S'ïo avessi le rime aspre e chiocce,
come si converrebbe al tristo buco
sovra 'l qual pontan tutte l'altre rocce,
io premerei di mio concetto il suco
più pienamente; ma perch' io non l'abbo,
non sanza tema a dicer mi conduco;
ché non è impresa da pigliare a gabbo
discriver fondo a tutto l'universo,
né da lingua che chiami mamma o babbo.
Ma quelle donne aiutino il mio verso
ch'aiutaro Anfïone a chiuder Tebe,
sì che dal fatto il dir non sia diverso.
Oh sovra tutte mal creata plebe
che stai nel loco onde parlare è duro,
mei foste state qui pecore o zebe!
Come noi fummo giù nel pozzo scuro
sotto i piè del gigante assai più bassi,
e io mirava ancora a l'alto muro,
dicere udi'mi: “Guarda come passi:
va sì, che tu non calchi con le piante
le teste de' fratei miseri lassi.”
Per ch'io mi volsi, e vidimi davante
e sotto i piedi un lago che per gelo
avea di vetro e non d'acqua sembiante.
Non fece al corso suo sì grosso velo
di verno la Danoia in Osterlicchi,
né Tanaï là sotto 'l freddo cielo,
com' era quivi; che se Tambernicchi
vi fosse sù caduto, o Pietrapana,
non avria pur da l'orlo fatto cricchi.
E come a gracidar si sta la rana
col muso fuor de l'acqua, quando sogna
di spigolar sovente la villana,
livide, insin là dove appar vergogna
eran l'ombre dolenti ne la ghiaccia,
mettendo i denti in nota di cicogna.
Ognuna in giù tenea volta la faccia;
da bocca il freddo, e da li occhi il cor tristo
tra lor testimonianza si procaccia.
Quand' io m'ebbi dintorno alquanto visto,
volsimi a' piedi, e vidi due sì stretti,
che 'l pel del capo avieno insieme misto.
“Ditemi, voi che sì strignete i petti,”
diss' io, “chi siete?” E quei piegaro i colli;
e poi ch'ebber li visi a me eretti,
li occhi lor, ch'eran pria pur dentro molli,
gocciar su per le labbra, e 'l gelo strinse
le lagrime tra essi e riserrolli.
Con legno legno spranga mai non cinse
forte così; ond' ei come due becchi
cozzaro insieme, tanta ira li vinse.
E un ch'avea perduti ambo li orecchi
per la freddura, pur col viso in giùe,
disse: “Perché cotanto in noi ti specchi?
Se vuoi saper chi son cotesti due,
la valle onde Bisenzo si dichina
del padre loro Alberto e di lor fue.
D'un corpo usciro; e tutta la Caina
potrai cercare, e non troverai ombra
degna più d'esser fitta in gelatina:
non quelli a cui fu rotto il petto e l'ombra
con esso un colpo per la man d'Artù;
non Focaccia; non questi che m'ingombra
col capo sì, ch'i' non veggio oltre più,
e fu nomato Sassol Mascheroni;
se tosco se', ben sai omai chi fu.
E perché non mi metti in più sermoni,
sappi ch'i' fu' il Camiscion de' Pazzi;
e aspetto Carlin che mi scagioni.”
Poscia vid' io mille visi cagnazzi
fatti per freddo; onde mi vien riprezzo,
e verrà sempre, de' gelati guazzi.
E mentre ch'andavamo inver' lo mezzo
al quale ogne gravezza si rauna,
e io tremava ne l'etterno rezzo;
se voler fu o destino o fortuna,
non so; ma, passeggiando tra le teste,
forte percossi 'l piè nel viso ad una.
Piangendo mi sgridò: “Perché mi peste?
se tu non vieni a crescer la vendetta
di Montaperti, perché mi moleste?”
E io: “Maestro mio, or qui m'aspetta,
sì ch'io esca d'un dubbio per costui;
poi mi farai, quantunque vorrai, fretta.”
Lo duca stette, e io dissi a colui
che bestemmiava duramente ancora:
“Qual se' tu che così rampogni altrui?”
“Or tu chi se' che vai per l'Antenora,
percotendo,” rispuose, “altrui le gote,
sì che, se fossi vivo, troppo fora?”
“Vivo son io, e caro esser ti puote,”
fu mia risposta, “se dimandi fama,
ch'io metta il nome tuo tra l'altre note.”
Ed elli a me: “Del contrario ho io brama.
Lèvati quinci e non mi dar più lagna,
ché mal sai lusingar per questa lama!”
Allor lo presi per la cuticagna
e dissi: “El converrà che tu ti nomi,
o che capel qui sù non ti rimagna.”
Ond' elli a me: “Perché tu mi dischiomi,
né ti dirò ch'io sia, né mosterrolti
se mille fiate in sul capo mi tomi.”
Io avea già i capelli in mano avvolti,
e tratti glien' avea più d'una ciocca,
latrando lui con li occhi in giù raccolti,
quando un altro gridò: “Che hai tu, Bocca?
non ti basta sonar con le mascelle,
se tu non latri? qual diavol ti tocca?”
“Omai,” diss' io, “non vo' che più favelle,
malvagio traditor; ch'a la tua onta
io porterò di te vere novelle.”
“Va via,” rispuose, “e ciò che tu vuoi conta;
ma non tacer, se tu di qua entro eschi,
di quel ch'ebbe or così la lingua pronta.
El piange qui l'argento de' Franceschi:
'Io vidi,' potrai dir, 'quel da Duera
là dove i peccatori stanno freschi.'
Se fossi domandato 'Altri chi v'era?'
tu hai dallato quel di Beccheria
di cui segò Fiorenza la gorgiera.
Gianni de' Soldanier credo che sia
più là con Ganellone e Tebaldello,
ch'aprì Faenza quando si dormia.”
Noi eravam partiti già da ello,
ch'io vidi due ghiacciati in una buca,
sì che l'un capo a l'altro era cappello;
e come 'l pan per fame si manduca,
così 'l sovran li denti a l'altro pose
là 've 'l cervel s'aggiugne con la nuca:
non altrimenti Tidëo si rose
le tempie a Menalippo per disdegno,
che quei faceva il teschio e l'altre cose.
“O tu che mostri per sì bestial segno
odio sovra colui che tu ti mangi,
dimmi 'l perché,” diss' io, “per tal convegno,
che se tu a ragion di lui ti piangi,
sappiendo chi voi siete e la sua pecca,
nel mondo suso ancora io te ne cangi,
se quella con ch'io parlo non si secca.”
If I had rhymes both rough and stridulous,
As were appropriate to the dismal hole
Down upon which thrust all the other rocks,
I would press out the juice of my conception
More fully; but because I have them not,
Not without fear I bring myself to speak;
For 'tis no enterprise to take in jest,
To sketch the bottom of all the universe,
Nor for a tongue that cries Mamma and Babbo.
But may those Ladies help this verse of mine,
Who helped Amphion in enclosing Thebes,
That from the fact the word be not diverse.
O rabble ill-begotten above all,
Who're in the place to speak of which is hard,
'Twere better ye had here been sheep or goats!
When we were down within the darksome well,
Beneath the giant's feet, but lower far,
And I was scanning still the lofty wall,
I heard it said to me: "Look how thou steppest!
Take heed thou do not trample with thy feet
The heads of the tired, miserable brothers!"
Whereat I turned me round, and saw before me
And underfoot a lake, that from the frost
The semblance had of glass, and not of water.
So thick a veil ne'er made upon its current
In winter-time Danube in Austria,
Nor there beneath the frigid sky the Don,
As there was here; so that if Tambernich
Had fallen upon it, or Pietrapana,
E'en at the edge 'twould not have given a creak.
And as to croak the frog doth place himself
With muzzle out of water,—when is dreaming
Of gleaning oftentimes the peasant-girl,—
Livid, as far down as where shame appears,
Were the disconsolate shades within the ice,
Setting their teeth unto the note of storks.
Each one his countenance held downward bent;
From mouth the cold, from eyes the doleful heart
Among them witness of itself procures.
When round about me somewhat I had looked,
I downward turned me, and saw two so close,
The hair upon their heads together mingled.
"Ye who so strain your breasts together, tell me,"
I said, "who are you;" and they bent their necks,
And when to me their faces they had lifted,
Their eyes, which first were only moist within,
Gushed o'er the eyelids, and the frost congealed
The tears between, and locked them up again.
Clamp never bound together wood with wood
So strongly; whereat they, like two he-goats,
Butted together, so much wrath o'ercame them.
And one, who had by reason of the cold
Lost both his ears, still with his visage downward,
Said: "Why dost thou so mirror thyself in us?
If thou desire to know who these two are,
The valley whence Bisenzio descends
Belonged to them and to their father Albert.
They from one body came, and all Caina
Thou shalt search through, and shalt not find a shade
More worthy to be fixed in gelatine;
Not he in whom were broken breast and shadow
At one and the same blow by Arthur's hand;
Focaccia not; not he who me encumbers
So with his head I see no farther forward,
And bore the name of Sassol Mascheroni;
Well knowest thou who he was, if thou art Tuscan.
And that thou put me not to further speech,
Know that I Camicion de' Pazzi was,
And wait Carlino to exonerate me."
Then I beheld a thousand faces, made
Purple with cold; whence o'er me comes a shudder,
And evermore will come, at frozen ponds.
And while we were advancing tow'rds the middle,
Where everything of weight unites together,
And I was shivering in the eternal shade,
Whether 'twere will, or destiny, or chance,
I know not; but in walking 'mong the heads
I struck my foot hard in the face of one.
Weeping he growled: "Why dost thou trample me?
Unless thou comest to increase the vengeance
of Montaperti, why dost thou molest me?"
And I: "My Master, now wait here for me,
That I through him may issue from a doubt;
Then thou mayst hurry me, as thou shalt wish."
The Leader stopped; and to that one I said
Who was blaspheming vehemently still:
"Who art thou, that thus reprehendest others?"
"Now who art thou, that goest through Antenora
Smiting," replied he, "other people's cheeks,
So that, if thou wert living, 'twere too much?"
"Living I am, and dear to thee it may be,"
Was my response, "if thou demandest fame,
That 'mid the other notes thy name I place."
And he to me: "For the reverse I long;
Take thyself hence, and give me no more trouble;
For ill thou knowest to flatter in this hollow."
Then by the scalp behind I seized upon him,
And said: "It must needs be thou name thyself,
Or not a hair remain upon thee here."
Whence he to me: "Though thou strip off my hair,
I will not tell thee who I am, nor show thee,
If on my head a thousand times thou fall."
I had his hair in hand already twisted,
And more than one shock of it had pulled out,
He barking, with his eyes held firmly down,
When cried another: "What doth ail thee, Bocca?
Is't not enough to clatter with thy jaws,
But thou must bark? what devil touches thee?"
"Now," said I, "I care not to have thee speak,
Accursed traitor; for unto thy shame
I will report of thee veracious news."
"Begone," replied he, "and tell what thou wilt,
But be not silent, if thou issue hence,
Of him who had just now his tongue so prompt;
He weepeth here the silver of the French;
'I saw,' thus canst thou phrase it, 'him of Duera
There where the sinners stand out in the cold.'
If thou shouldst questioned be who else was there,
Thou hast beside thee him of Beccaria,
Of whom the gorget Florence slit asunder;
Gianni del Soldanier, I think, may be
Yonder with Ganellon, and Tebaldello
Who oped Faenza when the people slep."
Already we had gone away from him,
When I beheld two frozen in one hole,
So that one head a hood was to the other;
And even as bread through hunger is devoured,
The uppermost on the other set his teeth,
There where the brain is to the nape united.
Not in another fashion Tydeus gnawed
The temples of Menalippus in disdain,
Than that one did the skull and the other things.
"O thou, who showest by such bestial sign
Thy hatred against him whom thou art eating,
Tell me the wherefore," said I, "with this compact,
That if thou rightfully of him complain,
In knowing who ye are, and his transgression,
I in the world above repay thee for it,
If that wherewith I speak be not dried up."
Dante apologizes for not having under his control a language rough enough to be the exact counterpart of what he must describe. For the relationship of the diction of the passage to that found in Dante's Rime petrose, see Poletto's commentary (1894) to verses 1-6, perhaps the first to contain this observation, now become customary. See also Luigi Blasucci, “L'esperienza delle Petrose e il linguaggio della Divina Commedia,” in his Studi su Dante e Ariosto (Milan: Ricciardi, 1969), pp. 1-35. And now see Heather Webb (“Dante's Stone Cold Rhymes,” Dante Studies 121 [2003 {2006}]), pp. 149-68, for a discussion of the petrose and their relation to the softer poetic of the Commedia.
The place he needs to describe is the center of the entire universe (at least it is in the geocentric view). If he had the right words, he would be able to set forth more adequately what he indeed fully understands, i.e., his conception does not come short of the nature of these things (see v. 12), but his words may. Dante draws this distinction with some care. To repeat, his 'conception' is one matter, his description of it another (it is the 'juice' that he must 'squeeze' from the 'fruit' of his experience). And the setting of that experience into verse is no light task (impresa – for the importance of this word, referring variously to Dante's journey and to his poem, see Hollander [Allegory in Dante's “Commedia” (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1969), p. 230], citing its other three occurrences in the poem [Inf. II.41; Inf. II.47; Par. XXXIII.95], not one for a tongue that is capable only of 'babytalk.' For the linguistic program concerning 'babytalk' found in the Commedia and its oppositional relation to that previously advanced by Dante in De vulgari eloquentia, see Hollander, “Babytalk in Dante's Commedia,” in Studies in Dante (Ravenna: Longo, 1980), pp. 115-29. Here Dante is including two words, 'mommy' and 'daddy,' that he himself had explicitly proscribed from the illustrious vernacular (De vulgari eloquentia II.vii.4).
A curiosity to be taken under consideration is the claim made by Berthier (comm. to these verses), citing Ferrazzi's Manuale Dantesco (IV, p. 235), that it is probable that Dante derived his terza rima from Rutebeuf's Old French verse.
This is Dante's second invocation. For the program of invocation in the poem as a whole, see the note to Inferno II.7-9. Here the poet seeks aid only from the Muses and only for his ability to find the right words for his difficult task in rendering such unpleasant matter. His 'conception' (see v. 4), we may understand, is already formed (in Inf. II.7 he implicitly asked for that, as well).
The reference to the poet Amphion probably derives from the Ars poetica of Horace (vv. 394-396), a work well known to Dante. Amphion was able, through the magic of his inspired lyre-playing, to compel the rocks of Mt. Cithaeron to move down the mountain and, of their own accord, create the walls of Thebes. Dante, describing the Infernal 'city of destruction,' the ninth Circle, home of Lucifer, asks for the help of the Muses in order to build, not the physical city, but his image of it in words that do justice to the conception he has been given.
The poet's address to all the denizens of Cocytus seems to have been aimed particularly at the arch sinner punished here, Judas, by its reference, first noted by Pietro di Dante (Pietro1, comm. to these vv.), to Matthew 26:24, Christ's words to Judas, for whom it had been better 'not to have been born.'
The narrative of this ultimate part of the first cantica has been held in abeyance for nine self-conscious opening lines about the poet's craft, for an invocation, and then for an apostrophe. The visit to the pit of the universe has finally begun. However, Dante's failure to manage these details more clearly has rattled his readers. Do the giants stand on the icy floor of Cocytus? Apparently not. Here Dante asserts that he and Virgil find themselves far below the feet of Antaeus. They do not seem, however, to have themselves descended that distance. Rather, it seems more likely that Antaeus has set them down just about where they find themselves now. Some commentators object, since most humans, and certainly most giants, are probably not limber enough (or long-armed enough) to bend at the waist and deposit a burden well below the level of their feet. Do we learn where the giants stand? No. Is Dante concerned lest their feet become chilled on the ice? No. Might they be standing on some sort of ledge? Yes. Can we be certain that they are? No. Might Antaeus have longer arms than we like to think? Yes. Can we know that he does? No. This is a poem, and, especially when it deals with the marvelous, while it is at times amazingly precise, it is also, at other times, exasperatingly (to certain readers) imprecise. As a result, beginning perhaps with Bianchi (comm. to verse 17), commentators have invented a ledge for Antaeus, and hence all the giants, to stand on. It has become part of the furniture of the poem, even if Dante did not construct it.
The identity of this voice has long puzzled readers. Torraca (comm. to v. 19), essentially alone in this opinion, opts for Virgil; many for an unnamed sinner; many others for one (or both) of the Alberti brothers, whom we see in vv. 41-51. Benvenuto da Imola (comm. to vv. 16-21), followed only by his student John of Serravalle, makes probably the best surmise: the voice is that of Camicione de' Pazzi, a position that seems sensible, as we shall see as we move through the scene, but has had no success among the commentators.
Dante had been looking back up in the direction of Antaeus and wondering at the height of the wall he now stood beneath. The voice calls on him to attend to his surroundings, as he now immediately does, realizing that he is standing on a frozen lake.
A double simile describes the thickness of the ice, greater than even that found on the Danube or the Don, so thick that even had a mountain (whether Tambura or Pania, in the Apuan Alps above Lucca) fallen upon it, it would not have even creaked.
A second simile reflects the protagonist's new awareness that there are sinners in this ice, looking like frogs in summer (and how they must wish for summer, these shades), with just their snouts out of the water, and their teeth sounding like the clicking bills of storks.
This first group of sinners (we will learn eventually that there are four, each in a somewhat different posture) has their heads facing downwards. Their mouths clatter with the cold, their eyes run with tears (as we shall find out, that is a better condition than that enjoyed by those lower down in the ninth Circle). We are in Caïna, named for Cain, the first murderer (of his brother Abel).
Now Dante looks just before him and sees two who are bound together tightly; he asks for their identities.
These two (we will shortly learn that they are brothers) lift up their heads to behold Dante, which action causes their tears to spill over their faces and onto their lips (instead of onto the ice), thus gluing them together still more firmly when their tears become gelid. Frozen into a parody of the Christian kiss of peace, they respond by moving the only part of them they can, their foreheads, which they use to butt one another in anger. Once we hear who they are, we will understand the reason for such hatred.
The speaker is Camicione de' Pazzi. Nothing much is known of him except that he, from near Florence (the Val d'Arno) murdered his relative Ubertino. His is the only voice we hear in this first zone of Cocytus, the prime reason to believe that it was he who spoke at vv. 19-21. Having warned Dante to be careful as he began walking, lest he kick the inseparate heads of the two brothers, he now identifies them for Dante. Alessandro and Napoleone degli Alberti, Counts of Mangona, were also 'neighbors' of Dante's, living in the countryside near Prato. While little is known of them, they apparently killed one another in the 1280s as the result of a dispute over their inheritance from their father.
Also here, says Camicione, is Mordred (vv.61-62), who killed King Arthur and was slain by him, as recounted in the Old French Morte d'Arthur. The blow of Arthur's lance left a hole clear through Mordred's body so that a ray of sunlight passed through it – and thus through his shadow as well. And Focaccia is here (v. 63). That was the nickname (see John Ahern, “Apocalyptic Onomastics: Focaccia [Inferno XXXII, 63],” Romance Notes 23 [1982], pp. 181-84) of Vanni dei Cancellieri of Pistoia, a White Guelph who was reputed to have murdered various of his relatives by various commentators, most probably at least his cousin Detto, a member of the Black Guelphs, ca. 1286. Also present is Sassol Mascheroni (vv. 63-66), another Florentine who murdered a relative in a quarrel over an inheritance. After he identifies himself, Camicione says that his relative, Carlino, will commit a still greater sin, betraying a White stronghold in the Val d'Arno to Black forces for money – a sin fit for the next zone, Antenora, where political treachery is punished, thus making (in his own eyes, at least) Camicione's sin seem less offensive.
Carlino's treachery and death took place only in 1302; therefore, Camicione is using the power of the damned to see into the future, of which we were told in Inferno X.100-108. The staging of a future damnation just here perhaps has consequence for Francesca's projected damnation of her husband in 1304 to precisely this circle and zone: Gianciotto is headed here, according to her (Inf. V.107; and see the note to Inf. V.107). Since Dante uses this occasion precisely to predict the later coming of a damned soul currently still alive, we may be reminded of Francesca's similar prediction. And we sense how easy it would have been for Dante to have had Camicione, guilty of the same sin as Gianciotto, tell of his future presence in Caïna, thus 'guaranteeing' Francesca's prediction. And he, like Francesca in this, tries to exculpate himself to some degree by insisting that the person he refers to is more guilty than he is, and will be punished still lower down in hell.
We have crossed a border without knowing it. The ice of Cocytus is not marked, as were the Malebolge, with clear delineators that separate one sin from another. This difference may result from Dante's sense of the essential commonality of all the sins that are treacherous in nature, that are so utterly debased (they are referred to as 'matta bestialitade' in Inf. XI.82-83).
The four areas of Cocytus make concentric circles, each lower in the ice than the last, as we move toward the center. We understand that we have reached a new zone only because the faces of the damned look straight out at us (and are not bent down, as they were in Caïna). This zone is named after Antenor, the Trojan who, a grandson of Priam, in the non-Virgilian versions of the story of the Trojan War, urged that Helen be given back to Menelaus. After Paris refused to give her back, Antenor, in such sources as Dictys Cretensis, is responsible for betraying the city to the Greeks. He escaped from the city and founded Padua (see Purg. V.75).
The rare (unique?) picture we get here of Dante, having finished his work on the Comedy for the day, walking a winter countryside, a 'civilian' again, is disconcerting and moving, especially when we consider that he never had those days of 'being done,' perhaps only barely finishing Paradiso before his death in September 1321.
The protagonist's footwork has raised questions in many. Did he kick Bocca on purpose? The language is such that answering is not easy. Was the blow the result of will (his own) or fate (destiny, as determined by God) or chance (mere accident, a thing of no consequence to the Divine Mind)? These three alternatives offer a range of genuine and separate possibilities, which is not true for all the hypotheses that one may consult in the commentary tradition. As Bosco/Reggio argue, that Dante kicks the head hard makes it difficult to believe that his will was not involved (comm. to Inf. XXXII.76-112).
The victim of Dante's kick, we will learn at v. 106, is Bocca degli Abati. Bocca's betrayal occurred on the battlefield at Montaperti (1260) when he, a member of the Florentine Guelph army, cut off the arm of the standard-bearer at the height of the battle. The ensuing disastrous defeat of the Guelphs at the hands of the Ghibellines was sometimes laid at his door, as it is here by Dante.
The protagonist thinks he knows that this might well be Bocca, and gets Virgil's permission to question him. We recall how stern Virgil was in his rebuke of Dante for listening to the 'tenzone' between Master Adam and Sinon in Inferno XXX.131-132. Here he stands complacently to one side as Dante gets involved in a fairly violent 'tenzone' himself. But now, one might argue, he is actively engaged in remonstrating with a wrong-doer and thus has Virgil's full support.
This 'tenzone' is in five parts. (1) Dante begins it with a rebuke for Bocca's bad manners (a sinner in the depth of hell should treat mortal special visitors better than he has done); Bocca answers with continuing complaint. (2) Dante offers fame – for a price; Bocca answers rudely. (3) Dante moves to a threat of physical assault; Bocca defies him. (4) Dante begins pulling out Bocca's hair; Bocca 'barks,' thus moving another sinner there present to name him (he is answering in Bocca's place, as it were). (5) Dante rejoices in his victory over Bocca; Bocca remains sullen.
The Italian at v. 90 is, in itself, ambivalent. Because of the conjugation of the present subjunctive, 'se fossi vivo' can either mean 'were I alive' or 'were you alive.' Since Bocca, like Camicione (if he is the speaker of vv. 19-21), seems to be able to tell that Dante is in the flesh, e.g., from the sound of his footfall on the ice, from the force of his kick, it would make no sense for him to doubt Dante's presence as a living being. Further, Dante's response would seem to follow better if Bocca's words are understood as meaning, 'were I alive.' Our translation runs accordingly. (There are those who dispute this reading.)
At vv. 103-105 Dante is playfully citing his own vengeful and sexually-charged desire to pull the hair of the 'stony lady' in one of his Rime petrose, 'Così nel mio parlar' (Rime CIII.66-73). For the most recent discussion see Emilio Pasquini (“Lettura di Inferno XXXII,” L'Alighieri 13 [1999]), pp. 31-33, noting as well various other resonances of the 'stony rhymes' in this canto. See also the study of Durling and Martinez (Time and the Crystal: Studies in Dante's “Rime petrose” [Berkeley: University of California Press, 1990]) for a wider view.
Bocca's revenge for his 'betrayal' by Buoso da Duera is to reveal the names of others in Antenora so that they may join him in infamy as a result of Dante's eventual report to the living, the first of these, naturally, being Buoso himself (vv. 114-117). Buoso was a Ghibelline (he is 'paired' with the Guelph Bocca) who, entrusted by Manfred's high command to hold the high passes near Parma against the invading army of Charles of Anjou in 1265, apparently accepted a bribe in order to let the Guelph forces reach Parma without a fight.
Tesauro de' Beccheria (vv. 119-120), abbot of Vallombrosa, a Ghibelline, was accused of treacherously assisting the Florentine Ghibellines, banned from the city in 1258, to re-enter Florence. He was beheaded for betraying the city.
Gianni de' Soldanieri (v. 121), also a Ghibelline, joined the popular uprising against the Ghibelline leaders of Florence just after the defeat and death of the great Ghibelline leader, Manfred, at Benevento in 1266. He thus was seen as betraying his own party.
Ganelon (v. 122) treacherously betrayed Charlemagne's rear guard at Roncesvalles in 778. See the note to Inferno XXXI.16-18.
Tebaldello Zambrasi of Faenza (v. 122), also a Ghibelline, betrayed his fellow Ghibellines of Bologna who, having been exiled, had taken refuge in Faenza. In 1280 Tebaldello opened a gate of his city, just before dawn, to a war party of Bolognese Guelphs so that they might avenge themselves upon their fellow citizens. Tebaldello himself died in 1282 in another battle.
A sudden change in the protagonist's attention reveals the pair of sinners whom we will shortly know as Uglolino and Ruggieri (vv. 13-14 of the next canto), the one with his head above the other's.
Again Dante blends an unadorned 'ordinary' scene (a hungry man wolfing down a load of bread) with classical material (a passage from Statius, Theb. VIII.751-762) in a double simile. The moment in Statius describes Tydeus, dying in battle, asking his men to cut off for him the head of Melanippus, whom he had just slain, but who had first given him his own mortal blow. They do so (Capaneus [Inf. XIV] is the one who carries the body to him). With savage joy Tydeus, dying, chews upon the head of the man who had killed him.
For the 'bestial sign' as reflecting the words of St. Paul, see Freccero's essay, 'Bestial Sign and Bread of Angels' (Dante: The Poetics of Conversion, ed. Rachel Jacoff [Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1986]), p. 160: 'But if you bite one another, take heed or you will be consumed by one another' (Galatians 5:15). The cannibalistic scene before us here introduces the concerns with starvation that will be so prominent in the first half of the next canto.
Dante offers to present to the world this sinner's case (so that it may judge whether or not his wrath is justified) if he will but reveal his name and the offense committed by the other sinner. Dante fulfills this promise in the following canto, and the world – or at least the Dantean part of it – has been arguing about that case ever since.
There is also a dispute over the exact meaning of the last line of Dante's oath. A number of understandings have been offered: 'as long as I do not die first' (the choice of many of the early commentators); 'as long as my tongue does not fail me' (also popular among the early commentators); 'if this cold [of Cocytus] does not wither it' (only Torraca and Pietrobono; probably not worth serious consideration); 'if my words do not die' (Grabher and Fallani); 'if it does not become paralyzed' (Steiner and quite a few modern commentators). It seems clear that Dante, in this vernacular and salty oath, swears on his life that he will carry out his promise. Tozer, in 1901 (comm. to vv. 138-139), paraphrases adequately: 'If I live to recount it.' Recently Guglielmo Gorni has tried an entirely new tack: 'if my Florentine vernacular survives' (“'Se quella con ch'io parlo non si secca' [Inferno XXXII 139],” in Operosa parva per Gianni Antonini, ed D. De Robertis & F. Gavazzeni [Verona: Valdonega, 1996], pp. 41-46), but this seems more venturesome than necessary.
When we finish reading this canto we may reflect on the singular fact that, for the first time since he entered the poem (Inf. I.67), Virgil has not spoken in an entire canto. See the note to Inferno XXX.37-41.
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S'ïo avessi le rime aspre e chiocce,
come si converrebbe al tristo buco
sovra 'l qual pontan tutte l'altre rocce,
io premerei di mio concetto il suco
più pienamente; ma perch' io non l'abbo,
non sanza tema a dicer mi conduco;
ché non è impresa da pigliare a gabbo
discriver fondo a tutto l'universo,
né da lingua che chiami mamma o babbo.
Ma quelle donne aiutino il mio verso
ch'aiutaro Anfïone a chiuder Tebe,
sì che dal fatto il dir non sia diverso.
Oh sovra tutte mal creata plebe
che stai nel loco onde parlare è duro,
mei foste state qui pecore o zebe!
Come noi fummo giù nel pozzo scuro
sotto i piè del gigante assai più bassi,
e io mirava ancora a l'alto muro,
dicere udi'mi: “Guarda come passi:
va sì, che tu non calchi con le piante
le teste de' fratei miseri lassi.”
Per ch'io mi volsi, e vidimi davante
e sotto i piedi un lago che per gelo
avea di vetro e non d'acqua sembiante.
Non fece al corso suo sì grosso velo
di verno la Danoia in Osterlicchi,
né Tanaï là sotto 'l freddo cielo,
com' era quivi; che se Tambernicchi
vi fosse sù caduto, o Pietrapana,
non avria pur da l'orlo fatto cricchi.
E come a gracidar si sta la rana
col muso fuor de l'acqua, quando sogna
di spigolar sovente la villana,
livide, insin là dove appar vergogna
eran l'ombre dolenti ne la ghiaccia,
mettendo i denti in nota di cicogna.
Ognuna in giù tenea volta la faccia;
da bocca il freddo, e da li occhi il cor tristo
tra lor testimonianza si procaccia.
Quand' io m'ebbi dintorno alquanto visto,
volsimi a' piedi, e vidi due sì stretti,
che 'l pel del capo avieno insieme misto.
“Ditemi, voi che sì strignete i petti,”
diss' io, “chi siete?” E quei piegaro i colli;
e poi ch'ebber li visi a me eretti,
li occhi lor, ch'eran pria pur dentro molli,
gocciar su per le labbra, e 'l gelo strinse
le lagrime tra essi e riserrolli.
Con legno legno spranga mai non cinse
forte così; ond' ei come due becchi
cozzaro insieme, tanta ira li vinse.
E un ch'avea perduti ambo li orecchi
per la freddura, pur col viso in giùe,
disse: “Perché cotanto in noi ti specchi?
Se vuoi saper chi son cotesti due,
la valle onde Bisenzo si dichina
del padre loro Alberto e di lor fue.
D'un corpo usciro; e tutta la Caina
potrai cercare, e non troverai ombra
degna più d'esser fitta in gelatina:
non quelli a cui fu rotto il petto e l'ombra
con esso un colpo per la man d'Artù;
non Focaccia; non questi che m'ingombra
col capo sì, ch'i' non veggio oltre più,
e fu nomato Sassol Mascheroni;
se tosco se', ben sai omai chi fu.
E perché non mi metti in più sermoni,
sappi ch'i' fu' il Camiscion de' Pazzi;
e aspetto Carlin che mi scagioni.”
Poscia vid' io mille visi cagnazzi
fatti per freddo; onde mi vien riprezzo,
e verrà sempre, de' gelati guazzi.
E mentre ch'andavamo inver' lo mezzo
al quale ogne gravezza si rauna,
e io tremava ne l'etterno rezzo;
se voler fu o destino o fortuna,
non so; ma, passeggiando tra le teste,
forte percossi 'l piè nel viso ad una.
Piangendo mi sgridò: “Perché mi peste?
se tu non vieni a crescer la vendetta
di Montaperti, perché mi moleste?”
E io: “Maestro mio, or qui m'aspetta,
sì ch'io esca d'un dubbio per costui;
poi mi farai, quantunque vorrai, fretta.”
Lo duca stette, e io dissi a colui
che bestemmiava duramente ancora:
“Qual se' tu che così rampogni altrui?”
“Or tu chi se' che vai per l'Antenora,
percotendo,” rispuose, “altrui le gote,
sì che, se fossi vivo, troppo fora?”
“Vivo son io, e caro esser ti puote,”
fu mia risposta, “se dimandi fama,
ch'io metta il nome tuo tra l'altre note.”
Ed elli a me: “Del contrario ho io brama.
Lèvati quinci e non mi dar più lagna,
ché mal sai lusingar per questa lama!”
Allor lo presi per la cuticagna
e dissi: “El converrà che tu ti nomi,
o che capel qui sù non ti rimagna.”
Ond' elli a me: “Perché tu mi dischiomi,
né ti dirò ch'io sia, né mosterrolti
se mille fiate in sul capo mi tomi.”
Io avea già i capelli in mano avvolti,
e tratti glien' avea più d'una ciocca,
latrando lui con li occhi in giù raccolti,
quando un altro gridò: “Che hai tu, Bocca?
non ti basta sonar con le mascelle,
se tu non latri? qual diavol ti tocca?”
“Omai,” diss' io, “non vo' che più favelle,
malvagio traditor; ch'a la tua onta
io porterò di te vere novelle.”
“Va via,” rispuose, “e ciò che tu vuoi conta;
ma non tacer, se tu di qua entro eschi,
di quel ch'ebbe or così la lingua pronta.
El piange qui l'argento de' Franceschi:
'Io vidi,' potrai dir, 'quel da Duera
là dove i peccatori stanno freschi.'
Se fossi domandato 'Altri chi v'era?'
tu hai dallato quel di Beccheria
di cui segò Fiorenza la gorgiera.
Gianni de' Soldanier credo che sia
più là con Ganellone e Tebaldello,
ch'aprì Faenza quando si dormia.”
Noi eravam partiti già da ello,
ch'io vidi due ghiacciati in una buca,
sì che l'un capo a l'altro era cappello;
e come 'l pan per fame si manduca,
così 'l sovran li denti a l'altro pose
là 've 'l cervel s'aggiugne con la nuca:
non altrimenti Tidëo si rose
le tempie a Menalippo per disdegno,
che quei faceva il teschio e l'altre cose.
“O tu che mostri per sì bestial segno
odio sovra colui che tu ti mangi,
dimmi 'l perché,” diss' io, “per tal convegno,
che se tu a ragion di lui ti piangi,
sappiendo chi voi siete e la sua pecca,
nel mondo suso ancora io te ne cangi,
se quella con ch'io parlo non si secca.”
If I had rhymes both rough and stridulous,
As were appropriate to the dismal hole
Down upon which thrust all the other rocks,
I would press out the juice of my conception
More fully; but because I have them not,
Not without fear I bring myself to speak;
For 'tis no enterprise to take in jest,
To sketch the bottom of all the universe,
Nor for a tongue that cries Mamma and Babbo.
But may those Ladies help this verse of mine,
Who helped Amphion in enclosing Thebes,
That from the fact the word be not diverse.
O rabble ill-begotten above all,
Who're in the place to speak of which is hard,
'Twere better ye had here been sheep or goats!
When we were down within the darksome well,
Beneath the giant's feet, but lower far,
And I was scanning still the lofty wall,
I heard it said to me: "Look how thou steppest!
Take heed thou do not trample with thy feet
The heads of the tired, miserable brothers!"
Whereat I turned me round, and saw before me
And underfoot a lake, that from the frost
The semblance had of glass, and not of water.
So thick a veil ne'er made upon its current
In winter-time Danube in Austria,
Nor there beneath the frigid sky the Don,
As there was here; so that if Tambernich
Had fallen upon it, or Pietrapana,
E'en at the edge 'twould not have given a creak.
And as to croak the frog doth place himself
With muzzle out of water,—when is dreaming
Of gleaning oftentimes the peasant-girl,—
Livid, as far down as where shame appears,
Were the disconsolate shades within the ice,
Setting their teeth unto the note of storks.
Each one his countenance held downward bent;
From mouth the cold, from eyes the doleful heart
Among them witness of itself procures.
When round about me somewhat I had looked,
I downward turned me, and saw two so close,
The hair upon their heads together mingled.
"Ye who so strain your breasts together, tell me,"
I said, "who are you;" and they bent their necks,
And when to me their faces they had lifted,
Their eyes, which first were only moist within,
Gushed o'er the eyelids, and the frost congealed
The tears between, and locked them up again.
Clamp never bound together wood with wood
So strongly; whereat they, like two he-goats,
Butted together, so much wrath o'ercame them.
And one, who had by reason of the cold
Lost both his ears, still with his visage downward,
Said: "Why dost thou so mirror thyself in us?
If thou desire to know who these two are,
The valley whence Bisenzio descends
Belonged to them and to their father Albert.
They from one body came, and all Caina
Thou shalt search through, and shalt not find a shade
More worthy to be fixed in gelatine;
Not he in whom were broken breast and shadow
At one and the same blow by Arthur's hand;
Focaccia not; not he who me encumbers
So with his head I see no farther forward,
And bore the name of Sassol Mascheroni;
Well knowest thou who he was, if thou art Tuscan.
And that thou put me not to further speech,
Know that I Camicion de' Pazzi was,
And wait Carlino to exonerate me."
Then I beheld a thousand faces, made
Purple with cold; whence o'er me comes a shudder,
And evermore will come, at frozen ponds.
And while we were advancing tow'rds the middle,
Where everything of weight unites together,
And I was shivering in the eternal shade,
Whether 'twere will, or destiny, or chance,
I know not; but in walking 'mong the heads
I struck my foot hard in the face of one.
Weeping he growled: "Why dost thou trample me?
Unless thou comest to increase the vengeance
of Montaperti, why dost thou molest me?"
And I: "My Master, now wait here for me,
That I through him may issue from a doubt;
Then thou mayst hurry me, as thou shalt wish."
The Leader stopped; and to that one I said
Who was blaspheming vehemently still:
"Who art thou, that thus reprehendest others?"
"Now who art thou, that goest through Antenora
Smiting," replied he, "other people's cheeks,
So that, if thou wert living, 'twere too much?"
"Living I am, and dear to thee it may be,"
Was my response, "if thou demandest fame,
That 'mid the other notes thy name I place."
And he to me: "For the reverse I long;
Take thyself hence, and give me no more trouble;
For ill thou knowest to flatter in this hollow."
Then by the scalp behind I seized upon him,
And said: "It must needs be thou name thyself,
Or not a hair remain upon thee here."
Whence he to me: "Though thou strip off my hair,
I will not tell thee who I am, nor show thee,
If on my head a thousand times thou fall."
I had his hair in hand already twisted,
And more than one shock of it had pulled out,
He barking, with his eyes held firmly down,
When cried another: "What doth ail thee, Bocca?
Is't not enough to clatter with thy jaws,
But thou must bark? what devil touches thee?"
"Now," said I, "I care not to have thee speak,
Accursed traitor; for unto thy shame
I will report of thee veracious news."
"Begone," replied he, "and tell what thou wilt,
But be not silent, if thou issue hence,
Of him who had just now his tongue so prompt;
He weepeth here the silver of the French;
'I saw,' thus canst thou phrase it, 'him of Duera
There where the sinners stand out in the cold.'
If thou shouldst questioned be who else was there,
Thou hast beside thee him of Beccaria,
Of whom the gorget Florence slit asunder;
Gianni del Soldanier, I think, may be
Yonder with Ganellon, and Tebaldello
Who oped Faenza when the people slep."
Already we had gone away from him,
When I beheld two frozen in one hole,
So that one head a hood was to the other;
And even as bread through hunger is devoured,
The uppermost on the other set his teeth,
There where the brain is to the nape united.
Not in another fashion Tydeus gnawed
The temples of Menalippus in disdain,
Than that one did the skull and the other things.
"O thou, who showest by such bestial sign
Thy hatred against him whom thou art eating,
Tell me the wherefore," said I, "with this compact,
That if thou rightfully of him complain,
In knowing who ye are, and his transgression,
I in the world above repay thee for it,
If that wherewith I speak be not dried up."
Dante apologizes for not having under his control a language rough enough to be the exact counterpart of what he must describe. For the relationship of the diction of the passage to that found in Dante's Rime petrose, see Poletto's commentary (1894) to verses 1-6, perhaps the first to contain this observation, now become customary. See also Luigi Blasucci, “L'esperienza delle Petrose e il linguaggio della Divina Commedia,” in his Studi su Dante e Ariosto (Milan: Ricciardi, 1969), pp. 1-35. And now see Heather Webb (“Dante's Stone Cold Rhymes,” Dante Studies 121 [2003 {2006}]), pp. 149-68, for a discussion of the petrose and their relation to the softer poetic of the Commedia.
The place he needs to describe is the center of the entire universe (at least it is in the geocentric view). If he had the right words, he would be able to set forth more adequately what he indeed fully understands, i.e., his conception does not come short of the nature of these things (see v. 12), but his words may. Dante draws this distinction with some care. To repeat, his 'conception' is one matter, his description of it another (it is the 'juice' that he must 'squeeze' from the 'fruit' of his experience). And the setting of that experience into verse is no light task (impresa – for the importance of this word, referring variously to Dante's journey and to his poem, see Hollander [Allegory in Dante's “Commedia” (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1969), p. 230], citing its other three occurrences in the poem [Inf. II.41; Inf. II.47; Par. XXXIII.95], not one for a tongue that is capable only of 'babytalk.' For the linguistic program concerning 'babytalk' found in the Commedia and its oppositional relation to that previously advanced by Dante in De vulgari eloquentia, see Hollander, “Babytalk in Dante's Commedia,” in Studies in Dante (Ravenna: Longo, 1980), pp. 115-29. Here Dante is including two words, 'mommy' and 'daddy,' that he himself had explicitly proscribed from the illustrious vernacular (De vulgari eloquentia II.vii.4).
A curiosity to be taken under consideration is the claim made by Berthier (comm. to these verses), citing Ferrazzi's Manuale Dantesco (IV, p. 235), that it is probable that Dante derived his terza rima from Rutebeuf's Old French verse.
This is Dante's second invocation. For the program of invocation in the poem as a whole, see the note to Inferno II.7-9. Here the poet seeks aid only from the Muses and only for his ability to find the right words for his difficult task in rendering such unpleasant matter. His 'conception' (see v. 4), we may understand, is already formed (in Inf. II.7 he implicitly asked for that, as well).
The reference to the poet Amphion probably derives from the Ars poetica of Horace (vv. 394-396), a work well known to Dante. Amphion was able, through the magic of his inspired lyre-playing, to compel the rocks of Mt. Cithaeron to move down the mountain and, of their own accord, create the walls of Thebes. Dante, describing the Infernal 'city of destruction,' the ninth Circle, home of Lucifer, asks for the help of the Muses in order to build, not the physical city, but his image of it in words that do justice to the conception he has been given.
The poet's address to all the denizens of Cocytus seems to have been aimed particularly at the arch sinner punished here, Judas, by its reference, first noted by Pietro di Dante (Pietro1, comm. to these vv.), to Matthew 26:24, Christ's words to Judas, for whom it had been better 'not to have been born.'
The narrative of this ultimate part of the first cantica has been held in abeyance for nine self-conscious opening lines about the poet's craft, for an invocation, and then for an apostrophe. The visit to the pit of the universe has finally begun. However, Dante's failure to manage these details more clearly has rattled his readers. Do the giants stand on the icy floor of Cocytus? Apparently not. Here Dante asserts that he and Virgil find themselves far below the feet of Antaeus. They do not seem, however, to have themselves descended that distance. Rather, it seems more likely that Antaeus has set them down just about where they find themselves now. Some commentators object, since most humans, and certainly most giants, are probably not limber enough (or long-armed enough) to bend at the waist and deposit a burden well below the level of their feet. Do we learn where the giants stand? No. Is Dante concerned lest their feet become chilled on the ice? No. Might they be standing on some sort of ledge? Yes. Can we be certain that they are? No. Might Antaeus have longer arms than we like to think? Yes. Can we know that he does? No. This is a poem, and, especially when it deals with the marvelous, while it is at times amazingly precise, it is also, at other times, exasperatingly (to certain readers) imprecise. As a result, beginning perhaps with Bianchi (comm. to verse 17), commentators have invented a ledge for Antaeus, and hence all the giants, to stand on. It has become part of the furniture of the poem, even if Dante did not construct it.
The identity of this voice has long puzzled readers. Torraca (comm. to v. 19), essentially alone in this opinion, opts for Virgil; many for an unnamed sinner; many others for one (or both) of the Alberti brothers, whom we see in vv. 41-51. Benvenuto da Imola (comm. to vv. 16-21), followed only by his student John of Serravalle, makes probably the best surmise: the voice is that of Camicione de' Pazzi, a position that seems sensible, as we shall see as we move through the scene, but has had no success among the commentators.
Dante had been looking back up in the direction of Antaeus and wondering at the height of the wall he now stood beneath. The voice calls on him to attend to his surroundings, as he now immediately does, realizing that he is standing on a frozen lake.
A double simile describes the thickness of the ice, greater than even that found on the Danube or the Don, so thick that even had a mountain (whether Tambura or Pania, in the Apuan Alps above Lucca) fallen upon it, it would not have even creaked.
A second simile reflects the protagonist's new awareness that there are sinners in this ice, looking like frogs in summer (and how they must wish for summer, these shades), with just their snouts out of the water, and their teeth sounding like the clicking bills of storks.
This first group of sinners (we will learn eventually that there are four, each in a somewhat different posture) has their heads facing downwards. Their mouths clatter with the cold, their eyes run with tears (as we shall find out, that is a better condition than that enjoyed by those lower down in the ninth Circle). We are in Caïna, named for Cain, the first murderer (of his brother Abel).
Now Dante looks just before him and sees two who are bound together tightly; he asks for their identities.
These two (we will shortly learn that they are brothers) lift up their heads to behold Dante, which action causes their tears to spill over their faces and onto their lips (instead of onto the ice), thus gluing them together still more firmly when their tears become gelid. Frozen into a parody of the Christian kiss of peace, they respond by moving the only part of them they can, their foreheads, which they use to butt one another in anger. Once we hear who they are, we will understand the reason for such hatred.
The speaker is Camicione de' Pazzi. Nothing much is known of him except that he, from near Florence (the Val d'Arno) murdered his relative Ubertino. His is the only voice we hear in this first zone of Cocytus, the prime reason to believe that it was he who spoke at vv. 19-21. Having warned Dante to be careful as he began walking, lest he kick the inseparate heads of the two brothers, he now identifies them for Dante. Alessandro and Napoleone degli Alberti, Counts of Mangona, were also 'neighbors' of Dante's, living in the countryside near Prato. While little is known of them, they apparently killed one another in the 1280s as the result of a dispute over their inheritance from their father.
Also here, says Camicione, is Mordred (vv.61-62), who killed King Arthur and was slain by him, as recounted in the Old French Morte d'Arthur. The blow of Arthur's lance left a hole clear through Mordred's body so that a ray of sunlight passed through it – and thus through his shadow as well. And Focaccia is here (v. 63). That was the nickname (see John Ahern, “Apocalyptic Onomastics: Focaccia [Inferno XXXII, 63],” Romance Notes 23 [1982], pp. 181-84) of Vanni dei Cancellieri of Pistoia, a White Guelph who was reputed to have murdered various of his relatives by various commentators, most probably at least his cousin Detto, a member of the Black Guelphs, ca. 1286. Also present is Sassol Mascheroni (vv. 63-66), another Florentine who murdered a relative in a quarrel over an inheritance. After he identifies himself, Camicione says that his relative, Carlino, will commit a still greater sin, betraying a White stronghold in the Val d'Arno to Black forces for money – a sin fit for the next zone, Antenora, where political treachery is punished, thus making (in his own eyes, at least) Camicione's sin seem less offensive.
Carlino's treachery and death took place only in 1302; therefore, Camicione is using the power of the damned to see into the future, of which we were told in Inferno X.100-108. The staging of a future damnation just here perhaps has consequence for Francesca's projected damnation of her husband in 1304 to precisely this circle and zone: Gianciotto is headed here, according to her (Inf. V.107; and see the note to Inf. V.107). Since Dante uses this occasion precisely to predict the later coming of a damned soul currently still alive, we may be reminded of Francesca's similar prediction. And we sense how easy it would have been for Dante to have had Camicione, guilty of the same sin as Gianciotto, tell of his future presence in Caïna, thus 'guaranteeing' Francesca's prediction. And he, like Francesca in this, tries to exculpate himself to some degree by insisting that the person he refers to is more guilty than he is, and will be punished still lower down in hell.
We have crossed a border without knowing it. The ice of Cocytus is not marked, as were the Malebolge, with clear delineators that separate one sin from another. This difference may result from Dante's sense of the essential commonality of all the sins that are treacherous in nature, that are so utterly debased (they are referred to as 'matta bestialitade' in Inf. XI.82-83).
The four areas of Cocytus make concentric circles, each lower in the ice than the last, as we move toward the center. We understand that we have reached a new zone only because the faces of the damned look straight out at us (and are not bent down, as they were in Caïna). This zone is named after Antenor, the Trojan who, a grandson of Priam, in the non-Virgilian versions of the story of the Trojan War, urged that Helen be given back to Menelaus. After Paris refused to give her back, Antenor, in such sources as Dictys Cretensis, is responsible for betraying the city to the Greeks. He escaped from the city and founded Padua (see Purg. V.75).
The rare (unique?) picture we get here of Dante, having finished his work on the Comedy for the day, walking a winter countryside, a 'civilian' again, is disconcerting and moving, especially when we consider that he never had those days of 'being done,' perhaps only barely finishing Paradiso before his death in September 1321.
The protagonist's footwork has raised questions in many. Did he kick Bocca on purpose? The language is such that answering is not easy. Was the blow the result of will (his own) or fate (destiny, as determined by God) or chance (mere accident, a thing of no consequence to the Divine Mind)? These three alternatives offer a range of genuine and separate possibilities, which is not true for all the hypotheses that one may consult in the commentary tradition. As Bosco/Reggio argue, that Dante kicks the head hard makes it difficult to believe that his will was not involved (comm. to Inf. XXXII.76-112).
The victim of Dante's kick, we will learn at v. 106, is Bocca degli Abati. Bocca's betrayal occurred on the battlefield at Montaperti (1260) when he, a member of the Florentine Guelph army, cut off the arm of the standard-bearer at the height of the battle. The ensuing disastrous defeat of the Guelphs at the hands of the Ghibellines was sometimes laid at his door, as it is here by Dante.
The protagonist thinks he knows that this might well be Bocca, and gets Virgil's permission to question him. We recall how stern Virgil was in his rebuke of Dante for listening to the 'tenzone' between Master Adam and Sinon in Inferno XXX.131-132. Here he stands complacently to one side as Dante gets involved in a fairly violent 'tenzone' himself. But now, one might argue, he is actively engaged in remonstrating with a wrong-doer and thus has Virgil's full support.
This 'tenzone' is in five parts. (1) Dante begins it with a rebuke for Bocca's bad manners (a sinner in the depth of hell should treat mortal special visitors better than he has done); Bocca answers with continuing complaint. (2) Dante offers fame – for a price; Bocca answers rudely. (3) Dante moves to a threat of physical assault; Bocca defies him. (4) Dante begins pulling out Bocca's hair; Bocca 'barks,' thus moving another sinner there present to name him (he is answering in Bocca's place, as it were). (5) Dante rejoices in his victory over Bocca; Bocca remains sullen.
The Italian at v. 90 is, in itself, ambivalent. Because of the conjugation of the present subjunctive, 'se fossi vivo' can either mean 'were I alive' or 'were you alive.' Since Bocca, like Camicione (if he is the speaker of vv. 19-21), seems to be able to tell that Dante is in the flesh, e.g., from the sound of his footfall on the ice, from the force of his kick, it would make no sense for him to doubt Dante's presence as a living being. Further, Dante's response would seem to follow better if Bocca's words are understood as meaning, 'were I alive.' Our translation runs accordingly. (There are those who dispute this reading.)
At vv. 103-105 Dante is playfully citing his own vengeful and sexually-charged desire to pull the hair of the 'stony lady' in one of his Rime petrose, 'Così nel mio parlar' (Rime CIII.66-73). For the most recent discussion see Emilio Pasquini (“Lettura di Inferno XXXII,” L'Alighieri 13 [1999]), pp. 31-33, noting as well various other resonances of the 'stony rhymes' in this canto. See also the study of Durling and Martinez (Time and the Crystal: Studies in Dante's “Rime petrose” [Berkeley: University of California Press, 1990]) for a wider view.
Bocca's revenge for his 'betrayal' by Buoso da Duera is to reveal the names of others in Antenora so that they may join him in infamy as a result of Dante's eventual report to the living, the first of these, naturally, being Buoso himself (vv. 114-117). Buoso was a Ghibelline (he is 'paired' with the Guelph Bocca) who, entrusted by Manfred's high command to hold the high passes near Parma against the invading army of Charles of Anjou in 1265, apparently accepted a bribe in order to let the Guelph forces reach Parma without a fight.
Tesauro de' Beccheria (vv. 119-120), abbot of Vallombrosa, a Ghibelline, was accused of treacherously assisting the Florentine Ghibellines, banned from the city in 1258, to re-enter Florence. He was beheaded for betraying the city.
Gianni de' Soldanieri (v. 121), also a Ghibelline, joined the popular uprising against the Ghibelline leaders of Florence just after the defeat and death of the great Ghibelline leader, Manfred, at Benevento in 1266. He thus was seen as betraying his own party.
Ganelon (v. 122) treacherously betrayed Charlemagne's rear guard at Roncesvalles in 778. See the note to Inferno XXXI.16-18.
Tebaldello Zambrasi of Faenza (v. 122), also a Ghibelline, betrayed his fellow Ghibellines of Bologna who, having been exiled, had taken refuge in Faenza. In 1280 Tebaldello opened a gate of his city, just before dawn, to a war party of Bolognese Guelphs so that they might avenge themselves upon their fellow citizens. Tebaldello himself died in 1282 in another battle.
A sudden change in the protagonist's attention reveals the pair of sinners whom we will shortly know as Uglolino and Ruggieri (vv. 13-14 of the next canto), the one with his head above the other's.
Again Dante blends an unadorned 'ordinary' scene (a hungry man wolfing down a load of bread) with classical material (a passage from Statius, Theb. VIII.751-762) in a double simile. The moment in Statius describes Tydeus, dying in battle, asking his men to cut off for him the head of Melanippus, whom he had just slain, but who had first given him his own mortal blow. They do so (Capaneus [Inf. XIV] is the one who carries the body to him). With savage joy Tydeus, dying, chews upon the head of the man who had killed him.
For the 'bestial sign' as reflecting the words of St. Paul, see Freccero's essay, 'Bestial Sign and Bread of Angels' (Dante: The Poetics of Conversion, ed. Rachel Jacoff [Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1986]), p. 160: 'But if you bite one another, take heed or you will be consumed by one another' (Galatians 5:15). The cannibalistic scene before us here introduces the concerns with starvation that will be so prominent in the first half of the next canto.
Dante offers to present to the world this sinner's case (so that it may judge whether or not his wrath is justified) if he will but reveal his name and the offense committed by the other sinner. Dante fulfills this promise in the following canto, and the world – or at least the Dantean part of it – has been arguing about that case ever since.
There is also a dispute over the exact meaning of the last line of Dante's oath. A number of understandings have been offered: 'as long as I do not die first' (the choice of many of the early commentators); 'as long as my tongue does not fail me' (also popular among the early commentators); 'if this cold [of Cocytus] does not wither it' (only Torraca and Pietrobono; probably not worth serious consideration); 'if my words do not die' (Grabher and Fallani); 'if it does not become paralyzed' (Steiner and quite a few modern commentators). It seems clear that Dante, in this vernacular and salty oath, swears on his life that he will carry out his promise. Tozer, in 1901 (comm. to vv. 138-139), paraphrases adequately: 'If I live to recount it.' Recently Guglielmo Gorni has tried an entirely new tack: 'if my Florentine vernacular survives' (“'Se quella con ch'io parlo non si secca' [Inferno XXXII 139],” in Operosa parva per Gianni Antonini, ed D. De Robertis & F. Gavazzeni [Verona: Valdonega, 1996], pp. 41-46), but this seems more venturesome than necessary.
When we finish reading this canto we may reflect on the singular fact that, for the first time since he entered the poem (Inf. I.67), Virgil has not spoken in an entire canto. See the note to Inferno XXX.37-41.
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S'ïo avessi le rime aspre e chiocce,
come si converrebbe al tristo buco
sovra 'l qual pontan tutte l'altre rocce,
io premerei di mio concetto il suco
più pienamente; ma perch' io non l'abbo,
non sanza tema a dicer mi conduco;
ché non è impresa da pigliare a gabbo
discriver fondo a tutto l'universo,
né da lingua che chiami mamma o babbo.
Ma quelle donne aiutino il mio verso
ch'aiutaro Anfïone a chiuder Tebe,
sì che dal fatto il dir non sia diverso.
Oh sovra tutte mal creata plebe
che stai nel loco onde parlare è duro,
mei foste state qui pecore o zebe!
Come noi fummo giù nel pozzo scuro
sotto i piè del gigante assai più bassi,
e io mirava ancora a l'alto muro,
dicere udi'mi: “Guarda come passi:
va sì, che tu non calchi con le piante
le teste de' fratei miseri lassi.”
Per ch'io mi volsi, e vidimi davante
e sotto i piedi un lago che per gelo
avea di vetro e non d'acqua sembiante.
Non fece al corso suo sì grosso velo
di verno la Danoia in Osterlicchi,
né Tanaï là sotto 'l freddo cielo,
com' era quivi; che se Tambernicchi
vi fosse sù caduto, o Pietrapana,
non avria pur da l'orlo fatto cricchi.
E come a gracidar si sta la rana
col muso fuor de l'acqua, quando sogna
di spigolar sovente la villana,
livide, insin là dove appar vergogna
eran l'ombre dolenti ne la ghiaccia,
mettendo i denti in nota di cicogna.
Ognuna in giù tenea volta la faccia;
da bocca il freddo, e da li occhi il cor tristo
tra lor testimonianza si procaccia.
Quand' io m'ebbi dintorno alquanto visto,
volsimi a' piedi, e vidi due sì stretti,
che 'l pel del capo avieno insieme misto.
“Ditemi, voi che sì strignete i petti,”
diss' io, “chi siete?” E quei piegaro i colli;
e poi ch'ebber li visi a me eretti,
li occhi lor, ch'eran pria pur dentro molli,
gocciar su per le labbra, e 'l gelo strinse
le lagrime tra essi e riserrolli.
Con legno legno spranga mai non cinse
forte così; ond' ei come due becchi
cozzaro insieme, tanta ira li vinse.
E un ch'avea perduti ambo li orecchi
per la freddura, pur col viso in giùe,
disse: “Perché cotanto in noi ti specchi?
Se vuoi saper chi son cotesti due,
la valle onde Bisenzo si dichina
del padre loro Alberto e di lor fue.
D'un corpo usciro; e tutta la Caina
potrai cercare, e non troverai ombra
degna più d'esser fitta in gelatina:
non quelli a cui fu rotto il petto e l'ombra
con esso un colpo per la man d'Artù;
non Focaccia; non questi che m'ingombra
col capo sì, ch'i' non veggio oltre più,
e fu nomato Sassol Mascheroni;
se tosco se', ben sai omai chi fu.
E perché non mi metti in più sermoni,
sappi ch'i' fu' il Camiscion de' Pazzi;
e aspetto Carlin che mi scagioni.”
Poscia vid' io mille visi cagnazzi
fatti per freddo; onde mi vien riprezzo,
e verrà sempre, de' gelati guazzi.
E mentre ch'andavamo inver' lo mezzo
al quale ogne gravezza si rauna,
e io tremava ne l'etterno rezzo;
se voler fu o destino o fortuna,
non so; ma, passeggiando tra le teste,
forte percossi 'l piè nel viso ad una.
Piangendo mi sgridò: “Perché mi peste?
se tu non vieni a crescer la vendetta
di Montaperti, perché mi moleste?”
E io: “Maestro mio, or qui m'aspetta,
sì ch'io esca d'un dubbio per costui;
poi mi farai, quantunque vorrai, fretta.”
Lo duca stette, e io dissi a colui
che bestemmiava duramente ancora:
“Qual se' tu che così rampogni altrui?”
“Or tu chi se' che vai per l'Antenora,
percotendo,” rispuose, “altrui le gote,
sì che, se fossi vivo, troppo fora?”
“Vivo son io, e caro esser ti puote,”
fu mia risposta, “se dimandi fama,
ch'io metta il nome tuo tra l'altre note.”
Ed elli a me: “Del contrario ho io brama.
Lèvati quinci e non mi dar più lagna,
ché mal sai lusingar per questa lama!”
Allor lo presi per la cuticagna
e dissi: “El converrà che tu ti nomi,
o che capel qui sù non ti rimagna.”
Ond' elli a me: “Perché tu mi dischiomi,
né ti dirò ch'io sia, né mosterrolti
se mille fiate in sul capo mi tomi.”
Io avea già i capelli in mano avvolti,
e tratti glien' avea più d'una ciocca,
latrando lui con li occhi in giù raccolti,
quando un altro gridò: “Che hai tu, Bocca?
non ti basta sonar con le mascelle,
se tu non latri? qual diavol ti tocca?”
“Omai,” diss' io, “non vo' che più favelle,
malvagio traditor; ch'a la tua onta
io porterò di te vere novelle.”
“Va via,” rispuose, “e ciò che tu vuoi conta;
ma non tacer, se tu di qua entro eschi,
di quel ch'ebbe or così la lingua pronta.
El piange qui l'argento de' Franceschi:
'Io vidi,' potrai dir, 'quel da Duera
là dove i peccatori stanno freschi.'
Se fossi domandato 'Altri chi v'era?'
tu hai dallato quel di Beccheria
di cui segò Fiorenza la gorgiera.
Gianni de' Soldanier credo che sia
più là con Ganellone e Tebaldello,
ch'aprì Faenza quando si dormia.”
Noi eravam partiti già da ello,
ch'io vidi due ghiacciati in una buca,
sì che l'un capo a l'altro era cappello;
e come 'l pan per fame si manduca,
così 'l sovran li denti a l'altro pose
là 've 'l cervel s'aggiugne con la nuca:
non altrimenti Tidëo si rose
le tempie a Menalippo per disdegno,
che quei faceva il teschio e l'altre cose.
“O tu che mostri per sì bestial segno
odio sovra colui che tu ti mangi,
dimmi 'l perché,” diss' io, “per tal convegno,
che se tu a ragion di lui ti piangi,
sappiendo chi voi siete e la sua pecca,
nel mondo suso ancora io te ne cangi,
se quella con ch'io parlo non si secca.”
If I had rhymes both rough and stridulous,
As were appropriate to the dismal hole
Down upon which thrust all the other rocks,
I would press out the juice of my conception
More fully; but because I have them not,
Not without fear I bring myself to speak;
For 'tis no enterprise to take in jest,
To sketch the bottom of all the universe,
Nor for a tongue that cries Mamma and Babbo.
But may those Ladies help this verse of mine,
Who helped Amphion in enclosing Thebes,
That from the fact the word be not diverse.
O rabble ill-begotten above all,
Who're in the place to speak of which is hard,
'Twere better ye had here been sheep or goats!
When we were down within the darksome well,
Beneath the giant's feet, but lower far,
And I was scanning still the lofty wall,
I heard it said to me: "Look how thou steppest!
Take heed thou do not trample with thy feet
The heads of the tired, miserable brothers!"
Whereat I turned me round, and saw before me
And underfoot a lake, that from the frost
The semblance had of glass, and not of water.
So thick a veil ne'er made upon its current
In winter-time Danube in Austria,
Nor there beneath the frigid sky the Don,
As there was here; so that if Tambernich
Had fallen upon it, or Pietrapana,
E'en at the edge 'twould not have given a creak.
And as to croak the frog doth place himself
With muzzle out of water,—when is dreaming
Of gleaning oftentimes the peasant-girl,—
Livid, as far down as where shame appears,
Were the disconsolate shades within the ice,
Setting their teeth unto the note of storks.
Each one his countenance held downward bent;
From mouth the cold, from eyes the doleful heart
Among them witness of itself procures.
When round about me somewhat I had looked,
I downward turned me, and saw two so close,
The hair upon their heads together mingled.
"Ye who so strain your breasts together, tell me,"
I said, "who are you;" and they bent their necks,
And when to me their faces they had lifted,
Their eyes, which first were only moist within,
Gushed o'er the eyelids, and the frost congealed
The tears between, and locked them up again.
Clamp never bound together wood with wood
So strongly; whereat they, like two he-goats,
Butted together, so much wrath o'ercame them.
And one, who had by reason of the cold
Lost both his ears, still with his visage downward,
Said: "Why dost thou so mirror thyself in us?
If thou desire to know who these two are,
The valley whence Bisenzio descends
Belonged to them and to their father Albert.
They from one body came, and all Caina
Thou shalt search through, and shalt not find a shade
More worthy to be fixed in gelatine;
Not he in whom were broken breast and shadow
At one and the same blow by Arthur's hand;
Focaccia not; not he who me encumbers
So with his head I see no farther forward,
And bore the name of Sassol Mascheroni;
Well knowest thou who he was, if thou art Tuscan.
And that thou put me not to further speech,
Know that I Camicion de' Pazzi was,
And wait Carlino to exonerate me."
Then I beheld a thousand faces, made
Purple with cold; whence o'er me comes a shudder,
And evermore will come, at frozen ponds.
And while we were advancing tow'rds the middle,
Where everything of weight unites together,
And I was shivering in the eternal shade,
Whether 'twere will, or destiny, or chance,
I know not; but in walking 'mong the heads
I struck my foot hard in the face of one.
Weeping he growled: "Why dost thou trample me?
Unless thou comest to increase the vengeance
of Montaperti, why dost thou molest me?"
And I: "My Master, now wait here for me,
That I through him may issue from a doubt;
Then thou mayst hurry me, as thou shalt wish."
The Leader stopped; and to that one I said
Who was blaspheming vehemently still:
"Who art thou, that thus reprehendest others?"
"Now who art thou, that goest through Antenora
Smiting," replied he, "other people's cheeks,
So that, if thou wert living, 'twere too much?"
"Living I am, and dear to thee it may be,"
Was my response, "if thou demandest fame,
That 'mid the other notes thy name I place."
And he to me: "For the reverse I long;
Take thyself hence, and give me no more trouble;
For ill thou knowest to flatter in this hollow."
Then by the scalp behind I seized upon him,
And said: "It must needs be thou name thyself,
Or not a hair remain upon thee here."
Whence he to me: "Though thou strip off my hair,
I will not tell thee who I am, nor show thee,
If on my head a thousand times thou fall."
I had his hair in hand already twisted,
And more than one shock of it had pulled out,
He barking, with his eyes held firmly down,
When cried another: "What doth ail thee, Bocca?
Is't not enough to clatter with thy jaws,
But thou must bark? what devil touches thee?"
"Now," said I, "I care not to have thee speak,
Accursed traitor; for unto thy shame
I will report of thee veracious news."
"Begone," replied he, "and tell what thou wilt,
But be not silent, if thou issue hence,
Of him who had just now his tongue so prompt;
He weepeth here the silver of the French;
'I saw,' thus canst thou phrase it, 'him of Duera
There where the sinners stand out in the cold.'
If thou shouldst questioned be who else was there,
Thou hast beside thee him of Beccaria,
Of whom the gorget Florence slit asunder;
Gianni del Soldanier, I think, may be
Yonder with Ganellon, and Tebaldello
Who oped Faenza when the people slep."
Already we had gone away from him,
When I beheld two frozen in one hole,
So that one head a hood was to the other;
And even as bread through hunger is devoured,
The uppermost on the other set his teeth,
There where the brain is to the nape united.
Not in another fashion Tydeus gnawed
The temples of Menalippus in disdain,
Than that one did the skull and the other things.
"O thou, who showest by such bestial sign
Thy hatred against him whom thou art eating,
Tell me the wherefore," said I, "with this compact,
That if thou rightfully of him complain,
In knowing who ye are, and his transgression,
I in the world above repay thee for it,
If that wherewith I speak be not dried up."
Dante apologizes for not having under his control a language rough enough to be the exact counterpart of what he must describe. For the relationship of the diction of the passage to that found in Dante's Rime petrose, see Poletto's commentary (1894) to verses 1-6, perhaps the first to contain this observation, now become customary. See also Luigi Blasucci, “L'esperienza delle Petrose e il linguaggio della Divina Commedia,” in his Studi su Dante e Ariosto (Milan: Ricciardi, 1969), pp. 1-35. And now see Heather Webb (“Dante's Stone Cold Rhymes,” Dante Studies 121 [2003 {2006}]), pp. 149-68, for a discussion of the petrose and their relation to the softer poetic of the Commedia.
The place he needs to describe is the center of the entire universe (at least it is in the geocentric view). If he had the right words, he would be able to set forth more adequately what he indeed fully understands, i.e., his conception does not come short of the nature of these things (see v. 12), but his words may. Dante draws this distinction with some care. To repeat, his 'conception' is one matter, his description of it another (it is the 'juice' that he must 'squeeze' from the 'fruit' of his experience). And the setting of that experience into verse is no light task (impresa – for the importance of this word, referring variously to Dante's journey and to his poem, see Hollander [Allegory in Dante's “Commedia” (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1969), p. 230], citing its other three occurrences in the poem [Inf. II.41; Inf. II.47; Par. XXXIII.95], not one for a tongue that is capable only of 'babytalk.' For the linguistic program concerning 'babytalk' found in the Commedia and its oppositional relation to that previously advanced by Dante in De vulgari eloquentia, see Hollander, “Babytalk in Dante's Commedia,” in Studies in Dante (Ravenna: Longo, 1980), pp. 115-29. Here Dante is including two words, 'mommy' and 'daddy,' that he himself had explicitly proscribed from the illustrious vernacular (De vulgari eloquentia II.vii.4).
A curiosity to be taken under consideration is the claim made by Berthier (comm. to these verses), citing Ferrazzi's Manuale Dantesco (IV, p. 235), that it is probable that Dante derived his terza rima from Rutebeuf's Old French verse.
This is Dante's second invocation. For the program of invocation in the poem as a whole, see the note to Inferno II.7-9. Here the poet seeks aid only from the Muses and only for his ability to find the right words for his difficult task in rendering such unpleasant matter. His 'conception' (see v. 4), we may understand, is already formed (in Inf. II.7 he implicitly asked for that, as well).
The reference to the poet Amphion probably derives from the Ars poetica of Horace (vv. 394-396), a work well known to Dante. Amphion was able, through the magic of his inspired lyre-playing, to compel the rocks of Mt. Cithaeron to move down the mountain and, of their own accord, create the walls of Thebes. Dante, describing the Infernal 'city of destruction,' the ninth Circle, home of Lucifer, asks for the help of the Muses in order to build, not the physical city, but his image of it in words that do justice to the conception he has been given.
The poet's address to all the denizens of Cocytus seems to have been aimed particularly at the arch sinner punished here, Judas, by its reference, first noted by Pietro di Dante (Pietro1, comm. to these vv.), to Matthew 26:24, Christ's words to Judas, for whom it had been better 'not to have been born.'
The narrative of this ultimate part of the first cantica has been held in abeyance for nine self-conscious opening lines about the poet's craft, for an invocation, and then for an apostrophe. The visit to the pit of the universe has finally begun. However, Dante's failure to manage these details more clearly has rattled his readers. Do the giants stand on the icy floor of Cocytus? Apparently not. Here Dante asserts that he and Virgil find themselves far below the feet of Antaeus. They do not seem, however, to have themselves descended that distance. Rather, it seems more likely that Antaeus has set them down just about where they find themselves now. Some commentators object, since most humans, and certainly most giants, are probably not limber enough (or long-armed enough) to bend at the waist and deposit a burden well below the level of their feet. Do we learn where the giants stand? No. Is Dante concerned lest their feet become chilled on the ice? No. Might they be standing on some sort of ledge? Yes. Can we be certain that they are? No. Might Antaeus have longer arms than we like to think? Yes. Can we know that he does? No. This is a poem, and, especially when it deals with the marvelous, while it is at times amazingly precise, it is also, at other times, exasperatingly (to certain readers) imprecise. As a result, beginning perhaps with Bianchi (comm. to verse 17), commentators have invented a ledge for Antaeus, and hence all the giants, to stand on. It has become part of the furniture of the poem, even if Dante did not construct it.
The identity of this voice has long puzzled readers. Torraca (comm. to v. 19), essentially alone in this opinion, opts for Virgil; many for an unnamed sinner; many others for one (or both) of the Alberti brothers, whom we see in vv. 41-51. Benvenuto da Imola (comm. to vv. 16-21), followed only by his student John of Serravalle, makes probably the best surmise: the voice is that of Camicione de' Pazzi, a position that seems sensible, as we shall see as we move through the scene, but has had no success among the commentators.
Dante had been looking back up in the direction of Antaeus and wondering at the height of the wall he now stood beneath. The voice calls on him to attend to his surroundings, as he now immediately does, realizing that he is standing on a frozen lake.
A double simile describes the thickness of the ice, greater than even that found on the Danube or the Don, so thick that even had a mountain (whether Tambura or Pania, in the Apuan Alps above Lucca) fallen upon it, it would not have even creaked.
A second simile reflects the protagonist's new awareness that there are sinners in this ice, looking like frogs in summer (and how they must wish for summer, these shades), with just their snouts out of the water, and their teeth sounding like the clicking bills of storks.
This first group of sinners (we will learn eventually that there are four, each in a somewhat different posture) has their heads facing downwards. Their mouths clatter with the cold, their eyes run with tears (as we shall find out, that is a better condition than that enjoyed by those lower down in the ninth Circle). We are in Caïna, named for Cain, the first murderer (of his brother Abel).
Now Dante looks just before him and sees two who are bound together tightly; he asks for their identities.
These two (we will shortly learn that they are brothers) lift up their heads to behold Dante, which action causes their tears to spill over their faces and onto their lips (instead of onto the ice), thus gluing them together still more firmly when their tears become gelid. Frozen into a parody of the Christian kiss of peace, they respond by moving the only part of them they can, their foreheads, which they use to butt one another in anger. Once we hear who they are, we will understand the reason for such hatred.
The speaker is Camicione de' Pazzi. Nothing much is known of him except that he, from near Florence (the Val d'Arno) murdered his relative Ubertino. His is the only voice we hear in this first zone of Cocytus, the prime reason to believe that it was he who spoke at vv. 19-21. Having warned Dante to be careful as he began walking, lest he kick the inseparate heads of the two brothers, he now identifies them for Dante. Alessandro and Napoleone degli Alberti, Counts of Mangona, were also 'neighbors' of Dante's, living in the countryside near Prato. While little is known of them, they apparently killed one another in the 1280s as the result of a dispute over their inheritance from their father.
Also here, says Camicione, is Mordred (vv.61-62), who killed King Arthur and was slain by him, as recounted in the Old French Morte d'Arthur. The blow of Arthur's lance left a hole clear through Mordred's body so that a ray of sunlight passed through it – and thus through his shadow as well. And Focaccia is here (v. 63). That was the nickname (see John Ahern, “Apocalyptic Onomastics: Focaccia [Inferno XXXII, 63],” Romance Notes 23 [1982], pp. 181-84) of Vanni dei Cancellieri of Pistoia, a White Guelph who was reputed to have murdered various of his relatives by various commentators, most probably at least his cousin Detto, a member of the Black Guelphs, ca. 1286. Also present is Sassol Mascheroni (vv. 63-66), another Florentine who murdered a relative in a quarrel over an inheritance. After he identifies himself, Camicione says that his relative, Carlino, will commit a still greater sin, betraying a White stronghold in the Val d'Arno to Black forces for money – a sin fit for the next zone, Antenora, where political treachery is punished, thus making (in his own eyes, at least) Camicione's sin seem less offensive.
Carlino's treachery and death took place only in 1302; therefore, Camicione is using the power of the damned to see into the future, of which we were told in Inferno X.100-108. The staging of a future damnation just here perhaps has consequence for Francesca's projected damnation of her husband in 1304 to precisely this circle and zone: Gianciotto is headed here, according to her (Inf. V.107; and see the note to Inf. V.107). Since Dante uses this occasion precisely to predict the later coming of a damned soul currently still alive, we may be reminded of Francesca's similar prediction. And we sense how easy it would have been for Dante to have had Camicione, guilty of the same sin as Gianciotto, tell of his future presence in Caïna, thus 'guaranteeing' Francesca's prediction. And he, like Francesca in this, tries to exculpate himself to some degree by insisting that the person he refers to is more guilty than he is, and will be punished still lower down in hell.
We have crossed a border without knowing it. The ice of Cocytus is not marked, as were the Malebolge, with clear delineators that separate one sin from another. This difference may result from Dante's sense of the essential commonality of all the sins that are treacherous in nature, that are so utterly debased (they are referred to as 'matta bestialitade' in Inf. XI.82-83).
The four areas of Cocytus make concentric circles, each lower in the ice than the last, as we move toward the center. We understand that we have reached a new zone only because the faces of the damned look straight out at us (and are not bent down, as they were in Caïna). This zone is named after Antenor, the Trojan who, a grandson of Priam, in the non-Virgilian versions of the story of the Trojan War, urged that Helen be given back to Menelaus. After Paris refused to give her back, Antenor, in such sources as Dictys Cretensis, is responsible for betraying the city to the Greeks. He escaped from the city and founded Padua (see Purg. V.75).
The rare (unique?) picture we get here of Dante, having finished his work on the Comedy for the day, walking a winter countryside, a 'civilian' again, is disconcerting and moving, especially when we consider that he never had those days of 'being done,' perhaps only barely finishing Paradiso before his death in September 1321.
The protagonist's footwork has raised questions in many. Did he kick Bocca on purpose? The language is such that answering is not easy. Was the blow the result of will (his own) or fate (destiny, as determined by God) or chance (mere accident, a thing of no consequence to the Divine Mind)? These three alternatives offer a range of genuine and separate possibilities, which is not true for all the hypotheses that one may consult in the commentary tradition. As Bosco/Reggio argue, that Dante kicks the head hard makes it difficult to believe that his will was not involved (comm. to Inf. XXXII.76-112).
The victim of Dante's kick, we will learn at v. 106, is Bocca degli Abati. Bocca's betrayal occurred on the battlefield at Montaperti (1260) when he, a member of the Florentine Guelph army, cut off the arm of the standard-bearer at the height of the battle. The ensuing disastrous defeat of the Guelphs at the hands of the Ghibellines was sometimes laid at his door, as it is here by Dante.
The protagonist thinks he knows that this might well be Bocca, and gets Virgil's permission to question him. We recall how stern Virgil was in his rebuke of Dante for listening to the 'tenzone' between Master Adam and Sinon in Inferno XXX.131-132. Here he stands complacently to one side as Dante gets involved in a fairly violent 'tenzone' himself. But now, one might argue, he is actively engaged in remonstrating with a wrong-doer and thus has Virgil's full support.
This 'tenzone' is in five parts. (1) Dante begins it with a rebuke for Bocca's bad manners (a sinner in the depth of hell should treat mortal special visitors better than he has done); Bocca answers with continuing complaint. (2) Dante offers fame – for a price; Bocca answers rudely. (3) Dante moves to a threat of physical assault; Bocca defies him. (4) Dante begins pulling out Bocca's hair; Bocca 'barks,' thus moving another sinner there present to name him (he is answering in Bocca's place, as it were). (5) Dante rejoices in his victory over Bocca; Bocca remains sullen.
The Italian at v. 90 is, in itself, ambivalent. Because of the conjugation of the present subjunctive, 'se fossi vivo' can either mean 'were I alive' or 'were you alive.' Since Bocca, like Camicione (if he is the speaker of vv. 19-21), seems to be able to tell that Dante is in the flesh, e.g., from the sound of his footfall on the ice, from the force of his kick, it would make no sense for him to doubt Dante's presence as a living being. Further, Dante's response would seem to follow better if Bocca's words are understood as meaning, 'were I alive.' Our translation runs accordingly. (There are those who dispute this reading.)
At vv. 103-105 Dante is playfully citing his own vengeful and sexually-charged desire to pull the hair of the 'stony lady' in one of his Rime petrose, 'Così nel mio parlar' (Rime CIII.66-73). For the most recent discussion see Emilio Pasquini (“Lettura di Inferno XXXII,” L'Alighieri 13 [1999]), pp. 31-33, noting as well various other resonances of the 'stony rhymes' in this canto. See also the study of Durling and Martinez (Time and the Crystal: Studies in Dante's “Rime petrose” [Berkeley: University of California Press, 1990]) for a wider view.
Bocca's revenge for his 'betrayal' by Buoso da Duera is to reveal the names of others in Antenora so that they may join him in infamy as a result of Dante's eventual report to the living, the first of these, naturally, being Buoso himself (vv. 114-117). Buoso was a Ghibelline (he is 'paired' with the Guelph Bocca) who, entrusted by Manfred's high command to hold the high passes near Parma against the invading army of Charles of Anjou in 1265, apparently accepted a bribe in order to let the Guelph forces reach Parma without a fight.
Tesauro de' Beccheria (vv. 119-120), abbot of Vallombrosa, a Ghibelline, was accused of treacherously assisting the Florentine Ghibellines, banned from the city in 1258, to re-enter Florence. He was beheaded for betraying the city.
Gianni de' Soldanieri (v. 121), also a Ghibelline, joined the popular uprising against the Ghibelline leaders of Florence just after the defeat and death of the great Ghibelline leader, Manfred, at Benevento in 1266. He thus was seen as betraying his own party.
Ganelon (v. 122) treacherously betrayed Charlemagne's rear guard at Roncesvalles in 778. See the note to Inferno XXXI.16-18.
Tebaldello Zambrasi of Faenza (v. 122), also a Ghibelline, betrayed his fellow Ghibellines of Bologna who, having been exiled, had taken refuge in Faenza. In 1280 Tebaldello opened a gate of his city, just before dawn, to a war party of Bolognese Guelphs so that they might avenge themselves upon their fellow citizens. Tebaldello himself died in 1282 in another battle.
A sudden change in the protagonist's attention reveals the pair of sinners whom we will shortly know as Uglolino and Ruggieri (vv. 13-14 of the next canto), the one with his head above the other's.
Again Dante blends an unadorned 'ordinary' scene (a hungry man wolfing down a load of bread) with classical material (a passage from Statius, Theb. VIII.751-762) in a double simile. The moment in Statius describes Tydeus, dying in battle, asking his men to cut off for him the head of Melanippus, whom he had just slain, but who had first given him his own mortal blow. They do so (Capaneus [Inf. XIV] is the one who carries the body to him). With savage joy Tydeus, dying, chews upon the head of the man who had killed him.
For the 'bestial sign' as reflecting the words of St. Paul, see Freccero's essay, 'Bestial Sign and Bread of Angels' (Dante: The Poetics of Conversion, ed. Rachel Jacoff [Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1986]), p. 160: 'But if you bite one another, take heed or you will be consumed by one another' (Galatians 5:15). The cannibalistic scene before us here introduces the concerns with starvation that will be so prominent in the first half of the next canto.
Dante offers to present to the world this sinner's case (so that it may judge whether or not his wrath is justified) if he will but reveal his name and the offense committed by the other sinner. Dante fulfills this promise in the following canto, and the world – or at least the Dantean part of it – has been arguing about that case ever since.
There is also a dispute over the exact meaning of the last line of Dante's oath. A number of understandings have been offered: 'as long as I do not die first' (the choice of many of the early commentators); 'as long as my tongue does not fail me' (also popular among the early commentators); 'if this cold [of Cocytus] does not wither it' (only Torraca and Pietrobono; probably not worth serious consideration); 'if my words do not die' (Grabher and Fallani); 'if it does not become paralyzed' (Steiner and quite a few modern commentators). It seems clear that Dante, in this vernacular and salty oath, swears on his life that he will carry out his promise. Tozer, in 1901 (comm. to vv. 138-139), paraphrases adequately: 'If I live to recount it.' Recently Guglielmo Gorni has tried an entirely new tack: 'if my Florentine vernacular survives' (“'Se quella con ch'io parlo non si secca' [Inferno XXXII 139],” in Operosa parva per Gianni Antonini, ed D. De Robertis & F. Gavazzeni [Verona: Valdonega, 1996], pp. 41-46), but this seems more venturesome than necessary.
When we finish reading this canto we may reflect on the singular fact that, for the first time since he entered the poem (Inf. I.67), Virgil has not spoken in an entire canto. See the note to Inferno XXX.37-41.
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