero of the Iliad known to some of us, but the warrior-lover portrayed by Statius and others. [return to English / Italian]

  69–72. di nostra vita. The echo of the first line of the poem is probably not coincidental. Dante was lost “midway in the journey of our life” and, we will later learn, some of his most besetting problems arose from misplaced affection. He was, indeed, near death as a result of his transgressions. The repetition of the word smarrito to describe Dante’s distraught condition also recalls the first tercet of the poem. Here we can see an emerging pattern in his reuse of key words from previous contexts in order to enhance the significance of a current situation in the poem. [return to English / Italian]

  71. Dante refers to the great figures of the olden days with strikingly anachronistic terms, the medieval “ladies and knights” emphasizing the continuity of the historical record. No “humanist” writer would be likely to use such a locution that so dramatically erases the gap between classical antiquity and the present age. [return to English / Italian]

  74. To be “light upon the wind” is, to some readers, a sign of Francesca’s and Paolo’s noble ability to triumph over their dismal surroundings; to others, it indicates that they are driven even more wildly than some other shades by the winds of passion. This first detail begins a series of challenging phrasings that invite the reader to consider closely the ambiguities of the entire episode. For a summary of the issues at stake here, see Mazz.1977.1, pp. 124–28. And for a thorough consideration of the history of interpretation of the episode of Francesca see A. E. Quaglio, “Francesca” (ED, vol. 3, 1971, pp. 1–13). [return to English / Italian]

  76–78. Virgil’s only complete tercet in the second half of the canto (see note to vv. 109–117) is laconic, as though he were aware of the emotions felt by Dante (which he himself had so devastatingly presented in Aeneid IV, the story of love’s destructive power over Dido) and realized there was nothing he had said or could say that might rein in his excited pupil. [return to English / Italian]

  80. The protagonist’s adjective for the two sinners (they are “anime affannate”) may well be meant to remind us of the only other time we find that adjective in Inferno (Inf. I.22), when Dante is described as being like a man who has escaped from the sea “with laboring breath” (con lena affannata). If that is true, it further binds the character’s sense of identity with these si
nners. [return to English / Italian]

  82–84. The third simile involving birds in this canto (and there are only three similes in it) compares the two lovers to doves. As Shoaf (Shoa.1975.1) has demonstrated, there is a “dove program” in the Comedy, beginning with the Venereal doves reflected here, passing through the doves at their feeding in Purgatorio II.124–129, and finishing in the reference to James and Peter as “doves” of the Holy Spirit in Paradiso XXV.119–121. Dante’s doves here seem to reflect both Aeneid V.213–217 and Georgics I.414. [return to English / Italian]

  88. Francesca da Polenta of Ravenna was affianced to Giovanni Malatesta of Rimini, who was crippled. History or legend has it that the marriage was arranged when his younger brother, Paolo, was sent to make the pledge of betrothal. Francesca, seeing him, was under the impression that it was this handsome man who was to be her husband. Her delusion on her wedding day is not difficult to imagine. Commentators point out that her adulterous conduct was a lot more calculated than Dante presents it (she and Paolo, also married, both had children and she had then been married for ten years). The fact is, however, that Dante’s version of the story makes her conduct seem about as understandable as possible, an effort on which the character herself spends her considerable resources of persuasion.

  The beginning of her highly rhetorical speech reflects the tradition of classical rhetoric that would have a speaker first seek to gain the sympathy of the audience, a device referred to as captatio benevolentiae, the capturing of the goodwill of one’s auditors. For noteworthy earlier examples of captatio see Beatrice’s first words to Virgil (Inf. II.58–60) and Virgil’s first words to her (Inf. II.76–81). [return to English / Italian]

  91–93. Francesca’s locutions are revealing and instructive: God is portrayed as having turned away from the two lovers, while Dante is welcomed for not having done so, for feeling pietà for them. This canto has one of its “key words” in amore, which occurs fully eleven times in it (vv. 61, 66, 69, 78, 100, 103, 106, 119, 125, 128, 134). But this word, “pity,” is crucial as well (vv. 72, 93, 117, 140, and, in the continuing narrative of the next canto, VI.2). Dante is filled with pity for lost lovers. Should he be? That may be the central question facing a reader of Inferno V (see further discussion, below [note to v. 142]). [return to English / Italian]

  91. For the source of this verse in Cavalcanti’s line “Se Mercé fosse amica a’ miei disiri” (Were Mercy friendly to my desires) see Contini (Cont.1976.1), p. 155. [return to English / Italian]

  100–106. The use of anaphora (repetition) here at the beginning of each tercet, “Amor … Amor … Amor…,” underlines the rhetorical skill of Francesca, who presses her case with listening Dante: it was Love’s fault that she and Paolo fell into carnal passion. “Amor” appears three times as the first word in a tercet after an end-stopped line and thus must be capitalized. It seems also reasonable to believe that Francesca is here referring to her “god,” the Lord of Love, Cupid, whose name is “Amor.” He is the only god she seems to own, since, by her account (v. 91), the “King of the universe” is not her friend. [return to English / Italian]

  102. Against Pagliaro (Pagl.1967.1), pp. 136–49, who argues that Francesca is referring to the way in which she was made to fall in love, Padoan (commentary and Pado.1993.1, pp. 189–200) argues persuasively that she refers in fact to the brutal manner of her death. This verse is much debated. The wording of the text allows, in itself, either interpretation. Our translation therefore leaves the meaning ambiguous, as does, indeed, the original, whatever Dante’s intentions. [return to English / Italian]

  103. The dicta of Andreas Capellanus are often cited as lying behind Francesca’s speech (e.g., De amore II, 8): “Amor nil posset amori denegare” (Love can deny love nothing at all). A closer parallel exists between a line in a love poem by Cino da Pistoia and this one: “A nullo amato amar perdona amore” (“Love allows no one beloved not to love,” cited by Enrico Mestica [commentary]). But we do not know if Dante is echoing Cino or Cino, Dante. [return to English / Italian]

  107. Francesca, whose chief rhetorical strategy is to remove as much blame from herself as she is able, finding other forces at fault wherever possible (e.g., Paolo’s physical beauty, her despicable husband, the allure of a French romance), here tries to even the score with her husband. She may be damned, but he, as the killer of his wife and brother, will be much lower down, in the ninth Circle. Since Gianciotto, who killed them in 1283–84, lived until 1304, his shade could not be seen by Dante in Caïna. We have, as a result, no basis on which to question her opinion. However, had Dante wanted to guarantee it, it would have taken a line or so to do just that—and he does several times have sinners tell of the impending arrival of still others in a given Circle in ways that clearly call for acceptance (see note to Inf. XXXII.54–69). And so we are left wondering at Francesca’s remark, and should at least keep this question open. It seems better to view her prediction as a wish stated as a fact than as a fact. However, for an example of the view that accepts Francesca’s predictive placement of her husband in hell see Bald.1988.1, p. 1070.

  Iannucci suggests that Gianciotto may have been conceived by Dante as being misshapen and lame like Vulcan, the cuckolded husband of Venus (Iann.1980.1, p. 345). [return to English / Italian]

  109–117. These nine verses contain the “drama” of the canto in nuce. Dante’s pensive condition in the first tercet reflects his being moved deeply by Francesca’s beautiful speech; Virgil attempts to spur him to thoughtful appreciation of what he has seen and heard; the second tercet records his more emotional than rational outburst: he is totally sympathetic to the lovers, and now, in the third, he turns to tell Francesca that he is filled with pity for her. She has won him over.

  Some twenty years ago Dante’s tearful state (v. 117) reminded Elizabeth Raymond and Susan Saltrick (both Princeton ’78) of the tears Augustine shed for Dido—see Pine.1961.1, p. 34 (Confessions I.13). [return to English / Italian]

  118–120. In 1972, Georgia Nugent, then a student at Princeton, pointed out that Dante’s question mimics the questions used by confessors to ascertain the nature of a penitent’s sins. Here, we may reflect, Dante is behaving more like a priest in the so-called “religion of Love” than a Christian confessor. See the earlier discussion of confession in this canto, note to v. 8. [return to English / Italian]

  121–126. “This [the first tercet] imitates Virgil … but literally translates Boëtius” (Taaf.1822.1, p. 326). See the Consolation of Philosophy II, pr. 4: “in omni adversitate fortunae infelicissimum est genus infortunii fuisse felicem” (among fortune’s many adversities the most unhappy kind is once to have been happy).

  For the Virgilian resonances (Aen. II.3–13), see the fairly detailed account in Holl.1969.1, pp. 110–11. [return to English / Italian]

  123. There is debate as to whether the word dottore (here “teacher”) refers to Boethius or Virgil. Most prefer the second hypothesis. We should realize that either choice forces upon us a somewhat ungainly hypothesis, the first that Francesca knows Boethius well (it is only several years since Dante had characterized the Consolation of Philosophy as a work known only to few [Conv. II.xii.2]), the second that she recognizes the Roman poet Virgil without having had him identified by Dante. Since Virgil is referred to by Dante as “il mio dottore” in this very canto (v. 70), it seems the wiser choice to accept the notion that Dante, taking advantage of poetic license, allows Francesca to recognize Virgil. [return to English / Italian]

  127–128. In the Old French Lancelot of the Lake, King Arthur’s queen, Guinevere, betrayed her husband with the knight Lancelot. Much has been written on the sources of this scene. Work in English includes articles by Carozza (Caro.1967.1) and Maddox (Madd.1996.1). And for a possible link to the love story of Eloise and Abelard see Dronke (Dron.1975.1). [return to English / Italian]

  132. Francesca’s account of her and Paolo’s conquest by Amor is “corrected” by a later text, Dante’s reference to God as the “p
unto che mi vinse” (Par. XXX.11), where Dante is, like Paolo, “constrained” by love (strinse [v. 128]; Paradiso XXX, 15: amor mi costrinse)—but his desire is for Beatrice, not for a fleshly liaison. The passage in Paradiso is clearly meant to reflect negatively, not only on the amorous activity of Francesca and Paolo, but on the protagonist’s reactions to it. The god of Love and Francesca are being played against God and Beatrice—or so we will understand once we reach the last cantica. For the resonance of this self-citation see Holl.1988.1, pp. 7–8, discussing the contributions of Contini (Cont.1976.1), p. 206; Hollander (Holl.1983.1), pp. 139–40; and Dronke (Dron.1989.1), p. 30. [return to English / Italian]

  137. Once again Francesca blames another for their predicament, this time the go-between, Gallehault, in the tale of Lancelot and Guinevere as well as its author. By now we have come to see—or should have—how often she lays her problems at the doors of others. At least in part because of Dante’s reference to him here, Gallehault became synonymous with “pander.”[return to English / Italian]