Inferno

D

Tom Simone’s translation is simply superb.  Of all the A

translations with which I am familiar, this is the one that N

is the most faithful to what’s there in the Italian: no frills, TE 

no poetic sallies, no choosing a word because it brings the line closer to iambic pentameter -- just unadulterated Dante with good old Anglo-Saxon words and in highly readable prose.

IN

- Peter Kalkavage, St. John’s College

FERNO

Tom Simone has taught at the University of Vermont 

 

for more than thirty years. He is the author of books 

•

on Shakespeare and on the beginnings of the Western 

 

Tradition as well as numerous articles on Joyce, Beckett, Shakespeare on film, and the history of recorded classical TO

music.  He currently is working on a translation of Dante’s “Purgatorio” for Focus Publishing.

M SIMONE

Focus Publishing

R. Pullins Company

PO Box 369

Newburyport, MA 01950

www.pullins.com

Inferno

I S B N 978-1-58510-113-9

Tom Simone

Focus

For the complete list of titles available from Focus Publishing, additional student materials, 9

7 8 1 5 8 5 1 0 1 1 3 9

and online ordering, visit www.pullins.com.

The Comedy

of Dante Alighieri,

Florentine by birth, but not by character

Canticle One

Inferno

Translation and commentary by

Tom Simone

University of Vermont

Copyright 2007 Tom Simone

Cover Design by Guy Wetherbee | Elk Amino Design, New England.

[email protected]

Cover image: Domenico di Michelino (1417-1491). Dante and his poem.

Duomo, Florence, Italy. Scala / Art Resource, NY.

Interior illustrations by Sam Kimball.

ISBN 10: 1-58510-113-3

ISBN 13: 978-1-58510-113-9

This book is published by Focus Publishing / R. Pullins Company, PO

Box 369, Newburyport MA 01950. All rights are reserved. No part of this publication may be produced, stored in a retrieval system, produced on stage or otherwise performed, transmitted by any means, electronic, mechanical, by photocopying, recording, or by any other media or means without the prior written permission of the publisher.

Printed in the United States of America

10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

0407TS

Table of Contents

Preface

vii

General Introduction

xi

Inferno

1

Suggested Reading on Dante

253

Glossary

257

Preface

The reading of a major classic text is a great challenge for any serious reader. Considerations of background, different natures of narrative, allusion, and all the peculiarities of any important text offer major obstacles and rewards to the new reader. The case of Dante is particularly difficult. Dante’s Comedy offers the reader innumerable points of interest that cannot be divined without the aid of at least basic glossing and commentary. Dante’s work is a central poem in world literature, but also an historical text, full of references to the world of late medieval Italy and the broad history of culture and thought of the era. Italian, religious, and classical references abound.

And a significant number of references appear only in Dante’s work.

Coming out of a period of the New Criticism and maybe further back from Protestant belief in the availability of the Biblical text to the unaided reader, a significant number of classic works have been presented in the United States in a deceptively barebones form. While translations of Dante appear with annotation, virtually all the major version place annotation at the end of the volume or sometimes at the end of the canto section. The result is that the annotation seems incidental or strangely and awkwardly placed.

I know from frequent experience that the most used of current editions of Dante fall short of the practical needs of today’s reader of good will attempting the daunting task of a first acquaintance with the Comedy. This is not to say that important aids and reflection are not a part of these versions, but rather that such tools are inconvenient and all too often neglected by the reader. Last year, while giving a visiting lecture on translating Dante for a colleague, I had the chance to speak informally with a sample of the students in the class. Almost none of them had ever even looked at the notes at the end of the volume, and some students didn’t even know they were there. In surveying my own students, I know that without great urging, even students of good will are discouraged from significant use of cumbersome endnotes.

vii

viii

Inferno

I have a colleague at the University of Vermont who is a senior professor in French literature and language.