4. excess of stench: This is the “stench of sinners” (foetor peccatorum) and “stench of evil” (foetor mali) of the Visio Pauli, which also requires caution on approach (Silverstein 1937; the idea is also scriptural [e.g., Prov. 10.7]). See also Virgil’s Aen. 6.201: “fauces grave olentis Averni” [the jaws of evil-smelling Avernus]; also 6.239–42.
7. writing: The first inscription since that on Hellgate in Canto 3, and the last in Hell. Canto 11, like Canto 3, is one of transition.
8–9. Pope Anastasius … the straight way: Identification of these figures is uncertain (perhaps intentionally so), particularly since the syntax is ambiguous: either Anastasio or Fotin could be either the subject or the object of the verb. In both cases the heresies are early ones and concern the divinity of Christ. Dante’s names here form a series of ironic puns: Anastasius, “the resurrected,” in a tomb; Photinus, “the little light” of error.
16–111. My son, within these rocks … his hope in something else: Dante now puts in Virgil’s mouth an explanation of the structure of Hell as a whole and the classification of sins on which it is based: first (lines 16—66), he discusses three of the four circles of lower Hell, enclosed within the walls of the city of Dis, those of violence, simple fraud, and treacherous fraud, after first establishing that they are all for sins of malice; then, in answer to the pilgrim’s first question (lines 67—75), he accounts for the circles they passed through before reaching the walls (lines 76–90); finally, in answer to the pilgrim’s second question (lines 91—96), he clarifies a particular point, the classification of usury (lines 97–111). Virgil’s account is incomplete (it omits the neutrals, Limbo, and heresy [the first circle inside the walls]; however, of these only the last is subject to Minos) and perhaps in some respects inconsistent (see the notes to lines 76—90). Kirkham (1992) suggests that the medieval interpretation of the number eleven as signifying transgression (it “goes beyond” the perfect number, ten) helps explain the placing of this explanation (Virgil’s lesson, she notes, concludes at 11.111; cf. 1.111).
22–24. Of every malice … injures someone: Virgil first asserts the distinguishing characteristic of lower Hell: malice, the express purpose (“the goal”) of which is to act contrary to the law (iniuria, from ius, law) and consequently (since the purpose of the law is to ensure that all are treated justly) to inflict harm. Virgil does not distinguish here between God’s law and natural law or human law; many of his distinctions are drawn from Roman law, broadly understood (cf. Digest 47.10).
24. either with force or with fraud: This is to be understood as an exhaustive classification; it, too, is derived from Roman law (Institutes 4.4.2).
25–27. But because fraud … greater pain assails them: Fraud is more displeasing to God than violence because it involves corruption of what is more distinctive of man, his intellect (cf. Convivio 3.2.14—19; that violence is shared with the beasts is implied here). It should be noted that in Dante’s view the devil also practices fraud and that Virgil’s words “proper to man,” if taken to mean “exclusive to man,” are mistaken (Cantos 21–23 suggest that Virgil in fact does not understand the nature of the devils).
28–51. Of the violent .. . scorn of God in his heart: The circle of the violent is divided into three subcircles corresponding to the person injured: God, oneself, or one’s neighbor. The conception derives from Matt. 22.37–40 (cf. Mark 12.29–39):
Jesus said to him: Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with thy whole heart, and with thy whole soul, and with thy whole mind. This is the greatest and the first commandment. And the second is like to this: Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself. On these two commandments dependeth the whole law and the prophets.
The theologians interpreted this order as quite logical: it is natural to love God first, as one’s origin and the source of all value, and it is more natural to love oneself than to love others (cf. Aquinas, Summa theol. 2a 2ae, q. 118). Thus the sequence of increasing gravity of violence against others or their possessions (least serious, because in a sense more natural, lines 34—39), oneself and one’s possessions (lines 40—45), and God and his possessions (lines 46—51). That acts of violence against possessions are ranked according to the possessor is ultimately derived from Roman law (see the entries under iniuria in Digest 4.10.21).
It should be remembered that in the Neoplatonic tradition accepted by medieval Christianity love is also the bond that unites the entire cosmos with its golden chain. An important text for Dante is Book 2, metrum 8 of Boethius’s Consolation, especially lines 13–30 (on love, cf. Chaucer’s Knight’s Tale, 2987—93):
Hanc rerum seriem ligat
terras ac pelagus regens
et caelo imperitans amor.
Hic si frena remiserit,
quidquid nunc amat invicem
bellum continuo gerens,
et quam nunc socia fide
pulchris motibus incitant,
certent solvere machinam.
[Love binds this series of things,
ruling the lands and the sea,
commanding from the heavens.
If love released the reins,
all things that now love mutually,
suddenly waging war,
this fabric of things which
now with mutual trust
they drive in lovely motions,
they would strive to dissolve.]
The chain of love, with the closely associated “great chain of being,” is implicit even in Hell, in the notion of its concentric circles (cf. those of the planets) and in that of descent by degrees.
40–45. One can turn … where he should be happy: The squanderers punished here are clearly to be distinguished from the spendthrifts of Canto 7 as being expressly self-destructive rather than simply uncontrolled (see lines 72, 82—84). Line 45 would seem to refer to the squanderers rather than the suicides.
46–51. One can use force … in his heart: “Sodom” refers to sodomy; “Cahors,” from a city in southern France noted for its moneylenders, refers to usury. The idea that blasphemy, sodomy, and usury offend God more than murder derives partly from the ordering of persons noted in lines 31—33, but it rests also on a notable shift in the meaning of the term violence as applied to these sins, and in the relation between possessor and things possessed. Perhaps in no other aspect of the Inferno is the distance so pronounced between Dante’s medieval conceptions, on the one hand, and, on the other, modern or even Greek (Aristotelian) ones. The Christian condemnation of homosexuality as against nature stems largely from Saint Paul (Rom. 1.26–27), but of course goes back to the Old Testament (see the note to 14.8–39). For associating sodomy and usury with violence against God, see Aquinas, Summa theol. 2a 2ae, q. 154, a. 12: “in sins against nature, in which the very order of nature is violated, an injury is done to God himself, who sets nature in order.”
Identification of the sin of Sodom has generated much discussion. A number of critics have argued that Dante is condemning other sins under this name; the most prominent are Pezard (1950), for whom the sin is preferring a foreign language to one’s mother tongue, and Kay (1978b), who offers a great wealth of material on the complexity of the idea of Sodom for the Middle Ages, arguing that here the sin is opposition to the Holy Roman Empire. The traditional, and the majority view, which we share, is that “Sodom” here refers to homosexuality. See Additional Notes 4 and 5.
49–50. stamps with its seal: For the metaphor, probably one of coining, see the note to lines 55–56.
51. scorn of God in his heart: Ps. 13.1, 52.1: “The fool says in his heart: there is no God.”
52–66. Fraud … eternally consumed: Fraud against God would be impossible, given his omniscience; only fraud against others is explicitly classified, and it is again divided according to the persons injured: those who have a special reason to trust their deceiver (treacherous fraud), and those who do not (simple fraud). For the metaphor of coin for trust, see next note.
55–56. This latter mode . .. that Nature makes: That is, simple fraud does not violate a bond of special trust between individuals, but only the natural bond of love between human beings. It is on this bond that the possibility of civil society rests, and therefore even simple fraud weakens society itself, as implied by Dante’s term incida (“cuts into,” not “severs”). Compare Aquinas, Summa theol. 2a 2ae, q. 109, a. 3: “One must say that because man is a social animal, by nature each man owes to the other that without which human society cannot be preserved. For men cannot associate with each other unless they believe they are telling each other the truth.” In this light the coin metaphor of line 54 itself raises the issue of the social significance of fraud. The perversity of the city of Dis as a city is subjected to particularly detailed analysis in the Malebolge (see next note).
57–60. in the second circle … and similar filth: The Malebolge [Evil pouches], described in Cantos 18—30, is the second of the three lower circles mentioned in line 17, subdivided into ten concentric ditches or “pouches.” Virgil is far from exhaustive and names occupants of only eight of the ten “pouches.”
57. find their nest: Nesting animals include both vermin and reptiles; Dante refers to Florence as a “nest of so much malice” in 15.78.
61–66. The former mode … eternally consumed: “The former mode” refers to lines 53—54 and is correlated with “this latter mode” of line 55. Thus “the smallest,” the third circle, Cocytus (accented on the second syllable), punishes those who, forgetting both the natural bond among men and also the particular bonds of love that join them to individuals, deceive persons who have reason to trust them. The additive principle (traitors break both bonds, the general and the special) also holds, in the lowest reaches of Hell, for the relation of violence and fraud: Dante’s traitors are all, directly or indirectly, murderers.
64–65. the point of the universe: In Dante’s cosmos, this is the deepest point, where the weight of the entire universe impinges.
70–75. those of the greasy swamp .. . treated so: The pilgrim lists, but not in order, the sinners of Cantos 5—8. These, Virgil will explain, are the sins of incontinence; Dante associates them with material elements (swamp, wind, rain, and stone, or earth). This was traditional: the different personality types were explained by the predominance of one or another humor in the body, and the humors (phlegm, blood, bile, and black bile) were associated with the four elements and the four qualities (wet, dry, hot, and cold). (See also Vergil, Aen. 6.730—43, on the infection of the body and the cycle of reincarnation.) If we accept Russo’s (1967) explanation of the sins punished in the Styx (see the note to 7.123), it is easy to see why a number of the early commentators considered that all seven deadly vices (seen as passions to which the sinners gave way) are punished in the circles of incontinence.
76–90. Why does your wit … less wrathfully: Virgil explains that those outside the city sinned by incontinence rather than “malice” or “mad bestiality.” For the concept see Aquinas, In Ethica Nichomachea 7.8 (1151al2–13): “whereas the incontinent still judges rightly about what he should do or avoid, and only his passions are astray, in the intemperate man reason itself is perverted: he approves of his corrupt desires.” Virgil introduces here the Aristotelian concept of disposition, the habit or inner inclination toward bad (or good) actions, acquired through repetition. The earlier discussion (lines 22—24) classified sins according to the intention (“the goal,” line 23) of acting unjustly, the mode or means, and the direct result. Now the emphasis shifts to include the habitual state of the sinner, whether expressed in his sin or the result of his sin.
76. wander: Boccaccio explains that Dante’s verb for “wander” here, delirare, means literally “to depart from the furrow that is being plowed.”
80. your Ethics: Aristotle’s Nichomachean Ethics, which the pilgrim has evidently studied.
81–83. the three dispositions … mad bestiality: “Bestiality” is a new term in Virgil’s discussion, and there has been disagreement about its reference. Most critics take it to refer to the circle of violence, especially to those violent against others; support for this view is offered by the frequency of references in Canto 12 to the bestiality of anger. But this seems inconsistent with lines 22—24: would the tendency to violence be distinct from malice? Others (led by Mazzoni 1953, 1986) point out that Virgil’s words draw on a passage in the Nichomachean Ethics, where Aristotle (who of course says nothing about God’s displeasure with sin) distinguishes three “moral states to be avoided … vice [somewhat inaccurately translated in the Middle Ages as malitia], incontinence, brutishness.” By “brutishness,” as a later chapter (1148b15–1150a8) makes somewhat clearer, Aristotle means the extremes of cruelty “beyond the limits of vice [that is, the customary vices of civilized Greeks]” (1149al); most of his examples of “brutishness” involve cannibalism. Since cannibalism is an explicit feature of Cocytus, this view argues that in these lines “incontinence” refers to the sins punished outside the city, “malice” to all sins punished within the city (violence and both types of fraud), and “mad bestiality” only to the sin of Cocytus (treacherous fraud). Both views involve overlapping categories.
87. penitence: Not of course in any profitable sense; the term here means “undergoing of punishment” (Latin poenitentia, from poena, punishment).
91–96. O sun … untie that knot: The pilgrim’s second question asks why usury is condemned. He does not question the condemnation of sodomy or ask to have it explained (a fact that supports the majority view); for the analogy between usury and sodomy, see the note to lines 110–11.
96. untie that knot: Treating a problem as a knot is traditional. There may also be a hint here of usurious debt as a bond, the opposite of the “bond of nature” that usury offends.
97–111. Philosophy … in something else: Virgil explains that usurers evade God’s decree (Gen. 3.17–19): “In the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread” (Luke 6.35 was another important text often cited against charging interest on loans). Nature (in the Middle Ages the term usually refers to the influence of the heavenly bodies) is God’s art (cf. Monarchia 1.3.2) because it carries out his creative plan and fashions the sublunar. Nature is thus analogous to a human craftsman (the analogy is spelled out in Par. 2.112–32) and the model for all human making (Aristotle, Physics 2.2: “art follows nature insofar as it can”). “Your art” is thus metaphorically the child of Nature, the child of God. “Philosophy” here, as in 6.106, refers to the current Aristotelianism, for which the concept of a beneficent—and “reasonable”—Nature was crucial. For further discussion of these concepts, see Monarchia 2.2.3.
106. From these two: That is, from Nature and industry (art).
110–11. he scorns Nature … in her follower: The usurer scorns both Nature and art. The third circle of violence, then, holds those who scorn God directly (the blasphemers), those who scorn Nature directly and thus God indirectly (the homosexuals), and those who scorn Nature indirectly and God doubly indirectly (the usurers). Like the usurers, the sodomites evade a divine commandment, to “be fruitful and multiply” (Gen. 1.22), not dissimilar, in Dante’s view, from the injunction to productive work. In the traditional Greek terminology for interest paid to moneylenders, it was called tokos [offspring]; Aristotle considered it unnatural that coin should breed or beget money (Politics 1.10.1258b); cf. Aquinas’s commentary: “thus a kind of birth occurs when money grows from money. For this reason this acquisition of money is especially contrary to Nature.”
112–114. the Fishes … the northwest wind: It is April, and the sun is in Aries: if the Fish, which form the preceding constellation, are just rising, and the Wain, or Big Dipper, is in the direction of the northwest wind (Corus), then it is a few hours before sunrise, about 4:00 A.M. As in the case of Canto 7, Virgil’s concluding his discourse with an indication of time according to the positions of the stars suggests his “inner eye” is fixed on the circlings of the heavens, the model of rationality and order.