The Inferno Read Online

Cerberus was placed at the Gate of the Underworld to allow all to enter, but none to escape. His three heads and his ravenous disposition make him an apt symbol of gluttony.

14. like a mad dog: Cerberus is a dog In classical mythology but Dante seems clearly to have visualized him as a half-human monster. The beard (line 16) suggests that at least one of his three heads is humain, and many illuminated manuscripts so represent him.

38. unitil one wraith among them As the Poets pass, one of the damned sits up and asks if Dante recognizes him. Dante replies that he does not, and the wraith identifies himself as a Florentine nicknamed Ciacco, i.e., The Hog.

little is known about Ciacco (TCHA-koe). Boccaccio refers to a Florentine named Ciacco (Decameron IX, 8), and several conflicting accounts of him have been offered by various commentators. All that need be known about him, however, is the nature of his sin and the fact that he is a Florentine. Whatever else he may have been does not function in the poem.

42. Yoa had been made before I was unmade: That is, “you were born before I died.” The further implication is that they must have seen one another in Florence, a city one can still walk across in twenty minutes, and around in a very few hours. Dante certainty would have known everyone in Florence.

61. CIACCO’S PROPHECY: This is the first of the political prophecies that are to become a recurring theme of the Inferno. (It is the second if we include the political symbolism of the Greyhound in Canto L) Dante it, of course, writing after these events have all taken place. At Easter time of 1300, however, the events were in the future.

The Whites and the Blacks of Ciacco’s prophecy should not be confused with the Guelphs and the Ghibellines. The internal strife between the Guelphs and the Ghibellines ended with the total defeat of the Ghibellines. By the end of the 18th century that strife had passed. But very shortly a new feud began in Florence between White Guelphs and Black Guelphs. A rather gruesome murder perpetrated by Focaccio de’ Cancellier! (Foe-KAH-tchoe day Khan-tchell-YAIREE) became the cause of new strife between two branches of the Cancellierl family. On May 1 of 1300 the White Guelphs (Dante’s party) drove the Black Guelphs from Florence In bloody fighting. Two years later. however (“within three suns”), the Blacks, aided by Dante’s detested Boniface VIII, returned and expelled most of the prominent Whites, among then Danter; for he bad been a member of the Priorate (City Council) that issued a decree banishing the leaders of both sides. This was the beginning of Dante’s long exile from Florence.

70. two are honest: In the nature of prophecies this remains vague. The two are not identified.

76-77. FARINATA will appear In Canto X among the Heretics: TEGGBLUO and JACOPO RUSTICUCCI, In Canto XVI with the homosexuals, MOSCA in Canto XXVIII with the sowers of disoord. ARRIGO does not appear again and he has not been positively identified. Dante probably refers here to Arrigo (or Oderigo) dei Fifanti, one of those who took part in the murder of Buondelmonte (Canto XXVIII. line 106, note).

87. speak my name: Excepting those shades in the lowest depths of Hell whose sins are so shameful that they wish only to be forgotten, all of the damned are eager to be remembered on earth. The concept of the family name and of its survival In the memories of men were matters of first importance among Italians of Dante’s time, and expressions of essentially the same attitude are common in Italy today.

103. your science: “Science” to the man of Dante’s time meant specifically “the writiings of Aristotle and the commentaries upon them.”

Canto VII

CIRCLE FOUR

The Hoarders and the Wasters

CIRCLE FIVE

The Wrathful and the Sullen