The Inferno

by Dante

  138. Francesca, reading a book that leads to her “conversion” to sin and death in the company of a man named Paul, is the “negative antitype” of St. Augustine, reading a book by Paul that leads to his conversion (Confessions VIII.xii [Pine.1961.1, p. 178]—see Swing for what seems to be the first observation of this striking connection [Swin.1962.1], p. 299, and further discussion by Hollander [Holl.1969.1], pp. 112–13). Augustine is converted by reading a passage in St. Paul (Romans 13:13–14): “Let us walk honestly as in the day; not in rioting and drunkenness, not in chambering and wantonness, not in strife and envying. But put you on the Lord Jesus Christ, and make not provision for the flesh, to fulfill the lusts thereof.” Here, we may reflect, Francesca reads a book and is “converted,” by doing so, to the lust that leads to death. And if Augustine was converted by reading a man named Paul, Francesca gives herself to adultery with a man bearing the same name. As Swing has pointed out, Francesca’s last words, quel giorno più non vi leggemmo avante (that day we read in it no further), seem more than coincidentally close to Augustine’s nec ultra volui legere (and I did not wish to read any further). For support of the idea that Dante is here thinking of this pivotal moment in Augustine’s spiritual autobiography, see Scot.1979.1, p. 14. If we are meant to think of Augustine’s Confessiones here, that would round off this canto’s concern with confession (see discussion, above, in notes to vv. 8 and 118–120). [return to English / Italian]

  140. We now realize that during the entire episode we have not heard a word from Paolo. Dante will return to this strategy when he twice again involves pairs of sinners in suffering together, Diomedes with Ulysses in Inferno XXVI, Ruggieri with Ugolino in Inferno XXXIII. In each case one of the two is a silent partner. We can try to imagine what an eternity of silence in the company of the voluble being who shares the culpability for one’s damnation might be like. [return to English / Italian]

  141. Dante’s death-like swoon has him experiencing something akin to the death in sensuality experienced by Francesca and Paolo. This is to be at odds with the view of Pietrobono (commentary), who argues that Dante’s death-like collapse mirrors his attaining of the state urged by Paul in his Epistle to the Romans, chapter 6, wherein the Christian “dies” to sin in imitation of Christ (e.g., “For he that is dead is freed from sin”—Romans 6:7). It would rather seem that this is exactly not the state attained by the protagonist at this point in the poem.

  Maddox (Madd.1996.1), pp. 119–22, draws a parallel between Dante’s fainting spell and that suffered by Galehot in the prose Lancelot. [return to English / Italian]

  142. Torraca, commenting on this verse, was perhaps the first commentator to note the Arthurian material that lies behind Dante’s famous line: the Italian prose version of the stories of Arthur’s court, La tavola ritonda, XLVII, where Tristan’s response to Isolde’s death is described as follows: “e cadde sì come corpo morto.” The protagonist is thus compared to the victim of overwhelming passion. His fainting marks him here as unable to control his pity, as it had had the same effect with respect to fear two cantos earlier (Inf. III.136).

  The fifth Canto of Inferno is the cause of continuing debate. Where are we to locate ourselves as witnesses to these scenes? Romantic readers understandably tend to align themselves with the love that Francesca emblematizes and/or the pity that Dante exhibits; moralizing ones with the firmness that an Augustinian reader would feel. Virgil perhaps, given his silence through most of the second half of the canto (once Francesca appears on the scene he speaks only two words: “che pense?” [what are your thoughts?—v. 111]), would then seem to be trying to rein in Dante’s enthusiastic involvement with this enticing shade. Yet even as theologically-oriented a reader as Mazzoni (Mazz.1977.1, pp. 125–26) finds it important to distance himself from such “rigid moralizing” as is found in Busn.1922.1 and Mont.1962.1. A view similar to Mazzoni’s is found in a much-cited essay by Renato Poggioli: “The ‘romance’ of Paolo and Francesca becomes in Dante’s hands an ‘antiromance,’ or rather, both things at once. As such, it is able to express and to judge romantic love at the same time” (Pogg.1957.1, p. 358). In America, the role of the “rigid moralizer” has been played, in recent times, most notably by Cassell (Cass.1984.1), with similar responses from most of his reviewers. For Mazzoni and many, perhaps most, contemporary readers, the canto needs to be responded to more generously than the “moralizers” would like. And, to be sure, there is at times a certain perhaps unfortunately zealous tone in the words of such critics. On the other hand, their views seem only to accord with the overall aims of the poet and his poem. Francesca is, after all, in hell. The love she shares with Paolo was and is a “mad love” (for this concept see Aval.1975.1). The text clearly maintains that the lustful punished here “make reason subject to desire” (v. 39). And so, where some would find pity the middle ground for the reader to occupy, between the sinful lust of Francesca and Paolo and the “rigid moralizers,” others, including this commentator, argue that it is pity itself that is here at fault. Amore and pietà are no doubt among the “key words” of the canto (see above, note to vv. 91–93); that does not mean that they must function in opposition to one another; they may be versions of the same emotion. Indeed, if we see that Francesca’s aim is precisely to gain Dante’s pity, and that she is successful in doing so, we perhaps ought to question his offering of it. Sympathy for the damned, in the Inferno, is nearly always and nearly certainly the sign of a wavering moral disposition. [return to English / Italian]

  INFERNO VI

  1. His consciousness returned after his swoon, Dante begins to investigate his new surroundings. Once again we are not told how he moved (or was moved) from one Circle to the next, from Lust to Gluttony. [return to English / Italian]

  2. As many commentators now point out, the technical word for “in-laws” (cognati) used here reminds the reader who has become caught up in Francesca’s words (as was the protagonist) that her adultery was particularly sinful, since she engaged in it with her brother-in-law. [return to English / Italian]

  7. See Domb.1970.1 for the notion that the hellish downpour takes its central and antithetic model from the manna promised by God to Moses in the Bible (Exod. 16:4): “Ecce ego pluam vobis panes de caelo” (Behold, I will rain bread from heaven for you). [return to English / Italian]

  13–14. For Virgil’s description of Cerberus, the three-headed dog guarding the entrance to the underworld in classical mythology, see Aen. VI.417–418. Dante’s version of the creature is unique in its inclusion of human attributes. [return to English / Italian]

  25–27. The “sop” to Cerberus, in Virgil a honeyed cake (Aen. VI.419–422), here becomes mere earth (terra). Kleinhenz (Klei.1975.1, p. 190) has pointed out that Dante’s strategic redoing of Virgil has its biblical resonance, as God’s malediction of the serpent (Gen. 3:14) concludes “… terram comedes cunctis diebus vitae tuae” (and dust shall you eat all the days of your life). The serpent’s punishment for having urged Eve to eat the fruit of the tree is himself to eat the dead earth; his punishment is shared now by Cerberus. [return to English / Italian]

  28–32. This is the only simile found in this, the shortest canto we have yet read (only Inferno XI will have so few verses—115). It is as though Dante had begun paring his art, striving for succinctness more than he had before.

  The distribution of canto lengths throughout the poem would seem to indicate that Dante originally was limiting himself to composing in shorter units than he would generally employ later in his text. If we examine the first twenty cantos we find that fourteen, or 70% of them, are 136 lines long or fewer (115 to 136), while 9 (or 11%) of the final eighty are in this group (and all of these between 130 and 136 lines). Confining ourselves to the very shortest cantos (those from 115 to 130 verses), we find that these occur six times in the first twenty cantos, with only one (of 130 lines) in this shorter group occurring after Inferno XX. Of the eighty final cantos, 88.75% (71 of them) are between 139 and 160 lines long; only 11.2
5% (9 cantos) of the final eighty are 136 lines or fewer. See Ferrante (Ferr.1993.1), pp. 154–55, for the distribution of Dante’s canto lengths. Such data surely make it seem that Dante was experimenting with this distribution as he progressed, a tentative conclusion that would cast some doubt on the position of Thomas Hart, who has argued, carefully and well, that it seems plausible that Dante may have planned even these details from the very beginning. For a summary of his copious and interesting work, affording an overview of it, see Hart.1995.1. [return to English / Italian]

  34–36. In hell, we are given to understand, matter and bodies can interact, but not matter and shades. Accordingly, we might expect Dante to be soaked and chilled by the awful rain, while the shades of the gluttons feel nothing. Instead, in a single terzina, the poet forces us to make two allowances: Dante, walking through the rain that strikes the sinners, apparently feels nothing of it. The sinners, of course, feel it all too well. We are reminded again that the physical laws of the afterworld are immutable—except when the writer chooses to break them in order to make the details of his poetry work better. [return to English / Italian]

  37–39. For the first (but not the last) time in the poem Dante is recognized by one of the dead souls. This moment introduces the Florentine “subtext” of the Comedy. Ciacco (as we shall learn to call this figure at v. 52) is the first of some three dozen Florentine characters found in the poem, the vast majority of them in hell. [return to English / Italian]

  43–45. As Padoan (commentary) points out, even those purging their former gluttony on their way to salvation are so changed in their facial expressions that Dante cannot recognize an old friend: Forese Donati in Purg. XXIII.43. [return to English / Italian]

  49–51. The metaphor of a sack out of which the contents spill introduces the main theme of the canto, not gluttony, but political rivalry (even if the image itself relates to the overabundant storage of food). Many commentators try to find reasons to explain Dante’s having related the two, but none has found a genuinely convincing link. Until now, each group of sinners, the neutrals, the virtuous pagans, the lustful, has been portrayed as expressing their most pertinent activities on earth in everything that they do or say. Dante, however, chose not to keep to such a scheme on a regular basis and obviously decided to introduce “subcategories,” as it were, in certain Circles (e.g., politics [again] in the Circle of heresy). The fact is, Dante wants to address certain concerns and brings them to his text when he wants to.

  The envy that Dante sees as the source of the terrible political rivalries in Florence in 1300 is traditionally understood as that felt by the nobler but poorer Donati (Black) faction of the Guelphs against the richer Cerchi (White) faction. Yet, and given both the political situation and the main meaning of envy in Dante’s understanding (e.g., the desire to see one’s opponents suffer loss), it seems clear that all Florentines are marked by this sin in Dante’s eyes. Envy, seen in Inf. I.111 as the motive force behind Satan’s seduction of Eve, is the second worst (after pride) of the seven mortal sins. In our time we tend not to understand either its gravity nor its widespread hold on human hearts. An envious person does not want another’s wealth or happiness so much as he wishes his neighbor to be deprived of wealth or happiness. [return to English / Italian]

  52. One of the most debated questions of this canto has to do with the identity and the name of this character. Was his name actually “Ciacco”? If it was, an enduring supposition is that of Isidoro Del Lungo (commentary): he is the thirteenth-century Florentine poet Ciacco dell’Anguillaia. While such a solution is attractive, there is as yet not a shred of evidence to support it. A more likely hypothesis is that his name was a nickname, granted him either because of his gluttonous habits (“ciacco” was a noun that in Tuscany meant “pig,” or “hog,” according to some fourteenth-century commentators, most notably Francesco da Buti, but none of the earliest report that this was the case and there is no other confirming record) or because his physiognomy was such as to call for such a name (i.e., his nose was flattened on his face [Pézard, ED, vol. 1, 1970, p. 983b]). And there is the further possibility that the nickname suggested no reference to offensive traits (Mazzoni points out that there are many examples in public documents of the time in which such names are used as Christian names [Mazz.1967.2, p. 36]). The fourteenth-century commentator published as the Chiose selmiani states that Ciacco was a Florentine banker who ate and drank so much that his eyesight went bad—as a result he could not count money and people made fun of him; he knew Dante, and died before Dante turned fourteen. That is the most detailed and specific account we find in any early commentator. Boccaccio’s reference to Ciacco (Decameron IX.viii.4) would suggest that he read Dante’s phrasing (“Voi cittadini mi chiamaste Ciacco”) as indicating that this man had a different name but was called by the Florentines by his nickname: “essendo in Firenze uno da tutti chiamato Ciacco” (there being in Florence a man who was called “Ciacco” by everyone). For a recent review of the entire problem, opting for the porcine nickname on the basis of Isidore of Seville’s discussion of Epicureans as hogs, see Simone Marchesi’s article (Marc.1999.1). [return to English / Italian]

  64–66. This is the first prophecy about events that will have importance in Dante’s own life (as opposed to the “world-historical” prophecies that concern Dante as part of the human family) in a poem that is studded with them. For the “personal prophecies” in the poem see Pasq.1996.1, p. 419: Ciacco’s, Farinata’s (Inf. X.79–81); Brunetto’s (Inf. XV.55–57); Vanni Fucci’s (Inf. XXIV.143–150); Currado Malaspina’s (Purg. VIII.133–139); Oderisi’s (Purg. XI.139–141); Bonagiunta’s (Purg. XXIV.37–38); Forese’s (Purg. XXIV.82–90); and, ninth and last, Cacciaguida’s (Par. XVII.46–93). Ciacco’s prophecy concerns the events of May 1300, three or five weeks after the date of the journey, and thus events genuinely near at hand. The White faction, led by the Cerchi family, selvaggia in the sense of “rustic” (in that its members come from the wooded outskirts of the city), will drive out the Black faction in 1300. [return to English / Italian]

  67–69. Within three years (in fact in 1302) the White faction will fall as the Blacks return to the city through the treachery of Pope Boniface VIII, who currently takes no action to help the city. [return to English / Italian]

  73. “Two men are just …” For a brief but strong reading of the due giusti as referring to Dante and another Florentine, identity not knowable, see Barb.1934.1, p. 266. Currently a great debate rages over this verse, fanned by the exertions of Mazzoni. Following the gloss of Pietro di Dante, who argues that the phrase refers not to two human beings, but to two laws, natural and posited, (i.e., made by man), Mazzoni argues that the source for such an interpretation exists in St. Thomas’s commentary on a passage in Aristotle’s Ethics (VIII, c. xv, 1243): “Duplex est iustum” (Justice is twofold), that is, natural and posited. Perhaps even more helpful to Mazzoni’s case is Dante’s own phrasing in his epistle against his fellow townsmen (Epist. VI.5), whom he accuses of transgressing laws both divine and man-made (“Vos autem divina iura et humana transgredientes”). The traditional reading of the verse, which has gathered massive support, is as we have translated it: “Two men are just and are not heeded there.” Mazzoni’s “translation” would read, in English, “the two kinds of justice are not followed there.” One can see both the force and the charm of his argument. It is a possible line of interpretation. But it has to date failed to convince most who address the problem. They continue to find the traditional reading a much more likely one (e.g., Bara.1981.1). [return to English / Italian]

  74–75. See the similar remark offered by Brunetto Latini, Inf. XV.68. For Florence to be afflicted by pride, envy, and avarice is for her to be afflicted by the worst of the seven mortal sins. [return to English / Italian]

  79–81. The identity of Arrigo remains a puzzle. If there are only two just Florentines in the city in 1300, in “the good old days” there seem to have been at least five, men who made great effort to
offer sustenance to goodness. The meaning of the tercet is clear enough. The problem arises because one of the five, Arrigo, is never mentioned again—or surely does not seem to be. The other four are seen in hell, Farinata in Canto X, among the heretics, Tegghiaio and Iacopo in XVI, among the Florentine homosexual politicians (the most positively presented sinners since those we met in Limbo), and Mosca, in a sense the only “surprise” here, since he is punished in Canto XXVIII for his treachery on the battlefield, but, in Dante’s mind, is praiseworthy for his efforts to bring peace to the city before that. See the study of Pietro Santini (Sant.1923.1) for this argument. Of course, it is the puzzle created by Arrigo’s not being further referred to in hell that has drawn commentators’ fullest attention. For a review of the many competing “Harrys” who began to populate the margins of Dante’s poem in the fourteenth century and have continued to do so into our own, see Vincenzo Presta, “Arrigo” (ED, vol. 1, 1970, pp. 391–92). It is strange that Dante picked the names of five men, four of whom he goes on to include prominently in his poem, and one that he does not mention again—especially since he has Ciacco say explicitly that the protagonist will see all of them in his descent (v. 87). This is a mystery that will probably forever remain a mystery. [return to English / Italian]

  88. The world of the living is almost always characterized as being filled with the light of the sun, as “sweet,” when it is remembered by the damned in their bitter darkness. [return to English / Italian]