INFERNO I
INFERNO I
1. The first of the 14,233 lines that constitute the Comedy immediately establishes a context for the poem that is both universal and particular. It also immediately compels a reader to realize that this is a difficult work, one that may not be read passively, but calls for the reader’s active engagement.
Many commentators have pointed out that this opening verse echoes a biblical text, Isaiah’s account of the words of Hezekiah, afflicted by the “sickness unto death” (Isaiah 38:10): “in dimidio dierum meorum vadam ad portas inferi” (in the midst of my days, I shall go to the gates of the nether region). Many another potential “source” has found proponents, but this one is so apposite that it has probably received more attention than any other. One other should also be mentioned here, the Tesoretto of Brunetto Latini (see note to Inf. XV.50). Another tradition holds that the reference is to the age of Dante when he made his voyage (he was thirty-five years old in 1300, half of the biblical “three score and ten”—Psalms 89:10). In addition, some commentators have noted the resonance of the epic tradition in Dante’s opening phrase, since epics were seen as beginning, like this poem, in medias res, “in the midst of the action,” not at its inception.
Related issues are also debated by the earliest commentators, in particular the date of the vision. While there has been disagreement even about the year of the journey to the otherworld, indicated at various points as being 1300 (e.g., Inf. X.79–80, XXI.113, Purg. II.98, XXXII.2), it is clear that Dante has set his work in the Jubilee Year, proclaimed by Pope Boniface VIII in February of 1300. Far more uncertainty attends the question of the actual days indicated. Dante’s descent into hell is begun either on Friday, 25 March or on Friday, 8 April, with the conclusion of the journey occurring almost exactly one week later. In favor of the March date, one can argue that Dante could hardly have chosen a more propitious date for a beginning: March 25 was the anniversary of the creation of Adam, of the conception and of the Crucifixion of Christ, and also marked the Florentine “New Year,” since that city measured the year from the Annunciation. [return to English / Italian]
2. mi ritrovai (I came to myself) has the sense of a sudden shocked discovery. “It is the pained amazement of one who has only now, for the first time, become aware that he is in peril” (Padoan, comm. to Inf. I.2).
The grammatical solecism (“Nel mezzo del cammin di nostra vita / mi ritrovai” [Midway in the journey of our life I came to myself…]), mixing plural and singular first-persons, is another sign of the poet’s desire to make his reader grasp the relation between the individual and the universal, between Dante and all humankind. His voyage is meant to be understood as ours as well.
The selva oscura is one of the governing images of this canto and of the poem. Many commentators point to the previous metaphorical statement found in the Dantean work that is probably nearest in time to it, the fourth treatise of his Convivio (Conv. IV.xxiv.12), where the author refers to “la selva erronea di questa vita” (the error-filled wood of this life). But here the wood is to be taken “historically” in at least a certain sense, and seems to reflect, to some readers, the condition of Eden after the Fall. In such a reading, Dante’s sinful life is as though lived in the ruins of Eden, the place to which he has let himself be led, away from the light of God. In any case, the wood indicates not sin itself, but human life lived in the condition of sin. [return to English / Italian]
3. See Wisdom 5:7: “Lassati sumus in via iniquitate et perditionis, et ambulavimus vias difficiles; viam autem Domini ignoravimus” (We grew weary in the way of iniquity and perdition, and we walked difficult pathways; to the way of the Lord, however, we paid no attention)—perhaps first noted in Padoan’s commentary to this verse. [return to English / Italian]
7. Perhaps the first serious interpretive tangle for readers of the poem. The problem is a simple one to describe: what is the antecedent of the implicit subject of the verb è (“It is so bitter …”)? There are three feminine nouns that may have that role, since the predicate adjective, amara (bitter), is also in the feminine: cosa dura (hard thing, v. 4), selva (wood, v. 5), paura (fear, v. 6). Several current commentators are convinced that selva is the antecedent. On the other hand, it seems likely that the antecedent is the phrase cosa dura (as in Castelvetro’s commentary). The entire passage makes good sense when read this way. To tell of his experience in the dark and savage wood is difficult (vv. 4–6) and so bitter that only dying seems more bitter; but, in order to treat of the better things he found in the wood, he will speak. [return to English / Italian]
8–9. These innocent-sounding lines have been the cause of considerable puzzlement. What is “the good” that Dante found? What are the “other things”? It may be that these terms are in antithetic relation. Over five hundred years ago Filippo Villani (Bell.1989.1, p. 93) offered this gloss: “de bonis et malis in silva repertis” (of the good and the bad found in the forest). Following this line of interpretation yields the following general sense of the passage: “Even in the depths of my sin I found God in terrible things.” And thus the ben is not here Virgil (as many commentators suggest despite the fact that Virgil does not appear to Dante in the forest), but God’s grace in allowing Dante to learn of His goodness even in his worst experiences. [return to English / Italian]
11. pien di sonno. The date is Thursday, 24 March (or 7 April?) 1300. As the text will later make clear (Inf. XXI.112–114), we are observing the 1266th anniversary of Good Friday (which fell on 8 April in 1300 [but see note to v. 1, above]). This would indicate that the poem actually begins on Thursday evening, the 1266th anniversary of Maundy Thursday, when the Apostles slept while Christ watched in the garden, and continued to sleep even as He called to them to rise. That this moment is recalled here seems likely: Dante, too, is “asleep” to Christ in his descent into sin. See Matth. 26:40–46. [return to English / Italian]
13. The colle (hill) is generally interpreted as signifying the good life attainable by humankind under its own powers; some, however, believe it has a higher and spiritual meaning, involving salvation. For discussion and strong support for the first reading, based in texts of Aristotle, Brunetto Latini, and Dante himself (esp. Mon. III.xvi.7: beatitudo huius vitae [the blessedness of this life]), see Mazz.1967.1, pp. 58–60. [return to English / Italian]
14. valle (valley): another key word in this landscape. Dante’s descent into the valley where the selva is located marks a major moral failure and brings him close to death. [return to English / Italian]
15. paura (fear), as many have pointed out, is perhaps the key word, in the beginning of the poem, that describes Dante’s perilous inner condition. It occurs five times in the canto: at vv. 6; here; 19; 44; 53. [return to English / Italian]
17. pianeta: the rays of the sun are meant. [return to English / Italian]
18. altrui (others): all those who walk in the ways of the Lord. [return to English / Italian]
20. For Boccaccio, this “lake” or “concavity” in the heart is the place to which our emotions flow; he goes on to mention fear as the exemplary emotion, thus giving Dante’s verse a “medical” explanation. [return to English / Italian]
22–27. This is the first simile in a poem filled with similes, as many as four hundred of them. Here, in response to the first of these, it is perhaps helpful to observe that “similes” in Dante are varied, and possibly fall into three rough categories: “classical” similes, like this one, perfectly balanced and grammatically correct; “improper classical” similes, which are similarly balanced but not expressed with grammatical precision; and simple comparisons, brief and unembellished. For a study in English of the Dantean simile see Lans.1977.1; for bibliography see Sowe.1983.1.
This simile probably takes its setting from the Aeneid (I.180–181), the scene of Aeneas’s shipwreck on the coast of Carthage, and begins a series of linking allusions to the narrative of the first book of that poem that run through Inferno I and II. Dante begins his role as protagonist in this “epic” as the “new Aeneas”; his first words as speaker will later suggest that he is the “new David” as well (v. 65). [return to English / Italian]
26–27. A much-disputed passage. Almost all commentators equate the passo with the selva (see note to v. 2, above). The debate centers on whether the relative pronoun che is objective or subjective, i.e., do we say “the pass that never let a mortal being go alive” or “the pass no mortal being ever left behind”? Mazzoni (Mazz.1967.1, pp. 79–86) offers convincing evidence for the second reading, on the basis of Dante’s elsewise constant use of the verb lasciare in this way (to mean “abandon,” “leave behind”). We have followed Mazzoni in our translation.
Dante’s verse may reflect one of the first vernacular poems in Italian, the “Laudes creaturarum” of St. Francis, vv. 27–28: “Laudato si’, mi’ Signore, per sora nostra morte corporale, / de la quale nullu homo vivente pò skappare” (Blessed be thou, my Lord, for our sister mortal death, from whom no living man can escape). Whether or not this is the case (and we might consider a second possible citation of Francis’s poem in v. 117—see note to that verse, below), the meaning would seem to be that Dante’s extraordinary voyage into the afterworld will uniquely separate him, if only temporarily, from the world of the living while he is still alive. [return to English / Italian]
30. It seems likely that the words are meant both literally and figuratively: Dante, sorely beset by his fatigue and probably by his fear as well, is inching up the slope toward the hill by planting his bottom foot firm and pushing off it to advance the higher one. As Filippo Villani was first to note, there is a Christian tradition for such a difficult progress toward one’s goal, found precisely in St. Augustine, who for a long time remained a catechumen before he chose his life in Christ (Bell.1989.1, p. 109). John Freccero formed a similar opinion. According to his article “Dante’s Firm Foot and the Journey without a Guide” (1959, reprinted in Frec.1986.1), Dante moves forward with the right foot, representing intellect, supported by the left foot, representing will. Freccero goes on to show that the resultant figuration is one of homo claudus, a limping man, wounded in both his feet by Adam’s sin. [return to English / Italian]
32–54. The lonza (a hybrid born of leopard and lion) is the first of the three beasts to move against Dante as he attempts to mount the hill. Commentators frequently point to a biblical source for Dante’s three beasts, the passage in Jeremiah (5:6) that describes three wild animals (lion, wolf, and “pard” [a leopard or panther]) that will fall upon Jerusalemites because of their transgressions and backsliding. For an extensive review of the problem see Gaetano Ragonese, “fiera,” ED (vol. 2, 1970, with bibliography through 1969).
The early commentators are strikingly in accord; for them the beasts signify (1) three of the seven mortal sins: lust, pride, and avarice. Modern interpreters mainly—but not entirely, as we shall see—reject this formulation. One of these interpretations is based on Inferno VI. 75, the three “sparks” that have lit evil fires in the hearts of contemporary Florentines, according to Ciacco, who is seconded by Brunetto Latini [Inf. XV. 68]): (2) envy, pride, and avarice. Others suggest that the key is found at Inferno XI. 81–82, where, describing the organization of the punishment of sin, Virgil speaks of (3) “the three dispositions Heaven opposes, incontinence, malice, and mad brutishness.” Even within this approach there are strong disagreements as to which beast represents which Aristote-lian/Ciceronian category of sin: is the leopard fraud or incontinence? is the she-wolf incontinence or fraud? (the lion is seen by all those of this “school” as violence). For instance, some have asked, if the leopard is fraud, the worst of the three dispositions to sin, why is it the beast that troubles Dante the least? A possible answer is that fraud is the disposition least present in Dante.
Perhaps the single passage in the text of Inferno that identifies one of the three beasts in such a way as to leave little doubt about its referentiality occurs in XVI. 106–108, where Dante tells us that he was wearing a cord that he once used in his attempt to capture the beast with “the painted pelt.” That this cord is used as a challenge to Geryon, the guardian of the pit of Fraud, makes it seem nearly necessary that in this passage the leopard is meant to signify Fraud. If that is true, it would seem also necessary that the lion would stand for Violence and the she-wolf for Incontinence. The last formulation is the trickiest to support. The she-wolf is mainly associated, in the poem, not so much with Incontinence as with avarice (e.g., Purg. XX. 10–15). Thus Dante presents himself as most firm against Fraud, less firm against Violence, and weak when confronted by Incontinence. In his case the sin of Incontinence that afflicts him most is lust, not avarice.
There are few passages in the poem that have generated as much discussion and as little common understanding. Now see Gorni’s extended discussion (Gorn. 1995.1, pp. 23–55).
The formulation of the early commentators ([1] lust, pride, and avarice) has had a resurgence in our time. It would certainly be pleasing to have reason to assent to their nearly unanimous understanding. Mazzoni (Mazz. 1967.1. pp. 99–102) has given, basing his argument on texts found in the Bible and in the writings of the Fathers and Doctors of the Church, good reason for returning to this view. If it were not for Inferno XVI. 106–108, it would be a fairly convincing argument. However, that passage seems unalterably to associate Geryon with the lonza.
It should also be noted that a number of still other modern interpreters have proposed various political identities for the three beasts, perhaps the most popular being (4) the leopard as Dante’s Florentine enemies, the lion as the royal house of France, the she-wolf as the forces of the papacy. It is difficult to align such a view with the details in the text, which seem surely to be pointing to a moral rather than a political view of the situation of the protagonist as the poem begins.
For an extended discussion of the problem in English see Cassell (Cass. 1989.2), pp. 45–76. [return to English / Italian]
33. di pel macolato … coverta (covered with a spotted pelt). For the resonance of the Aeneid (Aen. I.323), see the phrase maculosae tegmine lyncis (the spotted hide of the lynx), first noted by Pietro Alighieri (first redaction of commentary to Inf. I.33). [return to English / Italian]
38. Dante and others in his time believed that the sun was in the constellation of Aries at the creation, which supposedly occurred on 25 March, the date of the Annunciation and of the Crucifixion as well. [return to English / Italian]
55–60. Dante’s second simile in the canto turns from the semantic field of epic and perilous adventure to the more mundane but not much less perilous activity of the merchant or the gambler, his financial life hanging in the balance as he awaits news of an arriving ship or the throw of the dice—just at that moment at which his stomach sinks in the sudden awareness that he has in fact, and unthinkably, lost. See the simile involving gambling and gamblers that opens Purgatorio VI. [return to English / Italian]
61. For Dante’s verb rovinare see Mazzoni (Mazz.1967.1, p. 114), citing Conv. IV.vii.9: “La via … de li malvagi è oscura. Elli non sanno dove rovinano” (The path of the wicked is a dark one. They do not know where they are rushing). Mazzoni points out that Dante is translating Proverbs 4:19, substituting ruinare for the biblical correre. [return to English / Italian]
62. Dante’s phrasing that describes Virgil’s appearance to the protagonist (“dinanzi a li occhi mi si fu offerto”) reminded Tommaseo (commentary to Inf. I.62) of the phrasing that describes Venus’s appearance to her son, Aeneas, when the latter is intent on killing Helen in order to avenge the harm done to Troy by the Greek surprise attack within the walls of the city: “mihi se … ante ocul[o]s … obtulit” (she offered herself to my eyes). [return to English / Italian]
63. Both Brugnoli (Brug.1981.1) and Hollander (Holl.1983.1, pp. 23–79) independently agree on most of the key elements in this puzzling verse: fioco is to be taken as visual rather than aural; silenzio is understood as deriving from the Virgilian sense of the silence of the dead shades (e.g., Aen. VI.264: umbrae silentes). It is fair also to say that neither deals convincingly with the adjective lungo. How can one see that a “silence” is of long duration? A recent intervention by Casagrande (Casa.1997.1, pp. 246–48) makes a strong case for interpreting the adjective lungo as here meaning “vast, extensive,” having a spatial reference. In his reading the verse would mean “who appeared indistinct in the vast silence”; our translation reflects Casagrande’s view. [return to English / Italian]
64. Virgil appears to Dante nel gran diserto. The adjective is probably meant to recall the first description of the place, la piaggia diserta (the desert slope—v. 29). [return to English / Italian]
65–66. Dante’s first spoken word as character in his own poem is Latin (Miserere, “Have mercy”). This is the language of the Church, the first word of the fiftieth Psalm (50:1). Thus our hero is identified as a son of the Church—albeit a currently failing one—at the outset of the work. It has also been pointed out that, typically enough, this first utterance made by the protagonist involves a double citation, the first biblical, the second classical, Aeneas’s speech to his mother, Venus (Aen. I.327–330).
That Dante is trying to ascertain whether Virgil is a shade or a living soul helps interpret v. 63, i.e., he looks as though he is alive, and yet somehow not. [return to English / Italian]
67–87. Alessio and Villa (Ales.1993.1) offer an important consideration of Dante’s debt to the traditional classical and medieval “lives of the poets” in formulating his own brief vita Virgilii in this passage. Among other things, such a view undercuts the argument of those interpreters who try to make Virgil an “allegory” of reason. He is presented as a real person with a real history and is thoroughly individuated. No one could mistake the details of this life for that of another, and no one has. [return to English / Italian]
70. This much-debated verse has left many in perplexity. In what sense are we to take the phrase sub Iulio? What is the implicit subject of the verb fosse? What is the precise meaning of tardi (“late”)? Virgil was born in 70 B.C., Julius died in 44 B.C., and Virgil died in 19 B.C. Hardly any two early commentators have the same opinion about this verse. Has Dante made a mistake about the date of Julius’s governance? Or does sub Iulio only mean “in the days of Julius”? Was Virgil’s birth too late for him to be honored by Julius? Or does the clause indicate that, although he was born late in pagan times, it was still too early for him to have heard of Christianity? The most usual contemporary reading is perhaps well stated in Padoan’s commentary to this verse: the Latin phrase is only meant to indicate roughly the time of Julius, and nothing more specific than that; when Julius died, Virgil was only twenty-six and had not begun his poetic career, which was thus to be identified with Augustus, rather than with Julius. [return to English / Italian]
73. The word poeta is one of the most potent words in Dante’s personal vocabulary of honor and esteem. It is used thirty times in all throughout the poem in this form, seven more times in others. In its first use, here, it constitutes Virgil’s main claim as Dante’s guide. [return to English / Italian]
74. Anchises was the father of Aeneas. [return to English / Italian]
75. The phrase superbo Ilïón clearly mirrors Aen. III.2–3, “superbum / Ilium.” It almost certainly has a moralizing overtone here (see also the note to v. 106, below), while in Virgil it probably only indicates the “topless towers of Troy”; in Dante it gives us some sense that Troy may have fallen because of its superbia, or pride. [return to English / Italian]
77. dilettoso monte: in no ways different from the colle of verse 13. [return to English / Italian]
79. At this first appearance of Virgil’s name in Dante’s text (it will appear thirty times more) it is probably worth noting that Dante’s spelling of the name is not only his, but a widespread medieval idiosyncrasy. Translating “Vergilius” with “Virgilio” was intended to lend the Latin poet a certain dignity (by associating him with the noun vir, man) and/or a certain mysterious power (by associating him with the word virga, or “rod” with magical power). [return to English / Italian]
81. Why is Dante’s head “bent low in shame”? The immediate context is that of Virgil’s rebuke to Dante for his failure to climb the hill and consequent ruinous flight. It is for this reason—or so one might understand—that he feels ashamed. [return to English / Italian]
84. For the lofty resonance of the word volume in the Comedy (as compared with libro, another and lesser word for “book”) see Holl.1969.1, pp. 78–79. The Bible is the only other book so referred to. Two other words that usually refer to God’s divine authority are also each used once to refer to Virgil or his writing: autore (Inf. I.85) and scrittura (Purg. VI.34). [return to English / Italian]
86–87. There has been much discussion of exactly what the “noble style” is and where it is to be found in Dante’s work. The style is the “high style” or “tragic style” found in Virgil and other classical poets and was achieved by Dante in his odes (three of which are collected in Convivio), as he himself indicated in De vulgari eloquentia (see Dve II.vi.7).
Dante’s formulation here goes further, making Virgil his sole source. His later interactions with other poets in hell (e.g., Pier delle Vigne [Inf. XIII], Brunetto Latini [Inf. XV]) or relatives of poets (Cavalcante [Inf. X]) show that not one of them is interested in the identity of Dante’s guide, a fact that reflects directly on the poems left by these three practitioners, which are markedly without sign of Virgilian influence. Thus, not only is Virgil Dante’s sole source for the “noble style,” but Dante portrays himself as Virgil’s sole follower among the recent and current poets of Italy. Perhaps more than any other claim for a literary identity, this sets him apart from them. For Dante’s complicated relationship with his poetic precursors see Barolini (Baro.1984.1). [return to English / Italian]
100–105. In a canto filled with passages that have called forth rivers of commentators’ ink, perhaps none has resulted in so much interpretive excitement as this one. While our commentary always follows Petrocchi’s text of the poem, even when we are in disagreement, we should say that here we are in disagreement. We would capitalize the two nouns “Feltro” and “Feltro,” so that they would indicate place names in northern Italy. The person in Dante’s mind would then be Cangrande della Scala, the youthful general of the armies of Verona when Dante first visited that city ca. 1304. In that case, what we would deal with here is the first of three (see also Purg. XXXIII.37–45, Par. XXVII.142–148) “world-historical” prophecies of the coming of a political figure (in the last two surely an emperor) who, in his advent, also looks forward to the Second Coming of Christ. For an excellent review of the entire problem see C. T. Davis, “veltro,” ED (vol. 5, 1976). For the notion that there is indeed a Virgilian (and imperial) source for Dante’s prophecy in the prediction of Augustan rule in Aeneid I.286–296 see Holl.1969.1, pp. 90–91. [return to English / Italian]
106. The phrase umile Italia surely recalls Virgil’s humilem … Italiam (Aen. III.522–523), as has been frequently noted. Some have argued that, in Dante, the words have a moral tint, mainly contending that the reference is to Italy’s current lowly political condition. [return to English / Italian]
107–108. The curious intermingling of enemies (Camilla and Turnus fought against the Trojan invaders, Euryalus and Nisus with them) helps establish Dante’s sense that Aeneas’s Italian war was a necessary and just one, its victims as though sacrificed for the cause of establishing Rome, the “new Troy.” For the centrality of Rome in Dante’s thought see the volume of the late Charles Till Davis (Davi.1957.1), still the essential study of this important subject. [return to English / Italian]
109–111. Mazzoni (Mazz.1967.1, pp. 137–38) argues strongly for the interpretation of prima as an adjective modifying invidia, and thus for a phrase meaning “primal envy,” when death entered the created world precisely because of Satan’s envy (see Wisdom 2:24: “Through envy of the devil came death into the world.”). He notes the resulting parallel between this line and Inf. III.6, where God is, in His third person, “Primo Amore” (Primal Love). [return to English / Italian]
117. The possibilities for interpreting this verse are various. The “second death” may refer to what the sinners are suffering now (in which case they cry out either for a cessation in their pain—a “death” of it—or against their condition) or it may refer to the “death” they will suffer at the end of time in Christ’s final Judgment (in which case they may either be crying out for that finality or against that horrifying prospect). Mazzoni (Mazz.1967.1, p. 143) was perhaps the first to hear an echo here (now heard by several others) of v. 31 of St. Francis’s “Laudes creaturarum” (for an earlier possible citation of that poem see note to v. 27): “ka la morte secunda no ’l farrà male” (the good soul, liberated by death, hopes that it will not suffer eternal damnation at the Last Judgment). Thus, while the question remains a difficult one, the best hypothesis probably remains Mazzoni’s (Mazz.1967.1, pp. 139–45): the sinners are crying out in fear of the punishments to come after the Last Judgment. [return to English / Italian]
122. Virgil’s self-description as unworthy may reflect a similar self-description, that of John the Baptist. See John 1:27 and related discussion in Holl.1983.1, pp. 63, 71–73. In this formulation Virgil is to Beatrice as John was to Christ. For an earlier moment in Dante’s writing that is based on exactly such a typological construction, one in which Guido Cavalcanti’s Giovanna/John the Baptist is portrayed as the “forerunner” to Dante’s Beatrice/Christ, see VN XXIV.3–4. [return to English / Italian]
125. It is fair to say that most commentators dodge this troublesome word. How could Virgil have been a “rebel” against a God he did not know? We should remember that this formulation is Virgil’s own and may simply reflect his present sense of what he should have known when he was alive. That is, Virgil may be exaggerating his culpability. [return to English / Italian]
132. “This harm” is Dante’s present situation in the world; “and worse” would be his damnation. [return to English / Italian]
134–135. Dante has apparently understood clearly enough that Virgil will lead him through hell and purgatory, but not paradise. Having read the poem, we know that Beatrice will assume the role of guide for the first nine heavens. Virgil seems to know this (see vv. 122–123), but not Dante, who seems to be aware only that some soul will take up the role of Virgil when his first guide leaves him. [return to English / Italian]