1–3. Already … the rumbling that beehives make: The noise of the great cataract between the circle of violence and the Malebolge is mentioned also in 16.91–105 and 17.118–20, dominating these two transitional cantos. After the arrival at the bottom, it is not mentioned again. The comparison of the sound to that of beehives indicates that it is softened by distance; Dante may have expected his readers to remember the high status granted to beehives as exemplars of industrious commonwealths (Aen. 1.430–36; cf. Georgics 4.149–250). The food-poison antithesis (related to the bee-spider antithesis) will be prominent in the Malebolge, to which the cataract descends.
4–5. three shades … out of a herd: On the different groups identified here and in Canto 15, see Additional Note 5.
8. by your clothes: Just as Farinata recognized the pilgrim as Florentine by his speech, so these three do so by his characteristic Florentine garb (cf. 15.23—24 and 40).
9. our depraved city: Such expressions describing Florence are beginning to be taken for granted.
12. It still pains me … remember: Another instance of the poet’s reliving the terrors and sorrows of the journey.
14–18. Now wait … you than them: Virgil emphasizes the need for courtesy, a central element in the encounter. It is quite striking that Virgil ranks the living—and elect—pilgrim below the three Florentine sodomites, at least in the protocol of courtesy; see Additional Note 5.
19–21. they began again … all three: Their “former verse” is probably a reference to the weeping mentioned in 14.20, which was interrupted by their shouting; for the cries of the damned as song or poetry, compare 5.46 “lays,” 7.34 “meter,” 7.125 “hymn” (and see line 128). The wheel the shades now form is a kind of dance (cf. 14.40–42, with note).
21–27. they made a wheel of themselves … contrary to their feet: In other words, as the three wheel in their circle and their feet take them away from Dante, their heads turn back in order to keep him in view (each describes two circles: one with his steps, the other with his head). As the early commentators point out, the comparison with wrestlers (the Italian campioni means “champions”) includes implicit reference to the athletes of ancient Greece and Rome (as in Aen. 5.421–31 or Theb. 6.847—51); according to Lana, in Tuscany trial by combat in minor cases could involve naked wrestling instead of armed combat. In addition to the implicit homosexual reference, there is probably also a comment here on the disparity of their high courtesy and concern for the public good (the path of their heads) coexisting with their homosexual conduct (the path of their feet); Brunetto Latini exhibits the same paradox.
32–33. step with your living feet: Dante’s Italian is i vivi piedi freghi [literally, rub your living feet]; the pain of setting foot on the burning sands is implied.
34–45. This man … more than anything else: All three of these famous Florentines of the last century are mentioned as “worthy” and as having “turned their wits to doing well” in the pilgrim’s questioning of Ciacco in 6.79—81.
38. Guido Guerra: Grandson of Gualdrada di Bellincion Berti de’ Ravignani (a distant kinswoman of Dante’s, wife of Count Guido the Elder, regarded by her contemporaries as a paragon of domestic virtue), Guido Guerra (1220–1272), as one of the Conti Guidi, was a member of one of the most powerful noble families of Tuscany. He was one of the chief leaders of the Tuscan Guelfs (cf. “with wisdom”) and distinguished himself (cf. “with the sword”) at the Battle of Benevento (1266).
41. Tegghiaio Aldobrandi: Another high-ranking nobleman of Guelf persuasion (dead by 1266), who attempted to dissuade the Florentines from marching against the Sienese in what became the Battle of Montaperti.
43. placed on the cross: That is, paying the penalty for sin; this is one of many indications in the Inferno that the punishments of the damned are distorted reflections of the Crucifixion.
44. Iacopo Rusticucci: Apparently a member of the lesser nobility, flourished around 1235 to 1254, still alive in 1266. Early commentators say that the hostility between him and his wife caused them to live apart and turned him against women in general.
46–51. If I had been protected … greedy to embrace them: On Dante’s “greediness,” see Additional Note 5.
59. your works and your honored names: As Guelfs and as public benefactors. Note the contrast between the hostile initial interchange with Farinata, a Ghibelline, in Canto 10, and the concern for fame of all these shades.
67–68. tell if courtesy and valor dwell in our city: These are central aristocratic virtues for Dante. Compare the similar concerns voiced in Purg. 8.121—32 and 14.91—126. For Dante’s idyllic view of earlier Florence, see Paradiso 15–16.
70. Guiglielmo Borsiere: The exact identity of this individual, who must have died shortly before the date of the journey, is uncertain; his being mentioned in this context and the fact that Rusticucci associates him with himself and the others as concerned for the aristocratic virtues suggests that he, too, is a nobleman. His surname means “purse-holder.” Boccaccio makes him an exemplar of courtesy and liberality in Decameron 1.8.
73–75. The new people … weep for it: This ascription of the causes of the current troubles in Florence is consistent with others in the poem, most notably that offered by the pilgrim’s ancestor, Cacciaguida, in Paradiso 15–16. To some extent it is already implied in Ciacco’s image of Florence as a bag (6.49—50).
76. So I cried with face uplifted: The pilgrim lifts his face in the direction of Florence, on the surface of the earth, and addresses the city directly. This is a striking instance of his gradual assumption of the role of a prophet, like a biblical one, directly addressing his contemporaries, especially his fellow Florentines, though several other cities are apostrophized, as well as Italy as a whole and numerous individuals. This gradually assumed prophetic role is represented as leading directly to the writing of the poem. See also 19.88–123, 25.10–15, 26.1—12, and 33.79–90, Purg. 6.76–151, and Par. 17.106–42.
82–84. if you escape … to say, ‘I was,’: The last phrase echoes the famous line in Aen. 1.203 quoted in the note to 5.121. “Go back to see the beautiful stars” is a striking anticipation of the last line of the Inferno.
92–105. the sound of the water … would have harmed our ears: The increased loudness of the cataract is a measure of the distance Virgil and the pilgrim have walked since the opening of the canto. The steep cliff that bounds the inner edge of the circle of violence is, with the Styx (Canto 8), the second major division of Hell; its crossing is emphasized by covering two entire cantos (Cantos 16 and 17).
94–102. Like that river … descends by a thousand: Monte Viso (or Monviso) is at the northwestern limit of the Apennines. Following the Apennines east from there (and necessarily facing south), the first river flowing down the left (i.e., the east) side of the range that had its own path (i.e., was not a tributary of the river Po) was in Dante’s time the Montone. Dante thought of the Acquacheta (the name means “quiet water”) as the upper Montone; it is now considered a tributary of the Montone. When in spate, the Acquacheta falls in a single cataract at San Benedetto delle Alpi (see the map of Romagna and Tuscany, p. xiv). There is a variant at line 102, discussed in “Textual Variants.”
105. it would have harmed our ears: Dante is thinking here (as at line 2) of the din of the famous cataracts of the Nile, which according to Cicero make the inhabitants of the region deaf (Somnium Scipionis 5.3). Macrobius (Commentarii 2.4.14) compares their sound (negatively) to the music of the spheres.
106–14. I had a cord girding me … threw it down: This cord represents one of the most famous cruxes in the poem, for which a vast number of symbolic interpretations have been proposed (they include, among others, self-reliance, law, temperance, chastity, “the bond of love that Nature makes,” justice, pity, lust, and pride). One whole family of interpretation rests on the identification of the leopard of Canto 1 with lust; this, though defended by such scholars as Nardi (1966), seems to us excluded by the clear connection this passage establishes between the leopard and fraud (compare the leopard’s spotted hide with that of Geryon in Canto 17). In the pilgrim’s encounter with the leopard (1.31—39), there is no mention of the belt nor of the intention of capturing the beast, though the pilgrim takes “good hope” of it; and the pilgrim’s giving up his belt here seems to have no consequences other than attracting Geryon; there is no further reference to it, except perhaps for the pilgrim’s girding himself with a rush (apparently signifying humility) in Purgatorio 1 (this connection would supply support for the view that the throwing of the cord is a symbolic giving up of self-reliance: but that does not make it specific to entering the Malebolge).
The most satisfactory explanation seems to us to be that of the early commentators, who understood the pilgrim’s cord to represent fraud, in other words the pilgrim’s own inclination to fraud (or history of it); it attracts Geryon, who hopes to entrap him. The knotted cord would seem to reflect the iconography of personified Dialectic, who holds one signifying her ability to bind men’s minds (Masciandaro 1979); thus the cord would be part of the important theme of the relation to fraud of Dante’s poetry itself (see Ferrucci 1971 and the notes on Geryon in Canto 17).
112. And he turned … and … threw it: That is, Virgil wheels on his right side in preparation for the throw (he is evidently right-handed).
118–20. Ah, how cautious … our inner thoughts: Preparation for the theme of fraud.
124–26. Always to that truth … it brings shame: In other words, when speaking a truth that seems a falsehood (as opposed to the lie that seems true, the theme of the circles of fraud), one may be blamed for lying without having done so (whereas the fraudulent, if successful, are credited with speaking the truth). That a truth may have the face or appearance of a lie implies, of course, that a truth may also have the face of truth, be obviously true, and be immediately believed; this seems to be the case in lines 76—78: and note the emphasis on the pilgrim’s face in line 76 (the metaphorics of face and belly are discussed in Additional Note 13).
127–29. by the notes of this comedy … long favor: This is the third of the seven apostrophes of the reader in the Inferno (see the note to 8.94—96). Within the fiction, the oath contributes effectively to the mysterious and threatening emergence of the figure of Geryon, but it is important for other reasons as well. It contains the first appearance in the poem of what amounts to its title (the addition of the epithet “divine” became customary in the sixteenth century) (see the note to 21.2).
The “notes” by which the poet swears are, of course, the words of the poem (cf. the note to lines 19—20); it was customary to swear by what one held most dear (plausibly the case for Dante). That the poet swears to what is obviously a fiction has excited comment that has not always been attentive to the nature of the “truth” Dante claims for the figure of Geryon; the relation of the “face of falsehood” here to the true-seeming face of Geryon is discussed also in the notes to 17.10—27; here we may observe that in this oath, and by naming his poem here, close to the center of the Inferno, the poet is both asserting the importance of his analysis of fraud and problematizing the fictional-allegorical mode of the poem. See Additional Note 13.
130–36. I saw … draws in his feet: The vivid description of Geryon’s flight describes it in terms of swimming, as the Florentines’ running was compared to flight (line 87).
132. fearful: The Italian is maravigliosa [causing wonder or alarm]; compare with Brunetto’s exclamation, 15.24.
133–36. as one returns … draws in his feet: A vivid evocation of the motions of a swimmer. It should be remembered that Geryon is swimming/flying up from very deep in Hell, figurally the abyss, or the depths of the sea. Geryon is discussed in the notes to Canto 17.