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 text, one that may not be read passively, but must be 'interpreted.' And the exegetical tradition that has grown upon (and sometimes over) the text is so responsive to these characteristics that it often seems to overwhelm its object. There are so many issues raised in the poem, so many raised by its commentators, that one reads Francesco Mazzoni's extraordinarily helpful gloss to this single verse with admiration and instruction without, at first, even noticing that it is twelve pages in length (Mazzoni, Saggio di un nuovo commento alla “Divina Commedia”: “Inferno” –Canti I-III [Florence: Sansoni, 1967], pp. 14-25).

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 cutting off of my days, I shall go to the gates of the nether region). A recent commentator has suggested that Dante's view of his kinship with Hezekiah, like himself 'a model of the sinner who finds himself and redeems himself by means of repentance and hope,' was shaped by Bernard of Clairvaux, whose thoughts about Hezekiah are found in his Sermones de diversis III, PL 183.546-51 (see Anthony K. Cassell, Lectura Dantis Americana: “Inferno” I [Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1989], p. 13). It is also true that many another potential 'source' has found proponents, but this one is so apposite that it has probably received more attention than any other.

In addition, some commentators have noted the resonance of the epic tradition in Dante's opening phrase (e.g., Trucchi [comm. Inf. I.1]), since epics were understood as beginning, like this poem, in medias res, “in the midst of the action,” not at its inception. In a related medieval distinction, Dante is seen as following the ordo artificialis (the order of narration followed by poets, who are not constrained to “begin at the beginning” nor even to “end at the end”) rather than the ordo naturalis (the order followed by historians, who begin their accounts with what occurred first and end it with what happened last).

One other text should also be mentioned here, the Tesoretto of Brunetto Latini (see note to Inf. XV.50).

The centuries-long debate as to whether we should read the Comedy as an allegory, in which the surface action is to be understood as a fictive wrapping meant to bring the reader moralizing messages, or as the 'historical' record of an actual visit to the afterworld by a specific individual begins right here. Exemplary of the first tendency is the allegorical reading of the first verse found in Guido da Pisa (comm. to Inf. I.1): 'Per istud dimidium nostre vite accipe somnum' (for this 'middle of our life' understand 'sleep'), a reading found as well in Dante's son Pietro (Pietro1 to Inf. I.1), who also glosses the meaning of the line as somnus – 'sleep' – and thus indeed 'dream' (the related term somnium usually has the second meaning in Latin). For such readers, the poem, as a result, is seen as a 'dream vision,' which must be interpreted allegorically, as a fabula with a hidden meaning that needs to be teased out of it. Mazzoni demonstrates that this basic view of the poem was common to many of its early commentators. However, alongside of it there existed a second view (sometimes combined with the first, sometimes at least intrinsically opposing it), one which held 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' of Psalms 89:10). This tradition begins with his elder son (and commentator) Jacopo and reaches its clearest expression in the Ottimo's third redaction, ca. 1340 (unpublished, see Mazzoni, Saggio di un nuovo commento alla “Divina Commedia”: “Inferno” –Canti I-III [Florence: Sansoni, 1967], p. 15, for the text), citing Dante's own Convivio (IV.xxiii.9-14) by name and chapter (and this is perhaps the first precise textual citation of Convivio that we possess) for the discussion of the four ages of man found there.

These conflicting ways of looking at the narrative, present here at its very threshold, force us to make a choice as to whether we should take the poem as presenting an autobiographical narrative that, even though we know it to be fictive, must be dealt with as though it were 'historical,' or as merely a fiction, and thus to be dealt with as we have been taught to deal with any such human poetic production, by 'allegorizing' it to find a deeper meaning.

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, Inf. XXI.113, Purg. II.98, Purg. XXXII.2), it is pellucidly 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. There is a large bibliography on the question. For a review see Bruno Basile, 'viaggio' (ED.1976.5), pp. 995-99. Basile and this writer both find most convincing the arguments of Amerindo Camilli, “La cronologia del viaggio dantesco,” Studi Danteschi 29 (1950), 61-84, who argues strongly for the March dates. There can hardly be a more propitious date for a beginning, as Camilli pointed out. March 25th is, for Dante, the anniversary of the creation of Adam, of the conception and of the crucifixion of Christ, and also marks the Florentine 'New Year,' since that city measured the year from the Annunciation (25 March).

There is a further and related problem that will detain us a moment longer. At least since Plato's time the annus magnus ('great year'), that cycle that brings all the stars back to their original alignment in the heavens, was thought to last 36,000 years. In Convivio (II.v.16) Dante accepts that traditional view. It is, however, an interesting fact that Filippo Villani, commenting on the first canto of the poem early in the fifteenth century, says that the annus magnus contains 13,000 years (ed. Bellomo, p. 83). For Villani the number does not count the years of the great revolution of the heavens, but the years of human life on earth. His number is interesting, since it has the effect of making Dante's journey occur at nearly the precise mid-point of the cycle of the years allotted to humanity's earthly 'voyage,' a second sort of 'great year,' as it were, in the year 6499 (extractable from Dante's numeration of the ages found in Par. 26.118-123). Bellomo's note to the passage in Villani suggests that there was one Christian tradition that saw the year 1300 as, indeed, the midpoint in this 13,000-year cycle. Villani's interpretation is that what is at stake here is not the story of one life but that of humanity (see Mazzoni, Saggio di un nuovo commento alla “Divina Commedia”: “Inferno” –Canti I-III [Florence: Sansoni, 1967], pp. 18, 21), for discussion of Villani's gloss, which is not acceptable in its excision of Dante's life from the equation, but has other promising aspects). If we follow Villani, we can see that Dante's first verse, with something approaching terrifying precision, dates the opening of his poem to the midpoint of his own life and to that of the life of the species. And thus 'Nel mezzo del cammin di nostra vita' means exactly two complementary things: when the author had lived 35 of the 70 years alloted to humans; when the human race had lived the first half of its allotted time on earth. For the most recent discussion to link a 13,000-year annus magnus and Dante's opening verse see Guglielmo Gorni, Dante nella selva: il primo canto della “Commedia” (Parma: Pratiche, 1995), p. 60.

mi ritrovai (I came to myself) has the sense of a sudden shocked discovery. Padoan has said this well (comm. to Inf. I.2): 'It is the pained amazement of one who has only now, for the first time, become aware that he is in peril.'

The grammatical solecism ('Nel mezzo del cammin di nostra vita / mi ritrovai'), mixing plural and singular first-persons, is another sign of the poet's desire to make his reader think, realizing 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 (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, and to agree with Mazzoni (Saggio di un nuovo commento alla “Divina Commedia”: “Inferno” –Canti I-III [Florence: Sansoni, 1967] ), p. 85, the wood indicates not sin itself, but human life lived in the condition of sin.

See Wisdom (Sap. 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). The citation is found in Padoan (comm. to Inf. III.3).

The word ché has been a source of energetic debate. All students of Dante understand that the accents and marks of punctuation in editions of his texts are necessarily problematic. We have no autograph manuscript to turn to, and fourteenth-century scribal practice in this respect is various in itself and different from our own. Here we are dealing with a dispute that has gone on for centuries (for a review see Mazzoni [Saggio di un nuovo commento alla “Divina Commedia”: “Inferno” –Canti I-III (Florence: Sansoni, 1967), pp. 31-32]). While there are a number of solutions that have been put forward, the two current views that have large numbers of supporters are that of Antonino Pagliaro (Ulisse: ricerche semantiche sulla “Divina Commedia” [Messina-Florence: D'Anna, 1967]), pp. 14-15 (n. 9), for whom che is a 'relative conjunction' used to express mode, or result (i.e., 'so that the straight way was lost') and that of Giorgio Petrocchi (La Commedia secondo l'antica vulgata [Florence: Le Lettere, 1994 (1966)], Inferno, p. 3), who argues for the causal conjunction ché. We, if we were editing rather than translating the text, would side with Pagliaro (and now with Gorni, Dante nella selva: il primo canto della “Commedia” [Parma: Pratiche, 1995], pp. 64-65).

forte (dense): see Boccaccio (comm. to Inf. I.5), cited by Padoan (comm to Inf. I.5): 'difficult to move through and to escape from.'

Perhaps the first serious interpretive tangle for readers of the poem. (There will be many more.) See the summary of the various arguments presented by Mazzoni (Saggio di un nuovo commento alla “Divina Commedia”: “Inferno” –Canti I-III [Florence: Sansoni, 1967]), pp. 49-51. 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 (v. 4), selva (v. 5), paura (v. 6). Mazzoni, Pagliaro (Ulisse: ricerche semantiche sulla “Divina Commedia” (Messina-Florence: D'Anna, 1967), p. 639, and Petrocchi (La Commedia secondo l'antica vulgata, Inferno), all are convinced that selva is the antecedent. Our translation attempts to leave the at least apparent ambiguity of Dante's phrasing intact. On the other hand, in the role of commentator, this writer is close to certain that a sixteenth-century commentator had long ago solved the problem (and had many followers through the nineteenth century, e.g., Campi, comm. to Inf. I.7): the antecedent is the phrase cosa dura (Castelvetro, comm. to Inf. I.7). Indeed, 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. In verse 4 it was difficult to speak of such things; in v. 9 he will speak of them (the same verb is used in each verse, dire). Further, the present tense of the verb in v. 7 works against selva as antecedent: the writer is no longer in the wood. Grammatically, selva, currently the most popular choice, is the least likely of the three. And Dante's fear (paura), which is present, just does not make as much logical sense as cosa dura as antecedent. Gorni (Dante nella selva: il primo canto della “Commedia” [Parma: Pratiche, 1995], pp. 63-64) also believes that cosa dura is the antecedent.

These innocent-sounding lines have been the cause of considerable puzzlement. For a review see Mazzoni (Mazzoni, Saggio di un nuovo commento alla “Divina Commedia”: “Inferno” –Canti I-III [Florence: Sansoni, 1967]), pp. 51-55. What is 'the good' that Dante found? What are the 'other things'? As Parodi (cited by Mazzoni, p. 55) has argued, these terms are in antithetic relation. This is not the usual interpretation, but perhaps a convincing one, given Dante's own earlier formulation, put in evidence by Parodi: 'lo bene e l'altro' of a person, that is, the worth and failings of a being (Convivio II.x.9). See also, centuries earlier, Filippo Villani (ed. Bellomo, p. 93), 'de bonis et malis in silva repertis' (of the good and the bad found in the forest). Following this 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, this writer would argue, God's grace in allowing Dante to learn of His goodness even in his worst experiences.

pien di sonno. The date is Thursday 24 March (or 7 April?) 1300. As the text will later make clear (see Inf. XXI.112-114), we are observing the 1266th anniversary of Good Friday (which fell on 8 April in 1300, even if Dante pretty clearly also indicates 25 March as the supposed date of the beginning of the journey [see the note to Inf. I.1]). 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 then even when 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 Matthew 26:40-46. This interesting observation was, as far as one can tell, first made some years ago by a student, Andrew Bramante (Dartmouth '81).

Filippo Villani (ed. Bellomo, pp. 95-96), here thinks of the temptation by the serpent of Adam who 'quando, ratione in ipso penitus dormiente,... sensualitati factus est obediens' (when, his reason sleeping within him,... became ruled by his senses).

The colle (hill) is generally interpreted as signifying the good life attainable by humankind under its own powers; some, however, believe it has a supernatural meaning, e.g., Tristano Bolelli, “Il 'dilettoso monte' del I canto dell'Inferno (v. 77),” in Studi in onore di Alberto Chiari (Brescia: Paideia, 1973), pp. 165-68. 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 Mazzoni (Saggio di un nuovo commento alla “Divina Commedia”: “Inferno” –Canti I-III [Florence: Sansoni, 1967]), pp. 58-60. Recently Anthony Cassell has tried to make the case that this attempted climb on Dante's part is prideful and to be condemned as a sort of 'Pelagian' assault on God's grace (Lectura Dantis Americana: “Inferno” I [Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1989], pp. 22-30), a reading that has not proven particularly convincing, in part because it means that we must consider Virgil's later exhortation of Dante to climb the mountain (Inf. I.76-78) an error of considerable weight, and this seems a forced interpretation in that circumstance.

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. What all this means in terms of Dante's actual life is extremely difficult to say. It also raises the question of when this or these misadventure(s) occurred, before March 1300, or after the imagined date of the poem's action. This is a matter addressed centrally by Lino Pertile in “Dante's Comedy: Beyond the Stilnovo,” Lectura Dantis [virginiana] 13 (1993), 47-77, if with respect to passages in the Purgatorio, but in ways that are relevant to the question whenever it is posed. Does Dante restrict reference in the poem to events and activities that have occurred before 1300 (except when he develops 'prophetic' intercalations to excuse such advance knowledge)? Or does he feel free to violate the temporal boundaries that he himself has established in order to include more of his experience as material for his poem? In disagreement with Pertile, this writer supports the second alternative.

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: Inf. I.6; here; Inf. I.19; Inf. I.44; Inf. I.53.

guardai in alto. For classical and patristic texts that present mankind as upright and up-looking, and thus as different from (and vastly superior to) the beasts, see Mazzoni, Saggio di un nuovo commento alla “Divina Commedia”: “Inferno” –Canti I-III (Florence: Sansoni, 1967), pp. 61-68.

pianeta: the rays of the sun are meant.

altrui (other men): all those who walk in the ways of the Lord.

For Boffito's studies on the theories of the circulation of the blood in Dante's time see Singleton (comm. to Inf. I.20). Singleton also mentions, as does many another modern commentator, that for Boccaccio (comm. to Inf. I.20) this 'lake' or 'concavity' (or 'ventricle'?) is the place to which emotions flow in us; Boccaccio goes on to mention fear as the exemplary emotion.

For a possible earlier Dantean use of the phrase 'lago del cor' see Rime dubbie III.8-9.

In an early article in which he discusses Inferno II.108, another Dantean passage about perilous waters that has caused commentators difficulty, Singleton (“'Sulla fiumana ove 'l mar non ha vanto' [Inferno, II, 108],” Romanic Review 39 [1948], 269-77), cites a passage from Hugh of St. Victor (d. 1141) on Noah's Ark: 'And now let us understand the concupiscence of the world that is in the heart of man as waters of the flood.' It might seem that this passage is even more apposite to the text before us than to the later one. For here Dante, having come back to his senses from his concupiscent wandering, moves from appetite to shamefast fear. That is the first step in his journey out of the 'flood' that threatens to 'drown' him.

This is the first simile in a poem that is filled with similes, as many as four hundred of them in the three cantiche. Here, in response to the first of them, it is perhaps helpful to observe that 'similes' in Dante are varied, and perhaps 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; simple comparisons, which are brief and unembellished. There will be more along these lines in response to individual similes and comparisons. For a study in English of the Dantean simile see Richard Lansing, From Image to Idea: A Study of the Simile in Dante's “Commedia” (Ravenna: Longo, 1977); for bibliography, see Madison U. Sowell, “A Bibliography of the Dantean Simile to 1981,” Dante Studies 101 (1983), 167-80.

According to Hollander (Allegory in Dante's “Commedia” [Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1969)]), pp. 84-86, this simile takes its setting from the Aeneid (I.180-181) and begins a series of linking allusions to the narrative of the first book of that poem that run through Inferno I and II. He argues that 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 (Inf. I.65).

guata. Mazzoni (Saggio di un nuovo commento alla “Divina Commedia”: “Inferno” –Canti I-III [Florence: Sansoni, 1967]), p. 79, describes this verb as an intensive form of guardare that means 'to stare fixedly.'

animo. For a series of useful distinctions about the animating forces within us see Mazzoni, Saggio di un nuovo commento alla “Divina Commedia”: “Inferno” –Canti I-III (Florence: Sansoni, 1967), p. 79, citing St. Thomas's redeployment of concepts found in St. Augustine. The soul (anima) animates the body, while the animo is the force within us that wills. English still has the word animus that remembers this distinction. We have translated with the word mind, hoping that it will have the feeling of 'that in us which decides.'

A much-disputed passage. For a summarizing discussion see Mazzoni (Saggio di un nuovo commento alla “Divina Commedia”: “Inferno” –Canti I-III [Florence: Sansoni, 1967]), pp. 79-86. Almost all commentators equate the passo with the selva (see note to Inf. I.2). 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 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'), even if his position is not always accepted (see, e.g., Padoan, comm. to Inf. I.27). 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 Inf. I.117 – see the note to Inf. I.117), 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. This is not, as Padoan proposes, an obvious or banal verse if it is so construed.

la piaggia diserta: the gently sloping plain between the edge of the forest and the steeper incline of the hill. See Barbi (Problemi di critica dantesca [Florence: Sansoni, 1934]), pp. 200-201, 235-36. Singleton (comm. to Inf. I.29) insists that piaggia may here also mean 'shore' (because he is intent on associating the Exodus with this line). This seems a less than convincing reading.

Another source of exacerbation in the commentaries. Are we to read this line literally? metaphorically? or both ways? Practice has varied for centuries and debate will undoubtedly continue. For a review see Mazzoni (Saggio di un nuovo commento alla “Divina Commedia”: “Inferno” –Canti I-III [Florence: Sansoni, 1967]), pp. 91-99. And it is good to keep in mind Mazzoni's view that the allegorical elements of this canto are perhaps better referred to as metaphors (p. 3). See also Zygmunt G. Baranski's study of the various kinds of allegory found in this first canto of the poem (“La lezione esegetica di Inferno I: allegoria, storia e letteratura nella Commedia,” in Dante e le forme dell'allegoresi, ed. M. Picone [Ravenna: Longo, 1987], pp. 79-97). Here it seems wisest to believe 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. However, and 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 catachumen before he chose his life in Christ (ed. Bellomo, p. 109). John Freccero, without apparently consulting him, revisited some common ground with Villani. According to Freccero's article 'Dante's Firm Foot and the Journey without a Guide' (1959), reprinted in Dante: The Poetics of Conversion, ed. Rachel Jacoff (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1986), Dante moves forward with the right foot, representing the intellect, supported by the left foot, representing his 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. What Freccero did not apparently noticed is that Villani (ed. Bellomo, pp. 110-11) had said much of what he says (for this observation see Hollander, Allegory in Dante's “Commedia” (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1969, pp. 262-63): Dante's 'firm foot' is his left foot, the foot of his will, steady in its fear of the Lord; the upper right foot is his affection for God (Villani's formulation is dependent, as Bellomo points out, on that of Guido da Pisa [comm. to Inf. I.30]). Villani concludes by comparing the left foot to the Old Testament, the right to the New (ed. Bellomo, p. 111).

For further discussion of the source of this image in St. Augustine, see the commentary to Paradiso V.6.

The reader should remember through the action that follows (vv. 32-60) that the protagonist has not advanced very far in his attempt to climb the slope away from the dark wood before he gives up the ascent.

The lonza (for the identity of this beast as hybrid born of leopard and lion see Singleton (comm. to Inf. I.32) is the first of three beasts to move against Dante as he attempts to mount the hill. Commentators (beginning perhaps with Tommaseo [comm. to Inf. I.49-51]) frequently point to a biblical passage as lying behind Dante's three beasts, the passage in Jeremiah (Ier. 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. The details are close enough, and the typological identification of the sinful protagonist with the backsliding Hebrews fitting enough, to make the literal sense of the situation clear. Less positive claims may be made regarding its metaphorical valence. For a thorough review of one of the most vexed passages in a canto filled with difficulty, see Gaetano Ragonese, 'fiera' (ED.1970.2), pp. 857b-861b (with extensive bibliography through 1969, if it omits the useful study of Aldo S. Bernardo [“The Three Beasts and Perspective in the Divine Comedy,” PMLA 78 (1963), 14-24]). Ragonese's history of the interpretation of the three beasts includes the following details: 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 school cites Inf. VI.75 for 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 there is no reason here to believe that Dante is referring to the mortal sins because there is no precise textual confirmation that such was his plan. They suggest that such a confirmation is found in 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.' In this approach, there are strong disagreements as to which beast represents which Aristotelian/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 of them? A possible answer is that the scene, which takes place on earth and not in hell, is meant to show Dante's tendencies with respect to the three large areas of sin punished in hell. If the leopard represents fraud (as its spotted hide might indicate – it is beautiful but 'maculate' [see the argument in this vein of Padoan, comm. to Inf. I.33]), it is the disposition least present in Dante. Perhaps the single most important passage in the text of Inferno that identifies at least one of the three beasts in such a way as to leave no doubt occurs in Inferno XVI.106-108, where Dante tells us that he was wearing a cord that he once used to 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 (e.g., Purg. XX.10-15), with avarice. But avarice is a sin of Incontinence. 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. This is the best understanding that this reader has been able to manage. It is not one that gathers anything like immediate consent. The three beasts are another of the Comedy's little mysteries likely to remain unsolved. But see the extended discussion in Gorni, Dante nella selva: il primo canto della “Commedia” (Parma: Pratiche, 1995), 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 (Saggio di un nuovo commento alla “Divina Commedia”: “Inferno” –Canti I-III [Florence: Sansoni, 1967], 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. (For an opposing argument, advancing five reasons for which the lonza cannot represent lust, see Romano Manescalchi [Il prologo della “Divina Commedia” (Turin: Tirrenia, 1998)], pp. 13-36.) If it were not for the passage in Inf. XVI.106-108, it would be easy to be convinced by his argument. However, the passage is there, and seems unalterably to associate Geryon and the lonza. And then the field of reference seems far more likely to be that established within the poem for the three major sins punished in Inferno than anything else.

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 a lengthy discussion of the problem in English see Cassell, Lectura Dantis Americana: “Inferno” I (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1989), pp. 45-76.

di pel macolato...coverta (covered with a spotted pelt). For the resonance of the Aeneid (I.323), the phrase maculosae tegmine lyncis (the spotted hide of the lynx) see the tradition in the commentaries perhaps begun by Pietro Alighieri (Pietro1, comm. to Inf. I.33) and furthered by Benvenuto da Imola (comm. to Inf. I.33). This citation is now pretty much a commonplace.

The protagonist's fear of the lonza is mitigated by his appreciation of the growing lightness in the dawn sky. Hope rises in him (v. 41) as a result, not only of this dawn, but of its nature as reflection/anniversary of the moment in creation at which the Holy Spirit set the universe into motion 6499 years ago (see the note to v. 1).

Dante and others in his time believed that the sun was in the constellation of Aries at the creation, as it is again now.

«tremesse». The 1921 edition had temesse, a reading supported by the vast bulk of the MSS but, as Petrocchi 1966, pp. 165-66, argues, a lectio facilior. Did the very air seem «fearful»? Or did it seem to «tremble»? Mazzoni 1967, pp. 108-9, strongly supports Petrocchi for the second alternative.

The she-wolf who now comes against the protagonist is the most powerful of the three forces to oppose him.

For the word gravezza in the sense of 'grave malessere corporeo' (serious bodily illness), Chiamenti (“Un'altra schedula ferina: Dante, Inf. I 52,” Lingua nostra 60 (1999), 34-38) cites Bestiari medievali, ed. L. Morini (Torino: Einaudi, 1987), pp. 435-36, as well as Lewis and Short, eds., Oxford Latin Dictionary, the second definition of the Latin gravitas. The bestiary's description of the wolf, cited by Chiamenti, gives the animal's glance the power to cause in the man that it beholds a loss of all his physical powers, to move, to speak, etc. It is in this sense then, according to Chiamenti, that the protagonist 'lost hope of making the ascent' (v. 54).

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 stunning simile involving gambling and gamblers that opens Purgatorio VI (Purg. VI.1-12). Gianfranco Contini (Un' idea di Dante [Turin: Einaudi, 1976]), p. 138, insists that Dante is thinking of gambling here, too.

For Dante's verb rovinare see Mazzoni (Saggio di un nuovo commento alla “Divina Commedia”: “Inferno” –Canti I-III [Florence: Sansoni, 1967], 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.

Dante's phrasing that describes Virgil's appearance to the protagonist ('dinanzi a li occhi mi si fu offerto') reminded Tommaseo (comm. 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 Troy: 'mihi se... ante ocul[o]s... obtulit.' Any number of later commentators have also made this ascription.

For lengthy reviews of the problems raised by centuries of exegesis of this difficult verse see Giorgio Brugnoli (“Chi per lungo silenzio parea fioco,” in Letterature comparate: problemi e metodo. Studi in onore di Ettore Paratore, vol. 3 [Bologna: Pàtron, 1981], pp. 1169-82) and Hollander (Il Virgilio dantesco: tragedia nella “Commedia” [Florence: Olschki, 1983]), pp. 23-79. Both of these writers independently agree on most of the key elements in the puzzle: 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 Gino Casagrande (“Parole di Dante: il 'lungo silenzio' di Inferno I, 63,” Giornale storico della letteratura italiana 174 [1997], 246-48) makes a strong case for interpreting the adjective lungo as here meaning 'vast, extensive.' Casagrande's second point, that the 'silence' refers to the wood is well argued and seems attractive. He believes (pp. 251-54) that Uguccione da Pisa, one of Dante's main encyclopedic sources, in the MS Can Misc. 305 in the Bodleian Library at Oxford, dating from 1262, offers the Greek word xylon as equivalent to the Latin lignum for 'forest.' The Latin silva may thus derive from a word that means, according to Uguccione, 'vastitas vel silentium. Inde silva ubi sunt loca vasta et deserta et silentio plena' (vastness or silence; and thus a silva is a place marked by a space that is extensive, deserted, and full of silence). There is perhaps no other brief passage ever adduced that is as close to Dante's line. Casagrande's paraphrase of the verse is thus 'uno che nella grande selva appariva indistinto' (one who in the vast forest was hard to make out). This would be convincing except for a single detail: Virgil does not appear to Dante in the selva but on the plain between forest and mountain, as the protagonist runs back down toward the forest (but not into it). And thus one may be disposed to accept Casagrande's reading of lungo while adjusting his sense of silenzio to make it refer to the 'silent' space between the mountain and the wood. See the note to Inferno I.64.

Padoan makes the point (comm. to Inf. I.63) that it is Aristotle, and not Virgil, who is 'maestro e duca de la ragione umana' (Conv. IV.iv.8), not to mention 'maestro di color che sanno' (Inf. IV.131). Virgil is more significant a figure for being a poet, and is also seen as having come closer, in some mysterious way, to the truths of Christianity. On this subject see Courcelle (“Les Pères de l'Église devant les Enfers virgiliens,” Archives d'histoire doctrinale et littéraire du Moyen Age 30 (1955), 5-74.

For a more recent discussion of this tormented verse see Anthony Cassell, “Il silenzio di Virgilio: Inferno I, 62-63,” Letture classensi 18 (1989), 165-76 and his Lectura Dantis Americana: “Inferno” I (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1989), pp. 84-93. For a previous review of the dispute over the verse's meaning, arguing for the resonance in Dante's verse of the death of Misenus (Aen. VI.149), see Sanguineti, Federico, “L'ombra di Miseno nella Commedia,” Belfagor 40 (1985), 403-16. For considerations of the implications of the silence surrounding Virgil's first appearance in the poem, see Denise Heilbronn-Gaines, “Inferno I: Breaking the Silence,” in Dante's “Inferno.” The Indiana Critical Edition, trans. and ed. M. Musa (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1995), pp. 286-98; see also Andreas Heil, “Dantes Staunen und die Scham Vergils: Bemerkungen zu Inferno 1, 61-87,” Deutsches Dante-Jahrbuch 77 (2002), 27-43.

Virgil appears to Dante nel gran diserto. The adjective is probably meant to recall the first description of the place, la piaggia diserta (Inf. I.29).

Dante's first spoken word as character is his own poem is Latin (Miserere, 'Have mercy'). This is interesting linguistically, as it indicates a Latin capacity in the author/protagonist that might serve as a defense against those who think the poem, if it is to be taken 'seriously,' should have been written in Latin. But the Latin in question has a more important aspect: it is the language of the Church, the first word of the fiftieth Psalm (Psalms 50:1). Thus our hero is identified as a son of the Church – albeit a currently failing one – at the outset of the work. For several of the recurring references to that Psalm in the Commedia, see Hollander, “Dante's Use of the Fiftieth Psalm,” Dante Studies 91 (1973), 145-50. Vincent Truijen, 'David,' states that David is the personage in the Old Testament most referred to by Dante (ED.1970.2, p. 322b). 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). See Hollander, Allegory in Dante's “Commedia” (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1969), pp. 88-89. (For an earlier appreciation of the echo of Virgil's o dea certe in Dante's od omo certo see Tommaseo, comm. to Inf. I.66.) As for the meaning of the word ombra: the nature of shades in Dante is addressed by Domenico Consoli, 'ombra' (ED.1973.4), pp. 141-45. That Dante is trying to ascertain whether Virgil is the shade of a man or a living soul helps interpret v. 63, i.e., Virgil looks as though he were alive and yet somehow not. The poet will bring Statius to the fore in Purgatorio XXV to explain the nature of this 'aerial body' to the protagonist.

See Gian Carlo Alessio and Claudia Villa, “Per Inferno I, 67-87,” in Dante e la “bella scola” della poesia: Autorità e sfida poetica, ed. A. A. Iannucci (Ravenna: Longo, 1993 [1984], pp. 41-64), for 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 effectively undercuts 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. For sensible opposition to the notion that Virgil stands for the abstract quality of reason, see Davis (Dante and the Idea of Rome [Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1957]), pp. 124-32.

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. For a discussion in English see Michael Wigodsky, “'Nacqui sub Iulio' (Inf. I, 70),” Dante Studies 93 (1975), 177-83. 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 late for him to have been 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 hear of Christianity? The most usual contemporary reading is perhaps well stated by Padoan (comm. to Inf. I.70): 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 26 and had not begun his poetic career, which was thus to be identified with Augustus, rather than with Julius. Alessio and Villa (“Per Inferno I, 67-87,” in Dante e la “bella scola” della poesia: Autorità e sfida poetica, ed. A. A. Iannucci [Ravenna: Longo, 1993 (1984)], p. 49), point out, however, that there was at least one source that would have made Dante's line make clear literal sense: a ninth-century French text of the works of Virgil with a vita Virgilii that insisted that the poet was born after Julius had come to political power (in the triumvirate with Pompey and Crassus). Thus it is at least possible that all the exertion of commentators is vain and that Dante is resorting to a source that makes Virgil's life run under the authority of both the first two Caesars. (It is important for modern readers to know that Dante believed, in accord with medieval tradition, that Julius was in fact the first Roman emperor.) For a development of this discussion, suggesting that the difficult verse has a fairly straightforward explanation, see Violetta de Angelis and Gian Carlo Alessio, “'Nacqui sub Julio, ancor che fosse tardi' (Inf. 1.70),” Quaderni di Acme (Facoltà de Lettere e Filosofia, Università degli Studi di Milano) 41 (2000), pp. 127-45. De Angelis and Alessio point out the following. Various biographies of Virgil at least potentially available to Dante placed the Roman poet's birth in 59-58 B.C. (not in the year 70) and also told that Julius held his first consulship in Mantua in 59 B.C. Thus Virgil in these lines refers to these two facts and really means that he was born sub Iulio, while lamenting that Caesar's death in 44 B.C., when Virgil was only fourteen or fifteen years old, deprived him of the opportunity to have been known to Caesar once he had begun writing his Eclogues, ca. 30 B.C. This seems clearly the best hypothesis that we currently have in order to explain this line.

Barbi 1934, pp. 201-2, for the force and frequent presence of buon in this sense in Dante: i.e., Augustus was excellent in his role as emperor.

See Barbi (Problemi di critica dantesca [Florence: Sansoni, 1934]), pp. 201-2, for the force and frequent presence of buon in this sense in Dante: i.e., Augustus was excellent in his role as emperor.

Virgil, as we shall learn in Inferno IV.53-63, was witness to the descended Jesus who harrowed hell. He thus is a 'posthumous Christian', with all the sadness such futile knowledge conveys.

The word poeta is one of the most potent words in Dante's personal vocabulary of honor and esteem. It is used 30 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.

The word di here, as is frequently the case in Dante, means da (from), not 'of.'

The phrase superbo Ilïón clearly mirrors Aeneid III.2-3, 'superbum / Ilium.' It almost certainly has a moralizing overtone here (see also note to Inf. I.106), while in Virgil it probably only indicates the 'topless towers of Troy' (the phrase is Alexander Pope's); in Dante it gives us some sense that Troy may have fallen because of its superbia, or pride.

Virgil's remark tells us what Dante is doing: he has turned away from the danger confronting him. For a similar moment, see Inferno X.31. In both cases his reproof supplies the reader with a narrative detail.

Il «dilettoso monte» is in no ways different from the «colle» of verse 13 (see the note thereto). There is some debate about these verses, but most readers seem content with the notion that the ascent of this mountain represents the best man can do on his own in finding happiness (cfr. Mazzoni 1967, p. 59, for whom the reference at Mon. III.xvi.7 to the «beatitudo huius vitae», as signifying the earthly paradise, applies to this monte as well). On the other hand, that journey in turn figures, in this poem, the ascent toward Heaven and a more theological joy.

At this first appearance of Virgil's name in Dante's text (it will appear 30 times more), it is probably worth noting that Dante's spelling of the name is not only his, but a medieval Italian 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 'wand' with magical power).

For Virgil as fons or 'source,' Mazzoni (Saggio di un nuovo commento alla “Divina Commedia”: “Inferno” –Canti I-III [Florence: Sansoni, 1967]), p. 121, adduces Donatus's Life of Virgil (cited by Pézard, Dante sous la pluie de feu [Paris: Vrin, 1950], p. 352), in which Homer is said to be a 'largissimus fons' (unlimited source) of things poetic.

Why is Dante's head 'bent low in shame'? Torraca (comm. to Inf. I.81), citing Convivio (IV.xxv.10), argues that the protagonist feels shame for a fault committed, his having lost the true way. Barbi (Problemi di critica dantesca [Florence: Sansoni, 1934], p. 202) argues, citing a passage just previous to the one adduced by Torraca (Convivio IV.xxv.4-5), in which vergogna is defined as amazement in beholding wonderful things, that Dante is here expressing his dazzled admiration at the coming of Virgil, not his shame for his own fault. That is an attractive view. Mazzoni's treatment (Saggio di un nuovo commento alla “Divina Commedia”: “Inferno” –Canti I-III [Florence: Sansoni, 1967], p. 122) essentially makes room for both these interpretations. However, a simpler solution recommends itself. 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, the argument runs, supporting Torraca's sense of the word's meaning (but not his precise interpretation), that he feels ashamed. For a differing solution of the problem, see Andreas Heil, “Dantes Staunen und die Scham Vergils: Bemerkungen zu Inferno 1, 61-87,” Deutsches Dante-Jahrbuch 77 (2002), 27-43.

For the lofty resonance of the word volume in the Comedy (as compared with libro, another and lesser word for 'book') see Hollander, Allegory in Dante's “Commedia” (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1969, pp. 78-79. The Bible is the only other book so referred to. Hollander continues by pointing out that 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). For the meaning of cercare see Bellomo's note (ed. Bellomo, p. 167) to Villani's similar Latin verb (recircare): 'studiare a fondo' (to study deeply).

There has been much discussion of exactly what the 'noble style' is and where it is to be found in Dante's work. Mazzoni (Saggio di un nuovo commento alla “Divina Commedia”: “Inferno” –Canti I-III [Florence: Sansoni, 1967]), pp. 124-25, follows Parodi in a straightforward explanation. 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 (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 the opinion that Dante's insistence on Virgil as the sole source of his poetic excelling is a cut at Guido Cavalcanti, see Riccardo Bacchelli “'Per te poeta fui,'” Studi Danteschi 42 (1965), 8-9.

If the hidden identities of the three beasts have caused lengthy discussion, the she-wolf, as she is presented here, has been greeted by a nearly unanimous response: she represents cupidity. This sin, associated with Incontinence, is discovered in much of humankind, including Dante. It is probably most often identified with avarice, but is related to all wrongful appetites. It is thus the most common of sins and, because of its ready ability to infect all, the most dangerous. See St. Paul's saying, 'Radix malorum est cupiditas' (For the love of money is the root of all evil [I Timothy 6.10]).

le vene e i polsi. Padoan (comm. to Inf. I.90) cites Dante's previous reference to the pulses (VN II.4), those places where agitation of the blood is evident at the body's surface, and Boccaccio's gloss to this verse (comm. to Inf. I.90), which states that the veins and pulses tremble when blood rushes from them, a phenomenon occurring when the heart is troubled, according to Boccaccio, by fear.

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. For this writer's view, see Allegory in Dante's “Commedia” (Princeton: Princeton University Press), pp. 89-91. What we 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 nearly certainly an emperor) who, in his advent, also looks forward to the Second Coming of Christ. The present prophecy, insofar as Dante, as maker of prophetic utterance, wants to allow his audience to penetrate the veil, however, is of Cangrande della Scala. That is one man's opinion. It finds much fellowship in the late nineteenth century (e.g., Campi's comm. to Inf. I.101), but is opposed by most who have considered the problem in the past century (e.g., Emilio Pasquini, Dante e le figure del vero: La fabbrica della “Commedia” (Milan: Bruno Mondadori, 2001), p. 163, basing his rejection on the fact that in 1300 Cangrande was a mere nine years old. But see the note to Paradiso XVII.76-78. For an excellent review of the entire problem see C. T. Davis, 'veltro' (ED.1976.5), pp. 908a-912b. The view of this reader is largely in accord with Mazzoni's (Saggio di un nuovo commento alla “Divina Commedia”: “Inferno” –Canti I-III [Florence: Sansoni, 1967]), pp. 131-33, namely, that the prophecy is insistently 'Ghibelline,' and not of a good pope or of a reform of the mendicant orders, etc. For the view that there is indeed a Virgilian (and imperial) source for Dante's prophecy in the prediction of Augustan rule in Aeneid I (vv. 286-296) see Hollander, Allegory in Dante's “Commedia” (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1969), pp. 90-91. This view was anticipated in a discussion that has not received much attention. The so-called 'Ottimo commento' (comm. to Inf. I.100-111) minces no words about the resonance of that Virgilian passage here. One wonders why his observation has been so neglected. And, for the Virgilian resonance of the second 'world-historical' prophecy, the '515' of Purgatorio XXXIII, see R. Hollander and H. Russo, “Purgatorio 33.43: Dante's 515 and Virgil's 333,” Electronic Bulletin of the Dante Society of America (March 2003).

As for the potentially absurd but nonetheless recurring notion that the prophecy is of Dante himself, the 'poeta veltro,' it was perhaps first advanced by one Pompeo Azzolino in a letter to Gino Capponi in 1837, according to Carlo Cuini (Qualche novità nella Divina Commedia: Il Veltro, “il gran rifiuto” ed altro [Agugliano: Bagaloni, 1986]).

Against those who would argue that these three 'theological' qualities move the prophecy in a religious rather than a political direction, Mazzoni (Saggio di un nuovo commento alla “Divina Commedia”: “Inferno” –Canti I-III [Florence: Sansoni, 1967], pp. 133-35) responds that the attribution of such qualities to secular figures was common enough in Dante's time, and even in Dante, who says similar things about Cangrande (Par. XVII.83-84).

This 'felt' has been variously explained: the felt caps of the Dioscuri, the felt tents of the great Khan, the felt of the urns in which ballots were cast for the emperor, etc. For a review in English see Anthony Cassell, Lectura Dantis Americana: “Inferno” I (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1989), pp. 94-113. For still another attempt to unscramble the riddle, this time on the basis of names of parts of chivalric weaponry (e.g., OF feutre, the outcropping from a saddle on which a charging knight rests his lance) – see Fabrizio Franceschini (“'Tra feltro e feltro': l'interpretazione di Guido da Pisa e un gallicismo nell'italiano antico,” in Scrinium Berolinense: Tilo Brandis zum 65. Geburtstag, vol. II, ed. P. J. Becker & others [Berlin: Staatsbibliothek-Preussischer Kulturbesitz, 2000]), p. 1023. Those who believe that the verse refers to geographical sites in Italy and thus to the zone in which the young Cangrande would be of importance (he was only 9 years old in 1300, but was in charge of the armies of Verona only a few years later – and before Dante first came to Verona in 1304) are few in number in the current age, but were far more numerous in the nineteenth century. This writer is one in that camp. The translators have, as always, respected the text of Petrocchi; their own version would read 'between Feltre and Feltro.' The strongest case against such a reading is lodged in the 'fact' that in the fourteenth century nazione only meant 'birthplace' and not 'nation.' Consultation of the Grande Dizionario shows that this may not always be the case. For instance, soon after Dante, Boccaccio, in the Decameron (II.viii.4) uses the word in its modern sense (if he perhaps significantly does not do so in his gloss of this verse). In addition, Latin natio frequently also had this meaning, and Dante's noun may translate that usage (see, for example, Dante's own use of nationes at Dve I.viii.4). It is, however, true that the 'geographic' reading of the verse is a late phenomenon, perhaps beginning with the Anonimo fiorentino at the very end of the fourteenth century (comm. to Inf. I.101-105). It was repeated by John of Serravalle (comm. to Inf. I.105) only to be ridiculed by that commentator. However, beginning with Guiniforto in 1440 (comm. to Inf. I.100-111), it gradually become the dominant understanding in the Renaissance, and is put forward by Vellutello, Daniello, and Castelvetro, all of whom believe that the prophecy refers to Cangrande.

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. See Mazzoni, Saggio di un nuovo commento alla “Divina Commedia”: “Inferno” –Canti I-III (Florence: Sansoni, 1967), pp. 135-36, for those, especially Parodi, who are of this opinion, mainly contending that the reference is to Italy's current lowly political condition. In accord with this view, Mazzoni cites Dante's own similar formulations: Epist. V.5: miseranda Ytalia; Epist. VI.3: Ytalia misera; Purg. VI.76: serva Italia. Some have argued for a positive valence for the word here: see Alessandro Ronconi (“Per Dante interprete dei poeti latini,” Studi Danteschi 41 [1964], p. 31), who sees Italy's 'humility' as indicating her worthiness to be saved by the Veltro.

The curious intermingling of enemies (Camilla and Turnus fought against the Trojan invaders, Euryalus and Nisus with them) helps establish Dante's sense that the war was a necessary and just one, its victims as though sacrificed for the cause of establishing Rome, the 'new Troy.'

Mazzoni (Mazzoni, Saggio di un nuovo commento alla “Divina Commedia”: “Inferno” –Canti I-III [Florence: Sansoni, 1967]), 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 Sap. 2:24). He notes the resulting parallel between this line and Inferno III.6, where God is, in His third person, 'Primo Amore' (Primal Love).

These verses are Virgil's (and our) first description of the first otherworldly realm into which the guide will lead Dante.

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). Barbi (Problemi di critica dantesca [Florence: Sansoni, 1934]), p. 260, argues for the 'death' of the soul at the moment of damnation, rejecting the tradition in the commentaries that associates the phrasing here both with the Book of Revelation (Apoc. 20:14): the damned, at the Last Judgment, who will undergo a 'second death' (secunda mors), and with Dante's own phrase in Epist. VI.5, which also makes the 'terror secundae mortis' the fear of the wicked Florentines of their fates at the Last Judgment. Anna Maria Chiavacci Leonardi (Inferno, con il commento di A. M. C. L. [Milan: Mondadori, 1991]), p. 33, agrees with Barbi on which 'death' is at stake (the present one in hell), but not with his view that the sinners long for the 'second death,' and believes that they are lamenting its horror. She also suggests that we hear an echo here (also adduced by Mazzoni, Saggio di un nuovo commento alla “Divina Commedia”: “Inferno” –Canti I-III [Florence: Sansoni, 1967]), p. 143, and Padoan [comm. to Inf. I.117) of v. 31 of St. Francis's 'Laudes creaturarum' (for an earlier possible citation of that poem see the note to Inf. I.27): 'ka la morte secunda no 'l farrà male'. (In 1934 Carlo Grabher [comm. vv. 115-117] seems to have preceded Mazzoni in this citation.) That the main supporting texts invoked by discussants all involve the Last Judgment would certainly lend support to that interpretation. Thus one possibility is that the damned cry out for that future moment, either so that their pain will be eased (even though it will not be, since we learn it will be worse [Inf. VI.109-111]), or at least to put this terrible state behind them, a thoroughly comprehensible, if irrational, wish. Another, and it is one embraced by Mazzoni, pp. 139-45, is that the sinners are crying out in fear of the punishments to come after the Last Judgment. One can find arguments for or against this position. It seems the most defensible (Mazzoni cites a series of texts from St. Augustine to buttress his notion that it is the Last Judgment that confronts us here). The only potential challenge to it is that, as Umberto Bosco claims, no one has been able to find an instance of the word gridare that is used in this negative way (i.e., 'to cry out against'). And thus Bosco/Reggio (comm. to Inf. I.117) approve the judgment of Letterio Cassata, 'morte' (ED.1971.3), pp. 1040a-41b, that the damned 'invoke' the Last Judgment. It seems to this reader that Mazzoni's solution is the most sensible, especially since, a mere two dozen lines earlier, Dante has used the verb gridare with exactly such a negative valence (Inf. I.94), when Dante is portrayed as crying out in fear because of the she-wolf.

In a single tercet the guide indicates the other two realms of the otherworld, about which he has ostensibly learned from his meeting with Beatrice, when she visited him in Limbo, as we will be informed in the following canto.

Virgil's self-description as unworthy may reflect a similar self-description, that of John the Baptist. See Ioan. 1.27 and related discussion in Hollander 1983, 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 Vita nuova XXIV.3-4.

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 Hollander, Il Virgilio dantesco: tragedia nella “Commedia” (Florence: Olschki, 1983), 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 Vita nuova XXIV.3-4.

For Cassell's consideration of the striking word ribellante, see Lectura Dantis Americana: “Inferno” I (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1989), pp. 77-84. His treatment of the way in which Dante thought of Virgil (much in the way that a long Christian tradition insisted of the Hebrews) as owing his faith to the true God has the result of making Virgil guilty of turning his back on a God whom he in some ways knew. The problem with such a formulation is that it would make Virgil's placement in Limbo problematic – he would have had to be placed deeper in hell, for such behavior would have been an active sin against God. Nonetheless, it is also fair to say that most commentators dodge this troublesome word. (See, for example, Bosco/Reggio, according to whom all that is meant here is that God will not allow Virgil to enter Paradise because he was born and lived a pagan and thus had no possibility of believing in Christ to come [comm. to Inf. I.124-126]. That is not a satisfying gloss to so strong a phrasing.) For an attempt to find a difficult middle ground see Hollander, Il Virgilio dantesco: tragedia nella “Commedia” (Florence: Olschki, 1983), pp. 145-51, and, perhaps more convincingly, Bortolo Martinelli, “Canto VII,” in Lectura Dantis Neapolitana: “Purgatorio,” ed. Pompeo Giannantonio (Naples: Loffredo, 1989), pp. 157-58, distinguishing rebellio lumini (Job 24:13), an intentional and prideful act of hostility to God ('rebellion against the light') from a merely ignorant failure to have faith, as is the case with Virgil. We should also remember that, within the fiction of the poem, 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.

'This harm' is Dante's present situation in the world, perhaps underlining his recent subjection to the lupa; 'e peggio' would refer to his resultant damnation if he does not overcome his appetite for sinful behavior.

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 Inf. I.122-123), but not Dante, who is aware only that some soul will take up the role of Virgil when his first guide leaves him.

«La porta di San Pietro» is in fact the entrance to Heaven, never described in the third cantica. Dante presents a version of it in Purgatorio IX, with its Petrine warder and screeching gate.