The Inferno

by Dante

  46–51. The third ring encloses those who are violent against God by blaspheming him (Canto XIV); “violent” against nature in the commission of unnatural sexual acts (sodomy, identified by the reference to Sodom, punished in Canto XV—see the confirmation at Purg. XXVI.79, where the penitent homosexuals cry out “Soddoma” against their past sins); violent against “art,” exemplified in the reference to Cahors, the town in southern France which, in the Middle Ages, had become synonymous with usury (see Virgil’s further explanation at vv. 97–111). [return to English / Italian]

  52–60. Turning at last to fraud, Virgil now divides it into two kinds, depending on whether or not it is practiced against those who trust in one or not. He first describes the second and lesser kind, “simple fraud,” as it were, committed by those who are punished in the eighth Circle, which we shall learn (Inf. XVIII.1) is called “Malebolge” after the ten “evil pockets” that contain them (Cantos XVIII–XXX). Here the poet for whatever reason (to keep his readers on their toes?) allows Virgil to name the sins in no discernible order, while also omitting two of them: (6) hypocrisy, (2) flattery, (4) divination, (10) counterfeiting, (7) thievery, (3) simony, (1) pandering [and seducing, not mentioned here], (5) barratry (the purchase or sale of political office); totally omitted from mention are (8) false counsel and (9) schismatic acts. [return to English / Italian]

  61–66. The second form of fraud, that which severs not only the tie of affection that is natural to humans but that even more sacred one which binds human beings in special relationships of trust, is referred to as treachery (v. 66). Such sinners occupy the ninth Circle (Cantos XXXI–XXXIV). [return to English / Italian]

  67–75. Having told Virgil that his discourse has been clear and convincing, the protagonist nonetheless reveals that he has not quite got it; why, he asks, are not the angry and sullen (Canto VIII), the lustful (Canto V), the gluttonous (Canto VI), and the avaricious and prodigal (Canto VII) punished inside the City of Dis if God holds them in his righteous anger? And if He doesn’t, why are they in the state of affliction they are in? Dante has set up his reader with this inattentive question. The protagonist thinks that Virgil’s analysis of God’s wrath at v. 22 makes God hate only malizia, and does not understand the relationship between that form of sin and incontinence. [return to English / Italian]

  76–90. After chastising Dante for his foolishness, Virgil clarifies the situation. Aristotle, he says, in the seventh book of the Ethics treats the three dispositions of the soul that Heaven opposes. These are incontinence, malice (the malizia of v. 22), and “mad brutishness” (matta bestialitade). The clarity of this statement should not have left so much vexation in its wake, but it has. (For a thorough review of the debate and a solution of the problems that caused it see Francesco Mazzoni’s lengthy gloss to these verses, Mazz.1985.1, pp. 25–45.) “Malice,” just as it did when it was first used, identifies violence and simple fraud; “mad brutishness” refers to treachery. As Mazzoni demonstrates, both in Aristotle and in Thomas’s commentary on the Ethics (and elsewhere in his work), “bestiality” is one step beyond malice, just as it is here in Dante; in Thomas’s words it is a “magnum augmentum Malitiae,” i.e., a similar but worse kind of sin. Nonetheless, there are those who argue that, since malizia eventually comes to encompass both kinds of fraud (those punished in both the eighth and ninth Circles), matta bestialitade cannot refer to treachery. Nonetheless, if they were to consider the way in which Dante has handled his various definitions they might realize that he has done here just what he has done at vv. 22–24: he identifies “malice” with violence and fraud and then (at vv. 61–66) adds a third category (and second category of fraud), treachery, just as he does here. For a strong and helpful summary (in English) of the debate, with arguments similar to and conclusions identical with Mazzoni’s, see Triolo (Trio.1998.1), whose own initial work on the subject dates to 1968 (see his bibliographical note). [return to English / Italian]

  91–96. Now fully cognizant of the grand design of hell, Dante (like some of his readers?) admits he is having difficulty with one particular: usury. How does it “offend God’s goodness” (v. 48)? [return to English / Italian]

  97–111. Weaving strands of Aristotle and St. Thomas, Virgil demonstrates that nature takes her course from the divine mind, and that “art” then follows nature. Humankind, fallen into sin, as is recorded in Genesis (3:17), must earn its bread in the sweat of its brow, precisely by following the rules of nature and whatever craft it practices. And for this reason usurers are understood as sinning against nature, God’s child, and her child, “art” (in the sense of “craft”), thus the “grandchild” of God and all the more vulnerable to human transgression. [return to English / Italian]

  112–115. Telling time by the stars he cannot see but remembers (here the constellation Pisces [“the Fishes”] in the east and the Big Dipper [“the Wain”], lying to the northwest [Caurus, the northwest wind]), Virgil tells Dante it is time to continue the journey, since it is already ca. 4 AM in Italy. They have been descending for ten hours, and have only fourteen left to them, since the entire trip down will take exactly twenty-four hours, 6 PM Friday evening until 6 PM Saturday (Jerusalem time). [return to English / Italian]

  INFERNO XII

  4–10. For the landslide near Trent (in northern Italy, carrying down into the river Adige) and discussion of it in Albertus Magnus, De meteoris, see Singleton’s comment to these verses: Benvenuto da Imola was the first to identify the landslide as that at Slavini di Marco and to mention Albert’s reference to it. Opinion is divided as to whether Dante actually visited this landmark or had merely read about it in Albert’s treatise, which was well known to him. [return to English / Italian]

  12–13. “The infamy of Crete” is the Minotaur (only identified by name at v. 25), half man and half bull, conceived by the sexually venturesome Pasiphaë (wife of Minos, king of Crete) with a bull, when she placed herself in a wooden replica of a cow in order to enjoy a bovine embrace. See Purg. XXVI.87 for another reference to her on the Terrace of the purgation of lust. Most modern commentators, but not all, believe that Dante, in a reversal of the classical tradition, gave the Minotaur a man’s head upon a bull’s body. [return to English / Italian]

  16–21. The Minotaur had his labyrinthine home on Crete, where his violence was kept under some control by feeding to him a yearly tribute from Athens of seven maids and seven youths. Virgil taunts and thus distracts him, reminding him that he was killed by Theseus, instructed by the monster’s “sister” Ariadne and guided by her thread back through the labyrinth.

  Since the Minotaur is the first infernal guardian whom we meet within the walls of Dis (the rebel angels, the Furies, and the unseen Medusa were located on the city’s ramparts in Canto IX), we might want to consider in what way he is different from those we have met in the Circles of Incontinence—Minos (the “step-father” of the Minotaur, as it were—Canto V), Cerberus (Canto VI), and Plutus (Canto VII). Like Charon (Canto III) and Phlegyas (Canto VIII), Minos has a general function, “judging” all the damned souls who confess their besetting sins to him (Charon ferries all across Acheron, Phlegyas seems to be employed in replacing temporarily escaped sinners in the Styx). Thus only Cerberus (gluttony) and Plutus (avarice) would seem to represent a particular sin of incontinence. The Minotaur (and the matter is much debated) seems to represent the entire zone of Violence, as Geryon (Canto XVI) will represent Fraud and the Giants (Canto XXXI), Treachery. If this hypothesis is correct, then the Minotaur’s function is precisely similar to that of Geryon and of the Giants, and he is the gatekeeper for the entire seventh Circle (see Inf. XII.32). For his connection to violence see Boccaccio’s commentary: “When he had grown up and become a most ferocious animal, and of incredible strength, they tell that Minos had him shut up in a prison called the labyrinth, and that he had sent to him there all those whom he wanted to die a cruel death.” Rossetti’s commentary sees the Minotaur as being associated with all three sins of violence punis
hed in this Circle: “The Minotaur, who is situated at the rim of this tripartite circle, fed, according to myth, on human limbs (violence against one’s neighbor); according to the poem [v. 14] was biting himself (violence against oneself) and was conceived in the ‘false cow’ (violence against nature, daughter of God).”

  Surely he is wrathful (this canto has more uses of the word ira [wrath] than any other: XII.15, XII.33, XII.49, XII.72). As was pointed out in the note to Inf. VII.109–114, the wrath punished in Styx was intemperate wrath, a sin of passion and not of hardened will, while the sin punished here is Aquinas’s third sort of anger, that which is kept alive for cold-blooded revenge. For a similar opinion, which insists on the distinction between the incontinence of Filippo Argenti and the intentional, willful behavior that we witness here, see Beck.1984.1, p. 228. [return to English / Italian]

  22–25. The possible Virgilian source (Aen. II.223–224) of Dante’s simile was perhaps first noted in Tommaseo’s commentary: Laocoön, dying beneath the assault of the twin serpents, bellows like a stricken bull that has momentarily escaped death and is now fleeing from the altar because the axe of his executioner has been slightly off target, allowing him a few more minutes of life. [return to English / Italian]

  28–30. Dante’s corporality is again brought to our attention; only he moves physical objects, as Chiron will duly note at v. 81 (see note to vv. 76–82). [return to English / Italian]

  32. The ruina (rockslide), just now referred to in the fourth verse of this canto, is clearly meant to be understood as having been caused by the earthquake at the Crucifixion (see Matth. 27:51). [return to English / Italian]

  33. Wrath, punished in the Styx (the fifth Circle) is here distinguished from “bestial” wrath that is the sign of a hardened will to do violence. As was the case in Inf. XI.83 (see note to Inf. XI.76–90) Dante uses the word “bestial” to increase the heinousness of a kind of sin. Wrath is a sin of Incontinence; “bestial wrath,” a sin of Violence. Fraud is a sin of malice, “mad brutishness” (treachery) a sin of greater malice. [return to English / Italian]

  34–36. See Inf. IX.22–27 where Virgil tells of his previous journey down through the underworld, when he was sent to the ninth Circle by the witch Erichtho (see note to Inf. IX.19–27). [return to English / Italian]

  39. “Dis” here is a name for Lucifer: see Inf. XXXIV.20. [return to English / Italian]

  40–45. Virgil’s explanation of what happened in the immediate aftermath of the Crucifixion shows a correct temporal and physical understanding (he, after all, actually witnessed these phenomena fifty-three years after he arrived in Limbo [see Inf. IV.52–63]). However, his use of the Greek poet and philosopher Empedocles (ca. 492–430 B.C.) as authority shows his ingrained pagan way of accounting for one of Christianity’s greatest miracles, Christ’s ransoming of souls committed to hell. According to Empedocles (first referred to at Inf. IV.138), in addition to the four elements (earth, water, air, fire) there were two others, and these governed the universe in alternating movements of love (concord) and hatred (chaos). As chaos moves toward concord, crowned by love, that very order, momentarily established, at once recedes and moves back toward chaos. This “circular” theory of history is intrinsically opposed to the Christian view, in which Christ’s establishment of love as a universal principle redeemed history once and for all. In Virgil’s apparent understanding, the climactic event in Christian history marked only the beginning of a (final?) stage of chaos. For an appreciation of the importance of Virgil’s misunderstanding of the meaning of the Crucifixion see Baldassaro (Bald.1978.1), p. 101. (For Dante’s knowledge of Empedocles’s theories through Aristotle, Albertus Magnus, and St. Thomas see G. Stabile, “Empedocle,” ED [vol. 2, 1970], p. 667.) [return to English / Italian]

  48. The sinners against their neighbors and/or their property are clearly identified as being guilty of the sin of violence, forza (force), the first area of malizia, according to Inferno XI.22–24. [return to English / Italian]

  49–51. The poet’s apostrophe (see the similar ones at Inf. VII.19–21, XIV.16–18) would seem to identify two of the most immediate causes of violent acts, cupidity and wrath. See Guido da Pisa’s commentary on this passage: “the violence that is inflicted on a neighbor arises either from cupidity or wrath.” [return to English / Italian]

  56–57. Patrolling the river of blood (identified only later [Inf. XIV.116] as “Phlegethon”) from its bank are the Centaurs. Some early commentators saw in them a portrait of the bands of mercenary cavalrymen who were such an important feature of the horrendous wars of Dante’s divided Italy. As Dante presents them they are seen as replicating their cruel habits as hunters in the world above. The original centaurs, half man and half horse, in Greek myths that came to Dante through various Latin poets, were the “sons” of Ixion and a cloud made to resemble Juno, whom Ixion desired to ravish when Jupiter allowed him entrance to Olympus. His sperm, falling to earth, created one hundred centaurs (their name reflects their number, “centum,” and their airy beginning, “aura,” or so believed some early commentators, e.g., Guido da Pisa, Pietro di Dante, and John of Serravalle). Their career on earth involved attempted rape at the wedding feast of Pirithous and Hippodamia, where it was necessary for Hercules to intercede in order to disperse them. The centaurs represent the particular sin of violence to others, turned to God’s use in punishing those mortals who also sinned in this way. [return to English / Italian]

  58–63. The centaurs take Virgil and Dante for wandering damned souls and one of them (we learn that this is Nessus at v. 67) challenges them. His words, “Tell us from there. If not, I draw my bow” (Ditel costinci; se non, l’arco tiro) are probably modeled on Charon’s to the armed figure of Aeneas (Aen. VI.389): “fare age, quid venias, iam istinc, et comprime gressum” (tell me, even from there, why you come here, and hold your steps). [return to English / Italian]

  64–66. Virgil accords greater authority to Chiron than to the other centaurs. Dante’s view of him reflects the fact that he was not sired by Ixion’s lust, but by the former Olympian-in-chief: “Saturn, enamored of Philyra and fearing the jealousy of his wife, Rhea, changed himself into a horse and in this shape begat Chiron, who took the form of a centaur. Chiron educated Achilles, Aesculapius, Hercules, and many other famous Greeks, and Virgil knows at once that, because he is the wisest, he must be the leader of the band” (Singleton’s commentary). [return to English / Italian]

  67–69. Nessus, on the other hand, is one of the Ixion-begotten centaurs. When he tried to rape Hercules’ wife, Deianira, according to the ninth book of Ovid’s Metamorphoses, the great hero shot him with a poisoned arrow as Nessus was crossing a stream with Deianira on his back. Dying, the centaur dipped a tunic into his own poisoned blood (thus explaining exactly what Dante means when he says “fashioned of himself his own revenge”) and gave it to Hercules’ wife, telling her that whoever put on that tunic would become enamored of her. Years later, when Hercules fell in love with Iole, Deianira gave him the tunic. He put it on, experienced excruciating pain, and committed suicide to end his agony. Vengeful, Nessus displays his connection to violence against others, and precisely that “difficult” anger described by St. Thomas (see note to Inf. VII. 109–114). [return to English / Italian]

  70–71. “Chiron’s bowed head may be intended to suggest wisdom or an attitude of meditation, as most commentators believe, since he was considered to be the wisest of all the centaurs; but it also serves to direct the reader’s gaze to the creature’s breast, where its two natures, human and bestial, are joined” (Singleton’s commentary). For Chiron as teacher of Achilles see at least Statius, Achilleid I.118. [return to English / Italian]

  72. Pholus, like Nessus, and unlike Chiron, whose violence is tempered (and thus made more effective?) by reason, has no better nature to recommend him. He, begotten by Ixion like Nessus, like Nessus died at the hands of Hercules in most of the various Latin versions of the tale that Dante knew, but as the result of an accident: he
himself dropped one of Hercules’ poisoned arrows on his foot and died. [return to English / Italian]

  75. Degrees of sinfulness control the depth of immersion: sinners are variously swathed in blood up to their eyebrows (v. 103: murderous tyrants); throats (116: murderers); waists (121: plunderers); feet (125: unspecified).

  Some commentators believe that Dante’s conception of this river of blood was influenced by his experience as a cavalryman at the battle of Campaldino in 1289, when the slaughter made the rivulets crossing the terrain run with blood. For a description and analysis of that battle see Oert.1968.1. [return to English / Italian]

  76–82. Chiron’s remarks are put to the service of reminding the reader of the uniqueness of this fleshly visitor to hell. The “realism” of the detail (when he is described as moving the bristles of his beard with an arrow) has understandably pleased many; it perhaps also forces us to wonder whether the demons of hell have a fleshly or only a spirit presence, for if Dante can move things with his body, apparently Chiron can also—his own beard with the nock of an arrow. This question is never confronted by Dante, who leaves the ontological status of the demons of hell unresolved. [return to English / Italian]

  88–89. One of the few references to Beatrice heard in hell. An appeal to such authority is perhaps made to Chiron in view of his unusual rational powers. [return to English / Italian]

  93–96. Virgil’s request that one of the centaurs bear Dante on his back to cross over the river of blood will be answered indirectly, between vv. 114 and 115. [return to English / Italian]