A descent again marks a border, this time between the Limbus and the second Circle (see Inf. IV.13). Singleton (comm. to Inf. V.1) argues that the presence here of Minos in judgment indicates that 'real hell' begins only now, that Limbo is 'marginal.' It is true, however, that the Limbus is inside the gate of hell. Not only does 'real hell' begin there, it in a sense begins with those who are not allowed to cross the Acheron, the neutrals. They are so pusillanimous that they are not even allowed 'a proper burial,' as it were. One may not even say, as some have, that only with the second Circle do we begin to witness actual punishment being meted out for past sins, since the neutrals are indeed tormented by stinging insects as a fit punishment for their feckless conduct (Inf. III.65-66) and since we learn, from one of the limbicoli themselves, 'che sanza speme vivemo in disio' (that without hope we live in longing).

Padoan (comm. to Inf. V.4) argues that the present tense of the verbs in this tercet (sta, ringhia, essamina, giudica, manda, avvinghia) reflects the continuous condition of Minos's behavior. In fact all the verbs in the passage describing Minos's judgment, vv. 4-15, are in the present, as Dante leaves little doubt but that he wants his readers to imagine themselves – unless a life of good conduct and God's grace combine to gain a better end – coming before that judgment in the future. This is the everlasting present of the moment of damnation, occurring, the text would make us feel, even as we read. For a study of the historical present in the Commedia, with attention (pp. 266-68) to this passage, see Edoardo Sanguineti (“Dante, praesens historicum,” Lettere Italiane 10 [1958]), pp. 263-87.

Dante fairly often portrays infernal monsters and characters as having bestial traits. For this particular one, canine vociferation, see also Cerberus (Inf. VI.43), Plutus (Inf. VII.43), Hecuba (Inf. XXX.20), Bocca degli Abati (Inf. XXXII.105; Inf. XXXII.108); Brutus and Cassius in Inferno XXXIV (described as barking retrospectively at Par. VI.74). See discussion in Barbara Spaggiari, “Antecedenti e modelli tipologici nella letteratura in lingua d'oïl,” in I “monstra” nell'“Inferno” dantesco: tradizione e simbologie (Spoleto: Centro italiano di studi sull'alto medioevo, 1997), p. 112.

For the conflation here in the figure of Minos of the roles of Minos and of Rhadamanthus in Virgil's underworld, see Edward Moore, Studies in Dante, First Series: Scripture and Classical Authors in Dante (Oxford: Clarendon, 1969 [1896]), pp. 183-84; the texts are found at Aeneid VI.432-433 and VI.566-569.

Even the precise way that Minos winds his tail about himself is a subject in dispute. Does he flap it back and forth as many times as he wishes to indicate the appropriate circle? Or does he wind it like a vine around a tree? See Mazzoni, “Il canto V dell'Inferno,” Lectura Dantis Romana: Letture degli anni 1973-76 (Rome: Bonacci, 1977), pp. 104-5, for a brief summary of the debate and reasons to prefer the second hypothesis.

Sinners are 'ill-begotten' in that their end is this, eternal damnation, because of their sins (and not because their procreation in itself so fated them). Padoan (comm. to Inf. V.7) points out that Dante himself is later described as 'bene nato' (well born) – Par. V.115.

See Raymond Benoit, “Inferno V,” The Explicator 41, 3 (1983), p. 2. Dante presents Minos as a parody of a confessor meting out penance to a sinner. The word confessa marks the beginning of this canto's concern with confession, which will be parodied again when Dante 'confesses' Francesca (Inf. V.118-120). For now we are perhaps meant to ruminate on the perversity of sinners. In the world above they were offered, through this office of the Church, the possibility of confession and remission of sins. We may infer that those sinners whom we find in Hell probably did not avail themselves of their great opportunity. (We never hear the word 'confession' on the lips of any of them except for Guido da Montefeltro [Inf. XXVII.83]. And he, having confessed and become a friar, then sins again and is condemned. His second [and vain] confession is made, too late, to Dante.) This moment offers a brief but cogent vision of human perversity: in their lives all those whom we see in hell had the opportunity to be rid of their sins by owning up to them in confession. They apparently did not do so. Here, in hell, what is the very first thing that they do? They make full disclosure of their sins... to Minos. Dante has apparently conflated the general function of Minos as judge of the dead in general (Aen. VI.432) and the role of Rhadamanthus as judge of the damned in particular (Aen. VI.566-569). For the most recent discussion see Ignazio Baldelli, Dante e Francesca (Ravenna: Longo, 1999), pp. 5-6.

The mechanical nature of Minos's judgment – he is a judge who renders judgment with his tail, not his head – underlines the lack of authority of the demons in hell: Minos is merely doing God's work. Hell is presented as a perfectly functioning bureaucracy. If some of Satan's minions are at times rebellious (e.g., the rebel angels in Inf. IX, the winged demons in Inf. XXI-XXIII), they are so in vain. Hell, too, is a part of God's kingdom.

Once the narrated action of Dante's descent continues (it had been suspended at v. 3), the tense moves back to the past definite: 'Minos said.'

Minos, seeing a rarity, to say the least – a living man before him at the entrance to hell – steals a moment from his incessant judgment to offer this warning. How kindly are his intentions? Most commentators seem to think he is the most 'humane' of the infernal demons, and even courteous to Dante. However, and as Padoan points out (comm. to Inf. V.19), his calling into question, albeit indirectly, the competence of Virgil as guide ('beware... whom you trust'), is evidently meant to unsettle Dante. He would obviously prefer not to have such visitors.

Commentators customarily note that here Dante builds his line out of two sources: Aeneid VI.126: 'Facilis descensus Averno' (the descent to the underworld is easy [but not the return from there]); Matthew 7:13: 'spatiosa via est, quae ducit ad perditionem' (broad is the way that leads to perdition).

The adverb pur in Virgil's response can be variously understood: as 'vainly' (with the sense of the Latin frustra); as 'indeed' (in the sense of 'why do you persist in?'); as 'also' (reflecting Charon's similar shouting at Inf. III.84). Our translation has tried to accommodate the first two possibilities.

Virgil obviously understands that Minos's words were meant to scare Dante off (and perhaps he also understands the implicit insult to himself contained in them). For the repetition here of the exact same verses (23 and 24) used to quell Charon's rebellious desires see Inf. III.95-96 and the note to Inf. III.95-96. It seems clear that Virgil would not have used them again had they not been efficacious the first time, that is, had Charon not relented and rowed Dante across. See the note to Inf. III.136.

Here the present tense is an example of the 'historical' (or 'vivid') present.

The 'hellscape' that is established by the sounds in the darkness (once again Dante's eyes need to adjust to the deepening shadows) mates well with the sin of lust: darkness, passionate winds in conflict that bear their victims in unceasing agitation.

The dark and tempestuous 'hellscape' is a fit background for the sin of lust, carried out in darkness (at least in the common imagining) amidst the storms of passion. For a passage that Dante surely knew and which might have had some effect on his shaping of this scene, see II Peter 2:10-22, the apostle Peter's denunciation of the lustful.

It has become fashionable to speak of Dante's use of 'synaesthesia,' the blending of different sense impressions (see, e.g., Glauco Cambon, “Synaesthesia in the Divine Comedy,” Dante Studies 88 [1970], pp. 3-5). The term, however, was coined some 500 years later in literary history. Dante would perhaps have referred to the trope rather as 'catachresis,' a daring, even 'improper,' comparison. See Hollander, Il Virgilio dantesco: tragedia nella “Commedia” (Florence: Olschki, 1983), pp. 66-67. And see Inferno I.60 for a prior example.

One of the most debated verses in this canto because of the words la ruina (literally, 'the ruin'). What precisely do they mean? Two attempts at evaluation of the commentary tradition are available, the first by Letterio Cassata, “Tre cruces dantesche: I. La ruina dei lussuriosi,” Studi Danteschi 48 (1971), pp. 5-14; the second, still more complete, by Nicolò Mineo (ED.1973.4, pp. 1056-57). Mineo points out that there have been six identifiable schools of interpretation for the meaning of la ruina. Unfortunately, there are severe problems associated with all of them. Many American and some Italian students of the problem have been drawn to Singleton's solution (comms. to Inf. XII.32 and XII.36-45): Dante suppresses the meaning of the noun here only to reveal it at Inferno XII.32-41, where questa ruina (verse 32) refers to the crack in the wall of hell made by the earthquake that accompanied Christ's crucifixion. The resultant explanation is so attractive that even many of those who doubt its literal applicability do not wish to jettison it. However, it does remain extremely dubious, as many rightly point out, that Dante would, for the only time in his poem, place the 'antecedent' necessary to a word's clear literal sense seven cantos after its first appearance. A grammatical approach, however, yields still other difficulties. Who are these people who are arriving 'before the ruin'? Are they those who are being driven on the wind in the preceding tercet (grammatically the most probable reading)? If that is true, Dante would at least seem to be contradicting what he will shortly say (Inf. V.44-45), namely that the sinners in this circle have no hope of any change in their condition. However, what he says there is only that their plight will never be ameliorated – a phrasing that might allow for its aggravation, as we would be witnessing here. Others, most trenchantly Padoan (comm. to Inf. V.34), attempt a difficult argument: the antecedent for the suffering souls in this verse is not in the preceding line, but all the way back at v. 13: the molte (many shades) who assemble for the judgment of Minos. The result of this interpretation is, as is the case for Singleton's, welcome but unlikely: we have a 'flashback,' as it were, to what happens when the newly arrived souls (not the ones we have just been observing) first reach this depth. And so that solution, too, seems dubious on grammatical grounds. If one, like Mazzoni (“Il canto V dell'Inferno,” Lectura Dantis Romana: Letture degli anni 1973-76 [Rome: Bonacci, 1977]), pp. 106-8, lets the proximity of grammatical antecedents have its due weight, one not only thinks that the antecedent of the subject of the verb giungono is the li spirti or li in the preceding tercet, but that the antecedent of the noun ruina is the noun bufera (the hellish squall) in that tercet. And then, again following Mazzoni, one argues that the meaning here is not 'ruin,' but the secondary meaning of the word, 'fury, violence.' One immediately sees, however, the problem with this solution as well – Mazzoni is forced to argue for the same position embraced by Padoan: the action described is that which occurs when the sinners first reach this circle (immediately after vv. 13-15), and not that which is habitual and indeed eternal (vv. 25-33).

Petrocchi (La Commedia secondo l'antica vulgata, Inferno), pp. 80-81, discusses (and firmly rejects) the late and decidedly inadmissible reading deventi [= 'di venti'] la ruina.

The position of a translator who does not have a clear idea of what the original means is an impossible one. We chose the path taken by Mazzoni, translating ruina as 'violence,' before we consulted his work. The main reason for doing so is grammatical: all the verb tenses of this scene that describe the actions or reactions of the sinners are in the present (vv. 25-27; 29-36). Thus it seems incorrect to attempt to mark a temporal shift in the action that is not reflected in the text. If the tense of the verb giungono were past instead of present, Mazzoni's solution would seem optimal. But there is no instance of a single variant of the verb in the manuscript tradition. Thus, as things stand, there seems to be no optimal solution.

For a probable source for this line see Mazzoni (Il canto VI dell'“Inferno” in Nuove letture dantesche [Florence: Le Monnier, 1967]), p. 13, n. 2; “Il canto V dell'Inferno,” Lectura Dantis Romana: Letture degli anni 1973-76 (Rome: Bonacci, 1977), pp. 108-9: the Tresor of Brunetto Latini (II.20), in the chapter on chastity: 'On doit contrester au desirier de delit; car ki se laisse vaincre, la raison remaint sous le desirier.... Par quoi on se doit estudiier que raisons soit sor la concupiscence, en tel maniere que l'un et l'autre desirent de bien faire.' And then, further along (II.41): 'Et non chastes est cil ki sousmet soi mesmes au delit...' (Mazzoni's italics).

The first two similes of the canto (and see the third one, Inf. V.82-85) associate the lustful with birds, a natural association given their condition, driven by the wind, and one in accord with the view that lust is the property of beings less than human, and indeed frequently of birds.

The first vast group of the 'ordinary' lovers (T. S. Eliot's typist and house agent's clerk in the Waste Land, vv. 222-248, would eventually be assigned here, one imagines) is compared to a flock of starlings, with their ragged, darting, sky-covering flight on a winter's day. For the Virgilian source, see Aeneid VI.311-312.

The group in the second simile of the canto is more select, the 'stars' of lustful living. Where the starlings are as though without individual identities, the 'masses' of the lustful, as it were, each of these has a particularity and a certain fame, and is thus worthy of being treated as exemplary. (For a discussion of exemplary literature in the middle ages see Carlo Delcorno, Exemplum e letteratura tra medioevo e rinascimento (Bologna: Il Mulino, 1989, with special attention to Dante, pp. 195-227.) Padoan (comm. to Inf. V.47), on the other hand, suggests that this second group is distinguished from the first on moral grounds, since they all died by their own hand or at the hand of others, and are as a result more heavily punished. The evidence for such a view does not seem present in the text.

For the cranes see Virgil, Aeneid X.264-266 as well as Statius, Thebaid V.11-16.

The rhyme words lai and guai suggest a relationship between the French tradition of love songs (Padoan, comm. to Inf. V.46) and its Italian equivalent. The cranes are imagined as singing their sad songs of love much as these sinners are presented as drawing sighs of love-sickness, their 'poetry,' as it were. For lai as a term used by the Provençal poets for the laments of amorous birds see Ferdinando Neri, “La voce lai nei testi italiani,” Atti della Reale Accademia delle Scienze di Torino, classe di scienze morali, storiche e filologiche 72 (1937), pp. 105-19.

This is the second important 'catalogue' that we find in Inferno. The first was the forty identified inhabitants of Limbo (see the note to Inf. IV.102 – at the end of that note). In the circle of lust we find these seven identified sinners and two more: Francesca and Paolo, who bring the total to nine. As Curtius argued quite some time ago, given the importance for Dante of the number nine (the 'number' of his beloved Beatrice), it seems likely that these nine souls who died for love are associated with her by opposition (Ernst Robert Curtius, European Literature and the Latin Middle Ages, tr. W. R. Trask [New York: Harper & Row, 1963 (1948)], p. 369).

It is also notable that Dante's catalogues are unlike (and pronouncedly so in this case) later humanist catalogues of the famous, which thrive on additions, in display of the most arrant 'erudition': the more the better seems to be the motto of such writers. Dante, on the other hand, frequently sculpts his groupings to a purpose.

One of the insistent poetic topoi that we find in medieval writers – and certainly in Dante – is that of translatio. This is the notion that certain ideas or institutions have their major manifestations in movement through historical time and space. The two most usually deployed examples of this topos are translatio imperii (the movement of imperial greatness from Troy to Rome to 'new Rome' – wherever that may be in a given patriotic writer's imagination [in Dante's case the empireless Rome of his own day]) and translatio studii (the development of serious intellectual pursuit from its birth in Athens, to its rebirth in Rome, to its new home [Paris, according to some, in Dante's day]). It is perhaps useful to think of Dante's catalogues as reflecting a similar sense of history, of movement through time and space. In this one we have three triads: Semiramis, Dido, Cleopatra: lustful queens of the African coast; Helen, Achilles, Paris: Greek and Trojan lovers whose lusts brought down a kingdom; Tristan; Francesca, Paolo: a man caught up in destructive passion in King Mark's court in Cornwall, as we move into Europe and toward the present; and, finally, lovers from the recent past in Rimini, here in Italy.

Semiramis was the legendary queen of Assyria (Dante has confused the name of her capital, Babylon, for that of the Egyptian city, and thus misplaced her realm). She was supposed to have legalized incest in order to carry out her sexual liaison with her son. For more about Semiramis, see Irene Samuel, “Semiramis in the Middle Age: The History of a Legend,” Medievalia et Humanistica 2 (1944), pp. 32-44; see also Marianne Shapiro, “Semiramis in Inferno V,” Romance Notes 16 (1975), pp. 455-56.

Dante's use of periphrasis (circumlocution) represents one of his favored 'teaching techniques,' in which he (generally, but certainly not always) offers his readers fairly easy problems to solve. There is not, it seems reasonable to believe, a single commentator (or student?) who has ever got this one 'wrong.' Use of periphrasis has a second effect: it tends to emphasize the importance of the person or thing so presented. The 'Dido' that we scribble in our margins stands out from the page, partly because it is we who have supplied the name. That Dido is the quintessential presence in this 'flock' is underlined by Inferno V.85, where she is the only named presence in it, having previously been alluded to only indirectly.

For consideration of the similarity of Dante's treatment of Dido here to that found previously in one of the rime petrose (“Così nel mio parlar,” vv. 35-43) see Lino Pertile, “Il modo di Paolo,” in Miscellanea di studi offerta dall'Università di Urbino a Claudio Varese per i suoi novantanni, ed. Giorgio Cerboni Baiardi (Manziana [Rome]: Vecchiarelli Editore, 2001), p. 630.

Dido's presence here frequently upsets readers who think that she ought to be found in canto XIII, since she committed suicide. It is clear that Dante thinks of the psychology of sin with a certain sophistication, isolating the impulse, the deeper motive, that drives our actions from the actions themselves. In Dido's case this is her uncontrolled desire for Aeneas. She does not kill herself from despair (as do the suicides in the thirteenth canto), but rather to give expression to her need for her lover – or so Dante would seem to have believed.

Virgil's similar one-line description of Dido's 'infidelity' occurs at Aeneid IV.552.

For Dante's knowledge that Cleopatra committed suicide by having an asp bite her, see Par. VI.76-78. And see the note to Inferno V.61 for a discussion of that other famous suicide, Dido, also placed here for her wantonness rather than relegated to Inferno XIII for having committed suicide.

It is important to remember that Dante, Greekless, had not read Homer, who only became available in Latin translation much later in the fourteenth century. His Achilles is not the hero of the Iliad known to some of us, but the warrior-lover portrayed by Statius and others.

For mille (one thousand) here and elsewhere in the poem see Baldelli, Dante e Francesca (Ravenna: Longo, 1999), p. 25n.

di nostra vita. The echo of the first line of the poem (Inf. I.1) is probably not coincidental. Dante was lost 'midway in the journey of our life' and, we will later learn, some of his most besetting problems arose from misplaced affection. He was, indeed, near death as a result of his transgressions. The repetition of the word smarrito to describe Dante's distraught condition also recalls the first tercet of the poem (Inf. I.3). Here we can see an emerging pattern in his re-use of key words from previous contexts in order to enhance the significance of a current situation in the poem. See also Inferno II.63-64, where the words cammin, paura, and smarrito join to reflect, looking backward, upon the terrifying situation in which the protagonist found himself at the poem's opening (Inf. I.1-6).

Dante refers to the great figures of the olden days with strikingly anachronistic terms, the medieval 'ladies and knights' emphasizing the continuity of the historical record. No 'humanist' writer would be likely to use such a locution that so dramatically erases the gap between classical antiquity and the present age.

For a division of the parts of the canto, following that made by Lanfranco Caretti (Il canto di Francesca [Lucca: Lucentia, 1951]) and then expanding it, see Mazzoni (“Il canto V dell'Inferno,” Lectura Dantis Romana: Letture degli anni 1973-76 [Rome: Bonacci, 1977]), pp. 99-100. Mazzoni claims that the canto is divided into two precise halves (vv. 1-71; 72-142) and that these are then divided into seven parallel scenes or moments. It is surely true that the rest of the canto – its second half – is devoted mainly and essentially to Francesca.

To be 'light upon the wind' is, to some readers, a sign of Francesca's and Paolo's noble ability to triumph over their dismal surroundings; to others, it indicates that they are driven even more wildly than some other shades by the winds of passion. This first detail begins a series of challenging phrasings that invite the reader to consider closely the ambiguities of the entire episode. For a summary of the issues at stake here, see Mazzoni, “Il canto V dell'Inferno,” Lectura Dantis Romana: Letture degli anni 1973-76 (Rome: Bonacci, 1977), pp. 124-28. And for a thorough consideration of the history of interpretation of the episode of Francesca see A. E. Quaglio, 'Francesca' (ED.1971.3), pp. 1-13. For the background of political intrigue that informs this episode see Teodolinda Barolini, “Dante and Francesca da Rimini: Realpolitik, Romance, Gender,” Speculum 75 (2000), pp. 1-28.

Virgil's only complete tercet in the second half of the canto (see the note to Inf. V.111) is laconic, as though he were aware of the emotions felt by Dante (which he himself had so devastatingly presented in Aeneid IV, the story of love's destructive power over Dido) and realized there was nothing he had said or could say that might rein in his excited pupil. Paola Marconi (“'per quello amor che i mena': Inferno V, 78 e il Roman de Tristan de Béroul,” L'Alighieri 20 [2002], pp. 77-93) argues that Dante's depiction of the lovers as being 'led' by love is rooted in the earliest French versions of Tristan, which may have circulated in Italy and been known to Dante.

The protagonist's adjective for the two sinners (they are 'anime affannate') may well be meant to remind us of the only other time we find that adjective in the first cantica, at Inferno I.22, when Dante is described as being like a man who has escaped from the sea 'with laboring breath' (con lena affannata). If that is true, it further binds the character's sense of identity with these sinners.

The third simile involving birds in this canto (and there are only three similes in it) compares the two lovers to doves. As Shoaf, in “Dante's colombi and the Figuralism of Hope in the Divine Comedy,” Dante Studies 93 (1975), pp. 27-59, has demonstrated, there is a 'dove program' in the Comedy, beginning with the Venereal doves reflected here, passing through the dove-simile in Purgatorio II (vv. 124-129), and finishing in the reference to James and Peter as 'doves' of the Holy Spirit in Paradiso XXV (vv. 19-21). Dante's nest-seeking doves seem to reflect both Aeneid V.213-217 and Georgics I.414. A student at Princeton, Daniel Cheely '03, has recently suggested that another Virgilian passage is echoed here: Aeneid II.516, the description of Hecuba and her daughters, huddled together like doves driven before a black stormcloud.

For a wider treatment of the birds referred to in this canto see Lawrence Ryan, “Stornei, Gru, Colombe: The Bird Images in Inferno V,” Dante Studies 94 (1976), pp. 25-45.

See the note to Inferno V.61-62.

On the Virgilian context and possible consequent effect of Dante's word maligno, see Paola Rigo, “Tra 'maligno' e 'sanguigno,'” in her Memoria classica e memoria biblica in Dante (Florence: Olschki, 1994 [1989]), pp. 45-48.

The beginning of Francesca's highly rhetorical speech reflects the tradition of classical rhetoric that would have a speaker first seek to gain the sympathy of the audience, a device referred to as captatio benevolentiae, the capturing of the goodwill of one's auditors. For noteworthy earlier examples of captatio see Beatrice's first words to Virgil (Inf. II.58-60) and Virgil's first words to her in return (Inf. II.76-81).

Francesca's locutions are revealing and instructive: God is portrayed as having turned away from the two lovers, while Dante is welcomed for not having done so, for feeling pietà for them. This canto has one of its 'key words' in amore, which occurs fully eleven times in it (vv. 61, 66, 69, 78, 100, 103, 106, 119, 125, 128, 134). But this word, 'pity,' is crucial as well (vv. 72, 93, 117, 140, and, in the continuing action of the next canto, VI, 2). Dante is filled with pity for lost lovers. Should he be? That may be the central question facing a reader of Inferno V (see further discussion, below, in the note to Inf. V.142).

For the source of this verse in Cavalcanti's line 'Se Mercé fosse amica a' miei disiri' see Contini, Un' idea di Dante (Turin: Einaudi, 1976), p. 155 (cited by Mazzoni [“Il canto V dell'Inferno,” Lectura Dantis Romana: Letture degli anni 1973-76 (Rome: Bonacci, 1977)], pp. 121, 140). See Barolini, “Dante and Cavalcanti (On Making Distinctions in Matters of Love): Inferno V in Its Lyric Context,” Dante Studies 116 (1998), pp. 31-63, for a discussion of the lyric precursors (especially Guido Cavalcanti and the resonances of this tradition in the younger Dante himself) who give a shaping form to the lyric proceedings in this fifth canto. Nicolò Pasero, “Dante in Cavalcanti: ancora sui rapporti tra Vita nova e Donna me prega,” Medioevo romanzo 22 (1998), pp. 388-414, offers a review of the current raging argument over the complex and unhappy relations between Guido and Dante that resulted from their very different views of the nature of a poet's necessary treatment of the subject of love.

The three main editorial constructions of this contested phrase of Francesca are as follows: it reads either (1) si tace (becomes silent); or (2a) ci tace (grows quiet here); or (2b) ci tace (grows quiet for our sake). Petrocchi (La Commedia secondo l'antica vulgata, Inferno), pp. 88-89, argues strongly for (2a), noting that ci is the lectio difficilior and accepting the views of Barbi, Problemi di critica dantesca (Florence: Sansoni, 1934) pp. 263-64: ci in early Italian, more than in modern, was generally used to mean 'here'; the wind is quieter where Dante and Virgil are placed to observe the lustful, and Francesca takes note of this fact. That is a sensible understanding, but either of the others might have been what Dante wrote.

For the Italian text with an English translation of Boccaccio's Francesca-favoring narrative, in his Esposizioni, see Singleton, comm. to Inf. V.97.

The use of anaphora (repetition) here at the beginning of each tercet, 'Amor... Amor... Amor...,' underlines the rhetorical skill of Francesca, who presses her case with listening Dante: it was Love's fault that she and Paolo fell into carnal passion. 'Amor' appears three times as the first word in a tercet after an end-stopped line and thus must be capitalized. It seems also reasonable to believe that Francesca is here referring to her 'god,' the Lord of Love, Cupid, whose name is 'Amor.' He is the only god she seems to own, since, by her account (Inf. V.91), the 'King of the universe' is not her friend.

Against Pagliaro (Ulisse: ricerche semantiche sulla “Divina Commedia” [Messina-Florence: D'Anna, 1967]), pp. 136-49, who argues that Francesca is referring to the way in which she was made to fall in love, Padoan (comm. to Inf. V.101) argues persuasively that she refers in fact to the brutal manner of her death. This verse is much debated. Padoan has recently returned to the argument, reinforcing his claims (Il lungo cammino del “Poema sacro”: studi danteschi [Florence: Olschki, 1993], pp. 189-200). See also the strong arguments of Chiavacci Leonardi (Inferno, con il commento di A. M. C. L. [Milan: Mondadori, 1991]), pp. 168-69. As much as we may agree with this view of the matter, we must also acknowledge that the wording of the text allows, in itself, either interpretation. Our translation therefore leaves the meaning ambiguous, as does, indeed, the original, whatever Dante's intentions. Since these words were written, Lino Pertile (“Il modo di Paolo,” in Miscellanea di studi offerta dall'Università di Urbino a Claudio Varese per i suoi novantanni, ed. Giorgio Cerboni Baiardi [Manziana (Rome): Vecchiarelli Editore, 2001]), pp. 623-33, has produced a response to Padoan's arguments that is perhaps even more convincing than they are. Basing his argument in Italian and Latin texts [among the latter especially Andreas Capellanus's De amore], Pertile demonstrates that modo [Latin modus] frequently meant 'measure' when it referred to the immoderate nature of passionate love. He summarizes his sense of the verse as follows: 'il modo, la misura, la forza dell'amore di Paolo ancora mi ferisce, mi affligge, mi soggioga' [the manner, or measure, or force of Paolo's love still wounds, or afflicts, or dominates me]).

The dicta of Andreas Capellanus are often cited as lying behind Francesca's speech (e.g., De amore II, 8): 'Amor nil posset amori denegare' (Love can deny love nothing at all). A closer parallel exists between a line in a love poem by Cino da Pistoia and this one: 'A nullo amato amar perdona amore' (cited by Enrico Mestica [comm. to Inf. V.103-105]). But we do not know if Dante is echoing Cino or Cino, Dante.

The word piacer refers to the physical attractiveness of Paolo, as most commentators agree. See, recently, Chiavacci Leonardi: 'piacere vale “cosa che piace”, e quindi “bellezza”...' (Inferno, con il commento di A. M. C. L. [Milan: Mondadori, 1991]), pp. 157-58). For the verbal noun piacere in Dante see Ugo Vignuzzi's entry 'piacere' (ED.1973.4), pp. 468-70. There has been dispute over the exact meaning of the word here since the fourteenth century. Most modern commentators, e.g., Bosco/Reggio (comm. to Inf. V.104), agree that Francesca was taken by the physical beauty of Paolo ('la bellezza di costui'), as he was by hers.

See Virgil, Aeneid VI.444; Daniello was perhaps the first to make note of this echo (comm. to Inf. V.105).

The verse describing 'the love that leads to death' contains a 'visual pun' on the theme, as was pointed out by a graduate student at Princeton, Laura Kellogg, in 1989: 'AMOR condusse noi ad unA MORte.'

Francesca, whose chief rhetorical strategy is to remove as much blame from herself as she is able, finding other forces at fault wherever possible (e.g., Paolo's physical beauty, her despicable husband, the allure of a French romance), here tries to even the score with her husband. She may be damned, but he, as the killer of his wife and brother, will be much lower down, in the ninth circle. Since Gianciotto, who killed them in 1283-84, lived until 1304, his shade could not be seen by Dante in Caina. We have, as a result, no basis on which to question her opinion. However, had Dante wanted to guarantee it, it would have taken a line or so to do just that – and he does several times have sinners tell of the impending arrival of still others in a given circle in ways that clearly call for acceptance (see the note to Inf. XXXII.54-69). And so we are left wondering at Francesca's remark, and should at least keep this question open. It seems better to view her prediction as a wish stated as a fact than as a fact. This is to support the interpretation of Pier Angelo Perotti, “Caina attende,” L'Alighieri 2 (1993), pp. 129-34. However, for an example of the continuing view that accepts Francesca's predictive placement of her husband in hell see Ignazio Baldelli, “Dante, i Guidi e i Malatesta,” Annali della Scuola Normale Superiore di Pisa, serie 3, 18 (1988), p. 1070, a judgment that he has reaffirmed in Dante e Francesca (Ravenna: Longo, 1999), pp. 55-56.

Iannucci suggests that Gianciotto may have been conceived by Dante as being misshapen and lame like Vulcan, the cuckolded husband of Venus (see his “Forbidden Love: Metaphor and History,” Annali della Facoltà di Lettere e Filosofia, Università di Siena 11 [1980], p. 345).

Petrocchi is harshly polemical against those who have argued that this verse is spoken by Paolo (La Commedia secondo l'antica vulgata, Inferno), p. 90. It is indeed difficult to imagine that this rhetorically perfect speech could suddenly turn into a 'chorus' without the poet having given some very clear indication that such was the case. The next verse, 'These words were borne from them to us,' does not necessarily mean that they were spoken by both lovers, only that they come from where they where, reminding us that we always see them together. As Benvenuto (comm. to Inf. V.108) and Boccaccio (comm. to Inf. V.106-108) both insist, Francesca is speaking for herself and for Paolo. However, for a return to the notion that this last line is spoken, not by Francesca, but by Paolo, see Gorni (“Francesca e Paolo: La voce di lui,” Intersezioni 16 [1996]), pp. 383-90. It is difficult to accept such a view, since Dante is almost always carefully precise in separating one speaker's words from another's. And while punctuation in the manuscript tradition is not (and cannot be) reliable, it nonetheless seems odd that no one else had treated the line this way, which in fact seems more ingenious than sensible; that would at least suggest that, from the beginning, there have been no manuscripts that gave the line to Francesca's lover. Further, for Paolo to enter the fray in this single (and petulant? [if it is his only vengeful utterance]) outburst essentially destroys the effect of Francesca's climactic words, drawing attention from her just before she falls silent. And it is clear from what follows that it is she who is much on Dante's mind, not Paolo.

These nine verses contain the 'drama' of the canto in nuce. Dante's pensive condition in the first tercet reflects his being moved deeply by Francesca's beautiful speech; Virgil attempts to spur him to thoughtful appreciation of what he has seen and heard; the second tercet records his more emotional than rational outburst: he is totally sympathetic to the lovers, and now, in the third, he turns to tell Francesca that he is filled with pity for her. She has won him over.

Some twenty years ago Dante's tearful state (v. 117) reminded Elizabeth Raymond and Susan Saltrick (both Princeton '78) of the tears Augustine shed for Dido – see Confessions I.13.

Padoan argues effectively (comm. to Inf. V.114), against the more widespread opinion, that the phrase al doloroso passo (to this woeful pass) refers to spiritual damnation rather than to physical death. Chiavacci Leonardi (Inferno, con il commento di A. M. C. L. [Milan: Mondadori, 1991]), p. 160, reproposes the gloss of Francesco da Buti (comm. to Inf. V.114), which asserts that the phrase simultaneously recalls their sin, the moment of their death, and their subsequent damnation. Padoan's solution seems the more economical and in keeping with the protagonist's view of the two sinners, here circling forever on the black winds of hell. The word doloroso may reflect the dolenti note, the agonized cries of the damned in this circle (Inf. V.25), as well as look forward to the dolore of the first verse of Francesca's second speech (Inf. V.121), the sorrow that she now feels in hell remembering her past happiness.

In 1972 Georgia Nugent, then a student at Princeton, pointed out that Dante's question mimics the questions used by confessors to ascertain the nature of a penitent's sins. Here, we may reflect, Dante is behaving more like a priest in the so-called 'religion of Love' than like a Christian confessor. See the earlier discussion of confession in this canto, in the note to Inferno V.8.

'This [the first tercet] imitates Virgil... but literally translates Boëtius' (cited from J. Taaffe, A Comment on the “Divine Comedy” of Dante Alighieri [London, John Murray, 1822] p. 326). See the Consolation of Philosophy II, pr. 4: 'in omni adversitate fortunae infelicissimum est genus infortunii fuisse felicem' (among fortune's many adversities the most unhappy kind is once to have been happy).

For the Virgilian resonances (Aen. II.3-13), see the fairly detailed account in Hollander, Allegory in Dante's “Commedia” (Princeton, Princeton University Press, 1969), pp. 110-11.

There is debate as to whether the word dottore (here 'teacher') refers to Boethius or Virgil. Most prefer the second hypothesis, but see Baldelli, Dante e Francesca (Ravenna: Longo, 1999), p. 63. We should realize that either choice forces upon us a somewhat ungainly hypothesis, the first that Francesca knows Boethius well (it is only several years since Dante had characterized the Consolation of Philosophy as a work known only to few [at Convivio II.xii.2]), the second that she recognizes the Roman poet Virgil without having had him identified by Dante. Since Virgil is referred to by Dante as 'il mio dottore' in this very canto (Inf. V.70), and since we have visited his 'sorrow' a single canto earlier, where we learn what causes the virtuous pagans their unending unhappiness, it seems the wiser choice to accept the notion that Dante, taking advantage of poetic license, allows Francesca to recognize Virgil.

Much has been written on the Old French sources of this scene. Work in English includes articles by Davy Carozza, “Elements of the roman courtois in the Episode of Paolo and Francesca (Inferno V),” Papers on Language and Literature 3 (1967), pp. 291-301, and Donald Maddox, “The Arthurian Intertexts of Inferno V,” Dante Studies 114 (1996), pp. 113-27. And for a possible link to the love story of Eloise and Abelard see Peter Dronke, “Francesca and Héloise,” Comparative Literature 27 (1975), pp. 113-35.

Francesca's account of her and Paolo's conquest by Amor is 'corrected' by a later text, Dante's reference to God as the 'punto che mi vinse' (Par. XXX.11), where Dante is, like Paolo, 'constrained' by love (strinse [v. 128]; Par. XXX.15: amor mi costrinse) – but his desire is for Beatrice, not for a fleshly liaison. The passage in Paradiso is clearly meant to reflect negatively, not only on the amorous activity of Francesca and Paolo, but on the protagonist's reactions to it. The god of Love and Francesca are being played against God and Beatrice – or so we will understand once we reach the last cantica. For the resonance of this self-citation see Hollander, “Dante's Commedia and the Classical Tradition: the Case of Virgil,” in The “Divine Comedy” and the Encyclopedia of Arts and Sciences: Acta of the International Dante Symposium, 13-16 November 1983, Hunter College, New York, ed. G. Di Scipio and A. Scaglione (Amsterdam: John Benjamins, 1988), pp. 7-8, discussing the contributions of Contini (Un' idea di Dante [Turin: Einaudi, 1976]), p. 206; Hollander (Il Virgilio dantesco: tragedia nella “Commedia” [Florence: Olschki, 1983]), pp. 139-40; and Dronke (“Symbolism and Structure in Paradiso 30,” Romance Philology 43 [1989]), p. 30.

Once again Francesca blames another for the two lovers' predicament, this time the go-between in the tale of Lancelot and Guinevere as well as author of the tale. By now we have come to see – or should have – how often her problems are laid at the doors of others.

Francesca, reading a book that leads to her 'conversion' to sin and death in the company of a man named Paul, is the 'negative antitype' of St. Augustine, reading a book by Paul that leads to his conversion (Confessions VIII.xii – see T.K. Swing for what seems to be the first observation of this striking connection [The Fragile Leaves of the Sibyl (Westminster: The Newman Press, 1962)], p. 299, and further discussion by Hollander [Allegory in Dante's “Commedia”], pp. 112-13). Augustine is converted by reading a passage in St. Paul (Romans 13:13-14): 'Let us walk honestly as in the day; not in rioting and drunkenness, not in chambering and wantonness, not in strife and envying. But put you on the Lord Jesus Christ, and make not provision for the flesh, to fulfill the lusts thereof.' Here, we may reflect, Francesca reads a book and is 'converted,' by doing so, to the lust that leads to death. And if Augustine was converted by reading a man named Paul, Francesca gives herself to adultery with a man bearing the same name. As Swing has pointed out, Francesca's last words, quel giorno più non vi leggemmo avante (that day we read in it no further), seem more than coincidentally close to Augustine's nec ultra volui legere (and I did not wish to read any further). For support of the idea that Dante is here thinking of this pivotal moment in Augustine's spiritual autobiography, see John A. Scott, “Dante's Francesca and the Poet's Attitude toward Courtly Literature,” Reading Medieval Studies 5 (1979), p. 14. A recent study of the presence of Augustine in Dante does not deal with the question; see Selene Sarteschi ( “Sant'Agostino in Dante e nell'età di Dante,” in her Per la “Commedia” e non per essa soltanto [Rome: Bulzoni, 2002 (1999)], pp. 171-94). If we are meant to think of Augustine's book here, that would round off this canto's concern with confession (see discussion, above, in the notes to Inf. V.8 and V.118-120).

Shirley Paolini (Confessions of Sin and Love in the Middle Ages: Dante's “Commedia” and St. Augustine's “Confessions” (Washington, D.C.: University Press of America, 1982 [Diss. 1973, U. Cal. Irvine], p. 85), does observe the connection between Augustine's conversionary experience, reflective of Paul's, and Francesca's narration of this kiss (which Rodin would later represent in his sculpture “Le baiser”), but does not mention either of her two predecessors in this observation, despite listing Swing in her bibliography and having referred to Hollander's book (wrongly attributed to “John” Hollander) several times. Paul Olson (“Reading the Confessions: Boethius, Aelred, Dante and Petrarch,” in his The Journey to Wisdom [Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1995], p. 245, n. 40) also supports this attribution, if citing only Hollander and not Swing (nor Scott or Paolini). For still more recent support of this position (if without mention of any of its previous proponents), see Douglas Biow (review of Meredith J. Gill, Augustine in the Italian Renaissance: Art and Philosophy from Petrarch to Michelangelo [Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2005] in Italian Culture 24-25 [2006-2007]: 196). It should be added that Mazzotta (Dante, Poet of the Desert [Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1979], p. 166n.), alone among those who have heard the Augustinian echo in this verse, refers to both Swing and Hollander as his precursors.

We now realize that during the entire episode we have not heard a word from Paolo. Dante will return to this strategy when he twice again involves pairs of sinners in suffering together, Diomedes with Ulysses in Inferno XXVI, Ruggieri with Ugolino in Inferno XXXIII. In each case one of the two is a silent partner. We can try to imagine what an eternity of silence in the company of the voluble being who shares the culpability for one's damnation might be like.

Petrocchi (La Commedia secondo l'antica vulgata, Inferno), p. 94, defends breaking the line where he does (after piangëa and not, as in the 1921 edition, after sì), because that punctuation would make it seem that Dante wept only for Paolo's plight, and not for the condition of both the lovers.

Dante's death-like swoon has him experiencing something akin to the death in sensuality experienced by Francesca and Paolo. This is to be at odds with the view of Pietrobono (comm. to Inf. V.142), who argues that Dante's death-like collapse mirrors his attaining of the state urged by Paul in his Epistle to the Romans, chapter 6, wherein the Christian 'dies' to sin in imitation of Christ (e.g.,'For he that is dead is freed from sin' – Romans 6:7). It would rather seem that this is exactly not the state attained by the protagonist at this point in the poem.

Donald Maddox (“The Arthurian Intertexts of Inferno V,” Dante Studies 114 [1996]), pp. 119-22, draws a parallel between Dante's fainting spell and that suffered by Galehot in the prose Lancelot. For the OF prose version consulted by Dante, see Paget Toynbee, 'Dante and the Lancelot Romance,' in his Dante Studies and Researches (Port Washington, NY: Kennikat Press, 1971 [1902]), pp. 1-37.

Torraca (comm. on Inf. V.142) was perhaps the first commentator to note the Arthurian material that lies behind Dante's famous line: the Italian prose version of the stories of Arthur's court, La tavola ritonda, XLVII, where Tristan's response to Isolde's death is described as follows: 'e cadde sì come corpo morto.' The protagonist is thus compared to the victim of overwhelming passion. His fainting marks him here as unable to control his pity, as it had had the same effect with respect to fear two cantos earlier (Inf. III.136).

The fifth canto of Inferno is the cause of continuing debate. Where are we to locate ourselves as witnesses to these scenes? Romantic readers understandably tend to align themselves with the love that Francesca emblematizes and/or the pity that Dante exhibits; moralizing ones with the firmness that an Augustinian reader would feel. Virgil perhaps, given his silence through most of the second half of the canto (once Francesca appears on the scene he speaks only two words: 'che pense?' [what are your thoughts? – Inf. V.111]), would then seem to be trying to rein in Dante's enthusiastic involvement with this enticing shade. Yet even as theologically-oriented a reader as Mazzoni (“Il canto V dell'Inferno,” Lectura Dantis Romana: Letture degli anni 1973-76 [Rome: Bonacci, 1977], pp. 125-26) finds it important to distance himself from such 'rigid moralizing' as is found in Giovanni Busnelli, “La ruina del secondo cerchio e Francesca da Rimini,” Miscellanea Dantesca pubblicata a cura del Comitato cattolico padovano per il VI centenario della morte del Poeta [Padua, 1922], pp. 49-60, and in Rocco Montano, Storia della poesia di Dante, vol. I (Naples: Quaderni di Delta, 1962). A view similar to Mazzoni's is found in a much-cited essay by Renato Poggioli: 'The “romance” of Paolo and Francesca becomes in Dante's hands an “antiromance,” or rather, both things at once. As such, it is able to express and to judge romantic love at the same time' (“Tragedy or Romance? A Reading of the Paolo and Francesca Episode in Dante's Inferno,” PMLA 72 [1957], p. 358). In America, the role of the 'rigid moralizer' has been played, in recent times, most notably by Anthony Cassell (Dante's Fearful Art of Justice [Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1984]), with similar responses from most of his reviewers. For Mazzoni and many, perhaps most, contemporary readers, the canto needs to be responded to more generously than the 'moralizers' would like. And, to be sure, there is at times a certain perhaps unfortunately zealous tone in the words of such critics. On the other hand, their views seem only to accord with the overall aims of the poet and his poem. Francesca is, after all, in hell. The love she shares with Paolo was and is a 'mad love' (for this concept see Silvio Avalle d'Arco, “... de fole amor,” in Modelli semiologici nella “Commedia” di Dante [Milan: Bompiani, 1975]), pp. 97-121; 137-73. And so, where some would find pity the middle ground for the reader to occupy, between the sinful lust of Francesca and Paolo and the 'rigid moralizers,' others, including this commentator, argue that it is pity itself that is here at fault. Amore and pietà are no doubt among the 'key words' of the canto (see above, the note to Inf. V.91-93); that does not mean that they must function in opposition to one another. They may be versions of the same emotion. Indeed, if we see that Francesca's aim is precisely to gain Dante's pity, and that she is successful in doing so, we perhaps ought to question his offering of it. Sympathy for the damned, in the Inferno, is nearly always and nearly certainly the sign of a wavering moral disposition. To cite again the words of Guido da Pisa (comm. to Inf. XX.28-30), 'the time for mercy is here in this world, while in the world to come it is time only for justice.' That is a standard Christian medieval view. Twenty-first-century readers should probably keep it in mind. However, for a strong attack on such readings, one which argues for the notion that, in all his works, Dante accepts the ineluctable force of passionate love, see Ignazio Baldelli, Dante e Francesca (Ravenna: Longo, 1999), esp. pp. 66-67, 73-87. For a more balanced evaluation of this fundamental problem in the interpretation of Dante's view of carnal affection, see Claudia Villa (“Tra affetto e pietà: per Inferno V,” Lettere Italiane 51 [1999]), pp. 513-41.