Endnotes

ENDNOTES

[1] The most significant use of the honorific plural voi is with Beatrice until 3.31.80–90, where Dante shifts to the familiar tu. Other instances of the honorific plural occur in 1.10.51; 1.10.63; 1.15.30, 80; 2.8.121; 2.19.131; 2.26.113; 3.16.16–18.

[2] The midpoint of our lifelong way: thirty-five years of age.

[3]  A steep: the steep slope of a hill.

[4] Rays the planet cast: the rays of the sun (a planet circling the earth in Ptolemaic astronomy).

[5] Desert slope: a less steep region between the dark woods and the steeper slope stretching up to the summit of the mount.

[6] Literally, the climber supports himself on the lower, stationary, and therefore firmer foot. Figuratively, the line has been variously interpreted.

[7] The time of day and gentle season: dawn and spring.

[8] Where silent is the sun: the dark woods.

[9] Mantua was considered a part of Lombardy.

[10] Sub Julio: although Virgil was born in 70 BC under Julius Caesar, it was only after the latter’s assassination in 44 BC that he published his great works under Augustine.

[11] Anchises’ righteous son: Aeneas, hero of Virgil’s Aeneid.

[12]  Troy: a city of ancient northwest Asia Minor near the Dardanelles and site of the Trojan War, described in Homer’s Iliad. Ilium: here another name for Troy.

[13] Virgil: Roman poet (70–19 BC), author of the Eclogues, the Georgics, and the Aeneid.

[14] That Hound: an unspecified redeemer variously identified.

[15] The Italian tra feltro e feltro probably refers to Feltre in Veneto and Montefeltro in Romagna, the lands of Cangrande della Scala, but other interpretations exist.

[16] Vv. 107–108 mention four people who fell in the war of the Trojans against the Latins.

[17] A soul … worthier than I: Beatrice (1266–1290), a childhood love of Dante, to whom he paid tribute in the Vita nuova.

[18] The Emperor: God.

[19] St. Peter’s gate: probably a popular figure of speech since Dante the character does not yet know of the gate of Purgatory, nor that Paradise has no gate.

[20] The sire of Sylvius: Aeneas.

[21] The Adversary of all ill: God.

[22] Heaven: the Empyrean Heaven, the outermost of the ten celestial spheres, where God dwells.

[23] Each: Rome and its Empire.

[24] The true successor of great Peter: the Roman Pontiff.

[25] The Chosen Vessel: St. Paul.

[26] The shade of that great-hearted man: Virgil.

[27] Suspended souls: those in Limbo, suspended between Heaven and Hell proper.

[28] A lady: Beatrice.

[29] Kindly soul of Mantua: Virgil, born in Andes, a village near Mantua.

[30] Fortune: here personified and juxtaposed to Beatrice.

[31] From where I long to rise: Paradise.

[32] O Maid of virtue: Beatrice.

[33] The content of the sphere that has the smallest circles as its own: earth within the sphere of the moon.

[34] This center: Hell, at the center of the Earth and thus farthest from the Empyrean Heaven.

[35] Spacious places: the Empyrean Heaven.

[36] A gentle maid in Heaven: the Blessed Virgin Mary.

[37] Lucy: probably the third-century Syracusan saint, patroness of those with eye diseases.

[38] Ancient Rachel: second wife of the Hebrew patriarch Jacob.

[39] The seemly mount: the mount of wisdom and virtue of the first canto.

[40] Three such blessèd ladies: Mary, Lucy, and Beatrice.

[41] DIVINE OMNIPOTENCE...HIGH WISDOM...PRIMAL LOVE (vv. 5–6) refer to the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.

[42] These may be the pusillanimous or the slothful, though some commentators prefer to place the slothful with the wrathful in the fifth circle of Hell.

[43] Both justice and compassion: both Hell and Heaven.

[44] Probably Celestine V, elected pope in 1294, but abdicating five months later in favor of Dante’s archenemy, Boniface VIII.

[45] The Acheron: one of the four rivers of Hell.

[46] This is Charon (cf. v. 94), son of Erebus and Night, and ferryman of the Styx in classical mythology.

[47] Those words, which sounded rude: those spoken in vv. 84–87.

[48] The evil shore: of the Acheron.

[49] His words: in vv. 91–93.

[50] It was thought that the violent escape of pressurized vapors caused earthquakes.

[51] Limbo: traditionally the temporary abode of the Old Testament saints who died before Christ and the permanent abode of unbaptized infants. Dante opens it to virtuous pagans as well.

[52] A Mighty One: Christ, who is never named directly in Hell.

[53] Our first parent’s shade: Adam, in the Bible the first man and progenitor of the human race.

[54] Abel: Adam’s second son, murdered by Cain. Noah: a just man chosen by God to build the ark.

[55] Moses: the lawgiver who led Israel out of Egypt.

[56] Father Abra(ha)m: the first patriarch, progenitor of the Hebrew people, and father of Isaac. King David: second king of Judah and Israel (ca. 1010–ca. 970 BC), successor of Saul, and father of Solomon.

[57] Israel: Jacob, son of Isaac, and father of twelve sons, the ancestors of the twelve tribes of Israel.

[58] Rachel: second wife of Jacob and mother of Joseph and Benjamin.

[59] Homer: Greek epic poet of the ninth or tenth century BC, traditional author of the Iliad and the Odyssey.

[60] Horace (Quintus Horatius Flaccus): Latin poet (65–68 BC) and author of Satires (Sermones), Odes (Carmina), Epistulae, and the Ars poetica.

[61] Ovid (Publius Ovidius Naso): a Roman poet (43 BC–18 AD), wrote the Metamorphoseon. Lucan (Marcus Annaeus Lucanus): also a Roman poet (39–65), wrote the Pharsalia.

[62] Electra: daughter of Atlas and Pleione, and mother by Jupiter of Dardanus, the founder of Troy.

[63] Hector: Trojan prince, son of king Priam, killed by Achilles in the Iliad. Aeneas: the Trojan hero of Virgil’s Aeneid and son of Anchises and Venus.

[64] Caesar (Gaius Julius): Roman statesman, general, and historian (100–44 BC).

[65] Camille (Camilla): daughter of the Volscian King Metabus, aid to Turnus against Aeneas, and slain by Aruns. Penthasilia (four syllables): daughter of Mars, queen of the Amazons, ally of the Trojans after Hector’s death, and killed by Achilles.

[66] King Latinus: king of Latium and husband of Amata.

[67] Lavinia (three syllables with -ia as a diphthong): daughter of Latinus, betrothed to Turnus, wife of Aeneas, and mother of Sylvius.

[68] Brutus (Lucius Junius [sixth century BC]): incited the Romans to overthrow Tarquin (Lucius Tarquinius Superbus [534–510 BC]), the last of the kings, after his son, Sextus, had violated Lucretia.

[69] Lucrece (Lucretia): wife of Collatinus, committed suicide after her rape. Cornelia (three syllables): daughter of Scipio Africanus the Elder (237–183 BC), wife of Tiberius Semptonius Graccus, and mother of the Gracchi, Tiberius and Gaius. Julia: daughter of Julius Caesar and wife of Pompey. Marcia: wife of Cato of Utica (95–46 BC).

[70] Saladin: sultan of Egypt and Syria (1138–1193), known for his clemency, who captured Jerusalem (1187), but was defeated by the Third Crusade.

[71] The master...of those who know: Aristotle (384–322 BC), student at Plato’s Academy, tutor of the young Alexander the Great, founder of a school at the Lyceum in Athens, and author of treatises on logic, metaphysics, natural science, rhetoric, poetics, ethics, and politics.

[72] Plato: Athenian philosopher (427–347 BC), student of Socrates (469–399 BC), founder of the Academy, and author of philosophical dialogues.

[73] Anaxag’ras (Anaxagoras): Ionian pluralist philosopher (ca. 534–ca. 462 BC). Thales: Milesian philosopher, one of the Seven Wise Men (ca. 640–ca. 546 BC). Diogenes (three syllables with Dio as a diphthong): a Greek eclectic (ca. 410–320 BC).

[74] Democritus: of Abdera (ca. 460–ca. 370 BC), an atomist philosopher.

[75] Zeno: of Citium, founder of the Stoic school (fl. 300 BC). Heraclite (Heraclitus): of Ephesus (ca. 540–ca. 480 BC), philosopher of the flux. Empedocles: (ca. 490–ca. 430 BC), a Sicilian Pythagorean, philosopher of the four elements.

[76] Dioscorides (Pedanius): first or second-century Greek physician, author of a treatise on plants and their medicinal qualities.

[77] Tully: Marcus Tullius Cicero (106–43 BC), Roman orator, philosopher, and statesman. Linus: mythical Greek poet. Orpheus: Thracian musician who tamed the beasts with Apollo’s lyre.

[78] Seneca (Lucius Annaeus): Roman statesman, Stoic philosopher, and tragedian (ca. 4 BC–65 AD).

[79] Galen: Greek physician (ca. 130–ca. 200), compiler of classical medicine. Avicenne (Avicenna): Arab philosopher, physician, and commentator (980–1037) on Aristotle and Galen. Hippocrates: the father of medicine (ca. 460–ca. 377 BC).

[80] Euclid: Greek mathematician (fl. 300 BC) and author of the Elements. Ptolomy (Claudius Ptolemaeus): Alexandrian mathematician, geocentric astronomer (second century AD), and author of The Almagest.

[81] Averroës: Moorish physician, lawyer, and philosopher (1126–1198), known simply as “The Commentator” for his commentaries on Aristotle.

[82] The second one: the circle of the lustful.

[83] Minos: son of Europa and Zeus, brother of Rhadamanthus, and king of Crete. In classical mythology, he was so wise and just that at his death he was made judge of the dead.

[84] The ruins: caused, as will be seen later, by an earthquake at the Crucifixion.

[85] Semiramis: wife and successor of Ninus as ruler of Assyria, known for her beauty, valor, and lewdness, and identified with the goddess Ishtar.

[86] Ninus: mythical founder of Nineveh.

[87] The Sultan: the ruler of Egypt. Dante may have confused Babylon on the Nile with the Assyrian Babylonia, or thought that Semiramis extended her reign to Egypt.

[88] The other: Dido, a Tyrian princess, founder and queen of Carthage, who fell in love with Aeneas and committed suicide when he left her and set sail for Italy.

[89] Sichaeus: Dido’s deceased husband, murdered by her brother, Pygmalion, King of Tyre. Proved untrue: Dido had pledged fidelity to the memory of her slain husband.

[90] Cleopatra (69–30 BC): daughter of Ptolomy Auletes, the final king of Egypt before the Roman conquest, herself queen of Egypt, and wife of her brother according to the incestuous practices of her dynasty, until becoming the mistress of Julius Caesar, and later the wife of Mark Antony. She committed suicide after her husband did, on being defeated by Octavian.

[91] Helen: daughter of Zeus and Leda, and wife of the Spartan king Menelaus. Her abduction by Paris to Troy provoked the Trojan War.

[92] Achilles: son of Peleus and Thetis, and hero of the Iliad. According to medieval legend, he deserted the Greeks to join the Trojans in exchange for Polixena, daughter of King Priam. Paris bated him to the temple of Apollo for the wedding and murdered him.

[93] Paris: son of King Priam and Hecuba. He chose Venus as the most beautiful over Juno and Minerva and was rewarded with Helen of Troy. Tristan: Arthurian knight and lover of Isolde, wife of his uncle, King Mark of Cornwall, who surprised him with the queen and killed him.

[94] None: God, who is never named by the damned except in blasphemy.

[95] The speaker in vv. 88ff. is Francesca da Rimini (v. 116), daughter of Guido da Polenta, lord of Ravenna (d. 1310), and aunt of Guido Novello, Dante’s patron. Around 1275, she married the deformed Gianciotto Malatesta for political reasons, but when already a mother became enamored of his married younger brother, Paolo, who had two sons himself. Gianciotto discovered their affair ca. 1285 and murdered them. Paolo was reputedly an intermediary between Gianciotto and Francesca, who consented to marriage believing Paolo to be the groom.

[96] The land: Ravenna, on the Adriatic coast of Emilia between the rivers Po and Rubicon.

[97] Him who killed us: refers to Gianciotto Malatesta da Verruchio, Francesca’s husband. Caïna: named after Cain, who murdered Abel. This ring is the first of four in the lowest circle of Hell and the place where traitors to kindred are punished.

[98] Lancelot: Arthurian knight and lover of Queen Guinevere, whom he was supposed to woo on behalf of King Arthur just as Paolo was to be the proxy for Gianciotto.

[99] Gallehault: a liaison between Lancelot and Guinevere. His name came to mean “panderer.”

[100] Those kindred two: Paolo and Francesca.

[101] Hell’s third ring: that of the gluttonous.

[102] Cerberus: a three-headed dog of Pluto, god of the underworld. He guarded the threshold of Hades and was chained by Hercules for opposing his rescue of Proserpina.

[103] Your city: Florence.

[104] Ciacco: a nickname meaning “pig,” perhaps of Ciacco dell’Anguillaia, a contemporary minor poet, supposedly notorious for gluttony.

[105] Vv. 64–75 refer to the conflict in Florence between the rustic White Guelphs led by Vieri de’ Cerchi and the aristocratic Black Guelphs headed by Corso Donati. The Whites had expelled the Blacks in May of 1301, but, by April of 1302, the Blacks had rallied and routed the Whites from the city with the assistance of Boniface VIII (cf. v. 69). By October of 1302, within three years (cf. v. 68) of Ciacco’s prophecy, the last important decrees of exile were signed against the Whites, Dante included.

[106] One who tacks his sails so fast: Pope Boniface VIII.

[107] The two just men have not been certainly identified, but they are perhaps Dante himself and his friend Guido Cavalcanti.

[108] Tegghiaio (three syllables with -iai as a triphthong): surnamed Aldobrandi, a Florentine Guelf, who opposed the ill-fated attack on Siena that led to the defeat of Florence at the battle of Montaperti (1260). Farinata (degh Uberti): a Ghibelline leader in the same battle.

[109] Arrigo: (Odarrigo de’ Fifanti?) a Ghibelline, who participated in the murder of Buondelmonte. Mosca: de’ Lamberti, a Ghibelline who instigated the murder of Buondelmonte. Jacopo: Rusticucci, an associate of Tegghiaio. All those mentioned in vv. 79–80 were influential before the Guelph feud between Whites and Blacks.

[110] The opposing Power: Christ, who will come “to judge the living and the dead.”

[111] Science: the philosophy of Aristotle subsumed into the theology of Thomas Aquinas.

[112] Pluto: Dante conflates Pluto, the god of the underworld, with Plutus, the god of wealth, who now stands over the fourth circle of the avaricious and the prodigal.

[113] These words may not be meant as intelligible speech but intended to show the senselessness of the love of money. If they are meaningful, they are probably Pluto’s amazed invocation of “Father” Satan, one greater than he, on seeing a living man in Hell.

[114] Vv. 11–12 refer to the revolt of the angels in Heaven. The archangel Michael was thought to have led the good angels against the bad.

[115] The fourth depression: the circle of the avaricious and the prodigal. 

[116] The waves in v. 22 refer to the Strait of Messina, between the sea-monster Scylla and the whirlpool Charybdis.

[117] Their comely world: Heaven.

[118] Fortune: a symbolic figure through which Divine Providence disposes of material wealth.

[119] Other gods on high: other angels.

[120] Other primal creatures: another designation for the angels.

[121] Her sphere: the proverbial wheel of fortune.

[122] It is therefore past midnight of Good Friday.

[123] Just as the Acheron divided the Vestibule from Limbo and Upper Hell, so the Styx (both a river and a marsh) divides Upper Hell from Lower Hell, while simultaneously serving as the fifth circle of the wrathful and the sullen.

[124] Muddy people: the wrathful described in vv. 109–114.

[125] People underwater: the sullen (and perhaps the vindictive) described in vv. 115–126.

[126] That Sea of sense: Virgil, of course.

[127] Phlegyas: “the fiery one,” son of Mars and king of Boeotia. When Apollo raped his daughter, Coronis, he burned the temple of Delphi, for which he was slain and cast into Tartarus, the place reserved for those who sinned against the gods. He is also the father of Ixion and grandfather of the Centaurs, the guardians of the violent in the seventh circle. Here he is the guardian of the fifth circle and the ferryman of the Styx.

[128] Filipp(o) Argenti: a quick-tempered Florentine knight of the Adimari family, who derived his epithet from having shod his horse with silver, and who opposed Dante’s recall from exile.

[129] Dis: a name for Pluto applied both to Satan and to his city. Its walls mark the division between Upper Hell, where sins of incontinence are punished, and Lower Hell, where sins of violence and fraud are punished.

[130] A thousand: the angels who fell with Satan.

[131] Such a One: God.

[132] This sad house: the City of Dis.

[133] A not so secret gate: the gate of Hell with its inscription.

[134] One: a heavenly messenger.

[135] The first degree: of Hell, i.e., Limbo.

[136] Erichtho: a Thessalian necromancer whom Sextus Pompeius had conjure up a dead soldier on the eve of the battle of Pharsalia to learn the outcome of his campaign against Caesar.

[137] Judas’ band: Judecca, the innermost ring of the ninth and lowest circle of Hell, where Judas and other traitors to benefactors are punished.

[138] The heaven circling all: probably the Empyrean, but possibly the Primum Mobile. The pit of Hell at the center of earth is farthest removed from both.

[139] Furies: or Erinyes (v. 45), goddesses of vengeance.

[140] The eternal lamentation’s queen: Hecate (Persephone, Proserpina), wife of Pluto.

[141] Medusa: a mortal changed into a Gorgon for having offended Minerva by giving birth to two children in one of her temples. Her serpent hair turned anyone who looked at it to stone.

[142] Theseus: King of Athens, who slew the Minotaur and, with his friend Pirithous, attempted to abduct Proserpina, Pluto’s queen, from Hades. According to the tradition Dante is following here, Theseus was rescued by Hercules.

[143] Ancient suds: the Styx.

[144] One: the angel.

[145] When he was chained and dragged by Hercules as the last of his twelve labors.

[146] We entered in: the Poets are now in the sixth circle.

[147] Arles: in Provence, France, near the Rhone Delta, the site of an ancient Roman cemetery.

[148] Pola: (Pula, Croatia), a seaport in southern Istria, also a burial site. Quarnero’s bay: (Veliki Kvarner, Croatia), an arm of the Adriatic Sea, southeast of the Istrian peninsula.

[149] Here all heresiarchs are doomed: the sixth circle, where the sin of heresy is punished, serves as a transition between Upper Hell and Lower Hell.

[150] Jehosaphat: a valley near Jerusalem where all souls are supposed to gather, after having reassumed their bodies, to hear their sentence on Judgment Day.

[151] Epicurus: atomistic philosopher (ca. 341–270 BC) who denied the influence of the gods on human affairs and the immortality of the soul, and taught that the highest happiness is ataraxy, peace of mind and absence of pain.

[152] A noble polity: Florence.

[153] Farinata (d. 1264): degh Uberti, who led the Ghibellines to victory over the Florentine Guelphs in the battle of Montaperti in 1260. He was posthumously declared a heretic in 1283 by the inquisitor Salmone da Lucca, who scattered his bones and confiscated the family property.

[154] The Guelphs were expelled from Florence in 1248 and 1260 (cf. v. 48), but made a comeback in 1251 and 1266 to rout the Ghibellines.

[155] Another shade: Cavalcante de’ Cavalcanti, a Guelph, the father of Guido (cf. v. 63), and an Epicurean in thought and manners.

[156] Guido: Cavalcanti (ca. 1255–1300), philosophical poet, intimate friend of Dante, and a White Guelf, who married Farinata’s daughter for political reasons. He was exiled under Dante’s priorship and died shortly thereafter. That One your Guido held in spite: a different interpretation of the Italian syntax here leads some commentators to take the one referred to as either Virgil or Beatrice. I take it as God.

[157] That great-souled other: Farinata.

[158] The dame who rules this zone: Hecate, queen of the underworld, and goddess of the moon.

[159] Dante was exiled in January of 1302. By May of 1304, fifty months after the fictional date of the poem, he and others had often tried to return to Florence. The attempt of Pope Benedict XI to win the return of the exiles failed irrevocably shortly thereafter.

[160] Several of the Uberti were excluded, under pain of decapitation, when the Ghibellines were permitted back in Florence in 1280.

[161] The Arbia: a small stream near Siena. Colored red: by blood shed at the battle of Montaperti, a hill on the left bank, where the Florentine Guelphs were defeated by Farinata’s Ghibellines.

[162] After Montaperti, at the council of Empoli, all the Ghibelline leaders favored leveling Florence. Farinata’s appeal saved her.

[163] When finally the future shuts its door: on the Last Day, at the end of time.

[164] To that one who fell: to Cavalcante de’ Cavalcanti. Cf. v. 71.

[165] His offspring: Guido Cavalcanti.

[166] The Second Frederick (1194–1250): king of Sicily (1197), Emperor (1215), opponent of the papacy, and notorious voluptuary.

[167] The Cardinal: Octaviano degh Ubaldini (ca. 1210–1273), an apostolic legate in Lombardy and Romagna against Frederick and in Naples against Manfred. He was accused of being an imperialist and of unbelief for reputedly having said: “If I have a soul, I have lost it a thousand times over for the Ghibellines.”

[168] Those words of his: in vv. 79–81.

[169] Her: Beatrice (though it is actually Dante’s ancestor Cacciaguida who reveals the course of his future life to him).

[170] Pope Anastasius (five syllables) (496–498) (v. 8) reputedly gave communion to and thus condoned Photinus, deacon of Thessalonica, who held the heresy of Acacius, patriarch of Constantinople, that Christ was of merely human origin. He may have been confused with Emperor Anastasius (491–518), who did fall into the heresy.

[171] Three smaller rings: circles seven, eight, and nine.

[172] Malice: here a generic term for violence or fraud. In v. 82, malice (ill will) is distinguished from incontinence and bestiality (mad beastly shame).

[173] First band: the seventh circle, the first of three allotted to the punishment of sins of malice.

[174] Vv. 34–39 deal with harming one’s neighbor in his person or in his possessions. Dante will consider assassins, robbers, and tyrants in the first ring of the seventh circle.

[175] Vv. 40–45 treat of suicides and squanderers, punished in the seventh circle’s second ring.

[176] Cahors: a medieval center of usury, the sin against human industry, in southern France. Sodom: the biblical city that lent its name to the sin against nature.

[177] Vv. 46–5l refer to sins against God (blasphemy), nature (sodomy), and nature’s child (usury), punished in the seventh circle’s third ring.

[178] Vv. 52–54 distinguish simple fraud against our neighbor (vv. 55–60) and treacherous fraud against those with a special trust in us (vv. 61–66).

[179] Vv. 55–60 describe the simply fraudulent, punished in the eighth circle, the second (cf. v. 57) of the three devoted to malice.

[180] Vv. 61–66 describe the treacherous, punished in the ninth circle of Hell, the last and smallest (cf. v. 64) of those assigned to malice. It lies in the center of the earth and thus of the Ptolemaic universe.

[181] That town’s red light: the ruddy City of Dis.

[182] The question in vv. 70–75 refers to the four circles of the incontinent in Upper Hell.

[183] Incontinence, ill will, mad beastly shame: a distinction of vicious characters elaborated by Aristotle in the Nichomachean Ethics, referred to in v. 80. This schema does not include the neutrals in the Vestibule, the virtuous pagans in Limbo, or the heretics in the sixth circle.

[184] The spirits … outside above: the souls in Upper Hell.

[185] The crew of wicked souls: the souls in Lower Hell.

[186] Physics: a work on natural philosophy by Aristotle.

[187] Her pupil: human art and industry. The usurer sets his hope on interest, derived neither from nature nor from labor (cf. v. 111).

[188] Fishes: the constellation of Pisces, which is just rising.

[189] Caurus: the Mistral, or northwest wind, which blows from the Rhône Valley towards the Mediterranean coast of southern France. The Wain: Ursa Major, the Big Dipper. It is 4:00 A.M.

[190]  One who there was sent: the Minotaur. Cf. v. 12ff.

[191] Ruins: the Slavini di Marco, on the Adige (v. 5) between Trent and Verona. Around 883 a landslide (cf. v. 6) diverted the river’s course there. The present landslide was occasioned by the earthquake at Christ’s crucifixion shortly before he descended into Limbo.

[192] The infamy of Crete (v. 12): the Minotaur, a beast with a bull’s body and a human head, whom, through her lust for a bull, Pasiphae, spouse of King Minos of Crete, conceived within a wooden cow fashioned by Daedalus. It was caged in the labyrinth built by the same artisan and fed on a yearly tribute of Athenian youth exacted by King Minos.

[193] The Duke of Athens: Theseus, who slew the Minotaur. His sister (v. 20) furnished him with a sword to kill the beast and with thread to find his way out of the labyrinth.

[194] He: Christ. Dis: Satan himself, rather than his city.

[195] Great plunder: the Old Testament saints. The highest circle’s cell: Limbo.

[196] Vv. 41–44 allude to Empedocles’ theory of love and hate as principles of cosmic unity and disunity.

[197] A stream of blood: the third river of Hell, later identified as the Phlegethon ( = fiery).

[198] Centaurs: creatures half-human, half-equine, known for gluttony and violence.

[199] Chiron: chief of the centaurs, born of Saturn and Philyra, instructed by Apollo and Diana, and known for his wisdom (cf. v. 70) and skill in medicine. He educated Achilles (cf. v. 71), Aesculapius, Hercules, and others and helped Peleus win the hand of the goddess Thetis.

[200] Hercules killed Nessus (v. 67) with a poisoned arrow for trying to rape his wife, Dejanira (v. 68), to whom Nessus gave a robe dipped in his poisoned blood as a love charm. She gave it to Hercules to win him back from Iole, but the poison maddened him, and he burned himself on a pyre. Dejanira hanged herself in grief.

[201] Pholus: a centaur involved in the attack on the Lapithean women at the wedding of Pirithous and Hippodamia, where he tried to rape the bride herself.

[202] Someone: Beatrice.

[203] Alexander: either Alexander the Great (356–323 BC), whom Orosius frequently describes as violent and cruel, or Alexander of Pherae (fl. ca. 368–359 BC), a Thessalian tyrant, spoken of by Cicero and Valerius Maximus. Dionysius (four syllables): the Elder, tyrant of Syracuse (fl. 405–367 BC), or perhaps his son, Dionysius the Younger, who followed him in both his reign and his cruelty.

[204] Azzolino: Ezzelino III da Romano (1194–1259), Ghibelline noble, son-in-law of Emperor Frederick II, and Imperial Viceroy in the March of Treviso, who massacred the citizens of Padua.

[205] Opizzo d’Esti: Obizzo II d’Esti (1247–1293), Guelph lord of Ferrara, Modena, and Reggio, who fought against Manfred with Charles of Anjou and was reputedly murdered by his perhaps illegitimate son, Azzo III. Cf. v. 112.

[206] In order to avenge his father, Simon, Earl of Leicester, Guy de Montfort (ca. 1243–1298), vicar of Charles of Anjou in Tuscany, stabbed his first cousin, Prince Henry of Cornwall, during mass in Viterbo, at an assembly of cardinals to elect a pope. Some say Henry’s heart was placed in a casket atop a pillar over the Thames, others in the hand of a statue in Westminster Abbey. The Italian for “admired,” chosen because of rhyme, could also mean “dripping.”

[207] Attila: the Hun (406–453), who ravaged the Eastern Roman Empire from 441–450, and was known as the “Scourge of God” for invading Gaul in 45l. He conquered much of Italy in the following year, but Pope Leo the Great persuaded him to spare Rome.

[208] Pyrrhus: Achilles’ son, who killed Priam, his son, Polites, and his daughter, Polixena, or perhaps the king of Epirus (ca. 318–272 BC), an enemy of the Romans.

[209] Sextus: either the son of Pompey the Great and pirate, who cut off Rome’s supply of grain from Africa, inflicting near famine upon the city, or Sextus Tarquinius Superbus, who raped Lucretia.

[210] Rinier Pazzo and Rinier da Corneto: two highwaymen, the former excommunicated by Pope Clement IV for robbing the clergy; of the latter little is known.

[211] A wood: the seventh circle, second ring, for suicides and squanderers.

[212] The Cecina River and the town of Corneto on the Marta River mark the northern and southern boundaries of the desolate Tuscan Maremma.

[213] In vv. 10–12, the Harpies, daughters of Thauma and Electra, drove the Trojans from the Strophades, islands in the Ionian Sea, destroying their banquet and prophesying their starvation.

[214] The horrid sand: the seventh circle’s third ring, for blasphemers, sodomites, and usurers.

[215] A thorn grown tall: the soul of Pier della Vigna (ca. 1190–1249). Born in Capua and educated in Bologna, he was a statesman, scholar, and poet in the court of the Emperor Frederick II in Palermo for over twenty years. Having been accused and convicted of treason, he was blinded and put in prison, where he dashed his brains out against a wall to escape dishonor.

[216] In Virgil’s Aeneid, when, to adorn an altar, Aeneas plucks shrubs in a Thracian grove from the grave of Polydorus, blood issues from the torn roots, and a voice speaks from the mound.

[217] All but few: that is, all but few men.

[218] Common death: envy. Courtly vice: cupidity.

[219] Lano (v. 120): Arcolano da Siena, a member of the “Spendthrift Club,” who squandered his fortune in dissolute living. He fell in the battle of Pieve del Toppo, where the Aretines defeated the Sienese in 1288, from which he apparently attempted to flee (cf. v. 121). The other (v. 119): Jacopo da Santo Andrea of Padua (cf. v. 133), a squanderer killed by Ezzelino III in 1239.

[220] John the Baptist replaced Mars (v. 147), the pagan patron of Florence, in the fourth century. A statue of Mars was toppled into the Arno River during the invasion of Attila (v. 149) in 450 (or rather Totila in 542), recovered, and erected on the Ponte Vecchio (the Arno’s pass, v. 146) in the early ninth century, when Charlemagne resurrected the city. It protected the town from further destruction (cf. v. 150), but was swept away in a flood in 1333. His warring art (v. 145): the Guelph-Ghibelline strife, which broke out in 1215 after the murder of Buondelmonte at the foot of the statue and is represented as Mars’ vengeance on the Florentines for forsaking martial valor for money-making (the florin, a Florentine coin, bore the imprint of John the Baptist).

[221] The unidentified shade may be Lotto degh Agh, a Florentine judge who hanged himself after giving an unjust judgment, or Rocco de’ Mozzi, who did the same on going bankrupt.

[222] The third of rings: within the seventh circle, for blasphemers, sodomites, and usurers.

[223] That unhappy weald (v. 10): the second ring of suicides and squanderers. A dismal moat: the first ring of tyrants, murderers, and robbers.

[224] Cato: the Younger of Utica (95–46 BC), who, shortly before his death, marched the Pompeian troops through the Libyan desert against Juba, King of Numidia.

[225] Dante’s source is Albertus Magnus, who conflates two events—trampling snow and warding off a rain of fiery sparks—related in an apocryphal letter of Alexander to Aristotle.

[226] That giant: Capaneus (cf. v. 63), one of the Seven Kings besieging Thebes. He was slain by Jupiter’s lightning on challenging the gods to defend the city against him.

[227] In vv. 52–60, the blacksmith (v. 52) is Vulcan, god of the forges (v. 56); the rest (v. 55) the Cyclops, his assistants; Mongibello (v. 56) Mt. Aetna, his furnace; and Phlegra’s fight (v. 58) the occasion on which Jupiter and Hercules repelled the giants’ attack on Mt. Olympus.

[228] When Eteocles and Polynices, sons of Oedipus, vied for the rule of Thebes, Adrastus, king of Argos, led his son-in-law, Capaneus, and six others to war against that city.

[229] Bulicame (four syllables): a hot sulfurous spring near Viterbo that supplied the brothel baths (cf. v. 80).

[230] Crete: a Greek island in the eastern Mediterranean at the southern end of the Aegean. It was the birthplace of Trojan, and thus Roman, civilization as well as the center of the known world.

[231] King: Saturn, king of Crete, during the Golden Age.

[232] Rhea: daughter of Heaven (Uranus) and Earth (Gaia), and Saturn’s wife, who bore and hid Jupiter on Mt. Ida (cf. v. 98), drowning out his cries by the Curetes’ clashing of spears and shields, in order to save him from her husband, who was devouring his children so as not to be dethroned by one of them, as had been prophesied. Saturn was dethroned nevertheless, which initiated the decline from the Golden to the Silver Age.

[233] A great Old Man: a fusion of the four ages of man.

[234] Damietta: in Egypt. Here it is the center of the ancient pagan world.

[235] Rome: here the center of the Church and the Empire in the Christian West.

[236] Cocytus: the last of the four classical rivers in Hell and the frozen lake of the ninth circle.

[237] Lethe: the fifth river of classical mythology. It is found in the Garden of Eden atop the Mount of Purgatory, whence it flows down into Hell.

[238] Bruges (prounounce as one syllable, as in French), to the north of Ghent, marks the eastern limit of the Flemish seaboard and Wissant, between Boulogne and Calais, the western.

[239] Brenta: a river in northeastern Italy.

[240] Carinthia (three syllables with –thia as a diphthong): a southwestern province of Austria. The melting snows of the Carnic Alps swell the Brenta.

[241] A group of spirits: the sodomites.

[242] Ser Brunetto: Brunetto Latini (ca. 1220–ca. 1294), Florentine Guelf official and author of the encyclopedia Li livres dou Trésor in French and of the long didactic poem Tesoretto in Italian. He served as an ambassador to the court of Alfonso X of Castile, but, learning of the Guelph disaster at Montaperti in 1260, as he was returning, decided to sojourn for six years in France, repatriating to Florence only after the Ghibelline defeat at Benevento in 1266.

[243] That people: the Florentines. After Caesar defeated Cataline at Fiesole (v. 62) to the northeast, crude rustics (cf. v. 63) from that town first mixed with Roman nobility in the founding of Florence and then in a second immigration a thousand years later. The White Guelphs were thought to descend from the Fiesolans, the Black from the Romans.

[244] The proverbial blindness of the Florentines has been attributed to their allowing Totila into the city gates to destroy them and to their choosing two damaged porphyry columns instead of two beautifully crafted city gates as recompense for having protected Pisa from the Luccans.

[245] In vv. 88–90, the phrase other texts refers to the prophecies of Ciacco and Farinata. One who’ll know is Beatrice. The interpretive gloss, however, will be made by Cacciaguida.

[246] Priscian: of Caesarea, a sixth-century Latin grammarian, not known to have committed the sin in question, which led some early commentators to believe that he stands for the class of grammar teachers, who can easily take advantage of compliant students entrusted to their care.

[247] (Francesco) Di Accorso: a lawyer and professor of civil law (1225–1293) at the universities of Bologna and Oxford.

[248] The one alluded to in vv. 110–114 is Andrea de’ Mozzi, bishop of Florence from 1287–1295, after which he was transferred for his scandalous life to the See of Vicenza on the Bacchiglione River (v. 113) by Pope Boniface VIII (ironically called the Servants’ Servant in v. 112). He died there as a sodomite (cf. v. 114).

[249] Treasure: Brunetto’s encyclopedic work.

[250] Vv. 121–123 describe an annual race held in Verona on the first Sunday of Lent. The winner won a green cloth.

[251] Another ring: the eighth circle, where simple fraud is punished. It is split off from the seventh by a great precipice.

[252] Another band: of sodomites. Those in Brunetto’s band were intellectuals, these public figures.

[253] Our perverted land: Florence.

[254] Gualdrada (v. 37): daughter of Bellincione Berti, wife of Guido Guerra IV, and known for beauty and modesty. Guido Guerra (ca. 1220–1272): son of Marcovaldo, grandson of Guido Guerra IV and Gualdrada, Guelph leader wisely opposing the expedition against Siena in 1260 (cf. his wits, v. 39), and leader at the Battle of Benevento in 1266 (cf. his blade. v. 39).

[255] Tegghiaio (three syllables with -iai as a triphthong) Aldobrandi: Florentine Guelph of the Adimari family and podestà of Arezzo (1256), who also opposed the Siena expedition, hence v. 42.

[256] Jacop(o) Rusticucci: Guelph contemporary of the other two, perhaps a rich merchant, whose shrewish wife supposedly drove him to sodomy (cf. v. 45).

[257] Guglielmo Borsier(e): a purse maker and newly arrived man of society.

[258] People newly come: to Florence from her environs.

[259] In vv. 94–102, the stream (v. 94) is the Acquacheta (v. 97), which rises near the monastery of San Benedetto (dell’Alpe) (v. 100) to the left side or east of the Apennines (v. 96) and changes its name to Montone beyond the city of Forlì (v. 99), situated in the valley’s lower bed (v. 98) or plain of Romagna. In Dante’s day, it was the first river east of Monte Viso (v. 95) at the head of the Po to flow into the Adriatic.

[260] The meaning of the Italian of this verse is disputed. This interpretation seems to me the most likely.

[261] The creature described here is Geryon (v. 97), who in classical mythology was a three-headed or three-bodied winged monster and king of Spain, whom, as one of his twelve labors, Hercules killed in bringing his cattle to his cousin, Eurystheus. In medieval legend, he was said to invite strangers to his house, rob them, and kill them.

[262] Ashore: to the brink.

[263] Arachne: a Lydian maiden so skilled in weaving that she challenged the goddess Minerva to a contest. Enraged at the perfection of her work, Minerva tore her cloth to shreds, at which Arachne hanged herself. Minerva, however, loosened the noose and turned the rope into a web with Arachne as its spider.

[264] People sitting: the usurers.

[265] Certain sign: an escutcheon. Certain hue: the background color. The following verses describe the coats of arms of various prominent families: the Gianfigliazzi, a Guelph family of Florence (vv. 59–60); the Ubriacchi, a Ghibelline family of Florence (vv. 62–63); the Scrovegni of Padua (vv. 64–65); and the Becchi, a Ghibelline family of Florence (v. 73).

[266] Vitaliano: del Dente, podestà of Padua in 1307, or perhaps Vitaliano di Jacopo Vitaliani. Both are mentioned in documents as moneylenders.

[267] Paduan: thought to be Reginaldo degh Scrovegni, who boasts of the superiority in sin of his countryman over the Florentines.

[268] The sovran cavalier (v. 72) may be Gianni Buiamonte (1260–1310), knighted around 1298, member of a money-lending establishment with whose money he had absconded by 1308. He died in poverty in 1310.

[269] Quartan fever: a malarial fever with shivering fits every four days.

[270]  My other plight: perhaps before the Gorgon at the gates of Dis.

[271] Phaethon: son of Phoebus. He attempted to drive the chariot of the sun to prove himself the child of Apollo but, losing control, nearly ignited the earth, for which Jupiter killed him with a thunderbolt.  The sky scorched thereby can still be seen in the Milky Way (cf. v. 108).

[272] Icarus: son of the artisan Daedalus. He fell into the sea when, flying too close to the sun, it melted the wax of the wings his father had made for him in order to escape from Crete.

[273] Whirlpool: the water of Phlegethon cascading into the pool below.

[274] Naked sinners: panderers, coming counterclockwise towards the Poets, and seducers, proceeding clockwise with them.

[275] The Jubilee: the first year of Jubilee proclaimed by Boniface VIII in a papal bull of February 22, 1300, granting a plenary indulgence to pilgrims visiting the basilicas of San Pietro and San Paolo fuori le Mura within a period of fifteen days and confessing their sins.

[276] Some two hundred thousand pilgrims visiting Rome crossed the Ponte Sant’Angelo, a bridge (v. 29) over the Tiber. As they went towards the Basilica, they faced a Castle (v. 31) named Castel Sant’Angelo, which was the Mausoleum of Hadrian. As they returned, they faced Monte Giordano, the Mount on the other side.

[277] Venedico Caccianemico: dell’ Orso, of Bologna (ca. 1228–1303), Guelph podestà on different occasions of Pistoia, Modena, Imola, and Milan. He pandered his own sister, Ghisolabell(a) (v. 55), delivering her up to the Marquis Obizzo II d’Este (v. 56) in order to win his favor.

[278] Tart sauces: both a sharp punishment and a ravine named Salse (sauces) outside Bologna where they threw the corpses of criminals, the excommunicated, and suicides.

[279] Sipa: archaic dialect for sia, “so be it,” often used for “yes,” in Bologna and her territories, whose eastern and western limits are marked by the Savena and Reno (v. 61), both rivers rising in the Tuscan Apennines and flowing north through Emilia.

[280] Ill-born prey: the seducers.

[281] A great one: Jason, the subject of vv. 83–96. He led the Argonauts and stole the golden fleece of King Aeetes of Colchis (cf. v. 87) in order to recover the throne of Iolcus from his half-brother, Pelias. En route, he stopped at Lemnos (v. 88) and seduced Hypsipyle (v. 92), daughter of King Thoas, whom she claimed to have slain, deceiving the other women (cf. v. 93), who had killed all the men of the island to avenge themselves for the men’s neglect of them (cf. vv. 89–90). In Colchis, Medea (v. 96), daughter of King Aeetes, plied magic to help Jason slay the dragon that guarded the golden fleece and to yoke two fire-breathing oxen to sow the dragon’s teeth in fulfillment of her father’s conditions for handing over the fleece. Jason married Medea, but then deserted her for Creusa, daughter of King Creon of Corinth. Medea poisoned Creusa and murdered her own two children in revenge.

[282] Moaning bands: of flatterers punished in the second ditch.

[283] Alessio Interminei: of a prominent White Guelph family of Lucca. Little is known of him except that he died sometime after 1295.

[284] Thais: a courtesan in Terence’s drama Eunuchus. In the play, Thraso, her lover, asks Gnatho, the intermediary through whom he had sent Thais a slave, if the gift had pleased her, and Gnatho makes the reply. Dante mistakenly puts the response into the mouth of Thais herself, with Cicero’s De amicitia as his source.

[285] Simon Magus: a Samarian magician converted by Philip in the Acts of the Apostles. He attempted to buy the power of conferring the Holy Spirit and was reproached by St. Peter. Sad retinue: the “simonists” or “simoniacs,” who buy or sell the things of God (v. 2), such as ecclesiastical pardons, offices, or emoluments. They are punished in the third trench (v. 6).

[286] San Giovanni: the Baptistery of Florence, of St. John the Baptist, the city’s patron saint, where Dante was baptized. It was probably surrounded by holes in which the priests stood to baptize.

[287] Vv. 49–51 refer to a punishment for assassins by which the criminal was stuck headfirst in a hole that was then filled with dirt so that he would choke to death. Dante kneels down with his ear close to the ground like a priest hearing the last confession of the condemned.

[288] Boniface: Boniface VIII (1235–1303), pope from 1294 until his death, accused of being elected by fraud, using his sacred office to enrich himself, widely practicing nepotism, and contributing to the destruction of the Florentine White Guelphs (which led to Dante’s exile).

[289] In vv. 56–57, taking on the sly refers to Boniface’s allegedly fraudulent election; the lovely Maid is the Church, the Bride of Christ and of his vicar, the pope; and the disgrace is the prostitution of the Church through simony, like a husband giving his wife to the highest bidder.

[290] Offspring of the bear: Nicholas III, pope from 1277 to 1280, and member of the Orsini family, referred to because of their family name and coat of arms as “sons of the she-bear.” He advanced the cubs (v. 71) through nepotism.

[291] Vv. 82–84 allude to Clement V, pope (after the brief rule of Benedict XI) from 1305 to 1314, a simoniac and puppet of Philip the Fair, condemned for his transfer of the papacy to Avignon in 1309 and his treachery to Henry VII in 1312.

[292] In vv. 85–87, as Jason bought the high priesthood from King Antiochus IV Epiphanes for 360 talents of silver, so Clement V promised Philip the Fair all the tithes of his realm in exchange for the latter’s support in his election to the papacy.

[293] Mathias was chosen by lot to replace Judas Iscariot (the guilty soul).

[294] Nicholas III allegedly received funds from the Eastern Emperor Michael Palaeologus to foment a rebellion known as the Sicilian Vespers, led by Giovanni da Procida against Charles d’Anjou, who had refused to marry Nicholas’ niece.

[295] The Evangelist: St. John. Dante conflates the harlot and the beast of the Book of Revelation into a single symbol of the corrupt medieval Church, which whores with the civil power. She was born with seven heads (sacraments, gifts of the Holy Spirit, or virtues) and is protected by ten horns (commandments) a long as her husband, the pope, loves virtue.

[296] Vv. 115–117 refer to the “Donation of Constantine.” Before moving his court to Byzantium, the Emperor Constantine the Great (306–337) (v. 115) supposedly donated his temporal power in the West to Pope Sylvester I (cf. v. 117) for having been cured by him of leprosy.

[297] Those described in this tercet had committed the sin of divination.

[298] Amphiaraus: brother-in-law of Adrastus, king of Argos, who led the Seven against Thebes. As a soothsayer, he foresaw that none but Adrastus would return alive. It had been agreed that his wife, Eriphyle, should decide any disagreement between Adrastus and him. Bribed by Polynices with a necklace of Harmonia, she opted for the expedition, only to be slain by Alcmaeon, her son by Amphiaraus, for her betrayal. As Amphiaraus was fleeing the enemy, a thunderbolt hurled by Jupiter cleft the ground. He fell in and was swallowed up (cf. v. 35).

[299] Tiresias: a Theban soothsayer changed into a woman when he uncoupled two snakes with his staff and back into a man seven years later the same way (cf. vv. 40–45). Jupiter and Juno asked him which sex felt more pleasure in love, since he had known both. He agreed with the former that women did. The irate Juno blinded him, but Jupiter gave him with the gift of prophecy.

[300] Aruns: Etruscan diviner who foretold the civil war between Pompey and Caesar and its outcome. Luni (v. 47): an ancient Etruscan port near the mouth of the Magra between Liguria and Etruria, already in ruins in Dante’s time. The Carrarese (v. 48): inhabitants of Carrara, in Tuscany, known for its white marble quarries (cf. v. 49).

[301] Manto: Theban prophetess, daughter of Tiresias. She fled Thebes after her father’s death (cf. v. 58) to escape the tyranny of Creon (cf. v. 59) and went to settle in Italy, where Mantua, Virgil’s birthplace, was to be founded (cf. v. 56). In the Aeneid, however, Virgil has Ocnus, the son of an Etruscan Manto by Tuscus, the god of the Tiber, found Mantua in her honor.

[302] Bacchus’ city: Thebes.

[303] Benaco (v. 62): Lake Garda in eastern Lombardy. The alps (v. 62): the Venostian Alps. Tirol: not the whole region in southwestern Austria and northern Italy, but a twelfth-century castle named “Tiralli” built by the counts of Venosta on the Adige River near Merano.

[304] Pennine (v. 64) (two syllables): an Alpine region between Garda, a city on the eastern shore of the lake, fifteen miles northwest of Verona, and Val Camonica, a valley to the west of the city.

[305] Vv. 67–69 probably refer to Lechi Island in Lake Garda, where the three dioceses of Trent, Brescia, and Verona meet. Their bishops held the Church of Santa Margherita in common.

[306] Vv. 70–72 describe the town and fortress of Peschiera, maintained by the Scaligeri, lords of Verona, and located at the southeast shore of Lake Garda, twenty miles southeast of Brescia and fifty miles southeast of Bergamo.

[307] Mincio: a river flowing out of Lake Garda at Peschiera, damning into a lake north of Mantua, and entering the Po at Governol(o) (cf. v. 78), twelve miles to the south of Mantua.

[308] Pinamonte de’ Buonaccorsi (cf. v. 95) advised Count Alberto da Casalodi to exile many nobles, including his own supporters, from Mantua to relieve popular hostility towards the ruling family. Backed by the populace, Pinamonte then overthrew the defenseless Casalodi in 1272.

[309] In vv. 106–114, Calchas (v. 110), the son of Thestor, was a soothsayer who advised Agamemnon to sacrifice Iphigenia to appease Diana when sailing to Troy from Aulis (v. 110). Eurypalus (v. 112) reported the oracle of Apollo that the return from Troy must also be accompanied by sacrifice. Dante seems to have conflated the two incidents.

[310] My lofty tragedy: the Aeneid.

[311] Michael Scot: court astrologer (ca. 1175–ca. 1235) to Frederick II at Palermo and translator of astronomical, philosophical, and scientific works from Arabic into Latin.

[312] Guy (Guido) Bonatti: an astrologer from Forlì who served Guido da Montefeltro, Emperor Frederick II, Ezzelino III da Romano, and Guido Novello da Polenta. Asdente: Maestro Benvenuto, the “Toothless,” a cobbler from Parma (hence vv. 119–120), known in the second half of the thirteenth century as a prophet and augur.

[313] According to Italian folklore, for killing his brother, Abel, Cain (v. 124) was thought to have been sent with a bundle of thorns to the moon, which is now setting in the West beneath Seville (v. 125), on the borderline of the hemisphere of land and that of water (cf. v. 126). The sun is therefore rising in the East, and it is about 6:00 a.m. on Holy Saturday.

[314] From bridge to bridge: from the fourth to the fifth bridge.

[315] Another fissured ring: the fourth ditch, where barrators are punished.

[316] Malebranche: a collective name meaning “Evil Claws” for the overseers of the fifth ditch.

[317] Elders: ten municipal officers in Lucca holding office for two months, corresponding to the Florentine priors. The elder mentioned here may have been Martino Bottaio, who died the very day Virgil and Dante arrive at the fifth ditch. St. Zita: a servant who earned such trust from the master of the family she served for fifty years that he entrusted his whole household to her, allowing her to distribute alms to the needy out of his surplus. She died ca. 1275 and was canonized by Nicholas III. She is the patron saint of Lucca, where she is buried.

[318] Bonturo (Dati): head of the popular party in Lucca in the early 1300’s. His being excepted is meant ironically, since he appears to have been the worst offender in this sin.

[319] The Holy Face: an ancient Byzantine crucifix carved out of dark wood, preserved in the cathedral of San Martino in Lucca. The sinner may have provoked the jibe by emerging to float on his back on the pitch with his arms outstretched in the shape of a cross, as if swimming in the Serchio (v. 49), a river near Lucca. But other interpretations of v. 48 have been proposed.

[320] The sixth embankment: dividing the fifth from the sixth ditch.

[321] Malacoda: a name meaning “Evil Tail.”

[322] Vv. 94–96 give Dante’s personal recollection of the siege made in 1289 by the allied Guelph forces of Florence, Lucca, and Siena against Caprona, a castle on the Arno near Pisa. The surrendering Pisan soldiers passed through the enemy ranks under truce.

[323] Scarmiglione: perhaps “Tousler” or “Ruffler.”

[324] Vv. 112–114 refer to the crucifixion of Christ, who died at noon (on Good Friday, 34 AD), according to the Poet’s interpretation of Luke’s Gospel. It is therefore 7:00 a.m. on Holy Saturday, 1300.

[325] Some of the names in vv. 118–123 have more or less obvious translations. Alichino: One Who Bends the Wing, or perhaps the French Arlequin, leader of the wild hunt; Calcabrina: He Who Walks On Brine; Cagnazzo: Mean Dog; Babbariccia: Curly Beard; Libicocco: Hot Air (a cross between libeccio and scirocco); Draghinazzo: Big Dragon; Ciriatto: Pig; Graffiacane: Dog Scratcher; Rubicante: Rubicund; Farfarello: Evil Spirit. Some of these may be distortions of the names of contemporary Florentine magistrates.

[326] Aretines: Dante is probably referring to the battle of Campaldino on June 11, 1289, where the Guelphs of Florence defeated the Ghibellines of Arezzo.

[327] A bugle so bizarre: refers to the closing line of the previous canto.

[328] The early commentators identify this sinner as Ciampolo, but add no information beyond that given here.

[329] Good King Thibault: Thibault II, count of Champagne, son-in-law of Louis IX of France, and king of Navarre (1253–1270), known for his justice and clemency.

[330] Enfork: may mean putting his wings around him without actually touching him.

[331] That place: Sardinia.

[332] Fra Gomita: a Sardinian friar, chancellor of Nino Visconti, who was the governor of Pisa  and judge of Gallura (v. 82) (a judicial district of the Pisa-owned Sardinia) in the last quarter of the thirteenth century. The judge ignored complaints of graft against Fra Gomita but finally hanged him for releasing prisoners for a bribe.

[333] Michele Zanche: di Logodoro (another judicial district of Sardinia). Earlier accounts that he was the vicar of King Enzio in Sardinia and married the king’s mother upon the king’s death have been discredited. He was probably mixed up in political intrigues and assassinated by his son-in-law, Branca d’Oria, in 1275.

[334] He … who’d been the most unripe to yield: Cagnazzo.

[335] That demon guide: Barbariccia.

[336] The blunder’s cause: Alichino.

[337] He: the grafter.

[338] He: Calcabrina.

[339] This fable, attributed to Aesop, concerns a mouse who asks a frog’s help in crossing a stream. The frog ties the mouse to his leg by a string, starts to swim, then dives midstream to drown the mouse. While they are struggling, a kite swoops down, snatches the frog, and frees the mouse.

[340] Another trench: the sixth ditch, separated from the fifth by the right bank of v. 31.

[341] Painted folk: the hypocrites, wearing gilded leaden mantles (cf. v. 64).

[342] Cluny: a town in east central France, twelve miles northwest of Mâcon. Its Benedictine abbey (910–1790) was the parent house of the Cluniac order.

[343] Frederick: Emperor Frederick II, who punished treason by putting criminals in a leaden covering into a cauldron of boiling water, so that the lead melted on the man, taking off his skin.

[344] Crowd: literally, “college,” as in an ecclesiastical assembly.

[345] The great city: Florence, on the Arno river (v. 95).

[346] Jolly Friars: members of the Knights of the Blessed Virgin Mary, founded at Bologna in 1261 to pacify warring political factions, reconcile estranged family members, and protect the weak. Their nickname derives from the laxity of their rule. Catalano (v. 104): de Malavolti (ca. 1210–1285), Guelph podestà of various cities of Emilia and Lombardy, commander of a Bolognese infantry division, and cofounder of the Jolly Friars. Loderingo (v. 104): degh Andalò (ca. 1210–1293), Ghibelline podestà in several Emilian and Tuscan cities, cofounder of the Jolly Friars. These two were jointly established in the office of podestà in Florence in 1266 by Pope Clement IV, ostensibly to reconcile Guelph and Ghibelline factions but in reality to rid the city of the latter, which occurred during their tenure.

[347] Gardingo: an area of Florence around the Palazzo Vecchio, where Ghibelline leaders (the Uberti) had their houses destroyed during the tenure of Catalano and Loderingo.

[348] The spirit: Caiaphas, the Jewish high priest under whose reign Jesus was condemned to death.

[349] His wife’s father: Annas, Caiaphas’ father-in-law, who delivered Jesus to him.

[350] Sanhedrin: the ruling council of the Jews in Roman-occupied Palestine.

[351] A seed of evil for the Jews: the condemnation of Christ was, in Dante’s view, divinely avenged by the destruction of Jerusalem and the dispersal of the Jews.

[352] On the right: the bank that divides the sixth from the seventh ditch.

[353] At Bologna: in the schools of theology.

[354] In vv. 1–6, his mane (v. 2) is the sun’s rays, and since the sun in Aquarius (January 21 to February 21) is nearing the equator to the north, the night is moving towards the south (v. 3).  The hoarfrost’s sister (v. 5) is the snow, and the frost will soon melt (v. 6).

[355] The slope upon the dike: the inclined face of the bank between the sixth and seventh ditches.

[356] The shore: the bank on either side of the ditch.

[357] That crew: of hypocrites.

[358] A longer stair: either the shaggy legs of Lucifer at the end of the Inferno, or from the pit of Hell to the earth’s surface, or up the Mount of Purgatory.

[359] One ditch on: the seventh.

[360] That next belt: the next circular embankment. The wall: the side of the embankment.

[361] Lybia: North Africa, excepting Egypt, thought of as an abode of snakes born from drops of Medusa’s blood. Vv. 86–87 mention various species of snakes.

[362] Ethiopia (v. 89): the territory west of the Red Sea south from Egypt to Zanzibar. The lands within the Red Sea’s view: the Arabian desert.

[363] People: the thieves punished in this ditch.

[364] Witching stone: the heliotrope, a stone that supposedly made the wearer invisible.

[365] The phoenix: a mythical Arabian bird cremated every 500 years on a pyre of incense only to rise again from its ashes.

[366] Vanni Fucci: illegitimate son (mule) of Fuccio de’ Lazzari of Pistoia. He was a violent partisan of the Black Guelphs (cf. 128) and apparently nicknamed beast.

[367] In 1293 Vanni Fucci, with some accomplices, robbed the treasury of the church of San Zeno at Pistoia, for which Rampino Foresi was unjustly accused and almost executed. Although sentenced in 1295 for murder and brigandage, Fucci eluded punishment until his death in 1300.

[368] The Blacks were expelled from Pistoia in May, 1301. But on All Saints Day of that year, Charles de Valois entered Florence and facilitated the return there of the Black Guelph Corso Donati and his adherents, who gained control and exiled the Whites, Dante included, in 1302.

[369] The basics of vv. 145–150 are perhaps to be interpreted thus: Mars, the god of war, will bring forth the Black Guelph Moroello Malaspina (vapor) from Val di Magra in Lunigiana. Although surrounded by the Pistoians (clouds) on Camp(o) Piceno, the plain of Pistoia, he will break through their ranks (cleave the mist). These things happened in 1302.

[370] The figs: an obscene sign made by pushing the thumb through the first two fingers of a fist.

[371] Your seed: the city founders, supposedly survivors of Cataline’s men after his defeat in 62 BC.

[372] He who fell from Thebes’ high wall: Capaneus in the seventh circle, third ring.

[373] Maremma: a snake-infested, malarious swamp along the coast of Tuscany.

[374] Cacus: son of Vulcan and Medusa. He stole some of Geryon’s cattle guarded by Hercules, dragging them backwards to his Aventine cave (cf. v. 26) to deceive pursuers (cf. v. 29), but was discovered nevertheless and killed by Hercules (cf. vv. 31–33).

[375] Brothers: the centaur guardians of the seventh circle, first ring.

[376] Three more spirits: Agnello (cf. v. 68), Buoso (cf. v. 140), and Puccio (cf. v. 148).

[377] Cianfa: de’ Donati (d. ca. 1289), cattle thief and shop burglar.

[378] A serpent: Cianfa, transformed into a snake. Vv. 49–78 describe the first metamorphosis of Cianfa the snake and Agnello the man. The second metamorphosis of Buoso the man and Guercio the snake occurs in vv. 85–135. In both cases, I use masculine pronouns and possessive adjectives for the man and neuter ones for the snake.

[379] Agnello: de’ Brunelleschi (a Florentine Ghibelline family), first a White then a Black Guelph, with a history of theft from childhood.

[380] The twain: Buoso and Puccio.

[381] A blazing little serpent: Francesco Guercio de’ Cavalcanti (cf. v. 151).

[382] Nasidius and sad Sabellus: Roman soldiers under Cato. They were bitten by venomous snakes in Libya, which caused the flesh of the former to rot and that of the latter to swell and burst.

[383] Cadmus: king of Phoenicia and founder of Thebes. He was changed into a serpent for having slain a dragon sacred to Mars. Arethusa: a wood nymph from Elis, whom the river god Alpheus pursued until Diana changed her into a fountain.

[384] The third: Puccio Sciancato (cf. v. 148). Buoso: Buoso degh Abati or Buoso Donati.

[385] The seventh ballast: a ship’s shifting cargo resembles the seventh ditch’s transformations.

[386] Puccio Sciancato: Puccio de’ Galigai, the “lame,” who supposedly committed theft openly, not stealthily, and is therefore not changed into a serpent.

[387] The other one: Francesco “Guercio” de’ Cavalcanti (the little snake of v. 83), murdered by the citizens of Gaville (three syllables) in the Upper Val d’Arno. The Cavalcanti took ruthless vengeance on the city.

[388] Prato: probably Cardinal Nicolò da Prato, who placed Florence under an interdict and excommunicated its citizens after failing to reconcile its rival factions in 1304. Several disasters struck the city shortly thereafter.

[389] The season is the summer solstice; the time of day is dusk.

[390] The eighth abyss: where false counselors are punished.

[391] This line refers to Elisha, who saw Elijah (v. 35) ascend to Heaven in a fiery chariot.

[392] Eteocles … with his brother: Eteocles and Polynices slew each other in combat for the crown of their father, Oedipus, whom they had dethroned. When they were cremated on the same pyre, the flame split in two.

[393] Ulysses: of Ithaca, son of Laertes, father of Telemachus by Penelope, and hero of Homer’s Odyssey. Diomedes: son of Tydeus and Deipyle, king of Argos, and accomplice of Ulysses.

[394] The horse’s ambush: the wooden horse, a pretended atonement for the theft of the Palladium (cf. v. 63). Armed Greeks hid in it and thus gained entrance to Troy, later opening the gates to their armies. As a result Aeneas fled Troy to become the father of Rome (cf. v. 60).

[395] Thetis left her son, Achilles, disguised as a woman, with Deidamia, daughter of Lycomedes, king of Sparta, to save him from the Trojan War. When Ulysses and Diomedes persuaded Achilles to sail to Troy with them after discovering his identity, Deidamia died of grief.

[396] The Palladium: the fabled statue of Pallas Athena, given by Jupiter to Ilus, the founder of Troy. It assured the safety of the city as long as it remained within its walls.

[397] The greater horn: Ulysses.

[398] Circe: a sorceress, daughter of Helios and Perse, and sister of Aeetes. She lived on the island of Aeaea on the north side of the Gulf of Gaeta (v. 92). When Ulysses landed there, she changed his men into swine, but he resisted by virtue of an herb named moly given him by Mercury.

[399] Aeneas named Gaeta (ancient Caieta), a town northwest of Naples on the Tyrrhenian coast, for his nurse, Caieta.

[400] Penelope: Ulysses’ wife, who waited twenty years for his return from the Trojan War. She stalled her suitors by promising to choose one when her weaving was done, but unraveled by night what she had woven by day.

[401] The one and other strand: of Europe and Africa on the Mediterranean.

[402] That narrow outlet: the Strait of Gibraltar, bounded by the Pillars of Hercules (cf. v. 108), namely the promontory of Abyla in North Africa and that of Calpe in Spain.

[403] Seville: a city in southwestern Spain on the Guadalquivir River.

[404] Ceuta: a city in Morocco, across from Gibraltar.

[405] That is, they sailed towards the west.

[406] That is, sailing now towards the southwest.

[407] In vv. 127–129, they have crossed the equator. The other pole (v. 127) is the Antarctic, which is now visible with its stars. The North Star has sunk below sea level.

[408] That is, they had journeyed for five months.

[409] The mountain referred to in vv. 133–135 is the Mount of Purgatory.

[410] Another: God.

[411] The bull of Sicily: in the sixth century BC, Phalaris, a tyrant of Agrigentum in Sicily, enclosed his victims in a brass bull, roasting them alive, so that their screams imitated the bellowing of a bull. It was first tested on Perillus, its maker (cf. vv. 8–9).

[412] The unidentified speaker is Guido da Montefeltro, the “Fox,” (ca. 1220–1298), Ghibelline leader, military commander, and, late in life, a Franciscan. The year he died, he advised Pope Boniface VIII on how to raze the stronghold of Palestrina held by the Colonna family, for which he is placed among the false counselors.

[413] Romagnoles: inhabitants of Romagna, a historical region of north-central Italy, now part of Emilia-Romagna.

[414] The ridge: the Apennines, between which and Urbino lies Montefeltro.

[415] There had been twenty-five years of war in Romagna prior to 1300.

[416] Polenta’s eagle (v. 41): an eagle graced the arms of the Polenta family, lords from 1270 to 1441 of Ravenna (v. 40), a city in northeastern Italy, six miles inland from the Adriatic, under whose dominion was Cervia, a town on the Adriatic, fourteen miles southeast of Ravenna.

[417] The land referred to in v. 43 is Forlì, a central town of Romagna. Under the leadership of Guido da Montefeltro, it overcame a year-long siege by the French and Italian forces, led by Jean d’Eppes, of Pope Martin IV. It was presently ruled by the Ordelaffi family, the upper half of whose coat of arms bore a green lion on a gold field.

[418] The old mastiff is Malatesta da Verruchio (d. 1312), who defeated the Ghibelline forces of Montagna de’ Parcitati at Rimini in 1295 and entrusted him as prisoner to his son; the new mastiff is Malatestino, lord of Rimini from 1312 to 1317, who put Montagna to death.

[419] Maghinardo Pagani da Susinana, whose arms had a blue lion on a white field (cf. v. 50), was in 1290 lord of Faenza, on the Lamone River (v. 49), nineteen miles southwest of Ravenna, and in 1296 of Imola, on the Santerno River (v. 49), twenty-one miles southeast of Bologna. Although Ghibelline, he acted as a Guelph towards Florence, which cared for him on his father’s death.

[420] Cesena, on the River Savio (two syllables) (v. 52) between Forlì and Rimini, was a free commune juridically but nevertheless dominated by Galasso da Montefeltro from 1296 to 1300.

[421] That High Priest: a sarcastic reference to Pope Boniface VIII.

[422] The prince of the new Pharisees: Boniface VIII. He warred with the Colonna family, who disputed the legitimacy of the abdication of Celestine V and therefore of the papacy of Boniface VIII. Their stronghold was in Palestrina (v. 102), twenty miles southeast of Rome, and thus near the Lateran (v. 86), the papal residence.

[423] Acre (v. 89): a city and seaport of Israel eighty miles northwest of Jerusalem. The Saracens took it from the Christians in 1291, whereupon Pope Nicholas IV forbade all commerce with Egypt under pain of excommunication, leaving the Jews (cf. v. 87) to trade in the Sultan’s land.

[424] My cord: the garb of the Franciscan order.

[425] According to legend, the Emperor Constantine (v. 94) was afflicted with leprosy for having persecuted the Church. St. Peter and St. Paul appeared to him in a dream, instructing him to seek out Pope Sylvester I (314–335) at his refuge on Mount Soracte (v. 94). He did so, was baptized, and was immediately cured. In gratitude, he brought Rome to Christianity and bestowed the city on Sylvester I along with temporal power in the West.

[426] In 1298 the Colonna family surrendered to papal forces on a promise (cf. v. 110) of complete amnesty, but Boniface VIII then razed Palestrina.

[427] The keys: the power of binding and loosing given up by his predecessor (v. 105), Celestine V.

[428] Guido died in September of 1298, the very month Boniface VIII made his long promise and short payment. St. Francis: the founder of the Franciscan order, to which Guido belonged.

[429] Cherubim: thought to be the second order of angels.

[430] Words unbound: prose, which is “unbound” or free of rhyme.

[431] Apulia (three syllables): the southern extremity of Italy.

[432] Trojan men: the Romans descended from Aeneas. The reference is to the wars with the Tarentines (280–274 BC) and Samnites (343–290 BC).

[433] Livy: the Roman historian (59 BC–17 AD). At the battle of Cannae (216 BC) in the Second Punic War, Hannibal sent a peck of gold rings taken from the bodies of fallen Roman soldiers to the senate house at Carthage as proof of his victory.

[434] Robert Guiscard (in French): Norman adventurer (1015–1085), duke of Apulia and Calabria, fought the Greeks and Saracens in southern Italy and Sicily.

[435] Ceperan’: Ceprano, a town in southeast Latium, where the Apulians betrayed Manfred, natural son of Frederick II, by allowing free passage to the troops of Charles d’Anjou into Naples just before the battle of Benevento, February 26, 1266, where Manfred was killed.

[436] Alardo (Érard de Valéry) (ca. 1200–1277) advised Charles d’Anjou to keep reserve troops to rout the forces of Conradin, nephew of Manfred, at Tagliacozzo (v. 17) in central Italy in 1268.

[437] The ninth abyss: where sowers of discord are punished.

[438] Mohammed: founder of the Mohammedan religion (ca. 570–632). In Dante’s day he was thought to be a Christian schismatic and possibly a frustrated cardinal aspiring to the papacy.

[439] Ali (ca. 600–661): Mohammed’s nephew and husband of his daughter, Fatima. His contested caliphate split Islam into Sunnite and Shiite sects in 656.

[440] Fra Dolcino: Dolcino Tornielli da Novara (d. 1307), second leader of the Apostolic Brethren. He was accused of teaching a community of goods and women, for which Clement V proclaimed a crusade against them. He was finally burned at the stake in Novara with his alleged mistress, Margaret of Trent, after being forced by starvation to surrender with his followers at the stronghold of Zebello, between Vercelli and Novara (cf. vv. 59–60).

[441] Another: Piero da Medicina (cf. v. 73), described as a sower of discord between the Polenta family of Ravenna and the Malatesta family of Rimini, and other lords of Romagna.

[442] On Latin soil: in Italy.

[443] Vercelli, a town northeast of Turin, and Marcabò, a castle near Ravenna, mark the northwestern and southeastern limits of the Po Valley.

[444] Angiolell(o) da Carignagno and Guido del Cassero, Fanese nobles, were ambushed and drowned at Focara ca. 1312 by Malatestino, who, in order to seize the lordship of Fano had invited them to a parley at La Cattolica (v. 80) on the Adriatic, between Rimini and Pesaro.

[445] Cyprus and Majorca: the eastern and western limits of the Mediterranean.

[446] Neptune: god of the sea.

[447] Argive sailors: inhabitants of Argos, famed as sea robbers, and by extension all Greeks, with a possible reference to the Argonauts.

[448] The traitor: Malatestino, who had only one eye.

[449] Its sight: that of Rimini (as in v. 92 as well), near which the Rubicon River drains into the Adriatic. The one who wishes he had never seen it is Gaius Curio (cf. vv. 96–102).

[450] Focara: a promontory between La Cattolica and Fano on the Adriatic feared for its treacherous winds. They need not pray for safety because they will already have been drowned.

[451] Gaius Scribonius Curio the Younger (d. 49 BC), a Roman tribune whom Caesar bribed to leave the Pompeian party. According to Lucan, when Caesar doubted about crossing the Rubicon to precipitate a civil war, Curio persuaded him to do so (cf. v. 97).

[452] Mosca: de’ Lamberti, a fanatical Ghibelline, who counseled the murder of the Guelph Buondelmonte de’ Buondelmonti in 1215 for having broken an engagement to the daughter of Lambertuccio degh Amidei and married one of the Donati. This murder started the long feud.

[453] The Lamberti family was expelled from Florence in 1258 and exiled as enemies of the people in 1268 and again in 1280.

[454] Bertran de Born (pronounce as in French): lord of Hautefort (ca. 1140–ca. 1215), soldier, famous troubadour, and finally a Cistercian monk, who allegedly stirred Prince Henry (1155–1183) (cf. v. 135) to rebel against his father, Henry II of England (cf. v. 136).

[455] In the Bible, Ahithophel bade Absalom rebel against his father, King David.

[456] The counterpoise (contrapasso): the law of retribution that determines with varying degrees of rigor the punishments in Hell.

[457] The sun is therefore over their heads, and it is between noon and 1:00 p.m. Twenty-four hours are allotted for the journey through Hell (cf. v. 11). Thus, about four to six hours remain.

[458] Geri del Bello: degh Alighieri, grandson of Alighiero I and first cousin to Alighiero II, Dante’s father. Reputedly a troublesome man, he was murdered by Brodaio de’ Sacchetti and later avenged by his nephews. The Alighieri and Sacchetti families made peace in 1342.

[459] The reference is to Bertran de Born, lord of Hautefort, near Périgueux, in Dordogne.

[460] The other vale: the tenth ditch, where falsifiers of metals (alchemists) are punished by paralysis and leprosy, of persons (impersonators) by delirium and madness, of coins (counterfeiters) by dropsy and thirst, and of words (liars) by raging fever.

[461] Maremma (v. 46): a coastal swamp in eastern Tuscany. Valdichiana: the valley of the Chiana, in western Tuscany, from Chiusi to Arezzo. Sardegna: the island of Sardinia. All three were thought to be infested with malaria.

[462] Dante alludes here to the myth of Aegina (v. 59), Asopus’ daughter, ravished by Jupiter on the island of Oenone, which her son, Aeacus, renamed for her. Jealous Juno decimated its population with a pestilence, but Jupiter repopulated it by changing ants into men, thus called “Myrmidons” (Greek myrmêx = ant).

[463]  Griffolino, an alchemist of Arezzo (v. 109), promised to teach Alber(o) da Siena (cf. v. 110) the art of Daedalus (v. 116), i.e., how to fly. Disappointed, Albero denounced him as a magician and had him burned at the stake by the bishop of Siena, reputedly his father (cf. v. 117).

[464] Vv. 125–132 name four members of the Sienese Brigata Spendereccia, or Spendthrift Brigade (the band of v. 130). The group consisted of twelve wealthy young men of the second half of the thirteenth century, who indulged in extravagance for its own sake and soon reduced themselves to poverty. Stricca (v. 125) and Niccolò (v. 127) de’ Salimbeni da Siena were probably brothers, the former perhaps podestà of Bologna in 1276 and 1286. It is not known exactly what use the latter made of the clove, an exotic spice (cf. v. 128). Caccia di Asciano (v. 131), the son of Messer Trovato di Asciano, squandered his vineyard and all his lands (cf. v. 131). The Abbagliato (v. 132) was either Folgore da San Gemignano, the poet of the band, who penned a series of sonnets celebrating the pleasures of each month of the year, or Bartolommeo de’ Folcacchieri, who held high offices in Siena and other cities from 1277 to 1300. It is uncertain how the latter may have demonstrated his wit (cf. v. 132).

[465] Capocchio (three syllables): an alchemist, counterfeiter of metals (cf. v. 137), and mimic (cf. v. 139), burned at the stake in Siena in 1293. He and Dante were acquaintances in their student years.

[466] Semele (three syllables): daughter of Cadmus and Harmonia, and mother by Jupiter of Dionysus, the patron of Thebes. Juno had her ask to see Jupiter as the God of Thunder, and his lightning destroyed her.

[467] Athamus: son of Aeolus and king of Thessaly, who married Nephele on Juno’s orders but later wed Ino, Semele’s sister and Dionysus’ nurse. Juno struck him with madness for his infidelity, or as further vengeance on Semele. He thus mistook his wife and sons for a lioness and cubs (cf. vv. 7–8), killing Learchus (cf. vv. 9–11), at which Ino drowned herself and Melicertes (cf. v. 12).

[468] V. 14 may refer to the Trojan king Laomedon’s refusal to pay Neptune and Apollo for their service and to Paris’ abduction of Helen of Troy.

[469] Hecuba: King Priam’s widow, captured with her daughter, Polixena (v. 17), who was sacrificed on the tomb of Achilles, to whom she had been promised. When the body of Hecuba’s son, Polydorus (v. 19), murdered by Polymnestor, washed up on the shore, she went insane with grief, changed into a dog (cf. vv. 19–20), and jumped into the sea.

[470] Gianni Schichi: a Florentine mimic, of the Cavalcanti family. When Buos(o) Donati (v. 44) died, his nephew Simone kept the death a secret and had Gianni impersonate Buoso to dictate a will in his favor (cf. vv. 44–45). Gianni also left a large sum of money and a fine mule, the “Lady of the Herd,” to himself (cf. v. 43).

[471] Myrrha: daughter of Cinyras, king of Cyprus. Out of an incestuous passion she disguised herself as her mother (cf. v. 41) and slept with her father (cf. v. 39). On discovering the impersonation, the King attempted to kill her, but she escaped to Arabia, where the gods transformed her into a myrrh tree. She gave birth to Adonis.

[472] Master Adam: counterfeited the standard twenty-four carat gold florin of Florence, which bore the image of her patron, John the Baptist, with a twenty-one carat coin (cf. v. 90), for the Conti Guidi of Romena (v. 73), for which he was burned at the stake in 1281 (cf. v. 75).

[473] Casentino: part of the upper valley of the Arno and Tuscan Apennines.

[474] Guido (v. 76), Alessandro, and their brother, either Aghinolfo or Ildebrandino, were the Conti Guidi of Romena, for whom the counterfeiting in question was done.

[475] Branda’s spring: either a fountain of Siena or a lesser known one near the castle of Romena.

[476] This verse refers to Potiphar’s wife, who attempted to seduce the Hebrew patriarch Joseph but, when he refused, falsely charged that he had tried to force himself on her.

[477] Sinon: the lying Greek who persuaded the Trojans to accept the wooden horse.

[478] Narcissus: son of Cephisus. He was a beautiful youth loved by Echo but indifferent to her passion, for which Nemesis caused him to become enamored of his own reflection in a fountain so that he pined away until nothing remained of him but the flower called by his name.

[479] Peleus, son of Aeacus and King of the Myrmidons of Phthia in Thessaly, gave his son, Achilles (v. 4), a spear with the power to heal those wounded by it, like Telephus, who was pierced in the Trojan War and then healed when rust from the spear was applied to his wound.

[480] Leading the rearguard back from an expedition in Spain, Roland was betrayed at Roncesvalles in the Pyrenees by his stepfather, Ganelon, to the Saracen king Marsile, who slaughtered the French forces. He blew his horn so loudly that Charlemagne (v. 17) heard it eight miles away.

[481] The giants may be standing on a ledge within the central pit. Structurally, they are similar to the fallen angels upon the walls of the City of Dis.

[482] Montereggioni: a fortified castle built in 1213, eight miles northwest of Siena, with fourteen towers added in the 1260’s to an encircling wall to protect the Sienese from the Florentines.

[483] Jove’s thunder still terrifies the giants who attacked Olympus.

[484] Mars: the god of war.

[485] St. Peter’s cone: a bronze pine cone, about seven and a half feet tall, in front of the old basilica of St. Peter’s in Dante’s day and presently in the gardens of the papal palace.

[486] Frisians: inhabitants of Friesland, a province in the Netherlands, noted for their height.

[487] Probably not intelligible speech, but an instance of the confusion of tongues (cf. vv. 76–81).

[488] Genesis describes Nimrod (v. 77) as a mighty hunter (hence his horn in v. 71), but Orosius and Augustine both depict him as a giant, thus facilitating his connection with the giants of classical mythology who besieged Jupiter. Since he ruled the land of Shinar, patristic and medieval tradition makes him the architect of the Tower of Babel, built in that region.

[489] Ephialtes: son of Neptune and Iphimedia, the wife of the giant Aloeus. He attacked Mount Olympus with his brother, Otus. Both were killed in the attack. Trials in v. 95 is pronounced as one syllable.

[490] Briareus: son of Uranus and Earth, and one of the giants who stormed Olympus.

[491] Antaeus: son of Neptune and Earth, and giant wrestler, invincible as long as he touched the earth. He dwelt in a cave in the Bagradas River Valley (cf. v. 115) and fed on lions that he had caught (cf. v. 118). It was thought that if he had taken part in the war against the gods, the giants would have succeeded (cf. vv. 119–121). Hercules lifted him from the ground and squeezed him to death, a struggle alluded to in v. 132.

[492] Five full ells: some reckon this distance at a little more than twenty-four and a half feet.

[493] That fateful valley’s pen: the valley of the Bagradas (the modern Medjerda) River in north central Tunisia, the site of Hannibal’s defeat by Scipio (v. 116), thereafter called Africanus, at the battle of Zama in 202 BC (cf. vv. 116–117).

[494] Tityus: son of Jupiter and Elara. He was slain by Apollo and Diana and cast down to Tartarus for assaulting Latona. Typhon (Typhoeus): son of Earth and Tartarus. He was a fire-breathing, hundred-headed giant, killed fighting the gods and buried by Jupiter under Mount Aetna.

[495] The Garisenda: though taller in Dante’s time, a presently 163-foot Bolognese tower that leans ten feet out of the perpendicular. It was built by Filippo and Oddo de’ Garisendi in 1110. Passing clouds seem to be stationary, whereas, to one standing beneath it, the tower seems to be falling.

[496] Amphion: son of Jupiter and Antiope. His music inspired by the Muses (the ladies of v. 10) charmed the stones from Mount Cithaeron to the city walls.

[497] A lake: Cocytus, the ninth circle, for traitors to kin, country, guests, and benefactors.

[498] The Danube: a river rising in southwestern Germany and emptying into the Black Sea.

[499] The Don: a river rising southeast of Tula, Russia, and flowing into the Sea of Azov.

[500] Mount Tambernic: probably Mount Tambura in the Apuan Alps in northwestern Tuscany.

[501] Pietrapana (four syllables): Pania della Croce, a peak of the Apuan Alps.

[502] Albert(o) (v. 56): degh Alberti, count of Mangona, who had castles in the river valley of the Bisenzo, which flows near Prato and enters the Arno ten miles west of Florence. His sons, the Guelph Alessandro and the Ghibelline Napoleone, killed each other in an inheritance dispute.

[503] Caïna: the first ring of Cocytus, for traitors to kin. It is named after the first murderer.

[504] The one referred to in vv. 61–62a is Mordred, traitorous nephew (or son) of King Arthur. After Arthur’s sword had pierced him, a ray of light passed through him and struck his shadow.

[505] Focaccia: Vanni de’ Cancellieri da Pistoia, a White Guelph, who murdered his cousin, Detto di Sinibaldo Cancellieri, a Black, in 1293.

[506] Sassol Mascheroni: de’ Toschi, who murdered a relative for the sake of an inheritance. He was rolled in a cask of nails and then beheaded.

[507] (Alberto) Camiscion(e) de’ Pazzi: murdered his relative Ubertino, perhaps to gain control of certain fortresses they held in common.

[508] Carlin(o): de’ Pazzi, bribed into betraying the White Guelph castle of Piantrevigne in Val d’Arno into the hands of the Blacks during the Florentine and Lucchese siege of Pistoia in 1302.

[509] The center: of the earth and of the Ptolemaic universe, towards which all heavy things tend.

[510] He: Bocca degh Abati (cf. v. 106), who lopped off the hand of the Guelph standard-bearer at the battle of Montaperti (v. 81). His treachery threw the Guelphs into a panic so that Manfred’s German cavalry was able to defeat them.

[511] Antenora: the second ring of the ninth circle, for traitors to country and party, named after the Trojan Antenor, thought to have betrayed his people to the Greeks, contrary to the Iliad.

[512] Him of Duera: Buoso da Duera, a Ghibelline leader of Cremona, perhaps bribed (cf. v. 115) to give Charles of Anjou safe passage through Lombardy and into Parma in 1265 on the way to fight Manfred for the kingdom of Naples.

[513] Him from Beccheria: Tesauro de’ Beccheria da Pavia, abbot of Vallombrosa and Alexander IV’s legate in Tuscany, beheaded by the Florentines in 1258 for conspiring with the Ghibellines.

[514] Gianni (de’) Soldanier(i): a Florentine Ghibelline, who led a mob against the government of Guido Novello, a member of his party, after Manfred’s defeat at the battle of Benevento in 1266.

[515] Ganelon: Ganellone, stepfather of Roland and one who betrayed Charlemagne’s rear-guard into the hands of the Saracens at Roncesvalles. Tibbald: Tebaldello de’ Zambrasi (d. 1282), a Ghibelline, who opened the city gates of Faenza (cf. v. 123) on November 13, 1280, to the Guelph Geremei of Bologna in order to avenge a grudge against some of the Ghibelline Lambertazzi residing there after their expulsion from Bologna.

[516] Tydeus (v. 130): king of Calydon, one of the Seven against Thebes. He slew Menalippus and before he himself died of a wound the latter had inflicted, seized his head, bit through the skull, and ate part of the brain.

[517] Ugolino: della Gherardesca, Conte di Donoratico, originally of a noble Ghibelline family. In 1286, he ceded five castles to the cities of Florence and Lucca to save Pisa from their threats, an action that some considered betrayal (cf. vv. 85–86). By 1288, he and his grandson Nino de’ Visconti were leaders of two rival Guelph parties in Pisa. He conspired with the Ghibelline Ruggieri degh Ubaldini, archbishop of Pisa from 1278–1295 (v. 14), to expel the Visconti but was then betrayed by the prelate and, for his alleged treachery two years earlier, imprisoned with four of his sons and grandsons to die of starvation in 1289.

[518] The Mew: a tower where the eagles of the city may have been kept to molt. It was known first as the “Tower of the Gualandi” (cf. v. 32) and later as the “Tower of Hunger” (cf. v. 23).

[519] Often: Ugolino was imprisoned in late July and died in early February.

[520] A man: Ruggieri.

[521] The wolf and whelps: Ugolino and his sons and grandsons.

[522] The mountain grounds (v. 29) between Pisa and Lucca refer to the Monte San Giuliano, a long flat mountain.

[523] Hounds: the common people whom the Archbishop turned against Ugolino.

[524] Gualandi and Sismondi...Lanfranchi too: influential Ghibelline families of Pisa, who joined the movement against Ugolino.

[525] My little Anselm: Anselmuccio, grandson of Ugolino; son of the latter’s eldest child, Guelfo; and brother of Nino il Brigata (cf. v. 89).

[526] Gaddo: Ugolino’s fourth son.

[527] The reference here is to Italy.

[528] Neighbors: Florence and Lucca in particular.

[529] Capraia and Gorgona: two small islands near the mouth of the Arno (v. 83), northeast of Corsica. They belonged to Pisa at the time.

[530] Two above named in my rhymes: Anselmuccio and Gaddo.

[531] Uguiccione: fifth and youngest son of Ugolino and brother of Gaddo (v. 68). Brigata: grandson of Ugolino, son of Guelfo, and brother of Anselm (cf. v. 50).

[532] Thebes: a city known for its crimes.

[533] This marks the transition to Ptolomea (v. 124).

[534] Visor: the slotted front piece of the helmet of a suit of armor that allows one to see through when lowered.

[535] Cup: the eye socket.

[536] It was thought that the heat of the sun caused wind by striking moist vapors. Thus, there should be no wind where it is so cold.

[537] The final station: Judecca, where traitors to benefactors are punished.

[538] Fra Alberigo: of the Manfredi family, Guelph lords of Faenza, and a “Jovial Friar” from ca. 1267. He had pretended to forgive a blow dealt him by Manfredo and later, in 1285, invited him to dinner but had him and his son assassinated when the fruit dessert was served (cf. v. 119).

[539] Ptolomea: the third ring of Cocytus, where traitors to guests are punished, perhaps named for Ptolemy XII of Egypt (51–47 BC), who murdered Pompey, but probably named for the captain of Jericho who killed Simon Maccabeus and two of his sons at a banquet in their honor in 134 BC.

[540] Atropos: the Fate who cut the thread of life allotted on Lachesis’ distaff and spun by Clotho.

[541] Branca d’Oria: member of a famous Genoese Ghibelline family (ca. 1233–ca. 1325). He murdered his father-in-law, Michele Zanche (v. 144), governor of Logodoro in Sardinia, at a dinner to which he had invited him.

[542] Malebranche’s ditch: the eighth circle, where barratry is punished.

[543] A relative assisted Branca d’Oria in the murder of Michele Zanche.

[544] Romagna’s vilest shade: Fra Alberigo, from Faenza, in the modern Emilia-Romagna.

[545] One of your ranks: Branca d’Oria.

[546] The banners of the king...of lowest Hell come marching: Dante employs the first line of a famous Latin hymn (Vexilla regis prodeunt) composed in 569 by Venantius Fortunatus, bishop of Poitiers, for the reception of a fragment of the True Cross. But he ironically adds “of lowest Hell” (inferni) to “the king.”

[547] Our hemisphere: the hemisphere of land.

[548] Full immersion in the ice marks the boundary to Judecca, the fourth ring of Cocytus, for traitors to lords and benefactors.

[549] The reference is to Lucifer, originally an angel of light.

[550] Dis: here the name of Satan, not his city.

[551] Where there first descends the Nile: Ethiopia.

[552] Judas, the Iscariot: who betrayed Christ for thirty pieces of silver.

[553] Brutus: Marcus Junius Brutus (ca. 85–42 BC), a conspirator in the murder of Julius Caesar.

[554] Cassius (two syllables as in English): Gaius Cassius Longinus (d. 42 BC), one of Julius Caesar’s murderers. He persuaded Brutus to join the conspiracy.

[555] It is 6:00 p.m. on Holy Saturday, which completes twenty-four hours.

[556] What point I’d passed: the center of gravity. Cf. vv. 110–111.

[557] The way is long: half the earth’s diameter to be covered in another twenty-four hours.

[558] Middle-tierce: tierce runs from 6:00 a.m. to 9:00 a.m. It is thus about 7:30 a.m. on Holy Saturday again, since, in their passage to the southern hemisphere, Virgil and Dante have recovered twelve hours (cf. v. 118). They have thus climbed about an hour and a half since time was last told in v. 68.

[559] Vv. 112–117 explain that Dante is beneath the southern celestial hemisphere, opposite the northern one of land, with Jerusalem at its center, where Christ died.

[560] That Man whose birth and life no sins debase: Christ, who was free from original and personal sin.

[561] A little sphere: the underside of Cocytus’ last ring, named Judecca (v. 117) after Judas Iscariot.

[562] Satan’s fall landed him directly opposite Jerusalem.

[563] To avoid Satan, the land in the southern hemisphere withdrew to the north.

[564] The natural dungeon of vv. 97–98 was formed when the earth fled from the center of the world to dig Satan’s tomb and rose up on the surface of the hemisphere of water to form what will prove to be the Mount of Purgatory.

[565] Beelzebub: One of Satan’s biblical names.

[566] Vv. 130–132 may refer to Lethe, flowing down from the Mount of Purgatory. As the river of the forgetfulness of sin, it perhaps washes the memories of sins back to their Satanic source.

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