The last canto had come to its dramatic conclusion with a shaking of the earth accompanied – indeed perhaps caused by – a supernatural lightning bolt that made Dante fall into a fainting 'sleep.' (See, for example, Siro A. Chimenz [comm. to Inf. III.134], indicating the medieval belief that earthquakes were caused by winds imprisoned in the earth. And see the note to Inf. III.130-34.) Now he is awakened by the following thunder. It is important to remember that this is supernatural 'weather,' and serves to mirror Dante's internal condition. While it may be positive that he has 'died' to the world of the senses (the view of Pascoli, Valli, and Pietrobono [see Francesco Mazzoni, “Saggio di un nuovo commento alla Divina Commedia: il Canto IV dell'Inferno,” Studi Danteschi 42 (1965), p. 49]), it is negative that he has done so out of fear.

As the last verse of Inf. III (136) has him overcome by sleep ('sonno'); so in the first line of this following canto that sleep is broken, thus overriding the sharp line of demarcation that a canto ending or beginning seems to imply, as at the boundary between Inferno II and Inferno III.

Benvenuto da Imola (comm. to Inf. IV.7) says that proda does not here mean what it usually means, 'prow,' but, reflecting the Florentine vernacular, 'edge.'

There has been a centuries-long debate over the question of whether this 'thunder' (truono), the noise made by the sorrowing damned, is the same as the thunderclap of verse 2 (truono [the reading in most MSS and editions]). Mazzoni (“Saggio di un nuovo commento alla Divina Commedia: il Canto IV dell'Inferno,” Studi Danteschi 42 [1965]), pp. 45-49, summarizes that debate. It seems best to understand that this noise is not the one that awakens Dante, but the one that he first hears from the inhabitants of Limbo, i.e., that the two identical words indicate diverse phenomena. Mazzoni's position is strengthened by Petrocchi's choice of a reading found in only three MSS: introno (La Commedia secondo l'antica vulgata, Inferno, pp. 57-58), on the ground that Dante would not have used the same words so near to one another to indicate different things. Padoan (comm. to Inf. IV.9) translates the word as 'clamore assordante' (deafening clamor) and argues for this resolution of the problem, defending Petrocchi's reading, which was published two years after Mazzoni's commentary. The word introno, as Petrocchi points out, appears twice again in this cantica (Inf. VI.32; Inf. XVII.71).

That, even according to Virgil, who dwells in it, the world of Limbo is 'blind' might have helped hold in check some of the more enthusiastic readings of this canto as exemplary of Dante's 'humanistic' inclinations. For important discussions along these lines see Mazzoni (“Saggio di un nuovo commento alla Divina Commedia: il Canto IV dell'Inferno,” Studi Danteschi 42 [1965]), pp. 29-35; Padoan (“Dante di fronte all'umanesimo letterario,” Lettere Italiane 17 [1965], pp. 237-57). And see Virgil's own later 'gloss' to Limbo (in Purg. VII.25-30), where he describes his punishment for not believing in Christ-to-come as consisting in his being denied the sight of the Sun (God) that Sordello longs to (and will) see. Dante describes Limbo as being without other punishment than its darkness (and indeed here it is described as a 'blind world' [cieco mondo]), its inhabitants as sighing rather than crying out in pain (Inf. IV.26). Had he wanted to make Limbo as positive a place as some of his commentators do, he surely would have avoided, in this verse, the reference to the descent that is necessary to reach it. Such was not the case for the neutrals in the previous circle, who apparently dwell at approximately the same level as the floor of the entrance through the gate of hell. This is the first downward movement within the Inferno.

Virgil's sudden pallor (v. 14) causes Dante to believe that his guide is fearful, as he himself had been at the end of the previous canto (III.131).

As Singleton points out (comm. ad loc.), Virgil has given comfort to Dante when the latter has succumbed to doubt in each of the first two cantos.

Virgil makes plain the reason for his pallor: he is feeling pity for those who dwell in Limbo (and thus himself as well), not fear. That much seems plain enough. But there has been a huge controversy over the centuries as to whether Virgil refers only to the inhabitants of Limbo or to all the damned. Mazzoni (“Saggio di un nuovo commento alla Divina Commedia: il Canto IV dell'Inferno,” Studi Danteschi 42 [1965]), pp. 58-65, offers a careful review of the problem and concludes that the better reading is the former, demonstrating (Mazzoni [p. 64] is opposing those who read the noun angoscia as being too strongly negative to describe the feelings of the denizens of Limbo) that Dante has, in five passages in earlier works, made sighs (sospiri) the result of feeling anguish (angoscia) – as they are here (Inf. IV.26). This is a good example of a crux interpretum that is the creation of commentators; the meaning of the text is clear enough.

Along with the providing of his reader with a clear indication of a change of scene, this instruction also forces us to realize that the 'number' of the neutrals is zero, as commentators have dutifully observed for some time now. See, for example, Rossetti (comm. vv. 40-42).

As was true in the last circle (where the Neutrals were punished) the darkness is at first so great that Dante apparently cannot see; his first impressions are only auditory. Compare Inferno III.21-30.

Petrocchi (La Commedia secondo l'antica vulgata, Inferno), pp. 60-61, has emended the 1921 text (molto grandi) for this less colloquial and more precise adjectival form (molte e grandi). Where, in 1481, Landino had argued (comm. to Inf. IV.29) that 'many' is an odd word for Dante to have used to signify 'three' (groups of men, women, and children), Petrocchi responds that Dante does not necessarily so limit the number of groups, i.e., there may be many groups of each of these classes of beings. Mazzoni (“Saggio di un nuovo commento alla Divina Commedia: il Canto IV dell'Inferno,” Studi Danteschi 42 [1965]), p. 68, cites Guiniforto delli Bargigi (comm. to Inf. IV.29) and Sapegno (comm. to Inf. IV.29) to exactly this effect – in Sapegno's words, they are 'distinte in molte schiere, e ognuna di queste comprendente molte anime' (divided into many groups, each containing many souls).

This line, seemingly 'innocent' of polemical intent, is in fact in pronounced and deliberate disagreement with St. Thomas (though in accord with Virgil's description of the crowds along the bank of Acheron [Aen. VI.306-307]). For Thomas, the inhabitants of Limbo were in one of two classes: the Hebrew saints, harrowed by Christ and taken to heaven, and all unbaptized infants. They are now of that second group alone. Dante's addition of the virtuous pagans is put forward on his own authority. This is perhaps the first of many instances in which Dante chooses to differ with Thomas. For a helpful analysis of the ways in which Dante both follows and separates himself from 'authoritative' accounts of the Limbus, see Mazzoni (“Saggio di un nuovo commento alla Divina Commedia: il Canto IV dell'Inferno,” Studi Danteschi 42 [1965]), pp. 70-80. Mazzoni shows that Dante is in total agreement with Thomas about the presence of the unbaptized infants in Limbo, but disagrees with him (following Bonaventure instead) about whether these infants suffer the pain that comes from knowing of their inability to see God – which Thomas allows himself to doubt. Dante (as does Bonaventure) holds a harsher view on this point. His view of the unbaptized pagans, however, is as mild as his view of the pain of the infants is severe. It is in sharp disagreement with the views of most Christians on this issue. Padoan (“Il Limbo dantesco,” Lettere Italiane 21 [1969]), p. 371, cites Guido da Pisa (comm. to Inf. IV.30) as exemplary of early puzzled or hostile responses to Dante's inclusion of the virtuous pagans in Limbo: 'Sed nostra fides non tenet quod ibi non sint nisi parvuli innocentes. Iste autem poeta in hac parte et in quibusdam aliis loquitur non theologice sed poetice' (Our Christian faith, however, does not hold that there are any here other than the innocent babes. Here, and in certain other passages, this poet speaks not as a theologian but as a poet).

The Latinism viri (for uomini, 'men') was probably forced by rhyme. But, since all these are pagans, the Latinism works well as a way of underlining their pagan nature.

Mazzoni (“Saggio di un nuovo commento alla Divina Commedia: il Canto IV dell'Inferno,” Studi Danteschi 42 [1965]) 'translates' s'elli hanno mercedi as follows: 'se hanno meritato con le buone opere' (if they are worthy because of their good deeds – p. 81).

The reading porta, not found in any early MS but one (where it is an emendation), has been supplied by modern editors, beginning in 1595 (Accademia della Crusca), and then eventually by Vandelli (edition of 1921). See Petrocchi (La Commedia secondo l'antica vulgata, Introduzione), pp. 170-71. Michele Barbi cited Fra Giordano da Pisa, Prediche inedite, ed. Nannucci, p. 149: 'Questa circoncisione si era porta della legge vecchia, siccome è oggi il battesimo nella nuova' (Just as circumcision was the gateway to the old law, so today is baptism in the new – Barbi, Problemi di critica dantesca [Florence: Sansoni, 1934, p. 204]), and Mazzoni (“Saggio di un nuovo commento alla Divina Commedia: il Canto IV dell'Inferno,” Studi Danteschi 42 [1965]), pp. 82-84, adds other potential sources; he also points out that porta and parte are words that scribes might easily have confused. While it may be venturesome to oppose the manuscript tradition in this way, it is clear that some very distinguished dantisti have chosen to do so because of the utterly prosaic nature of the alternative. To say that baptism is 'part of the faith that you profess' is to approach the condition of banal prose in a poem, as well as to move baptism, the key issue here in defining the reason for the damnation of unbaptized infants, back from its centrality. For these and perhaps still other reasons the metaphoric porta does indeed seem the better reading. Sabina Marinetti (“Note di lettura su Inferno IV, v. 36,” Critica del testo 3 [2000], pp. 781-802), opposing Petrocchi in her helpful review of the debate, opts for 'parte,' but with 'parte' being a verb and as having the sense that baptism separates believers from those who have not faith ('che parte dalla fede che tu credi'). For a rejoinder, arguing that Jacopo Alighieri's comment to Inferno III.82-84 seems clearly to point to 'porta,' see Giorgio Inglese and Sabina Marinetti, “Corrispondenza dantesca,” Critica del testo 4 (2001), pp. 481-85. (Marinetti disagrees with Inglese's finding.)

These six verses move from Virgil's at first separating himself from the virtuous pagans (vv. 37-38), to his admission that he is one among them (v. 39), to his attempt, if not to exculpate, at least to ameliorate the description of their guilt and their resultant condition (vv. 40-42). And yet we are left to contemplate what it would mean to live in constant hope that must be denied, a condition that would seem to equate roughly with despair.

Virgil's insistence that the inhabitants of Limbo 'without hope live in longing' does not as greatly reduce the sense of punishment suffered here as some proclaim. See St. Thomas, De malo, q. 5, art. 2 (cited by Mazzoni [“Saggio di un nuovo commento alla Divina Commedia: il Canto IV dell'Inferno,” Studi Danteschi 42 (1965)], p. 69): 'Peccato originali non debetur poena sensus, sed solum poena damni, scilicet carentia visionis Divinae' (original sin is not fitly punished by sensation, but only by damnation itself, that is, the absence of the sight of God). If their only punishment is that absence, it is nonetheless total.

In at least one respect Inferno I and II are cantos paired in opposition, the first rooted in Dante's fear (paura), the second in the reassurance granted by the word (parola), as spoken by Virgil and Beatrice (and each of these key terms is used five times in its canto – see Hollander (“The 'Canto of the Word' [Inferno 2],” Lectura Dantis Newberryana, ed. P. Cherchi and A. C. Mastrobuono, vol. II [Evanston: Northwestern University Press, 1990], pp. 96-97. The same may be said for cantos III and IV. Mazzoni, following the lead of Fiorenzo Forti (“Il limbo dantesco e i megalopsichoi dell'Etica nicomachea,” Giornale storico della letteratura italiana 138 [1961], pp. 329-64), identifies the central subject of the first of this pair as 'pusillanimità' (cowardice), of the second as 'magnanimità' (greatness of soul – “Saggio di un nuovo commento alla Divina Commedia: il Canto IV dell'Inferno,” Studi Danteschi 42 [1965], pp. 34-35).

The word sospesi ('suspended') has caused great dispute. Are the limbicoli 'hanging' between heaven and hell? between salvation and damnation? Is there some potential better state awaiting them? Mazzoni's note (“Saggio di un nuovo commento alla Divina Commedia: il Canto IV dell'Inferno,” Studi Danteschi 42 [1965]), pp. 89-93, leaves little doubt, and resolves their situation as follows: they are punished eternally for their original sin, but are aware (as are none of the other damned souls) of the better life that is denied them. They are 'suspended,' in other words, between their punishment and their impossible desires. See, in agreement, Pertile (“Il nobile castello, il paradiso terrestre e l'umanesimo dantesco,” Filologia e critica 5 [1980]), p. 18.

Dante's question has caused large discomfort. Why should he seek confirmation of Christ's ascent to heaven from a pagan? Why should he need to confirm his Christian faith on this indisputable point of credence, without which there is no Christian faith? But neither Dante's question nor Virgil's answer concerns itself primarily with Christ's descent to Limbo and ascent to heaven, but rather with the more nebulous facts regarding those who went up with Him after the harrowing of hell. See, for example, Jacopo Alighieri (comm. to Inf. IV.48) or Guiniforto delli Bargigi (comm. to Inf. IV.48) for similar views. And see, for a modern recovery of the importance of the harrowing as a concern in Limbo, the work of Amilcare Iannucci (“Limbo: the Emptiness of Time,” Studi Danteschi 52 [1979-80], pp. 69-128; “The Gospel of Nicodemus in Medieval Italian Literature,” Quaderni d'italianistica 14 [1992], pp. 191-220). 'Did ever anyone, either by his own or by another's merit, go forth from here and rise to blessedness?' Dante's question cannot possibly refer to Christ. But it does refer, first, to the Hebrew patriarchs and matriarchs, second, to unbaptized infants and at least possibly to such as Trajan (allowed to escape Limbo by Pope Gregory's 'merit' and prayer to God on Trajan's behalf) as well as to all those who were later taken up from Limbo and whose ascent Virgil might have witnessed. (Siro A. Chimenz thinks that Dante's second formulation refers to stories of 'salvation by intervention,' including that of Trajan – see his comm. to Inf. IV.49.) Indeed, Virgil's answer will identify more than twenty of those harrowed by Christ; thus we know how he understood Dante's first concern. (Dante's question begins with the verb and enclitic uscicci [go forth from here]; Virgil's answer begins with the verb and enclitic trasseci [drew forth from here]; this parallel construction nails home the subject: those first sent to Limbo and then harrowed.) Dante was interested in learning, or in confirming what he had heard, about the harrowing. But his question does have a second point. Virgil has himself been elevated from hell, if but for a moment. Dante's question alludes, tacitly, to him as well: 'Are you one of the saved?' Dante's 'covert speech,' as the phrase intimates, is focused on the salvation of pagans. Boccaccio suggests (comm. to Inf. IV.46) that Dante is offering to help Virgil escape from Limbo, if this is possible. While the reading seems forced, it does have the merit of centering attention on the interplay between Dante and Virgil involving the question of the salvation of pagans.

In his gloss to this verse, Benvenuto da Imola (comm. to Inf. IV.51) characterizes Dante's view of his own 'covert speech' as follows: ...'tacite dixeram: vos magni philosophi et poetae, quid profecit vobis ad salutem vestra sapientia magna sine fede? Certe nihil: quia antiqui patres qui simpliciter et fideliter crediderunt, extracti sunt de carcere isto, ubi vos estis perpetuo permansuri' ( ...as though my words had hidden the thought, 'you great philosophers and poets, your great wisdom, what did it, without faith, accomplish for your salvation? Certainly nothing at all, for even the ancient patriarchs, in their simple, faithful credence, were drawn up out of this prison, in which place you are to remain for ever and ever').

Virgil tells Dante what he witnessed in 34 A.D., when he was 'new' to his condition, some fifty-three years after his death in 19 B.C. He saw a 'mighty one' (Christ recognized by Virgil only for his power, an anonymous harrower to the pagan observer). He is either crowned with the sign of victory or crowned and holding the sign of victory, a sceptre representing the Cross. Mazzoni (“Saggio di un nuovo commento alla Divina Commedia: il Canto IV dell'Inferno,” Studi Danteschi 42 [1965]), pp. 105-12, patiently reviews the many differing responses to this verse and gives strong support to the latter view, thus necessitating the addition of a comma to the verse: 'con segno di vittoria, coronato.' He is willing to have Christ crowned with the cruciform nimbus, as some would like, or simply by an aureole, but insists on the insignia of the Cross as being carried in Christ's hand.

Virgil's list of the patriarchs and matriarchs, beginning with 'our first parent,' Adam (Eve, similarly harrowed, will only be seen in the Empyrean [Par. XXXII.5]), Abel, Noah, Moses, Abraham, David, Jacob, Isaac, the (twelve) sons of Jacob (and his daughter, Dinah? [but it seems unlikely that Dante was considering her]), and Rachel. The twenty-one (or twenty-two – if Dante counted Jacob's progeny as we do) Hebrew elders will be added to in Paradiso XXXII (vv. 4-12): Eve, Sarah, Rebecca, Judith, and Ruth, thus accounting for some of the 'many others' whom Virgil does not name here, twenty-five men and seven women in all, when we include the others added along the way: Samuel (Par. IV.29), Rahab (Par. IX.116), Solomon (Par. X.109), Joshua (Par. XVIII.38), Judas Maccabeus (Par. XVIII.49), and Ezechiel (Par. XX.49).

A nineteenth-century textual tradition, unsupported by manuscript evidence, tried to give Moses' adjective, ubidente, to Abraham in the next verse by punctuating the line differently. It has no current champions. See Barbi's comment (Problemi di critica dantesca [Florence: Sansoni, 1934], p. 204). The paradox revealed in Dante's view of Moses – that a person of extraordinary powers should also be governed by still higher authority – is not the result of a trivial distinction, especially when the reader later encounters powerful rulers who were far from obedient to such authority.

A nineteenth-century textual tradition, unsupported by manuscript evidence, tried to give Moses' adjective, ubidente, to Abraham in the next verse by punctuating the line differently. It has no current champions. See Barbi's comment (Problemi di critica dantesca [Florence: Sansoni, 1934], p. 204). The paradox revealed in Dante's view of Moses – that a person of extraordinary powers should also be governed by still higher authority – is not the result of a trivial distinction, especially when the reader later encounters powerful rulers who were far from obedient to such authority.

Virgil's conclusion effectively voids the second part of Dante's question. He has told only of those who were taken by Christ for their own merits. We may later reflect that he was able to witness the harrowing of Ripheus (Par. XX.68) and Cato (Purg. I.31) in this first group, before whom no one else was saved. But what of later harrowings that Virgil might have witnessed? The only one of which we eventually hear is that of Trajan (Par. XX.44). Whatever the implication, Virgil is silent about the second category in Dante's question. And we must be intrigued by Dante's having asked it in the first place. The main reason for its inclusion is to raise the issue of Virgil's salvation, which is eventually countered by that of other pagans, perhaps most notably Statius (Purg. XXI.91), seen by Dante as having become a Christian while he was alive, and thus spared a visit to Limbo on his way to Purgatory.

This transitional tercet, moving the reader from the overview of the canto's inhabitants to a tighter focus on the greatest classical poets, is worthy of closer attention than it generally receives, for it shows us two techniques in Dante's impressive supply of literary devices. First, the two poets are described as speaking as they walk: it is difficult to find such mimetic details in many medieval poems before Dante. We do not need to know this; the information is here mainly, perhaps only, to establish the 'realism' of the scene. Second, having asked us to believe in the literalness of what is being described, Dante immediately turns to metaphor; that is, now we are asked not to read literally. If the verses had omitted the three words 'la selva, dico,' we probably would have understood the 'wood of thronging spirits' as a metaphor. Dante does not need to insist so urgently on the metaphoric nature of his speech, he wants to, welcoming the opportunity to remind us that he is in charge of the way this narrative is unfolded. As usual, the narrative is presented as given (and not invented); however, the language that describes it is as 'invented' as language can be.

The reading sonno (here 'sleep') has been much debated over the centuries. For a summarizing description of that debate see Mazzoni (“Saggio di un nuovo commento alla Divina Commedia: il Canto IV dell'Inferno,” Studi Danteschi 42 [1965]), pp. 119-20. Most modern editors accept sonno, and take the resulting expression to be a case of poetic compression: 'not far from sleep' = 'not far from the place where I had slept.'

This new place, the only place in hell in which light is said to overcome darkness (Inf. IV.68-69), is immediately linked to the 'key word' of this section of the canto, 'honor.' This is the densest repetition of a single word and its derivates in the Comedy: seven times in 29 lines (72-100: at vv. 72, 73, 74, 76, 80, 93, 100), with a 'coda' tacked on at v. 133. Can there be any doubt that honor and poetry are indissolubly linked in Dante's view of his own status? As lofty as noble actions and great philosophy may be for him (but that part of the canto, vv. 106-147, has only a single occurrence of the word 'honor'), it is poetry that, for Dante, is the great calling. See the note to Inf. IV.78.

Padoan's gloss (comm. to Inf. IV.73) on Dante's phrase is worth noting: scïenzïa ('knowledge') is represented by philosophy and the seven liberal arts, while arte ('art' in a more restricted sense than is found in the modern term) has to do with the means of expressing knowledge.

Dante's enthusiasm for the power of great poetry is such that he claims that God, in recognition of its greatness, mitigates the punishment of these citizens of Limbo with respect to that of the others there who dwell in darkness (and who were not, we thus conclude, great poets – or doers of great deeds or accomplishers of philosophic wisdom, for these, too, dwell in this lightest part of hell [vv. 106-147]). As Singleton says (comm. to Inf. IV.74), 'Dante is venturing beyond established doctrine' in such an assertion. Dante may indeed be a theological poet, but he is sometimes – and this is clearly one of those times – a poet's poet.

Of course there has been debate over the speaker of the following two lines. Since Dante does not say, specifically, that Homer speaks them, we cannot know that it was he who spoke. Dante steps back and lets us make the ascription. Who else would have spoken? Horace? Perhaps. Certainly not Ovid, not exactly Virgil's greatest supporter. And even less Lucan, whose work rather pointedly attacks what Virgil champions. But the scene makes its inner logic clear: the leader of the group is Homer, who 'comes as lord before the three' (Inf. IV.87). He speaks first, and Virgil responds. They share the greatest poetic honor, even in Dante's Homerless experience of literary history.

Homer's great compliment to Virgil (see the note to Inf. IV.79) has so claimed our affectionate attention, resonating in its grave 'o' and 'a' sounds, that we have not seen the drama in the following verse: 'his shade returns that had gone forth.' What did Homer and Virgil's other companions think when Beatrice came to Limbo to draw Virgil up to the world of the living? They have witnessed this sort of event before, at least once (the harrowing), and perhaps at least once more (Trajan's latter-day resurrection). (The strange tale invented by Dante which has it that Virgil had once been sent down to the pit of Hell on an errand by Erichtho [Inf. IX.22-30] does not involve, apparently, his first being raised up to Earth, as does Beatrice's intervention.) A student, Elizabeth Statmore (Princeton '82), in a seminar in February 1982 offered an interesting hypothesis (see Hollander, “A Note on Dante's Missing Musaeus [Inferno IV, 140-141],” Quaderni d'italianistica 5 [1984], p. 219): Virgil's companions thought that he, too, had now been harrowed. But no, here he is again, right back where he belongs. The context of the previous discussion in the canto (vv. 46-63), with all its concern for the identities of those who were drawn up to salvation from hell, makes its eventual effect felt here. The two verses thus combine to reveal the two-sidedness of Dante's view of Virgil, the greatest poet whom Dante knows and, because of that greatness, the greatest failure.

The appearance of the four poets, neither sad nor joyful, reflects their condition of being 'suspended.' See the note to Inferno IV.45. This view was first advanced by Jacopo della Lana (comm. to Inf. IV.84), who saw them as not being sad because they suffer no physical pain in Limbo, as not being joyful because they are denied heaven. This entirely sensible view was opposed by Boccaccio (comm. to Inf. IV.84), who read the detail as only denoting the gravitas of these great figures, a reading that avoids any theological framing of their condition. For details of the debate thus generated, see Mazzoni (“Saggio di un nuovo commento alla Divina Commedia: il Canto IV dell'Inferno,” Studi Danteschi 42 [1965]), pp. 130-36.

The sword in Homer's hand indicates not only that he was an epic poet, not only that he is the first among poets, but that, as a result, epic poetry is to be taken as the greatest poetic genre. See the note to Inf. IV.96.

For all these authors consult the entries found in the Enciclopedia dantesca: Guido Martellotti, 'Omero' (ED.1973.4), pp. 145a-148a; Ettore Paratore, 'Ovidio' (ED.1973.4), pp. 225b-236b; Giorgio Brugnoli and Roberto Mercuri, 'Orazio' (ED.1973.4), pp. 173b-180b; Ettore Paratore, 'Lucano' (ED.1971.3), pp. 697b-702b.

Alessio and Villa argue that the Latin poets in Dante's bella scola are divided into generic categories as follows: Virgil: tragedy; Ovid: elegy; Horace: satire; Lucan: history. Missing from such a list is a representative of comedy. They argue that almost any reader would have expected to find Terence's name here, and go on to surmise that Dante has deliberately excluded Terence as the representative of comedy because he has taken that role unto himself (see Gian Carlo Alessio and Claudia Villa, “Per Inferno I, 67-87,” in Dante e la “bella scola” della poesia: Autorità e sfida poetica, ed. A. A. Iannucci [Ravenna: Longo, 1993 (1984)], pp. 56-58). For Dante's knowledge of Terence see Villa, La “lectura Terentii” (Padua: Antenore, 1984), esp. pp. 137-89.

See Mazzoni's discussion of what Dante who, not having Greek, could not and did not read Homer's texts, could in fact know about him (“Saggio di un nuovo commento alla Divina Commedia: il Canto IV dell'Inferno,” Studi Danteschi 42 [1965]), pp. 137-39. And now see Brugnoli, “Omero,” in Dante e la “bella scola” della poesia: Autorità e sfida poetica, ed. A. A. Iannucci (Ravenna: Longo, 1993), pp. 65-85.

For Horace's medieval reputation as a satirist see Mazzoni (“Saggio di un nuovo commento alla Divina Commedia: il Canto IV dell'Inferno,” Studi Danteschi 42 [1965]), pp. 139-40, and now Claudia Villa (“Dante lettore di Orazio,” in Dante e la “bella scola” della poesia: Autorità e sfida poetica, ed. A. A. Iannucci [Ravenna: Longo, 1993], pp. 87-106) and Suzanne Reynolds (“Orazio satiro [Inferno IV, 89]: Dante, the Roman satirists, and the medieval theory of satire,” in “Libri poetarum in quattuor species dividuntur”: Essays on Dante and “genre,” ed. Z. G. Baranski, The Italianist, no. 15 [1995], Supplement, pp. 128-44).

For the standard bibliography up to 1965 on the subject of Dante's Ovid see Mazzoni, “Saggio di un nuovo commento alla Divina Commedia: il Canto IV dell'Inferno,” Studi Danteschi 42 (1965), p. 140. In recent years there has been a growing amount of concerted attention finally being paid to Dante's enormous debt to Ovid, historically overshadowed by the at least apparently even greater one to Virgil. E.g., Rachel Jacoff and Jeffrey T. Schnapp, eds., The Poetry of Allusion: Virgil and Ovid in Dante's “Commedia” (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1991), containing seven essays on Dante's responses to Ovid, and Michelangelo Picone, “La lectio Ovidii nella Commedia: la ricezione dantesca delle Metamorfosi,” Le Forme e la Storia 3 (1991), pp. 35-52; “L'Ovidio di Dante,” in A. A. Iannucci, ed., Dante e la “bella scola” della poesia (Ravenna: Longo, 1993), pp. 107-44; “Dante argonauta: la ricezione dei miti ovidiani nella Commedia,” in M. Picone and B. Zimmermann, eds., Ovidius redivivus: von Ovid zu Dante (Stuttgart: M&P Verlag, 1994), pp. 173-202. And see the lengthy treatment by Marthe Dozon, Mythe et symbole dans La divine comédie (Florence: Olschki, 1991).

Lucan, not studied enough as source for so many of Dante's verses, is also beginning to receive more attention. Again, for the standard bibliography see Mazzoni, pp. 140-41. And now see de Angelis, Violetta, “... e l'ultimo Lucano,” in Dante e la “bella scola” della poesia, pp. 145-203; see also the contributions of De Angelis and Schnapp, as well as the appended discussion, in Seminario dantesco internazionale: Atti del primo convegno tenutosi al Chauncey Conference Center, Princeton, 21-23 ottobre 1994, ed. Z. G. Baranski (Florence: Le Lettere, 1997), pp. 67-145. For a recent study arguing for Dante's close and highly nuanced reading of Lucan, one that helps to account for much of the portrait of his Ulysses, see William Stull and Robert Hollander, “The Lucanian Source of Dante's Ulysses,” Studi Danteschi 63 (1991 [1997]), pp. 1-52.

Virgil is not suggesting that his fellow ancient poets do well to praise him, but that in praising him they honor their shared profession. If there is a 'humanistic' gesture in this canto, we find it here, 'a solemn celebration of the worth of poetry' (see Padoan, comm. to Inf. IV.93).

Two problems of interpretation continue to assault these lines. (1) Is the 'lord of loftiest song' Homer or Virgil? Most today agree that Homer is meant (railing against one proponent of Virgil's candidacy Taaffe complains of 'a violence to the text above my comprehension' [A Comment on the “Divine Comedy” of Dante Alighieri (London, John Murray, 1822), p. 251]). (2) Does the relative pronoun in verse 96 refer to the singer or the song? That is, is it Homer (or Virgil) who soars above all other poets, or is it the lofty style of epic that flies higher than all other forms of poetic expression? Most today prefer the second reading. This argument depends heavily upon the reference of the adjective altri. Those who think that the second meaning is most likely point out that the adjective seems to refer to canto in the preceding line, while a reference to the 'other poets' can only be assumed, since there is no noun to attach to them. Our translation leaves the meaning ambivalent, as Dante seems to do. Nonetheless, the understanding that Dante probably meant to say that epic, introduced by Homer, is the highest poetic style really does seem the most likely solution to this in any case not terribly important problem, since the eventual meaning of the verses is roughly the same. Mazzoni (“Saggio di un nuovo commento alla Divina Commedia: il Canto IV dell'Inferno,” Studi Danteschi 42 [1965]), p. 145), who also believes that Homeric song is meant, rather convincingly, following Parodi, points to Dante's assimilation of the eagle to the highest form of poetic expression in De vulgari eloquentia II.iv.11, a point well taken. For the perhaps most challenging arguments in opposition to Mazzoni's, insisting instead that it is Homer who is seen as the high-flying 'eagle,' see Martellotti 'Omero' (ED.1973.4), p. 145b, and Mengaldo (De vulgari Eloquentia, ed. P. V. Mangaldo, in Dante Alighieri, Opere minori, vol. II (Milan and Naples, R. Ricciardi, 1979), p. 169.

The poets' greeting of Dante is the occasion for the only smile seen in hell.

In canto II (Inf. II.105) Lucy tells Beatrice that Dante, for her sake, had left 'the vulgar herd' (la volgare schiera). Now exactly what this means is a matter of some dispute, yet some believe that it refers to his distancing himself from the rest of contemporary vernacular poets in his quite different championing of his own and most special lady. (See the note to Inf. II.105.) Such an interpretation is lent support by the fact that here the word (schiera) returns to designate a quite different group of poets, the great auctores. (Of the nineteen uses of the noun in the poem, only these two make it refer to a group that Dante either leaves or joins.) In this interpretation Dante makes himself unique among contemporary poets in part because of his adherence to Beatrice, in part because of his involvement with Virgil and the other great poets of antiquity. For a similar view see Selene Sarteschi (“Francesca e il suo poeta: Osservazioni su Inferno V,” L'Alighieri 18 [2001]), p. 22.

For a review of the various sorts of discomfort among the commentators occasioned by Dante's promotion of his own poetic career in this verse (some going so far as to insist that he displays humility here rather than pride) see Mazzoni (“Saggio di un nuovo commento alla Divina Commedia: il Canto IV dell'Inferno,” Studi Danteschi 42 [1965]), pp. 147-54. This is not to take issue with the position taken by Sarolli, shared by the great French Dante scholar Etienne Gilson, that Dante in fact generally does present himself as humble in taking on the burden of this poem in order to do the work of God (Prolegomena alla “Divina Commedia” [Florence: Olschki, 1971], p. 385n.). However, it is clear that Dante is putting himself in very good company on the basis of very little accomplishment: a series of lyrics, the Vita nuova, two unfinished treatises, and three cantos of the Comedy. His daring is amazing. However, we ought to consider that most of his readers today will readily agree that he is not only justly included in this company of the great poets of all time between Homer and Dante, but is one of its foremost members. It was a dangerous gesture for him to have made. It is redeemed by his genius. Taaffe translates Biagioli's response in precisely this mode (A Comment on the “Divine Comedy” of Dante Alighieri [London, John Murray, 1822]), p. 252: 'Who but will admire, if not entirely blind, the modesty of our poet in calling himself only the sixth in a company, where he is really on a perfect equality with the first?'

For a possible source for this verse see Hermann Gmelin, Kommentar: die Hölle (Stuttgart: Klett, 1966), p. 91: Ovid's Tristia (IX.x.54), where that poet makes himself fourth in the line of poets after Tibullus, Gallus, and Propertius. And we should look ahead to Purgatorio XXI.91 when the inclusion of Statius will make Dante not the sixth but the seventh (a more propitious number?) in this group.

That there are forty named or otherwise identified inhabitants in Limbo is probably not accidental (the five poets and the thirty-five later observed with them in the precincts of the noble castle). In one tradition of medieval numerology the 'number' of man is four (of God three). In a widely practiced mode of medieval 'counting,' 40 = 4 ^{0 = 4.}

What was the subject under discussion that is now not reported? Mazzoni (“Saggio di un nuovo commento alla Divina Commedia: il Canto IV dell'Inferno,” Studi Danteschi 42 [1965], pp. 154-56), following an early indication of D'Ovidio's, argues that the subject is poetry, or the secrets of those involved in this sacred art, adducing as evidence two passages in Purgatorio XXII (vv. 104-105; 127-129). In the first of these Virgil tells Statius that he and his poetic companions in Limbo often speak of the Muses; then Dante is allowed to overhear Statius and Virgil speaking of the art of poetic making. To be sure, the poet deliberately refuses (and this will not be the last time) to tell us what was said. Yet it is clear that we are meant to wonder what it was, and to come up with some sort of reasonable hypothesis in explanation. No writer would otherwise include such a provocative detail. At the same time, our hypothetical responses should be a simple as possible and – like Mazzoni's – based on evidence found within the poem.

The noble castle with its seven walls and surrounding stream that Dante and the poets walk over as though it were dry land in order then to pass through the seven gates and into a green meadow: what do these things signify? It is clear that here we are dealing with the conventional kind of allegory, in which poetic objects stand for abstract ideas. But which ones? As is often the case, allegories (here, a brief extended metaphor) of this kind have proven to be extremely difficult for Dante's readers, and not only for his modern readers. Mazzoni (“Saggio di un nuovo commento alla Divina Commedia: il Canto IV dell'Inferno,” Studi Danteschi 42 [1965]) once again devotes a good deal of space to the history of the question (pp. 156-68); yet it cannot be said that he has resolved it. Is the castle the good life of the human being without Grace, all that can be done with the moral and speculative virtues that pagans could perfect despite their lack of faith (Mazzoni)? Or does the castle represent philosophy, with its seven disciplines (physics, metaphysics, ethics, politics, economics, mathematics, and dialectic [Padoan, comm. to Inf. IV.106])? Or something else? And what does it mean that the pagan poets and Dante all can cross the stream as though it were not water? Surely it stands for some impediment that keeps the rest of the inhabitants of limbo out, since apparently only those worthy of entrance can move over it. There are thirty-five designated inhabitants within the walls and fully two-fifths of these are 'actives' (and the majority of these are women: eight of the fourteen). The more numerous 'contemplatives' – if they were the only inhabitants discussed – might indicate that the castle stands for 'philosophy.' But what have Caesar, Camilla, Latinus, or Lavinia got to do with philosophy? What, then, do the castle and its surroundings stand for? The best that human beings can be without God, in whatever precise further formulation: that seems a plausible, if not satisfying, response to Dante's riddle.

On the meaning and importance of Dante's word autorità, as well as the distinction between auctores (those who add to previous entities) and autores (those who have authority in themselves and in what they do) in Uguccione of Pisa, recapitulated in Convivio IV.vi.3-5, see Mazzoni (“Saggio di un nuovo commento alla Divina Commedia: il Canto IV dell'Inferno,” Studi Danteschi 42 [1965]), pp. 168-70.

The resemblance to the vision of the Elysian fields (Aen. VI.752-755) was not lost on Boccaccio (comm. to Inf. IV.115) – nor on Pietro di Dante before him, in the third redaction of his commentary (comm. to Inf. IV.118-123; discussed by Mazzoni, “Saggio di un nuovo commento alla Divina Commedia: il Canto IV dell'Inferno,” Studi Danteschi 42 [1965], p. 172).

This passage is put to the service of establishing the roots of Roman authority, something Dante would return to at greater length (but with many of the same personages) in Monarchia II.iii.6-17. Among the those indicated here we find Electra, daughter of Atlas and mother of Dardanus, mythical founder of Troy (see Aen. VIII.134-137); Hector and Aeneas, the two main Trojan heroes in Virgil's treatment of the Trojan War against the Greeks; Julius Caesar, as 'descendant' of Aeneas, in Dante's eyes the founder of Roman hegemony; Penthesilea, Queen of the Amazons, who assisted the Trojans after Hector's death; Camilla, the female warrior who died heroically resisting the Trojans when they invaded Italy; Latinus, the father-in-law; Lavinia, Aeneas's second wife, mother of Iulus.

For the not unusual medieval view that Caesar was the first emperor, see Convivio IV.v.12. For the Suetonian source of his falcon-like eyes see Campi (comm. to Inf. IV.123). That Caesar is here in armor may well be a reminder of his crossing of the Rubicon in arms to attack Rome (see William Stull and Robert Hollander, “The Lucanian Source of Dante's Ulysses,” Studi Danteschi 63 [1991 (1997)], p. 36). (Pertile wonders at the reasons for Caesar's being in arms – “Il nobile castello, il paradiso terrestre e l'umanesimo dantesco,” Filologia e critica 5 [1980], p. 17.)

The 1921 edition had no punctuation at the end of verse 124 and thus made the phrase da l'altra parte modify Camilla and Penthesilea. Petrocchi (La Commedia secondo l'antica vulgata, Inferno, pp. 72-73) argues convincingly for the current punctuation and the phrase's relation to Latinus and Lavinia.

For the possible importance of Jerome's notion of Camilla as heroic and royal virgin (Adversus Iovinianum I.41) for Dante's conception of her see Rodney J. Lokaj, “Camilla, l'Italia e il Veltro,” Critica del testo 3 (2000), pp. 665-77.

That Saladin, for all the good report that he enjoyed, is included by Dante in Limbo (along with two other 'infidels,' Avicenna and Averroes, at vv. 143-144) is nonetheless extraordinary. They are the only three 'moderns' in Limbo, all representatives of that Islamic culture which Dante elsewise saw in such bitterly negative terms and only as the enemy of Christendom.

This 'master' of knowledge, the teacher of philosophy for nearly every major thinker in the Middle Ages, is, of course, Aristotle. For two important studies in English of the Aristotelian basis of Dante's thought see Patrick Boyde, Dante Philomythes and Philosopher: Man in the Cosmos (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1981) and Perception and passion in Dante's “Comedy” (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1993).

These four tercets brim with the names of twenty major philosophers in the 'school' presided over by Aristotle, bringing the total of illustrious pagans seen in Limbo to forty.

For the absence of Musaeus from the familiar 'trinome' Orpheus-Musaeus-Linus, the first so-called 'theological poets' in various classical (e.g., Aristotle) and Christian (e.g., St. Augustine, St. Thomas) formulations see Hollander (“A Note on Dante's Missing Musaeus [Inferno IV, 140-141],” Quaderni d'italianistica 5 [1984], pp. 217-21). The hypothesis of that discussion is that only in Virgil's fourth Eclogue would Dante have found Orpheus and Linus treated together and without Musaeus. Virgil's vaunt in his poem is that in his song he will outdo the efforts of Orpheus and Linus. But now we find him in Limbo with them, three classical failures in Dante's harsh, judgmental Christian view.

As Petrocchi points out (La Commedia secondo l'antica vulgata, Inferno), pp. 74-75, the unfamiliarity of Linus to most medieval scribes caused major problems in their transcriptions early in the manuscript tradition, some of which continue. Without Orpheus as part of the interlacing of these pairs of poets (Orpheus and Linus) and of moral philosophers (Cicero and Seneca), the confusion might have spread even farther than it has, although it still has some victims at its door. Linus, the lectio difficilior, has nonetheless outlasted Livy as keeper of a place in Limbo.

As for Seneca, as opposed to the widespread notion (shared, for instance, by Toynbee) that Dante, like others in his time, believed that Seneca the moralist and Seneca the tragedian were two different persons, Mazzoni has argued (“Saggio di un nuovo commento alla Divina Commedia: il Canto IV dell'Inferno,” Studi Danteschi 42 [1965]), pp. 197-200), utilizing the work on the subject by Billanovich, that this confusion was only operative after Boccaccio's erroneous suppositions at mid-century (which eventually misled Petrarch into making the same mistake). For a fuller presentation of Toynbee's views, see his “Dante and 'Seneca morale,'” in his Dante Studies and Researches (Port Washington, NY: Kennikat Press, 1971 [1902]), pp. 150-56.

As Petrocchi points out (La Commedia secondo l'antica vulgata: Inf., 1966, pp. 74-75), the unfamiliarity of Linus to most medieval scribes caused major problems early on, some of which continue. Without Orpheus as part of the interlacing of these pairs of poets (Orpheus and Linus) and of moral philosophers (Cicero and Seneca), the confusion in the manuscript tradition might have spread even farther than it has, although it still has some victims at its door. Linus, the lectio difficilior, has nonetheless outlasted Livy as keeper of a place in Limbo.

For Dante's surprising 'liberality' in including Avicenna and Averroes in Limbo see the note to Inf. IV.129.

Dante's abrupt switch to the role of author from that of narrator is noteworthy. With the exception of the invocation in Inferno II.7, this is the first time he has assumed that role, this time addressing remarks about the poem to us, his readers: 'I cannot give account of all of them, for the length of my theme so drives me on, the telling often comes short of the fact.' The effect is, as we have observed before (see the note to Inf. IV.64-66), to put together an appeal to his experience as voyager, returned from a veracious visit to the otherworld, and insistence on his absolute control over what he has in fact invented. As readers we are aware that it is he who has created the inhabitants of Limbo; his remark both insists that he is only recording what he observed and simultaneously allows a shared understanding of his contrivance. What is genial in it is that it turns his reader into a collaborator. The use of the word tema (here 'poetic subject') underlines the literary nature of the enterprise.

A strategic awareness of the evident difference in perspective between narrator and character is, surprisingly enough, a fairly recent development. See Leo Spitzer, “A Note on the Poetic and the Empirical 'I' in Medieval Authors,” Traditio 4 (1946), pp. 414-22; Charles Singleton, An Essay on the “Vita Nuova” (Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1977 [1949], p. 25; Gianfranco Contini, Un' idea di Dante (Turin: Einaudi, 1976 [1958]), pp. 33-62; Rocco Montano, Storia della poesia di Dante, vol. I (Naples: Quaderni di Delta, 1962), pp. 367-76. See also Michelangelo Picone, “Dante come autore/narratore della Commedia,” Nuova Rivista di Letteratura Italiana 2 (1999), pp. 9-26, as well as Mario Aversano, “Inferno XIX: sulla pena dei simoniaci,” in Dialogo e profezia nella “Commedia” dantesca, ed. F. Spera (Milan: CUEM, 1999), p. 40 and n., pointing out that Francesco D'Ovidio, Il canto dei Simoniaci (Naples: Guida, 1932), p. 279, had already made a telling observation along exactly these lines.