Taciti, soli, sanza compagnia
n'andavam l'un dinanzi e l'altro dopo,
come frati minor vanno per via.
Vòlt' era in su la favola d'Isopo
lo mio pensier per la presente rissa,
dov' el parlò de la rana e del topo;
ché più non si pareggia “mo” e “issa”
che l'un con l'altro fa, se ben s'accoppia
principio e fine con la mente fissa.
E come l'un pensier de l'altro scoppia,
così nacque di quello un altro poi,
che la prima paura mi fé doppia.
Io pensava così: “Questi per noi
sono scherniti con danno e con beffa
sì fatta, ch' assai credo che lor nòi.
Se l'ira sovra 'l mal voler s'aggueffa,
ei ne verranno dietro più crudeli
che 'l cane a quella lievre ch'elli acceffa.”
Già mi sentia tutti arricciar li peli
de la paura e stava in dietro intento,
quand' io dissi: “Maestro, se non celi
te e me tostamente, i' ho pavento
d'i Malebranche. Noi li avem già dietro;
io li 'magino sì, che già li sento.”
E quei: “S'i' fossi di piombato vetro,
l'imagine di fuor tua non trarrei
più tosto a me, che quella dentro 'mpetro.
Pur mo venieno i tuo' pensier tra ' miei,
con simile atto e con simile faccia,
sì che d'intrambi un sol consiglio fei.
S'elli è che sì la destra costa giaccia,
che noi possiam ne l'altra bolgia scendere,
noi fuggirem l'imaginata caccia.”
Già non compié di tal consiglio rendere,
ch'io li vidi venir con l'ali tese
non molto lungi, per volerne prendere.
Lo duca mio di sùbito mi prese,
come la madre ch'al romore è desta
e vede presso a sé le fiamme accese,
che prende il figlio e fugge e non s'arresta,
avendo più di lui che di sé cura,
tanto che solo una camiscia vesta;
e giù dal collo de la ripa dura
supin si diede a la pendente roccia,
che l'un de' lati a l'altra bolgia tura.
Non corse mai sì tosto acqua per doccia
a volger ruota di molin terragno,
quand' ella più verso le pale approccia,
come 'l maestro mio per quel vivagno,
portandosene me sovra 'l suo petto,
come suo figlio, non come compagno.
A pena fuoro i piè suoi giunti al letto
del fondo giù, ch'e' furon in sul colle
sovresso noi; ma non lì era sospetto:
ché l'alta provedenza che lor volle
porre ministri de la fossa quinta,
poder di partirs' indi a tutti tolle.
Là giù trovammo una gente dipinta
che giva intorno assai con lenti passi,
piangendo e nel sembiante stanca e vinta.
Elli avean cappe con cappucci bassi
dinanzi a li occhi, fatte de la taglia
che in Clugnì per li monaci fassi.
Di fuor dorate son, sì ch'elli abbaglia;
ma dentro tutte piombo, e gravi tanto,
che Federigo le mettea di paglia.
Oh in etterno faticoso manto!
Noi ci volgemmo ancor pur a man manca
con loro insieme, intenti al tristo pianto;
ma per lo peso quella gente stanca
venìa sì pian, che noi eravam nuovi
di compagnia ad ogne mover d'anca.
Per ch'io al duca mio: “Fa che tu trovi
alcun ch'al fatto o al nome si conosca,
e li occhi, sì andando, intorno movi.”
E un che 'ntese la parola tosca,
di retro a noi gridò: “Tenete i piedi,
voi che correte sì per l'aura fosca!
Forse ch'avrai da me quel che tu chiedi.”
Onde 'l duca si volse e disse: “Aspetta
e poi secondo il suo passo procedi.”
Ristetti, e vidi due mostrar gran fretta
de l'animo, col viso, d'esser meco;
ma tardavali 'l carco e la via stretta.
Quando fuor giunti, assai con l'occhio bieco
mi rimiraron sanza far parola;
poi si volsero in sé, e dicean seco:
“Costui par vivo a l'atto de la gola;
e s'e' son morti, per qual privilegio
vanno scoperti de la grave stola?”
Poi disser me: “O Tosco, ch'al collegio
de l'ipocriti tristi se' venuto,
dir chi tu se' non avere in dispregio.”
E io a loro: “I' fui nato e cresciuto
sovra 'l bel fiume d'Arno a la gran villa,
e son col corpo ch'i' ho sempre avuto.
Ma voi chi siete, a cui tanto distilla
quant' i' veggio dolor giù per le guance?
e che pena è in voi che sì sfavilla?”
E l'un rispuose a me: “Le cappe rance
son di piombo sì grosse, che li pesi
fan così cigolar le lor bilance.
Frati godenti fummo, e bolognesi;
io Catalano e questi Loderingo
nomati, e da tua terra insieme presi
come suole esser tolto un uom solingo,
per conservar sua pace; e fummo tali,
ch'ancor si pare intorno dal Gardingo.”
Io cominciai: “O frati, i vostri mali...”;
ma più non dissi, ch'a l'occhio mi corse
un, crucifisso in terra con tre pali.
Quando mi vide, tutto si distorse,
soffiando ne la barba con sospiri;
e 'l frate Catalan, ch'a ciò s'accorse,
mi disse: “Quel confitto che tu miri,
consigliò i Farisei che convenia
porre un uom per lo popolo a' martìri.
Attraversato è, nudo, ne la via,
come tu vedi, ed è mestier ch'el senta
qualunque passa, come pesa, pria.
E a tal modo il socero si stenta
in questa fossa, e li altri dal concilio
che fu per li Giudei mala sementa.”
Allor vid' io maravigliar Virgilio
sovra colui ch'era disteso in croce
tanto vilmente ne l'etterno essilio
Poscia drizzò al frate cotal voce:
“Non vi dispiaccia, se vi lece, dirci
s'a la man destra giace alcuna foce
onde noi amendue possiamo uscirci,
sanza costrigner de li angeli neri
che vegnan d'esto fondo a dipartirci.”
Rispuose adunque: “Più che tu non speri
s'appressa un sasso che da la gran cerchia
si move e varca tutt' i vallon feri,
salvo che 'n questo è rotto e nol coperchia;
montar potrete su per la ruina,
che giace in costa e nel fondo soperchia.”
Lo duca stette un poco a testa china;
poi disse: “Mal contava la bisogna
colui che i peccator di qua uncina.”
E 'l frate: “Io udi' già dire a Bologna
del diavol vizi assai, tra ' quali udi'
ch'elli è bugiardo e padre di menzogna.”
Appresso il duca a gran passi sen gì,
turbato un poco d'ira nel sembiante;
ond' io da li 'ncarcati mi parti'
dietro a le poste de le care piante.
Silent, alone, and without company
We went, the one in front, the other after,
As go the Minor Friars along their way.
Upon the fable of Aesop was directed
My thought, by reason of the present quarrel,
Where he has spoken of the frog and mouse;
For 'mo' and 'issa' are not more alike
Than this one is to that, if well we couple
End and beginning with a steadfast mind.
And even as one thought from another springs,
So afterward from that was born another,
Which the first fear within me double made.
Thus did I ponder: "These on our account
Are laughed to scorn, with injury and scoff
So great, that much I think it must annoy them.
If anger be engrafted on ill-will,
They will come after us more merciless
Than dog upon the leveret which he seizes,"
I felt my hair stand all on end already
With terror, and stood backwardly intent,
When said I: "Master, if thou hidest not
Thyself and me forthwith, of Malebranche
I am in dread; we have them now behind us;
I so imagine them, I already feel them."
And he: "If I were made of leaded glass,
Thine outward image I should not attract
Sooner to me than I imprint the inner.
Just now thy thoughts came in among my own,
With similar attitude and similar face,
So that of both one counsel sole I made.
If peradventure the right bank so slope
That we to the next Bolgia can descend,
We shall escape from the imagined chase."
Not yet he finished rendering such opinion,
When I beheld them come with outstretched wings,
Not far remote, with will to seize upon us.
My Leader on a sudden seized me up,
Even as a mother who by noise is wakened,
And close beside her sees the enkindled flames,
Who takes her son, and flies, and does not stop,
Having more care of him than of herself,
So that she clothes her only with a shift;
And downward from the top of the hard bank
Supine he gave him to the pendent rock,
That one side of the other Bolgia walls.
Ne'er ran so swiftly water through a sluice
To turn the wheel of any land-built mill,
When nearest to the paddles it approaches,
As did my Master down along that border,
Bearing me with him on his breast away,
As his own son, and not as a companion.
Hardly the bed of the ravine below
His feet had reached, ere they had reached the hill
Right over us; but he was not afraid;
For the high Providence, which had ordained
To place them ministers of the fifth moat,
The power of thence departing took from all.
A painted people there below we found,
Who went about with footsteps very slow,
Weeping and in their semblance tired and vanquished.
They had on mantles with the hoods low down
Before their eyes, and fashioned of the cut
That in Cologne they for the monks are made.
Without, they gilded are so that it dazzles;
But inwardly all leaden and so heavy
That Frederick used to put them on of straw.
O everlastingly fatiguing mantle!
Again we turned us, still to the left hand
Along with them, intent on their sad plaint;
But owing to the weight, that weary folk
Came on so tardily, that we were new
In company at each motion of the haunch.
Whence I unto my Leader: "See thou find
Some one who may by deed or name be known,
And thus in going move thine eye about."
And one, who understood the Tuscan speech,
Cried to us from behind: "Stay ye your feet,
Ye, who so run athwart the dusky air!
Perhaps thou'lt have from me what thou demandest."
Whereat the Leader turned him, and said: "Wait,
And then according to his pace proceed."
I stopped, and two beheld I show great haste
Of spirit, in their faces, to be with me;
But the burden and the narrow way delayed them.
When they came up, long with an eye askance
They scanned me without uttering a word.
Then to each other turned, and said together:
"He by the action of his throat seems living;
And if they dead are, by what privilege
Go they uncovered by the heavy stole?"
Then said to me: "Tuscan, who to the college
Of miserable hypocrites art come,
Do not disdain to tell us who thou art."
And I to them: "Born was I, and grew up
In the great town on the fair river of Arno,
And with the body am I've always had.
But who are ye, in whom there trickles down
Along your cheeks such grief as I behold?
And what pain is upon you, that so sparkles?"
And one replied to me: "These orange cloaks
Are made of lead so heavy, that the weights
Cause in this way their balances to creak.
Frati Gaudenti were we, and Bolognese;
I Catalano, and he Loderingo
Named, and together taken by thy city,
As the wont is to take one man alone,
For maintenance of its peace; and we were such
That still it is apparent round Gardingo."
"O Friars," began I, "your iniquitous. . ."
But said no more; for to mine eyes there rushed
One crucified with three stakes on the ground.
When me he saw, he writhed himself all over,
Blowing into his beard with suspirations;
And the Friar Catalan, who noticed this,
Said to me: "This transfixed one, whom thou seest,
Counselled the Pharisees that it was meet
To put one man to torture for the people.
Crosswise and naked is he on the path,
As thou perceivest; and he needs must feel,
Whoever passes, first how much he weighs;
And in like mode his father-in-law is punished
Within this moat, and the others of the council,
Which for the Jews was a malignant seed."
And thereupon I saw Virgilius marvel
O'er him who was extended on the cross
So vilely in eternal banishment.
Then he directed to the Friar this voice:
"Be not displeased, if granted thee, to tell us
If to the right hand any pass slope down
By which we two may issue forth from here,
Without constraining some of the black angels
To come and extricate us from this deep."
Then he made answer: "Nearer than thou hopest
There is a rock, that forth from the great circle
Proceeds, and crosses all the cruel valleys,
Save that at this 'tis broken, and does not bridge it;
You will be able to mount up the ruin,
That sidelong slopes and at the bottom rises."
The Leader stood awhile with head bowed down;
Then said: "The business badly he recounted
Who grapples with his hook the sinners yonder."
And the Friar: "Many of the Devil's vices
Once heard I at Bologna, and among them,
That he's a liar and the father of lies."
Thereat my Leader with great strides went on,
Somewhat disturbed with anger in his looks;
Whence from the heavy-laden I departed
After the prints of his beloved feet.
The quiet opening of the canto compares the two travelers to pairs of Franciscan mendicants. Casini/Barbi, in their commentary to this passage, cite the words of St. Francis to his followers, telling them to go in pairs: 'Ite cautissimi, bini et bini, per diversas partes orbis' (go forth with great care, two by two, through the various parts of the world). As John of Serravalle reminds us, in his comment, the most authoritative of the two traditionally went before. Thus, when we consider the considerable time spent in exploring Virgil's difficulties in the preceding two cantos, we probably ought to perceive the delicate irony inherent in these verses. It will be present again, more palbably, at the close of this canto: see Hollander (“Dante's Commedia and the Classical Tradition: the Case of Virgil,” in The “Divine Comedy” and the Encyclopedia of Arts and Sciences: Acta of the International Dante Symposium, 13-16 November 1983, Hunter College, New York, ed. G. Di Scipio and A. Scaglione [Amsterdam: John Benjamins, 1988]), pp. 22-23, for the way in which Virgil's loss of authority, tacitly alluded to here, is underlined more heavily by Catalano's mocking words at Inferno XXIII.142-144.
The absolute source of this fable of 'Aesop' is not known, but it seems that Dante may have been acquainted with both the collection circulated under the name Romulus, which Kenneth McKenzie (“Dante's References to Aesop,” Seventeenth Annual Report of the Dante Society [1900], pp. 1-14) says is the (Carolingian) collection adverted to by the various fourteenth-century commentators who discuss the passage, and the later one (12th century) assembled by Waltherius Anglicus. Clara Kraus, in the entry 'Esopo' (ED.1970.2), pp. 729-30, points out, following McKenzie, that this particular fable derives from an unknown non-Aesopic source, even if the poet presents it as being by him. (Dante had referred to Aesop once previously: Convivio IV.xxx.4. For the question of sources see also Enzo Mandruzzato, “L'apologo 'della rana e del topo' e Dante,” Studi Danteschi 33 (1955-56), pp.147-65, and Sam Guyler, “Virgil the Hypocrite – Almost: A Re-interpretation of Inferno XXIII,” Dante Studies 90 (1972), pp. 29-31, the latter reviewing the discussions of McKenzie (“Dante's References to Aesop,” Seventeenth Annual Report of the Dante Society [1900], pp. 1-14); Larkin (“Another Look at Dante's Frog and Mouse,” Modern Language Notes 77 [1962], pp. 94-99); “Inferno XXIII, 4-9, Again,” Modern Language Notes 81 (1966), pp. 85-88; and Padoan (“Il liber Esopi e due episodi dell'Inferno,” Studi Danteschi 41 [1964], pp. 75-102) and eventually favoring Waltherius as source text.
The fable runs roughly as follows: a mouse, wishing to cross a river, is advised by an apparently friendly frog to allow himself to be attached to that frog by a string, to which project he consents. Once the frog, mouse in tow, reaches mid-stream, he dives in an attempt to drown the mouse. An over-flying kite, or hawk, seeing the struggling mouse atop the waters, dives down, captures and kills the mouse – and the attached frog, a bonus. It seems sensible to believe that, as the protagonist reviews the events of the prior canto, he thinks of two things: the aptness of the fable to the situation of Ciampolo (mouse [Guyler, p. 32, points out that Ciampolo has already been compared to a mouse at Inf. XXII.58]), Alichino (frog), and Calcabrina (kite), as well as to his own: Dante (mouse), Virgil (frog), and the Malebranche (kite). Thus the beginning and the end of the fable are particularly apt to his situation: in order to reach the next bolgia he has tied himself to Virgil, and now the kite must be on its way. That Virgil should be cast in the role of the double-dealing frog seemed so unlikely that no one, until Guyler, pp. 35-40, suggested as much. While this writer agrees with him, the complexity of the passage, it should be noted, guarantees that its meaning will continue to be debated. For some of the disparate and confused responses see Hollander (“Virgil and Dante as Mind-Readers [Inferno XXI and XXIII],” Medioevo romanzo 9 [1984]), pp. 92-93, where, in an admittedly incomplete listing, one may find ten different interpretive versions of the correspondences among mouse, frog, and kite and either the various Malebranche and/or the various protagonists.
The words 'mo' and 'issa' are both dialectical forms, meaning 'right now,' derived from the Latin modo (used again in this canto at Inf. XXIII.28 and a total of 25 times in the poem) and ipsa hora (see Purg. XXIV.55). Hollander (“Virgil and Dante as Mind-Readers [Inferno XXI and XXIII],” Medioevo romanzo 9 [1984]), p. 93, suggests that the choice of words for 'now' accentuates the imminent and immediate danger in which Dante finds himself.
For Dante's hair, curling tight with fear, Pietro di Dante (Pietro1 to vv. 19-20) adduces Aeneid II.774: 'steteruntque comae' (and my hair stood on end). The setting for the scene is the night of the destruction of Troy. A few lines earlier (Aen. II.733) Aeneas is warned by his father, Anchises, to flee: 'nate,... fuge, nate; propinquant' (my son, my son, flee – they are coming closer). Moments later, Aeneas realizes that he has lost Creusa, and turns back to the flaming city to find her. His wife's ghost appears to him in a vision that is the cause of his hair standing on end. If Dante was thinking of this scene, as Pietro believed, he has perhaps put Anchises' warning about the fast-approaching Greek marauders into his own mouth, the advice he might have expected to have heard from Virgil, his 'father,' and the author of that scene. For these observations see Hollander (“Virgil and Dante as Mind-Readers [Inferno XXI and XXIII],” Medioevo romanzo 9 [1984], p. 94 .
As Mark Musa (“Virgil Reads the Pilgrim's Mind,” Dante Studies 95 [1977], pp. 149-52) has pointed out, Virgil, here and elsewhere (Inf. IV.51; Inf. X.17-18; Inf. XVI.119-120; Inf. XIX.39; Inf. XXVI.73-74) is either accorded by the protagonist or confers upon himself the power of 'reading Dante's mind.' Musa shows that, rather than the power actually to read the protagonist's thoughts, Virgil's capacity is one of heightened rationality, not the kind of supernatural power enjoyed by Beatrice, who, like all beatified souls, has precisely the ability to read unvoiced thoughts; in other words, Virgil is able to fathom what Dante is thinking from the context of the experiences that they share, and nothing more than that.
Dante refers to mirrors being made by backing clear glass with lead in Convivio III.ix.8.
The Malebranche are back, the 'kite' of the fable, about to pounce on 'mouse' and 'frog.'
This simile, classical in form, seems to have no classical counterpart (although the fires of dying Troy may come to mind), whether in image or in language; rather, it seems to be among those that Dante draws from contemporary experience, ruinous fires being a pronounced feature of medieval town life. Virgil's customary paternal role here is resolved into a maternal one. That we should take this surprising change as meant positively is guaranteed by a later scene, just as Virgil has left the poem and returned to Limbo. At this moment of greatest pathos involving Dante's love for his guide and teacher, Dante turns back to him as a frightened child runs to his mother (Purg. XXX.44), only to find him gone forever.
The second simile is also without classical origin. Commentators point out that land mills were powered by water, diverted from other sources along sluices, while water mills were situated in the rivers or streams that powered them.
At the border of their domain the Malebranche, so swift on their own turf, are now frozen into immobility by the laws of God's governance of hell, as Dante and Virgil look back at them. The victims of earthly barrators are not similarly protected.
The new set of sinners is characterized, in a total change of pace, by slowness and quiet, in stark contrast with the extraordinarily energetic, even frenetic, pace of the cantos of barratry. For an appreciation of the overarching harmony of Dante's art in Cantos XXI to XXIX, see Momigliano's comment to Inf. XXIII.58-144.
They are 'lacquered' in that they are covered by gilded mantles (v. 64).
The hypocrites, 'dressed' as monks, are in fact represented by only two personnages, Catalano and Loderingo, both friars (see the note to Inf. XXIII.104-108). The hypocrisy of the clergy – and especially of the mendicant orders – was a medieval commonplace, one most effectively exploited by such writers as Boccaccio and Chaucer.
While many early commentators believed that the monastery referred to was located in Köln (Cologne), in Germany, the predominant modern view is that this is the great Benedictine monastery in France, at Cluny. For discussion of these two possibilities and indeed, beginning with Zamboni in 1870, of yet a third (Cologna, near Verona) see Scartazzini (comm. to Inf. XXIII.63).
'Ypocresia... dicitur ab “epi” quod est “supra” et “crisis” quod est “aurum”' (Hypocrisy is so called from 'epi,' that is, 'above,' and 'crisis,' that is, 'gold'). This familiar gloss, deriving from Uguccione of Pisa, is found in the third redaction of Pietro di Dante's commentary (Pietro3, comm. to vv. 58-66).
Almost all the early commentators relate the tale that Frederick II (Inf. X.119) put those who had particularly offended him to the following torture and death: he would have them covered with a thick 'cape' of lead and placed in a large crucible, under which a fire was set, causing the lead to melt and the victim to suffer greatly before dying. While there is no evidence to connect Frederick with this practice, it seems clear that many of his contemporaries believed that he indeed did dispatch his enemies in this way. See George L. Hamilton, “The Gilded Leaden Cloaks of the Hypocrites (Inferno, XXIII, 58-66),” Romanic Review 12 (1921), pp. 335-52.
Once again Dante's Tuscan speech serves to find him damned souls whose lives will be of interest. See Inferno X.22; XXII.99.
The sinner shouts because Dante and Virgil seem to be racing past him (Casini/Barbi, citing Biondolillo in their comm. to this verse).
For Dante's word 'hypocrites' commentators frequently cite Matthew 6:16: 'Moreover when you fast, be not, as the hypocrites, of a sad countenance: for they disfigure their faces, that they may appear to men to fast.'
The friars are like creaking scales (literally, 'balances' in Dante's Italian) because the weight they support on their lurching shoulders is so tremendous that they 'creak' beneath it.
Ca.1260 a group of Bolognese citizens founded a conventual order, sanctioned by the pope (Urban IV), to serve as champions of the Virgin Mary. They became known as 'Frati Gaudenti,' or 'Jovial Friars,' apparently as a result of their fairly relaxed rule, which allowed them many of the comforts of the secular life (e.g., marriage). For Dante's relationship to Bologna see Raimondi, “I canti bolognesi dell'Inferno dantesco,” in Dante e Bologna nei tempi di Dante (Bologna: Commissione per i Testi di Lingua, 1967), pp. 239-48.
For Catalano and Loderingo see Singleton's comment to verse 104. Catalano (ca. 1210-1285) was a Bolognese Guelph of the Catalani family; Loderingo degli Andalò (ca. 1210-1293) belonged to a Ghibelline family of the city. Loderingo was one of the founders of the Bolognese order of the Frati Gaudenti, and Catalano was also involved in it. While their allegiances to opposing parties made them seem to be an ideal 'couple' to serve as podestà (an office usually taken on by a single non-citizen, chosen in the hope of guaranteeing fairness) of a faction-riddled city, their vows to the pope meant that, once they were chosen to serve in Florence in 1266, they in fact sided with the forces of the pope (Clement IV) against the Florentine Ghibellines, with the result that the area known as the Gardingo, where some of the most powerful Ghibelline families lived (including Farinata's Uberti – see Inf. X), was razed by the populace with at least the tacit consent of these two.
There is dispute as to whether Dante's broken apostrophe of the two friars (or, as some believe, of friars in general) was going to be one of rebuke (e.g., Benvenuto da Imola, comm. to vv. 109-111) or commiseration (e.g., Francesco da Buti, comm. to vv.109-123). The context and the similar moment in Inferno XIX.90-117, when Dante upbraids Pope Nicholas III, both would seem to support the harsher reading.
Dante's attention is drawn by the figure crucified upon the ground, attached through his hands and his conjoined feet. From Catalano's description it will become clear that this is Caiaphas, the high priest who urged the Pharisees 'that one man should be martyred for the people' and bears that burden of responsibility for the death of Jesus (see John 11:50). As Chiavacci Leonardi points out (Inferno, con il commento di A. M. C. L. [Milan: Mondadori, 1991], p. 696), Caiaphas masks his own vicious motives for wanting to give over Jesus as a desire for the public weal (i.e., saving the rest of the Hebrews from Roman repression), thus justifying his presence among the hypocrites.
The punishment of Caiaphas (and of his fellows in this act of hypocrisy, referred to in the next tercet) is a refinement upon that of the rest of the hypocrites. They are cloaked in lead, he is naked (his Christ-centered hypocrisy deserves to be revealed); yet he, too, feels the weight of hypocrisy on his own body when each of the others, in turn, slowly walks over his outstretched form.
Catalano refers to Annas, the father-in-law of Caiaphas, who presided over the council of the Pharisees (the 'others' of the text) by which Jesus was condemned. It was this action, in Dante's mind, which was punished in the destruction of the second Temple by the forces of the Roman emperor Titus in 70 A.D. and in the resultant diaspora of the Hebrew people.
The high priest, unlike Jesus, is crucified upon the ground and trodden upon (thus seeming so 'ignoble'). There has been much discussion of the possible reasons for Virgil's 'marveling' over the crucified shape of Caiaphas. Castelvetro, in error (in his comm. to this passage), says that Virgil would have seen Caiaphas on an earlier visit to the depths; Lombardi gets this right: when Virgil was sent down by Erichtho (Inf. IX.22-24), Christ had not yet been crucified and Caiaphas not yet been damned. Further, and as Margherita Frankel has argued (“Dante's Anti-Virgilian villanello,” Dante Studies 102 [1984], p. 87), Virgil has already seen Christ and his Cross (Inf. IV.53-54). Nonetheless, and as others have pointed out, Virgil does not marvel at others who were not here before his first visit. Rossetti, commenting on this passage, further remarks that nowhere else in Inferno does Virgil marvel at any other sinner, the text thus conferring a specialness upon this scene. Benvenuto da Imola (comm. to vv. 114-117) and Vellutello (comm. to this passage) both offered an interesting hypothesis, which has since made its way into some modern commentaries: the verse at line 117, 'one man should be martyred for the people,' seems to echo a verse of Virgil's (Aen. V.815): 'unum per multis dabitur caput' (one life shall be given for many). (In that passage Neptune speaks of the coming 'sacrifice' of Palinurus.) Vellutello sees that 'prophecy' as an unwitting Virgilian prophecy of Christ, and suggests that Virgil now wonders at how close he had come. If that seems perhaps a forced reading, a similar effect is gained by the phrase that Dante uses to indicate Caiaphas's punishment in his 'eternal exile' (etterno essilio). That phrase will only be used once again in the poem, precisely by Virgil himself to indicate his own punishment in Limbo (Purg. XXI.118), as Castelvetro (comm. to verse 126) observed, if without drawing any conclusion from the observation. The Anonimo Fiorentino (comm. to this passage), perhaps better than many later commentators, caught the flavor of this passage, which he reads as indicating Virgil's grief for himself because he had not lived in a time when he could have known Christ. In this reader's view, Virgil wonders at Caiaphas because the high priest had actually known Christ in the world and yet turned against Him. Had Virgil had that opportunity, he thinks, his life (and afterlife) would have been very different.
The 'black angels' are obviously the winged devils of the last bolgia. Are they actually fallen angels, or does Virgil merely speak ironically, employing the figure antiphrasis, indicating devils by their opposites? Most of the commentators seem to believe that these really are fallen angels. This may be a questionable interpretation, since Dante seems clear about the kinds of fallen angels found in hell: neutral (Inf. III.37-42) and rebellious (Inf. VIII.82-83). If this were the only other place in hell in which we found evil creatures referred to as 'angels,' it would seem likely that the term would be merely a figure of speech on Virgil's part. However, we also have the black Cherub referred to by Guido da Montefeltro (Inf. XXVII.113). (See the note to Inf. XXVII.112-114.)
Virgil's question to Catalano (and Loderingo) receives this devastating answer: he has been fooled by Malacoda; all the bridges connecting the fifth and sixth 'valleys' are down.
The noun ruina, describing the fallen rock that will allow an exit from this bolgia, connects to the same word used with the same meaning in Inferno XII.4 and XII.34. And see the note to Inferno V.34 for the difficult problem of its meaning in that verse.
Catalano's bit of 'university wit' is the last straw for Virgil, pilloried with understated sarcasm for trusting in the words of devils. Catalano cites Scripture (John 8:44): 'Diabolus est mendax et pater eius' (The devil is a liar and the father of lies).
Virgil, angered (as well he might be), strides away, followed by the protagonist. Frankel (“Dante's Anti-Virgilian villanello,” Dante Studies 102 [1984]), pp. 85-89, connects the anger Virgil feels now to the simile that opens the next canto. She also observes (pp. 96-97) that the passage picks up an earlier apostrophe of Virgil by his pupil: see Inferno XI.91, 'O sol che sani ogni vista turbata' (O sun that heals all troubled sight). Now we perceive that Virgil is himself turbato. We reflect that it is Dante who has contrived this whole elaborate scene to the discomfiture of Virgil, but who now, as character in the poem, follows humbly and caringly in his dear leader's footsteps. Hollander (“Dante's 'Georgic' [Inferno XXIV, 1-18],” Dante Studies 102 [1984]), pp. 115-17, has suggested that this last verse is modelled on the penultimate verses of Statius's Thebaid (XII.816-817): ' ...nec tu divinam Aeneida tempta, / sed longe sequere et vestigia semper adora' (do not attempt to rival the divine Aeneid, but follow at a distance, always worshiping its footsteps). With this gesture Statius tries to reassure his reader (and perhaps himself) that he feels no envy toward Virgil's greatness; Dante's gesture has a different task to perform, to reassure himself (and his reader) that, for all that the poet has put Virgil through in these cantos of barratry, he nonetheless reveres his great pagan guide.
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Taciti, soli, sanza compagnia
n'andavam l'un dinanzi e l'altro dopo,
come frati minor vanno per via.
Vòlt' era in su la favola d'Isopo
lo mio pensier per la presente rissa,
dov' el parlò de la rana e del topo;
ché più non si pareggia “mo” e “issa”
che l'un con l'altro fa, se ben s'accoppia
principio e fine con la mente fissa.
E come l'un pensier de l'altro scoppia,
così nacque di quello un altro poi,
che la prima paura mi fé doppia.
Io pensava così: “Questi per noi
sono scherniti con danno e con beffa
sì fatta, ch' assai credo che lor nòi.
Se l'ira sovra 'l mal voler s'aggueffa,
ei ne verranno dietro più crudeli
che 'l cane a quella lievre ch'elli acceffa.”
Già mi sentia tutti arricciar li peli
de la paura e stava in dietro intento,
quand' io dissi: “Maestro, se non celi
te e me tostamente, i' ho pavento
d'i Malebranche. Noi li avem già dietro;
io li 'magino sì, che già li sento.”
E quei: “S'i' fossi di piombato vetro,
l'imagine di fuor tua non trarrei
più tosto a me, che quella dentro 'mpetro.
Pur mo venieno i tuo' pensier tra ' miei,
con simile atto e con simile faccia,
sì che d'intrambi un sol consiglio fei.
S'elli è che sì la destra costa giaccia,
che noi possiam ne l'altra bolgia scendere,
noi fuggirem l'imaginata caccia.”
Già non compié di tal consiglio rendere,
ch'io li vidi venir con l'ali tese
non molto lungi, per volerne prendere.
Lo duca mio di sùbito mi prese,
come la madre ch'al romore è desta
e vede presso a sé le fiamme accese,
che prende il figlio e fugge e non s'arresta,
avendo più di lui che di sé cura,
tanto che solo una camiscia vesta;
e giù dal collo de la ripa dura
supin si diede a la pendente roccia,
che l'un de' lati a l'altra bolgia tura.
Non corse mai sì tosto acqua per doccia
a volger ruota di molin terragno,
quand' ella più verso le pale approccia,
come 'l maestro mio per quel vivagno,
portandosene me sovra 'l suo petto,
come suo figlio, non come compagno.
A pena fuoro i piè suoi giunti al letto
del fondo giù, ch'e' furon in sul colle
sovresso noi; ma non lì era sospetto:
ché l'alta provedenza che lor volle
porre ministri de la fossa quinta,
poder di partirs' indi a tutti tolle.
Là giù trovammo una gente dipinta
che giva intorno assai con lenti passi,
piangendo e nel sembiante stanca e vinta.
Elli avean cappe con cappucci bassi
dinanzi a li occhi, fatte de la taglia
che in Clugnì per li monaci fassi.
Di fuor dorate son, sì ch'elli abbaglia;
ma dentro tutte piombo, e gravi tanto,
che Federigo le mettea di paglia.
Oh in etterno faticoso manto!
Noi ci volgemmo ancor pur a man manca
con loro insieme, intenti al tristo pianto;
ma per lo peso quella gente stanca
venìa sì pian, che noi eravam nuovi
di compagnia ad ogne mover d'anca.
Per ch'io al duca mio: “Fa che tu trovi
alcun ch'al fatto o al nome si conosca,
e li occhi, sì andando, intorno movi.”
E un che 'ntese la parola tosca,
di retro a noi gridò: “Tenete i piedi,
voi che correte sì per l'aura fosca!
Forse ch'avrai da me quel che tu chiedi.”
Onde 'l duca si volse e disse: “Aspetta
e poi secondo il suo passo procedi.”
Ristetti, e vidi due mostrar gran fretta
de l'animo, col viso, d'esser meco;
ma tardavali 'l carco e la via stretta.
Quando fuor giunti, assai con l'occhio bieco
mi rimiraron sanza far parola;
poi si volsero in sé, e dicean seco:
“Costui par vivo a l'atto de la gola;
e s'e' son morti, per qual privilegio
vanno scoperti de la grave stola?”
Poi disser me: “O Tosco, ch'al collegio
de l'ipocriti tristi se' venuto,
dir chi tu se' non avere in dispregio.”
E io a loro: “I' fui nato e cresciuto
sovra 'l bel fiume d'Arno a la gran villa,
e son col corpo ch'i' ho sempre avuto.
Ma voi chi siete, a cui tanto distilla
quant' i' veggio dolor giù per le guance?
e che pena è in voi che sì sfavilla?”
E l'un rispuose a me: “Le cappe rance
son di piombo sì grosse, che li pesi
fan così cigolar le lor bilance.
Frati godenti fummo, e bolognesi;
io Catalano e questi Loderingo
nomati, e da tua terra insieme presi
come suole esser tolto un uom solingo,
per conservar sua pace; e fummo tali,
ch'ancor si pare intorno dal Gardingo.”
Io cominciai: “O frati, i vostri mali...”;
ma più non dissi, ch'a l'occhio mi corse
un, crucifisso in terra con tre pali.
Quando mi vide, tutto si distorse,
soffiando ne la barba con sospiri;
e 'l frate Catalan, ch'a ciò s'accorse,
mi disse: “Quel confitto che tu miri,
consigliò i Farisei che convenia
porre un uom per lo popolo a' martìri.
Attraversato è, nudo, ne la via,
come tu vedi, ed è mestier ch'el senta
qualunque passa, come pesa, pria.
E a tal modo il socero si stenta
in questa fossa, e li altri dal concilio
che fu per li Giudei mala sementa.”
Allor vid' io maravigliar Virgilio
sovra colui ch'era disteso in croce
tanto vilmente ne l'etterno essilio
Poscia drizzò al frate cotal voce:
“Non vi dispiaccia, se vi lece, dirci
s'a la man destra giace alcuna foce
onde noi amendue possiamo uscirci,
sanza costrigner de li angeli neri
che vegnan d'esto fondo a dipartirci.”
Rispuose adunque: “Più che tu non speri
s'appressa un sasso che da la gran cerchia
si move e varca tutt' i vallon feri,
salvo che 'n questo è rotto e nol coperchia;
montar potrete su per la ruina,
che giace in costa e nel fondo soperchia.”
Lo duca stette un poco a testa china;
poi disse: “Mal contava la bisogna
colui che i peccator di qua uncina.”
E 'l frate: “Io udi' già dire a Bologna
del diavol vizi assai, tra ' quali udi'
ch'elli è bugiardo e padre di menzogna.”
Appresso il duca a gran passi sen gì,
turbato un poco d'ira nel sembiante;
ond' io da li 'ncarcati mi parti'
dietro a le poste de le care piante.
Silent, alone, and without company
We went, the one in front, the other after,
As go the Minor Friars along their way.
Upon the fable of Aesop was directed
My thought, by reason of the present quarrel,
Where he has spoken of the frog and mouse;
For 'mo' and 'issa' are not more alike
Than this one is to that, if well we couple
End and beginning with a steadfast mind.
And even as one thought from another springs,
So afterward from that was born another,
Which the first fear within me double made.
Thus did I ponder: "These on our account
Are laughed to scorn, with injury and scoff
So great, that much I think it must annoy them.
If anger be engrafted on ill-will,
They will come after us more merciless
Than dog upon the leveret which he seizes,"
I felt my hair stand all on end already
With terror, and stood backwardly intent,
When said I: "Master, if thou hidest not
Thyself and me forthwith, of Malebranche
I am in dread; we have them now behind us;
I so imagine them, I already feel them."
And he: "If I were made of leaded glass,
Thine outward image I should not attract
Sooner to me than I imprint the inner.
Just now thy thoughts came in among my own,
With similar attitude and similar face,
So that of both one counsel sole I made.
If peradventure the right bank so slope
That we to the next Bolgia can descend,
We shall escape from the imagined chase."
Not yet he finished rendering such opinion,
When I beheld them come with outstretched wings,
Not far remote, with will to seize upon us.
My Leader on a sudden seized me up,
Even as a mother who by noise is wakened,
And close beside her sees the enkindled flames,
Who takes her son, and flies, and does not stop,
Having more care of him than of herself,
So that she clothes her only with a shift;
And downward from the top of the hard bank
Supine he gave him to the pendent rock,
That one side of the other Bolgia walls.
Ne'er ran so swiftly water through a sluice
To turn the wheel of any land-built mill,
When nearest to the paddles it approaches,
As did my Master down along that border,
Bearing me with him on his breast away,
As his own son, and not as a companion.
Hardly the bed of the ravine below
His feet had reached, ere they had reached the hill
Right over us; but he was not afraid;
For the high Providence, which had ordained
To place them ministers of the fifth moat,
The power of thence departing took from all.
A painted people there below we found,
Who went about with footsteps very slow,
Weeping and in their semblance tired and vanquished.
They had on mantles with the hoods low down
Before their eyes, and fashioned of the cut
That in Cologne they for the monks are made.
Without, they gilded are so that it dazzles;
But inwardly all leaden and so heavy
That Frederick used to put them on of straw.
O everlastingly fatiguing mantle!
Again we turned us, still to the left hand
Along with them, intent on their sad plaint;
But owing to the weight, that weary folk
Came on so tardily, that we were new
In company at each motion of the haunch.
Whence I unto my Leader: "See thou find
Some one who may by deed or name be known,
And thus in going move thine eye about."
And one, who understood the Tuscan speech,
Cried to us from behind: "Stay ye your feet,
Ye, who so run athwart the dusky air!
Perhaps thou'lt have from me what thou demandest."
Whereat the Leader turned him, and said: "Wait,
And then according to his pace proceed."
I stopped, and two beheld I show great haste
Of spirit, in their faces, to be with me;
But the burden and the narrow way delayed them.
When they came up, long with an eye askance
They scanned me without uttering a word.
Then to each other turned, and said together:
"He by the action of his throat seems living;
And if they dead are, by what privilege
Go they uncovered by the heavy stole?"
Then said to me: "Tuscan, who to the college
Of miserable hypocrites art come,
Do not disdain to tell us who thou art."
And I to them: "Born was I, and grew up
In the great town on the fair river of Arno,
And with the body am I've always had.
But who are ye, in whom there trickles down
Along your cheeks such grief as I behold?
And what pain is upon you, that so sparkles?"
And one replied to me: "These orange cloaks
Are made of lead so heavy, that the weights
Cause in this way their balances to creak.
Frati Gaudenti were we, and Bolognese;
I Catalano, and he Loderingo
Named, and together taken by thy city,
As the wont is to take one man alone,
For maintenance of its peace; and we were such
That still it is apparent round Gardingo."
"O Friars," began I, "your iniquitous. . ."
But said no more; for to mine eyes there rushed
One crucified with three stakes on the ground.
When me he saw, he writhed himself all over,
Blowing into his beard with suspirations;
And the Friar Catalan, who noticed this,
Said to me: "This transfixed one, whom thou seest,
Counselled the Pharisees that it was meet
To put one man to torture for the people.
Crosswise and naked is he on the path,
As thou perceivest; and he needs must feel,
Whoever passes, first how much he weighs;
And in like mode his father-in-law is punished
Within this moat, and the others of the council,
Which for the Jews was a malignant seed."
And thereupon I saw Virgilius marvel
O'er him who was extended on the cross
So vilely in eternal banishment.
Then he directed to the Friar this voice:
"Be not displeased, if granted thee, to tell us
If to the right hand any pass slope down
By which we two may issue forth from here,
Without constraining some of the black angels
To come and extricate us from this deep."
Then he made answer: "Nearer than thou hopest
There is a rock, that forth from the great circle
Proceeds, and crosses all the cruel valleys,
Save that at this 'tis broken, and does not bridge it;
You will be able to mount up the ruin,
That sidelong slopes and at the bottom rises."
The Leader stood awhile with head bowed down;
Then said: "The business badly he recounted
Who grapples with his hook the sinners yonder."
And the Friar: "Many of the Devil's vices
Once heard I at Bologna, and among them,
That he's a liar and the father of lies."
Thereat my Leader with great strides went on,
Somewhat disturbed with anger in his looks;
Whence from the heavy-laden I departed
After the prints of his beloved feet.
The quiet opening of the canto compares the two travelers to pairs of Franciscan mendicants. Casini/Barbi, in their commentary to this passage, cite the words of St. Francis to his followers, telling them to go in pairs: 'Ite cautissimi, bini et bini, per diversas partes orbis' (go forth with great care, two by two, through the various parts of the world). As John of Serravalle reminds us, in his comment, the most authoritative of the two traditionally went before. Thus, when we consider the considerable time spent in exploring Virgil's difficulties in the preceding two cantos, we probably ought to perceive the delicate irony inherent in these verses. It will be present again, more palbably, at the close of this canto: see Hollander (“Dante's Commedia and the Classical Tradition: the Case of Virgil,” in The “Divine Comedy” and the Encyclopedia of Arts and Sciences: Acta of the International Dante Symposium, 13-16 November 1983, Hunter College, New York, ed. G. Di Scipio and A. Scaglione [Amsterdam: John Benjamins, 1988]), pp. 22-23, for the way in which Virgil's loss of authority, tacitly alluded to here, is underlined more heavily by Catalano's mocking words at Inferno XXIII.142-144.
The absolute source of this fable of 'Aesop' is not known, but it seems that Dante may have been acquainted with both the collection circulated under the name Romulus, which Kenneth McKenzie (“Dante's References to Aesop,” Seventeenth Annual Report of the Dante Society [1900], pp. 1-14) says is the (Carolingian) collection adverted to by the various fourteenth-century commentators who discuss the passage, and the later one (12th century) assembled by Waltherius Anglicus. Clara Kraus, in the entry 'Esopo' (ED.1970.2), pp. 729-30, points out, following McKenzie, that this particular fable derives from an unknown non-Aesopic source, even if the poet presents it as being by him. (Dante had referred to Aesop once previously: Convivio IV.xxx.4. For the question of sources see also Enzo Mandruzzato, “L'apologo 'della rana e del topo' e Dante,” Studi Danteschi 33 (1955-56), pp.147-65, and Sam Guyler, “Virgil the Hypocrite – Almost: A Re-interpretation of Inferno XXIII,” Dante Studies 90 (1972), pp. 29-31, the latter reviewing the discussions of McKenzie (“Dante's References to Aesop,” Seventeenth Annual Report of the Dante Society [1900], pp. 1-14); Larkin (“Another Look at Dante's Frog and Mouse,” Modern Language Notes 77 [1962], pp. 94-99); “Inferno XXIII, 4-9, Again,” Modern Language Notes 81 (1966), pp. 85-88; and Padoan (“Il liber Esopi e due episodi dell'Inferno,” Studi Danteschi 41 [1964], pp. 75-102) and eventually favoring Waltherius as source text.
The fable runs roughly as follows: a mouse, wishing to cross a river, is advised by an apparently friendly frog to allow himself to be attached to that frog by a string, to which project he consents. Once the frog, mouse in tow, reaches mid-stream, he dives in an attempt to drown the mouse. An over-flying kite, or hawk, seeing the struggling mouse atop the waters, dives down, captures and kills the mouse – and the attached frog, a bonus. It seems sensible to believe that, as the protagonist reviews the events of the prior canto, he thinks of two things: the aptness of the fable to the situation of Ciampolo (mouse [Guyler, p. 32, points out that Ciampolo has already been compared to a mouse at Inf. XXII.58]), Alichino (frog), and Calcabrina (kite), as well as to his own: Dante (mouse), Virgil (frog), and the Malebranche (kite). Thus the beginning and the end of the fable are particularly apt to his situation: in order to reach the next bolgia he has tied himself to Virgil, and now the kite must be on its way. That Virgil should be cast in the role of the double-dealing frog seemed so unlikely that no one, until Guyler, pp. 35-40, suggested as much. While this writer agrees with him, the complexity of the passage, it should be noted, guarantees that its meaning will continue to be debated. For some of the disparate and confused responses see Hollander (“Virgil and Dante as Mind-Readers [Inferno XXI and XXIII],” Medioevo romanzo 9 [1984]), pp. 92-93, where, in an admittedly incomplete listing, one may find ten different interpretive versions of the correspondences among mouse, frog, and kite and either the various Malebranche and/or the various protagonists.
The words 'mo' and 'issa' are both dialectical forms, meaning 'right now,' derived from the Latin modo (used again in this canto at Inf. XXIII.28 and a total of 25 times in the poem) and ipsa hora (see Purg. XXIV.55). Hollander (“Virgil and Dante as Mind-Readers [Inferno XXI and XXIII],” Medioevo romanzo 9 [1984]), p. 93, suggests that the choice of words for 'now' accentuates the imminent and immediate danger in which Dante finds himself.
For Dante's hair, curling tight with fear, Pietro di Dante (Pietro1 to vv. 19-20) adduces Aeneid II.774: 'steteruntque comae' (and my hair stood on end). The setting for the scene is the night of the destruction of Troy. A few lines earlier (Aen. II.733) Aeneas is warned by his father, Anchises, to flee: 'nate,... fuge, nate; propinquant' (my son, my son, flee – they are coming closer). Moments later, Aeneas realizes that he has lost Creusa, and turns back to the flaming city to find her. His wife's ghost appears to him in a vision that is the cause of his hair standing on end. If Dante was thinking of this scene, as Pietro believed, he has perhaps put Anchises' warning about the fast-approaching Greek marauders into his own mouth, the advice he might have expected to have heard from Virgil, his 'father,' and the author of that scene. For these observations see Hollander (“Virgil and Dante as Mind-Readers [Inferno XXI and XXIII],” Medioevo romanzo 9 [1984], p. 94 .
As Mark Musa (“Virgil Reads the Pilgrim's Mind,” Dante Studies 95 [1977], pp. 149-52) has pointed out, Virgil, here and elsewhere (Inf. IV.51; Inf. X.17-18; Inf. XVI.119-120; Inf. XIX.39; Inf. XXVI.73-74) is either accorded by the protagonist or confers upon himself the power of 'reading Dante's mind.' Musa shows that, rather than the power actually to read the protagonist's thoughts, Virgil's capacity is one of heightened rationality, not the kind of supernatural power enjoyed by Beatrice, who, like all beatified souls, has precisely the ability to read unvoiced thoughts; in other words, Virgil is able to fathom what Dante is thinking from the context of the experiences that they share, and nothing more than that.
Dante refers to mirrors being made by backing clear glass with lead in Convivio III.ix.8.
The Malebranche are back, the 'kite' of the fable, about to pounce on 'mouse' and 'frog.'
This simile, classical in form, seems to have no classical counterpart (although the fires of dying Troy may come to mind), whether in image or in language; rather, it seems to be among those that Dante draws from contemporary experience, ruinous fires being a pronounced feature of medieval town life. Virgil's customary paternal role here is resolved into a maternal one. That we should take this surprising change as meant positively is guaranteed by a later scene, just as Virgil has left the poem and returned to Limbo. At this moment of greatest pathos involving Dante's love for his guide and teacher, Dante turns back to him as a frightened child runs to his mother (Purg. XXX.44), only to find him gone forever.
The second simile is also without classical origin. Commentators point out that land mills were powered by water, diverted from other sources along sluices, while water mills were situated in the rivers or streams that powered them.
At the border of their domain the Malebranche, so swift on their own turf, are now frozen into immobility by the laws of God's governance of hell, as Dante and Virgil look back at them. The victims of earthly barrators are not similarly protected.
The new set of sinners is characterized, in a total change of pace, by slowness and quiet, in stark contrast with the extraordinarily energetic, even frenetic, pace of the cantos of barratry. For an appreciation of the overarching harmony of Dante's art in Cantos XXI to XXIX, see Momigliano's comment to Inf. XXIII.58-144.
They are 'lacquered' in that they are covered by gilded mantles (v. 64).
The hypocrites, 'dressed' as monks, are in fact represented by only two personnages, Catalano and Loderingo, both friars (see the note to Inf. XXIII.104-108). The hypocrisy of the clergy – and especially of the mendicant orders – was a medieval commonplace, one most effectively exploited by such writers as Boccaccio and Chaucer.
While many early commentators believed that the monastery referred to was located in Köln (Cologne), in Germany, the predominant modern view is that this is the great Benedictine monastery in France, at Cluny. For discussion of these two possibilities and indeed, beginning with Zamboni in 1870, of yet a third (Cologna, near Verona) see Scartazzini (comm. to Inf. XXIII.63).
'Ypocresia... dicitur ab “epi” quod est “supra” et “crisis” quod est “aurum”' (Hypocrisy is so called from 'epi,' that is, 'above,' and 'crisis,' that is, 'gold'). This familiar gloss, deriving from Uguccione of Pisa, is found in the third redaction of Pietro di Dante's commentary (Pietro3, comm. to vv. 58-66).
Almost all the early commentators relate the tale that Frederick II (Inf. X.119) put those who had particularly offended him to the following torture and death: he would have them covered with a thick 'cape' of lead and placed in a large crucible, under which a fire was set, causing the lead to melt and the victim to suffer greatly before dying. While there is no evidence to connect Frederick with this practice, it seems clear that many of his contemporaries believed that he indeed did dispatch his enemies in this way. See George L. Hamilton, “The Gilded Leaden Cloaks of the Hypocrites (Inferno, XXIII, 58-66),” Romanic Review 12 (1921), pp. 335-52.
Once again Dante's Tuscan speech serves to find him damned souls whose lives will be of interest. See Inferno X.22; XXII.99.
The sinner shouts because Dante and Virgil seem to be racing past him (Casini/Barbi, citing Biondolillo in their comm. to this verse).
For Dante's word 'hypocrites' commentators frequently cite Matthew 6:16: 'Moreover when you fast, be not, as the hypocrites, of a sad countenance: for they disfigure their faces, that they may appear to men to fast.'
The friars are like creaking scales (literally, 'balances' in Dante's Italian) because the weight they support on their lurching shoulders is so tremendous that they 'creak' beneath it.
Ca.1260 a group of Bolognese citizens founded a conventual order, sanctioned by the pope (Urban IV), to serve as champions of the Virgin Mary. They became known as 'Frati Gaudenti,' or 'Jovial Friars,' apparently as a result of their fairly relaxed rule, which allowed them many of the comforts of the secular life (e.g., marriage). For Dante's relationship to Bologna see Raimondi, “I canti bolognesi dell'Inferno dantesco,” in Dante e Bologna nei tempi di Dante (Bologna: Commissione per i Testi di Lingua, 1967), pp. 239-48.
For Catalano and Loderingo see Singleton's comment to verse 104. Catalano (ca. 1210-1285) was a Bolognese Guelph of the Catalani family; Loderingo degli Andalò (ca. 1210-1293) belonged to a Ghibelline family of the city. Loderingo was one of the founders of the Bolognese order of the Frati Gaudenti, and Catalano was also involved in it. While their allegiances to opposing parties made them seem to be an ideal 'couple' to serve as podestà (an office usually taken on by a single non-citizen, chosen in the hope of guaranteeing fairness) of a faction-riddled city, their vows to the pope meant that, once they were chosen to serve in Florence in 1266, they in fact sided with the forces of the pope (Clement IV) against the Florentine Ghibellines, with the result that the area known as the Gardingo, where some of the most powerful Ghibelline families lived (including Farinata's Uberti – see Inf. X), was razed by the populace with at least the tacit consent of these two.
There is dispute as to whether Dante's broken apostrophe of the two friars (or, as some believe, of friars in general) was going to be one of rebuke (e.g., Benvenuto da Imola, comm. to vv. 109-111) or commiseration (e.g., Francesco da Buti, comm. to vv.109-123). The context and the similar moment in Inferno XIX.90-117, when Dante upbraids Pope Nicholas III, both would seem to support the harsher reading.
Dante's attention is drawn by the figure crucified upon the ground, attached through his hands and his conjoined feet. From Catalano's description it will become clear that this is Caiaphas, the high priest who urged the Pharisees 'that one man should be martyred for the people' and bears that burden of responsibility for the death of Jesus (see John 11:50). As Chiavacci Leonardi points out (Inferno, con il commento di A. M. C. L. [Milan: Mondadori, 1991], p. 696), Caiaphas masks his own vicious motives for wanting to give over Jesus as a desire for the public weal (i.e., saving the rest of the Hebrews from Roman repression), thus justifying his presence among the hypocrites.
The punishment of Caiaphas (and of his fellows in this act of hypocrisy, referred to in the next tercet) is a refinement upon that of the rest of the hypocrites. They are cloaked in lead, he is naked (his Christ-centered hypocrisy deserves to be revealed); yet he, too, feels the weight of hypocrisy on his own body when each of the others, in turn, slowly walks over his outstretched form.
Catalano refers to Annas, the father-in-law of Caiaphas, who presided over the council of the Pharisees (the 'others' of the text) by which Jesus was condemned. It was this action, in Dante's mind, which was punished in the destruction of the second Temple by the forces of the Roman emperor Titus in 70 A.D. and in the resultant diaspora of the Hebrew people.
The high priest, unlike Jesus, is crucified upon the ground and trodden upon (thus seeming so 'ignoble'). There has been much discussion of the possible reasons for Virgil's 'marveling' over the crucified shape of Caiaphas. Castelvetro, in error (in his comm. to this passage), says that Virgil would have seen Caiaphas on an earlier visit to the depths; Lombardi gets this right: when Virgil was sent down by Erichtho (Inf. IX.22-24), Christ had not yet been crucified and Caiaphas not yet been damned. Further, and as Margherita Frankel has argued (“Dante's Anti-Virgilian villanello,” Dante Studies 102 [1984], p. 87), Virgil has already seen Christ and his Cross (Inf. IV.53-54). Nonetheless, and as others have pointed out, Virgil does not marvel at others who were not here before his first visit. Rossetti, commenting on this passage, further remarks that nowhere else in Inferno does Virgil marvel at any other sinner, the text thus conferring a specialness upon this scene. Benvenuto da Imola (comm. to vv. 114-117) and Vellutello (comm. to this passage) both offered an interesting hypothesis, which has since made its way into some modern commentaries: the verse at line 117, 'one man should be martyred for the people,' seems to echo a verse of Virgil's (Aen. V.815): 'unum per multis dabitur caput' (one life shall be given for many). (In that passage Neptune speaks of the coming 'sacrifice' of Palinurus.) Vellutello sees that 'prophecy' as an unwitting Virgilian prophecy of Christ, and suggests that Virgil now wonders at how close he had come. If that seems perhaps a forced reading, a similar effect is gained by the phrase that Dante uses to indicate Caiaphas's punishment in his 'eternal exile' (etterno essilio). That phrase will only be used once again in the poem, precisely by Virgil himself to indicate his own punishment in Limbo (Purg. XXI.118), as Castelvetro (comm. to verse 126) observed, if without drawing any conclusion from the observation. The Anonimo Fiorentino (comm. to this passage), perhaps better than many later commentators, caught the flavor of this passage, which he reads as indicating Virgil's grief for himself because he had not lived in a time when he could have known Christ. In this reader's view, Virgil wonders at Caiaphas because the high priest had actually known Christ in the world and yet turned against Him. Had Virgil had that opportunity, he thinks, his life (and afterlife) would have been very different.
The 'black angels' are obviously the winged devils of the last bolgia. Are they actually fallen angels, or does Virgil merely speak ironically, employing the figure antiphrasis, indicating devils by their opposites? Most of the commentators seem to believe that these really are fallen angels. This may be a questionable interpretation, since Dante seems clear about the kinds of fallen angels found in hell: neutral (Inf. III.37-42) and rebellious (Inf. VIII.82-83). If this were the only other place in hell in which we found evil creatures referred to as 'angels,' it would seem likely that the term would be merely a figure of speech on Virgil's part. However, we also have the black Cherub referred to by Guido da Montefeltro (Inf. XXVII.113). (See the note to Inf. XXVII.112-114.)
Virgil's question to Catalano (and Loderingo) receives this devastating answer: he has been fooled by Malacoda; all the bridges connecting the fifth and sixth 'valleys' are down.
The noun ruina, describing the fallen rock that will allow an exit from this bolgia, connects to the same word used with the same meaning in Inferno XII.4 and XII.34. And see the note to Inferno V.34 for the difficult problem of its meaning in that verse.
Catalano's bit of 'university wit' is the last straw for Virgil, pilloried with understated sarcasm for trusting in the words of devils. Catalano cites Scripture (John 8:44): 'Diabolus est mendax et pater eius' (The devil is a liar and the father of lies).
Virgil, angered (as well he might be), strides away, followed by the protagonist. Frankel (“Dante's Anti-Virgilian villanello,” Dante Studies 102 [1984]), pp. 85-89, connects the anger Virgil feels now to the simile that opens the next canto. She also observes (pp. 96-97) that the passage picks up an earlier apostrophe of Virgil by his pupil: see Inferno XI.91, 'O sol che sani ogni vista turbata' (O sun that heals all troubled sight). Now we perceive that Virgil is himself turbato. We reflect that it is Dante who has contrived this whole elaborate scene to the discomfiture of Virgil, but who now, as character in the poem, follows humbly and caringly in his dear leader's footsteps. Hollander (“Dante's 'Georgic' [Inferno XXIV, 1-18],” Dante Studies 102 [1984]), pp. 115-17, has suggested that this last verse is modelled on the penultimate verses of Statius's Thebaid (XII.816-817): ' ...nec tu divinam Aeneida tempta, / sed longe sequere et vestigia semper adora' (do not attempt to rival the divine Aeneid, but follow at a distance, always worshiping its footsteps). With this gesture Statius tries to reassure his reader (and perhaps himself) that he feels no envy toward Virgil's greatness; Dante's gesture has a different task to perform, to reassure himself (and his reader) that, for all that the poet has put Virgil through in these cantos of barratry, he nonetheless reveres his great pagan guide.
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Taciti, soli, sanza compagnia
n'andavam l'un dinanzi e l'altro dopo,
come frati minor vanno per via.
Vòlt' era in su la favola d'Isopo
lo mio pensier per la presente rissa,
dov' el parlò de la rana e del topo;
ché più non si pareggia “mo” e “issa”
che l'un con l'altro fa, se ben s'accoppia
principio e fine con la mente fissa.
E come l'un pensier de l'altro scoppia,
così nacque di quello un altro poi,
che la prima paura mi fé doppia.
Io pensava così: “Questi per noi
sono scherniti con danno e con beffa
sì fatta, ch' assai credo che lor nòi.
Se l'ira sovra 'l mal voler s'aggueffa,
ei ne verranno dietro più crudeli
che 'l cane a quella lievre ch'elli acceffa.”
Già mi sentia tutti arricciar li peli
de la paura e stava in dietro intento,
quand' io dissi: “Maestro, se non celi
te e me tostamente, i' ho pavento
d'i Malebranche. Noi li avem già dietro;
io li 'magino sì, che già li sento.”
E quei: “S'i' fossi di piombato vetro,
l'imagine di fuor tua non trarrei
più tosto a me, che quella dentro 'mpetro.
Pur mo venieno i tuo' pensier tra ' miei,
con simile atto e con simile faccia,
sì che d'intrambi un sol consiglio fei.
S'elli è che sì la destra costa giaccia,
che noi possiam ne l'altra bolgia scendere,
noi fuggirem l'imaginata caccia.”
Già non compié di tal consiglio rendere,
ch'io li vidi venir con l'ali tese
non molto lungi, per volerne prendere.
Lo duca mio di sùbito mi prese,
come la madre ch'al romore è desta
e vede presso a sé le fiamme accese,
che prende il figlio e fugge e non s'arresta,
avendo più di lui che di sé cura,
tanto che solo una camiscia vesta;
e giù dal collo de la ripa dura
supin si diede a la pendente roccia,
che l'un de' lati a l'altra bolgia tura.
Non corse mai sì tosto acqua per doccia
a volger ruota di molin terragno,
quand' ella più verso le pale approccia,
come 'l maestro mio per quel vivagno,
portandosene me sovra 'l suo petto,
come suo figlio, non come compagno.
A pena fuoro i piè suoi giunti al letto
del fondo giù, ch'e' furon in sul colle
sovresso noi; ma non lì era sospetto:
ché l'alta provedenza che lor volle
porre ministri de la fossa quinta,
poder di partirs' indi a tutti tolle.
Là giù trovammo una gente dipinta
che giva intorno assai con lenti passi,
piangendo e nel sembiante stanca e vinta.
Elli avean cappe con cappucci bassi
dinanzi a li occhi, fatte de la taglia
che in Clugnì per li monaci fassi.
Di fuor dorate son, sì ch'elli abbaglia;
ma dentro tutte piombo, e gravi tanto,
che Federigo le mettea di paglia.
Oh in etterno faticoso manto!
Noi ci volgemmo ancor pur a man manca
con loro insieme, intenti al tristo pianto;
ma per lo peso quella gente stanca
venìa sì pian, che noi eravam nuovi
di compagnia ad ogne mover d'anca.
Per ch'io al duca mio: “Fa che tu trovi
alcun ch'al fatto o al nome si conosca,
e li occhi, sì andando, intorno movi.”
E un che 'ntese la parola tosca,
di retro a noi gridò: “Tenete i piedi,
voi che correte sì per l'aura fosca!
Forse ch'avrai da me quel che tu chiedi.”
Onde 'l duca si volse e disse: “Aspetta
e poi secondo il suo passo procedi.”
Ristetti, e vidi due mostrar gran fretta
de l'animo, col viso, d'esser meco;
ma tardavali 'l carco e la via stretta.
Quando fuor giunti, assai con l'occhio bieco
mi rimiraron sanza far parola;
poi si volsero in sé, e dicean seco:
“Costui par vivo a l'atto de la gola;
e s'e' son morti, per qual privilegio
vanno scoperti de la grave stola?”
Poi disser me: “O Tosco, ch'al collegio
de l'ipocriti tristi se' venuto,
dir chi tu se' non avere in dispregio.”
E io a loro: “I' fui nato e cresciuto
sovra 'l bel fiume d'Arno a la gran villa,
e son col corpo ch'i' ho sempre avuto.
Ma voi chi siete, a cui tanto distilla
quant' i' veggio dolor giù per le guance?
e che pena è in voi che sì sfavilla?”
E l'un rispuose a me: “Le cappe rance
son di piombo sì grosse, che li pesi
fan così cigolar le lor bilance.
Frati godenti fummo, e bolognesi;
io Catalano e questi Loderingo
nomati, e da tua terra insieme presi
come suole esser tolto un uom solingo,
per conservar sua pace; e fummo tali,
ch'ancor si pare intorno dal Gardingo.”
Io cominciai: “O frati, i vostri mali...”;
ma più non dissi, ch'a l'occhio mi corse
un, crucifisso in terra con tre pali.
Quando mi vide, tutto si distorse,
soffiando ne la barba con sospiri;
e 'l frate Catalan, ch'a ciò s'accorse,
mi disse: “Quel confitto che tu miri,
consigliò i Farisei che convenia
porre un uom per lo popolo a' martìri.
Attraversato è, nudo, ne la via,
come tu vedi, ed è mestier ch'el senta
qualunque passa, come pesa, pria.
E a tal modo il socero si stenta
in questa fossa, e li altri dal concilio
che fu per li Giudei mala sementa.”
Allor vid' io maravigliar Virgilio
sovra colui ch'era disteso in croce
tanto vilmente ne l'etterno essilio
Poscia drizzò al frate cotal voce:
“Non vi dispiaccia, se vi lece, dirci
s'a la man destra giace alcuna foce
onde noi amendue possiamo uscirci,
sanza costrigner de li angeli neri
che vegnan d'esto fondo a dipartirci.”
Rispuose adunque: “Più che tu non speri
s'appressa un sasso che da la gran cerchia
si move e varca tutt' i vallon feri,
salvo che 'n questo è rotto e nol coperchia;
montar potrete su per la ruina,
che giace in costa e nel fondo soperchia.”
Lo duca stette un poco a testa china;
poi disse: “Mal contava la bisogna
colui che i peccator di qua uncina.”
E 'l frate: “Io udi' già dire a Bologna
del diavol vizi assai, tra ' quali udi'
ch'elli è bugiardo e padre di menzogna.”
Appresso il duca a gran passi sen gì,
turbato un poco d'ira nel sembiante;
ond' io da li 'ncarcati mi parti'
dietro a le poste de le care piante.
Silent, alone, and without company
We went, the one in front, the other after,
As go the Minor Friars along their way.
Upon the fable of Aesop was directed
My thought, by reason of the present quarrel,
Where he has spoken of the frog and mouse;
For 'mo' and 'issa' are not more alike
Than this one is to that, if well we couple
End and beginning with a steadfast mind.
And even as one thought from another springs,
So afterward from that was born another,
Which the first fear within me double made.
Thus did I ponder: "These on our account
Are laughed to scorn, with injury and scoff
So great, that much I think it must annoy them.
If anger be engrafted on ill-will,
They will come after us more merciless
Than dog upon the leveret which he seizes,"
I felt my hair stand all on end already
With terror, and stood backwardly intent,
When said I: "Master, if thou hidest not
Thyself and me forthwith, of Malebranche
I am in dread; we have them now behind us;
I so imagine them, I already feel them."
And he: "If I were made of leaded glass,
Thine outward image I should not attract
Sooner to me than I imprint the inner.
Just now thy thoughts came in among my own,
With similar attitude and similar face,
So that of both one counsel sole I made.
If peradventure the right bank so slope
That we to the next Bolgia can descend,
We shall escape from the imagined chase."
Not yet he finished rendering such opinion,
When I beheld them come with outstretched wings,
Not far remote, with will to seize upon us.
My Leader on a sudden seized me up,
Even as a mother who by noise is wakened,
And close beside her sees the enkindled flames,
Who takes her son, and flies, and does not stop,
Having more care of him than of herself,
So that she clothes her only with a shift;
And downward from the top of the hard bank
Supine he gave him to the pendent rock,
That one side of the other Bolgia walls.
Ne'er ran so swiftly water through a sluice
To turn the wheel of any land-built mill,
When nearest to the paddles it approaches,
As did my Master down along that border,
Bearing me with him on his breast away,
As his own son, and not as a companion.
Hardly the bed of the ravine below
His feet had reached, ere they had reached the hill
Right over us; but he was not afraid;
For the high Providence, which had ordained
To place them ministers of the fifth moat,
The power of thence departing took from all.
A painted people there below we found,
Who went about with footsteps very slow,
Weeping and in their semblance tired and vanquished.
They had on mantles with the hoods low down
Before their eyes, and fashioned of the cut
That in Cologne they for the monks are made.
Without, they gilded are so that it dazzles;
But inwardly all leaden and so heavy
That Frederick used to put them on of straw.
O everlastingly fatiguing mantle!
Again we turned us, still to the left hand
Along with them, intent on their sad plaint;
But owing to the weight, that weary folk
Came on so tardily, that we were new
In company at each motion of the haunch.
Whence I unto my Leader: "See thou find
Some one who may by deed or name be known,
And thus in going move thine eye about."
And one, who understood the Tuscan speech,
Cried to us from behind: "Stay ye your feet,
Ye, who so run athwart the dusky air!
Perhaps thou'lt have from me what thou demandest."
Whereat the Leader turned him, and said: "Wait,
And then according to his pace proceed."
I stopped, and two beheld I show great haste
Of spirit, in their faces, to be with me;
But the burden and the narrow way delayed them.
When they came up, long with an eye askance
They scanned me without uttering a word.
Then to each other turned, and said together:
"He by the action of his throat seems living;
And if they dead are, by what privilege
Go they uncovered by the heavy stole?"
Then said to me: "Tuscan, who to the college
Of miserable hypocrites art come,
Do not disdain to tell us who thou art."
And I to them: "Born was I, and grew up
In the great town on the fair river of Arno,
And with the body am I've always had.
But who are ye, in whom there trickles down
Along your cheeks such grief as I behold?
And what pain is upon you, that so sparkles?"
And one replied to me: "These orange cloaks
Are made of lead so heavy, that the weights
Cause in this way their balances to creak.
Frati Gaudenti were we, and Bolognese;
I Catalano, and he Loderingo
Named, and together taken by thy city,
As the wont is to take one man alone,
For maintenance of its peace; and we were such
That still it is apparent round Gardingo."
"O Friars," began I, "your iniquitous. . ."
But said no more; for to mine eyes there rushed
One crucified with three stakes on the ground.
When me he saw, he writhed himself all over,
Blowing into his beard with suspirations;
And the Friar Catalan, who noticed this,
Said to me: "This transfixed one, whom thou seest,
Counselled the Pharisees that it was meet
To put one man to torture for the people.
Crosswise and naked is he on the path,
As thou perceivest; and he needs must feel,
Whoever passes, first how much he weighs;
And in like mode his father-in-law is punished
Within this moat, and the others of the council,
Which for the Jews was a malignant seed."
And thereupon I saw Virgilius marvel
O'er him who was extended on the cross
So vilely in eternal banishment.
Then he directed to the Friar this voice:
"Be not displeased, if granted thee, to tell us
If to the right hand any pass slope down
By which we two may issue forth from here,
Without constraining some of the black angels
To come and extricate us from this deep."
Then he made answer: "Nearer than thou hopest
There is a rock, that forth from the great circle
Proceeds, and crosses all the cruel valleys,
Save that at this 'tis broken, and does not bridge it;
You will be able to mount up the ruin,
That sidelong slopes and at the bottom rises."
The Leader stood awhile with head bowed down;
Then said: "The business badly he recounted
Who grapples with his hook the sinners yonder."
And the Friar: "Many of the Devil's vices
Once heard I at Bologna, and among them,
That he's a liar and the father of lies."
Thereat my Leader with great strides went on,
Somewhat disturbed with anger in his looks;
Whence from the heavy-laden I departed
After the prints of his beloved feet.
The quiet opening of the canto compares the two travelers to pairs of Franciscan mendicants. Casini/Barbi, in their commentary to this passage, cite the words of St. Francis to his followers, telling them to go in pairs: 'Ite cautissimi, bini et bini, per diversas partes orbis' (go forth with great care, two by two, through the various parts of the world). As John of Serravalle reminds us, in his comment, the most authoritative of the two traditionally went before. Thus, when we consider the considerable time spent in exploring Virgil's difficulties in the preceding two cantos, we probably ought to perceive the delicate irony inherent in these verses. It will be present again, more palbably, at the close of this canto: see Hollander (“Dante's Commedia and the Classical Tradition: the Case of Virgil,” in The “Divine Comedy” and the Encyclopedia of Arts and Sciences: Acta of the International Dante Symposium, 13-16 November 1983, Hunter College, New York, ed. G. Di Scipio and A. Scaglione [Amsterdam: John Benjamins, 1988]), pp. 22-23, for the way in which Virgil's loss of authority, tacitly alluded to here, is underlined more heavily by Catalano's mocking words at Inferno XXIII.142-144.
The absolute source of this fable of 'Aesop' is not known, but it seems that Dante may have been acquainted with both the collection circulated under the name Romulus, which Kenneth McKenzie (“Dante's References to Aesop,” Seventeenth Annual Report of the Dante Society [1900], pp. 1-14) says is the (Carolingian) collection adverted to by the various fourteenth-century commentators who discuss the passage, and the later one (12th century) assembled by Waltherius Anglicus. Clara Kraus, in the entry 'Esopo' (ED.1970.2), pp. 729-30, points out, following McKenzie, that this particular fable derives from an unknown non-Aesopic source, even if the poet presents it as being by him. (Dante had referred to Aesop once previously: Convivio IV.xxx.4. For the question of sources see also Enzo Mandruzzato, “L'apologo 'della rana e del topo' e Dante,” Studi Danteschi 33 (1955-56), pp.147-65, and Sam Guyler, “Virgil the Hypocrite – Almost: A Re-interpretation of Inferno XXIII,” Dante Studies 90 (1972), pp. 29-31, the latter reviewing the discussions of McKenzie (“Dante's References to Aesop,” Seventeenth Annual Report of the Dante Society [1900], pp. 1-14); Larkin (“Another Look at Dante's Frog and Mouse,” Modern Language Notes 77 [1962], pp. 94-99); “Inferno XXIII, 4-9, Again,” Modern Language Notes 81 (1966), pp. 85-88; and Padoan (“Il liber Esopi e due episodi dell'Inferno,” Studi Danteschi 41 [1964], pp. 75-102) and eventually favoring Waltherius as source text.
The fable runs roughly as follows: a mouse, wishing to cross a river, is advised by an apparently friendly frog to allow himself to be attached to that frog by a string, to which project he consents. Once the frog, mouse in tow, reaches mid-stream, he dives in an attempt to drown the mouse. An over-flying kite, or hawk, seeing the struggling mouse atop the waters, dives down, captures and kills the mouse – and the attached frog, a bonus. It seems sensible to believe that, as the protagonist reviews the events of the prior canto, he thinks of two things: the aptness of the fable to the situation of Ciampolo (mouse [Guyler, p. 32, points out that Ciampolo has already been compared to a mouse at Inf. XXII.58]), Alichino (frog), and Calcabrina (kite), as well as to his own: Dante (mouse), Virgil (frog), and the Malebranche (kite). Thus the beginning and the end of the fable are particularly apt to his situation: in order to reach the next bolgia he has tied himself to Virgil, and now the kite must be on its way. That Virgil should be cast in the role of the double-dealing frog seemed so unlikely that no one, until Guyler, pp. 35-40, suggested as much. While this writer agrees with him, the complexity of the passage, it should be noted, guarantees that its meaning will continue to be debated. For some of the disparate and confused responses see Hollander (“Virgil and Dante as Mind-Readers [Inferno XXI and XXIII],” Medioevo romanzo 9 [1984]), pp. 92-93, where, in an admittedly incomplete listing, one may find ten different interpretive versions of the correspondences among mouse, frog, and kite and either the various Malebranche and/or the various protagonists.
The words 'mo' and 'issa' are both dialectical forms, meaning 'right now,' derived from the Latin modo (used again in this canto at Inf. XXIII.28 and a total of 25 times in the poem) and ipsa hora (see Purg. XXIV.55). Hollander (“Virgil and Dante as Mind-Readers [Inferno XXI and XXIII],” Medioevo romanzo 9 [1984]), p. 93, suggests that the choice of words for 'now' accentuates the imminent and immediate danger in which Dante finds himself.
For Dante's hair, curling tight with fear, Pietro di Dante (Pietro1 to vv. 19-20) adduces Aeneid II.774: 'steteruntque comae' (and my hair stood on end). The setting for the scene is the night of the destruction of Troy. A few lines earlier (Aen. II.733) Aeneas is warned by his father, Anchises, to flee: 'nate,... fuge, nate; propinquant' (my son, my son, flee – they are coming closer). Moments later, Aeneas realizes that he has lost Creusa, and turns back to the flaming city to find her. His wife's ghost appears to him in a vision that is the cause of his hair standing on end. If Dante was thinking of this scene, as Pietro believed, he has perhaps put Anchises' warning about the fast-approaching Greek marauders into his own mouth, the advice he might have expected to have heard from Virgil, his 'father,' and the author of that scene. For these observations see Hollander (“Virgil and Dante as Mind-Readers [Inferno XXI and XXIII],” Medioevo romanzo 9 [1984], p. 94 .
As Mark Musa (“Virgil Reads the Pilgrim's Mind,” Dante Studies 95 [1977], pp. 149-52) has pointed out, Virgil, here and elsewhere (Inf. IV.51; Inf. X.17-18; Inf. XVI.119-120; Inf. XIX.39; Inf. XXVI.73-74) is either accorded by the protagonist or confers upon himself the power of 'reading Dante's mind.' Musa shows that, rather than the power actually to read the protagonist's thoughts, Virgil's capacity is one of heightened rationality, not the kind of supernatural power enjoyed by Beatrice, who, like all beatified souls, has precisely the ability to read unvoiced thoughts; in other words, Virgil is able to fathom what Dante is thinking from the context of the experiences that they share, and nothing more than that.
Dante refers to mirrors being made by backing clear glass with lead in Convivio III.ix.8.
The Malebranche are back, the 'kite' of the fable, about to pounce on 'mouse' and 'frog.'
This simile, classical in form, seems to have no classical counterpart (although the fires of dying Troy may come to mind), whether in image or in language; rather, it seems to be among those that Dante draws from contemporary experience, ruinous fires being a pronounced feature of medieval town life. Virgil's customary paternal role here is resolved into a maternal one. That we should take this surprising change as meant positively is guaranteed by a later scene, just as Virgil has left the poem and returned to Limbo. At this moment of greatest pathos involving Dante's love for his guide and teacher, Dante turns back to him as a frightened child runs to his mother (Purg. XXX.44), only to find him gone forever.
The second simile is also without classical origin. Commentators point out that land mills were powered by water, diverted from other sources along sluices, while water mills were situated in the rivers or streams that powered them.
At the border of their domain the Malebranche, so swift on their own turf, are now frozen into immobility by the laws of God's governance of hell, as Dante and Virgil look back at them. The victims of earthly barrators are not similarly protected.
The new set of sinners is characterized, in a total change of pace, by slowness and quiet, in stark contrast with the extraordinarily energetic, even frenetic, pace of the cantos of barratry. For an appreciation of the overarching harmony of Dante's art in Cantos XXI to XXIX, see Momigliano's comment to Inf. XXIII.58-144.
They are 'lacquered' in that they are covered by gilded mantles (v. 64).
The hypocrites, 'dressed' as monks, are in fact represented by only two personnages, Catalano and Loderingo, both friars (see the note to Inf. XXIII.104-108). The hypocrisy of the clergy – and especially of the mendicant orders – was a medieval commonplace, one most effectively exploited by such writers as Boccaccio and Chaucer.
While many early commentators believed that the monastery referred to was located in Köln (Cologne), in Germany, the predominant modern view is that this is the great Benedictine monastery in France, at Cluny. For discussion of these two possibilities and indeed, beginning with Zamboni in 1870, of yet a third (Cologna, near Verona) see Scartazzini (comm. to Inf. XXIII.63).
'Ypocresia... dicitur ab “epi” quod est “supra” et “crisis” quod est “aurum”' (Hypocrisy is so called from 'epi,' that is, 'above,' and 'crisis,' that is, 'gold'). This familiar gloss, deriving from Uguccione of Pisa, is found in the third redaction of Pietro di Dante's commentary (Pietro3, comm. to vv. 58-66).
Almost all the early commentators relate the tale that Frederick II (Inf. X.119) put those who had particularly offended him to the following torture and death: he would have them covered with a thick 'cape' of lead and placed in a large crucible, under which a fire was set, causing the lead to melt and the victim to suffer greatly before dying. While there is no evidence to connect Frederick with this practice, it seems clear that many of his contemporaries believed that he indeed did dispatch his enemies in this way. See George L. Hamilton, “The Gilded Leaden Cloaks of the Hypocrites (Inferno, XXIII, 58-66),” Romanic Review 12 (1921), pp. 335-52.
Once again Dante's Tuscan speech serves to find him damned souls whose lives will be of interest. See Inferno X.22; XXII.99.
The sinner shouts because Dante and Virgil seem to be racing past him (Casini/Barbi, citing Biondolillo in their comm. to this verse).
For Dante's word 'hypocrites' commentators frequently cite Matthew 6:16: 'Moreover when you fast, be not, as the hypocrites, of a sad countenance: for they disfigure their faces, that they may appear to men to fast.'
The friars are like creaking scales (literally, 'balances' in Dante's Italian) because the weight they support on their lurching shoulders is so tremendous that they 'creak' beneath it.
Ca.1260 a group of Bolognese citizens founded a conventual order, sanctioned by the pope (Urban IV), to serve as champions of the Virgin Mary. They became known as 'Frati Gaudenti,' or 'Jovial Friars,' apparently as a result of their fairly relaxed rule, which allowed them many of the comforts of the secular life (e.g., marriage). For Dante's relationship to Bologna see Raimondi, “I canti bolognesi dell'Inferno dantesco,” in Dante e Bologna nei tempi di Dante (Bologna: Commissione per i Testi di Lingua, 1967), pp. 239-48.
For Catalano and Loderingo see Singleton's comment to verse 104. Catalano (ca. 1210-1285) was a Bolognese Guelph of the Catalani family; Loderingo degli Andalò (ca. 1210-1293) belonged to a Ghibelline family of the city. Loderingo was one of the founders of the Bolognese order of the Frati Gaudenti, and Catalano was also involved in it. While their allegiances to opposing parties made them seem to be an ideal 'couple' to serve as podestà (an office usually taken on by a single non-citizen, chosen in the hope of guaranteeing fairness) of a faction-riddled city, their vows to the pope meant that, once they were chosen to serve in Florence in 1266, they in fact sided with the forces of the pope (Clement IV) against the Florentine Ghibellines, with the result that the area known as the Gardingo, where some of the most powerful Ghibelline families lived (including Farinata's Uberti – see Inf. X), was razed by the populace with at least the tacit consent of these two.
There is dispute as to whether Dante's broken apostrophe of the two friars (or, as some believe, of friars in general) was going to be one of rebuke (e.g., Benvenuto da Imola, comm. to vv. 109-111) or commiseration (e.g., Francesco da Buti, comm. to vv.109-123). The context and the similar moment in Inferno XIX.90-117, when Dante upbraids Pope Nicholas III, both would seem to support the harsher reading.
Dante's attention is drawn by the figure crucified upon the ground, attached through his hands and his conjoined feet. From Catalano's description it will become clear that this is Caiaphas, the high priest who urged the Pharisees 'that one man should be martyred for the people' and bears that burden of responsibility for the death of Jesus (see John 11:50). As Chiavacci Leonardi points out (Inferno, con il commento di A. M. C. L. [Milan: Mondadori, 1991], p. 696), Caiaphas masks his own vicious motives for wanting to give over Jesus as a desire for the public weal (i.e., saving the rest of the Hebrews from Roman repression), thus justifying his presence among the hypocrites.
The punishment of Caiaphas (and of his fellows in this act of hypocrisy, referred to in the next tercet) is a refinement upon that of the rest of the hypocrites. They are cloaked in lead, he is naked (his Christ-centered hypocrisy deserves to be revealed); yet he, too, feels the weight of hypocrisy on his own body when each of the others, in turn, slowly walks over his outstretched form.
Catalano refers to Annas, the father-in-law of Caiaphas, who presided over the council of the Pharisees (the 'others' of the text) by which Jesus was condemned. It was this action, in Dante's mind, which was punished in the destruction of the second Temple by the forces of the Roman emperor Titus in 70 A.D. and in the resultant diaspora of the Hebrew people.
The high priest, unlike Jesus, is crucified upon the ground and trodden upon (thus seeming so 'ignoble'). There has been much discussion of the possible reasons for Virgil's 'marveling' over the crucified shape of Caiaphas. Castelvetro, in error (in his comm. to this passage), says that Virgil would have seen Caiaphas on an earlier visit to the depths; Lombardi gets this right: when Virgil was sent down by Erichtho (Inf. IX.22-24), Christ had not yet been crucified and Caiaphas not yet been damned. Further, and as Margherita Frankel has argued (“Dante's Anti-Virgilian villanello,” Dante Studies 102 [1984], p. 87), Virgil has already seen Christ and his Cross (Inf. IV.53-54). Nonetheless, and as others have pointed out, Virgil does not marvel at others who were not here before his first visit. Rossetti, commenting on this passage, further remarks that nowhere else in Inferno does Virgil marvel at any other sinner, the text thus conferring a specialness upon this scene. Benvenuto da Imola (comm. to vv. 114-117) and Vellutello (comm. to this passage) both offered an interesting hypothesis, which has since made its way into some modern commentaries: the verse at line 117, 'one man should be martyred for the people,' seems to echo a verse of Virgil's (Aen. V.815): 'unum per multis dabitur caput' (one life shall be given for many). (In that passage Neptune speaks of the coming 'sacrifice' of Palinurus.) Vellutello sees that 'prophecy' as an unwitting Virgilian prophecy of Christ, and suggests that Virgil now wonders at how close he had come. If that seems perhaps a forced reading, a similar effect is gained by the phrase that Dante uses to indicate Caiaphas's punishment in his 'eternal exile' (etterno essilio). That phrase will only be used once again in the poem, precisely by Virgil himself to indicate his own punishment in Limbo (Purg. XXI.118), as Castelvetro (comm. to verse 126) observed, if without drawing any conclusion from the observation. The Anonimo Fiorentino (comm. to this passage), perhaps better than many later commentators, caught the flavor of this passage, which he reads as indicating Virgil's grief for himself because he had not lived in a time when he could have known Christ. In this reader's view, Virgil wonders at Caiaphas because the high priest had actually known Christ in the world and yet turned against Him. Had Virgil had that opportunity, he thinks, his life (and afterlife) would have been very different.
The 'black angels' are obviously the winged devils of the last bolgia. Are they actually fallen angels, or does Virgil merely speak ironically, employing the figure antiphrasis, indicating devils by their opposites? Most of the commentators seem to believe that these really are fallen angels. This may be a questionable interpretation, since Dante seems clear about the kinds of fallen angels found in hell: neutral (Inf. III.37-42) and rebellious (Inf. VIII.82-83). If this were the only other place in hell in which we found evil creatures referred to as 'angels,' it would seem likely that the term would be merely a figure of speech on Virgil's part. However, we also have the black Cherub referred to by Guido da Montefeltro (Inf. XXVII.113). (See the note to Inf. XXVII.112-114.)
Virgil's question to Catalano (and Loderingo) receives this devastating answer: he has been fooled by Malacoda; all the bridges connecting the fifth and sixth 'valleys' are down.
The noun ruina, describing the fallen rock that will allow an exit from this bolgia, connects to the same word used with the same meaning in Inferno XII.4 and XII.34. And see the note to Inferno V.34 for the difficult problem of its meaning in that verse.
Catalano's bit of 'university wit' is the last straw for Virgil, pilloried with understated sarcasm for trusting in the words of devils. Catalano cites Scripture (John 8:44): 'Diabolus est mendax et pater eius' (The devil is a liar and the father of lies).
Virgil, angered (as well he might be), strides away, followed by the protagonist. Frankel (“Dante's Anti-Virgilian villanello,” Dante Studies 102 [1984]), pp. 85-89, connects the anger Virgil feels now to the simile that opens the next canto. She also observes (pp. 96-97) that the passage picks up an earlier apostrophe of Virgil by his pupil: see Inferno XI.91, 'O sol che sani ogni vista turbata' (O sun that heals all troubled sight). Now we perceive that Virgil is himself turbato. We reflect that it is Dante who has contrived this whole elaborate scene to the discomfiture of Virgil, but who now, as character in the poem, follows humbly and caringly in his dear leader's footsteps. Hollander (“Dante's 'Georgic' [Inferno XXIV, 1-18],” Dante Studies 102 [1984]), pp. 115-17, has suggested that this last verse is modelled on the penultimate verses of Statius's Thebaid (XII.816-817): ' ...nec tu divinam Aeneida tempta, / sed longe sequere et vestigia semper adora' (do not attempt to rival the divine Aeneid, but follow at a distance, always worshiping its footsteps). With this gesture Statius tries to reassure his reader (and perhaps himself) that he feels no envy toward Virgil's greatness; Dante's gesture has a different task to perform, to reassure himself (and his reader) that, for all that the poet has put Virgil through in these cantos of barratry, he nonetheless reveres his great pagan guide.
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