1–18. There is in Hell a place … gathers them in: This abrupt abandoning of the point of view of the pilgrim for that of the omniscient author provides a kind of proem to the Malebolge as a whole (Cantos 18–30); we now begin the second half of the Inferno. In Malebolge, Cantos 18–22, 24, 26, 28, and 30 (i.e., nine cantos out of thirteen) have proems emphasizing the craftsmanship of the poet; they contribute strongly to the formal unity of these thirteen cantos. (Cantos 23, 25, 27, and 29—in all but the last case the second of two or more cantos devoted to a single bolgia—continue the narrative without interruption.) This new self-conscious emphasis, which begins at 16.128–29 in connection with the introduction of Geryon, represents a marked change from the cantos preceding Malebolge; it is one of the ways Dante makes the entire poetic texture more elaborate and more intense, as well as keeping before the reader the problematic relation of poetry (fiction, allegory) to fraud.
1. There is in Hell a place … Malebolge: Malebolge means literally “evil pouches” or “sacks.” The Italian word bolgia was borrowed from Old French bulge (from medieval Latin bulga, apparently Celtic in origin), a bulge or what bulges, thus a sack or purse (also in Middle English: see Skelton’s “Bouge of Court”). The implicit comment on the greed that is said to motivate most of the fraudulent is clear enough (see 19.71–72, where the point is made explicit). The metaphor of the sack, especially appropriate to the “belly” of Hell, was used also in 6.49–50 and 7.18. See Additional Note 13.
For the expression luogo e [there is a place], compare Latin est locus, as in the story of Phaethon quoted in the note to 17.27.
2. the color of iron: Dark gray.
5. broad, deep pit: The pit is Cocytus, where traitors are punished.
6. suo loco: Latin for “in its own place”, that is, in Cantos 32–34.
7–9. The belt that remains … ten valleys: The ten valleys containing the ten varieties of “simple” fraud (see 11.52–60) are obviously imagined as concentric circles around the central pit.
10–18. where to guard … and gathers them in: The castle simile, deliberately contorted in syntax, rests on a noteworthy reversal at line 16, for the surrounding cliffis correlated with the centra/keep of a castle, and the central pit with the world surrounding the castle. The point is partly that this depth of Hell is a kind of perverted and inverted fortress, that of Satan, who is at war both with God and with the damned. That the pit “truncates” and “gathers in” the ridges emphasizes the ambiguous futility of the structure.
The imagined diagram of the valleys surrounding the central pit strongly suggests, also, the structure of the web of a spider, the traditional fraudulent hunter; Satan’s position below this metaphorical web corresponds to that of the larger species of spider as discussed in Pliny and the bestiaries (the smaller species sit directly on the web).
22–24. On my right hand … was full: The sinners are on the pilgrim’s right because he and Virgil have turned to the left and are walking along beside the pit. Note the parallel with 6.4–5.
25. At the bottom were the sinners, naked: Gmelin points out the parallel with the frequent medieval experience of looking down into pits where bears and other wild animals were kept.
28–33. as the Romans … toward the mountain: This is the first mention in the poem that 1300 (the year of the pilgrim’s journey to the other world) was proclaimed by Boniface VIII in February to be a Jubilee year (an innovation at the time), according to which special plenary indulgences were granted for daily visiting of the basilicas of San Pietro in Vaticano and San Paolo fuori le Mura (some three miles distant from each other). According to the chronicler Villani, 200,000 pilgrims visited Rome during the Jubilee. Dante is the only writer to mention this invention of barrier-enforced two-way traffic, and his emphasis on ocular testimony is evidence of his having seen it himself.
The bridge is the Ponte degli Angeli [Bridge of the Angels], originally built in A.D. 132, still standing, though integrated with more modern structures and adorned with statues designed by Bernini (seventeenth century); it crosses the Tiber in front of “the castle”, the Castel Sant’Angelo (the emperor Hadrian’s tomb, turned into a fortress by the popes), and in Dante’s time provided the quickest route from the center of Rome to the Vatican. The “mountain” is the Monte Giordano, a small hill opposite the Castel Sant’Angelo. This is the first of many references in Malebolge and Cocytus to Italian cities, usually denouncing them (Bologna is denounced in this canto in lines 58–63); there is a special irony in the parallel between Hell and the Rome of the Jubilee.
35. horned demons with great whips: The first appearance in the poem of the familiar medieval type of devil (see Figure 4), to which the closest approximation so far has been the figure of Minos (Canto 5). Public whipping through the streets was a frequent medieval punishment (see the note to line 72).
42. I am certainly not fasting for sight of him: In other words, I have seen him before. The food metaphor (the first of many in the Malebolge; see Additional Note 13) is picked up in line 51, as well as in the next bolgia.
43. to make out his features: Dante’s term figurarlo [literally, to figure him; cf. French figure, face] connects this act of recognition with the “pattern” (figura) of the Malebolge (line 12).
50. Venedico Caccianemico: A prominent Bolognese Guelf nobleman, who in fact seems to have lived until 1302; he served as podestà of several cities (see the note to 6.96). His first name is derived from Latin benedico [I bless]; his family name means “drive away the enemy.”
51. such pungent sauces: Use of the metaphor of highly seasoned sauce for punishment seems to derive from popular usage (Sapegno); compare line 42, with note. The early commentators also point out the existence of a common grave for executed criminals outside Bologna, called the Salsa. The use of the plural is odd, referring, it would seem, to the repeated whip blows.
52–54. Unwilling … the former world: We begin to find souls unwilling to be recognized and mentioned in the world of the living, in marked contrast to Ciacco (6.88–89), Pier delle Vigne (13.76–78), and others higher in Hell.
53. your clear speech: This seems an odd characterization of the pilgrim’s scornful metaphors; it is sometimes taken to refer to the familiarity he reveals with Bolognese customs and ways of speech (Dante, who in all probability had spent a year or more in Bologna, praises the harmoniousness of the Bolognese dialect in De vulgari eloquentia 1.15.5–7; cf. lines 58–61).
55–57. It was I … the shameful tale: The incident referred to here has left no record in the chroniclers. The early commentators, though disagreeing as to the identity of the marchese (Azzo VIII of Este or Obizzo of Este), agree that Ghisolabella was Venedico’s sister.
57. tale: The Italian novella [news] becomes the name of an entire literary genre in the wake of Boccaccio’s Decameron (which, incidentally, singles out Bolognese flattery for satire, 7.7).
58–63. And not only I … our greedy breast: See the note to lines 28–33.
61. to say sipa now between the Savena and the Reno: Sipa is Bolognese dialect for “yes.” The Savena and the Reno are rivers in and near Bologna.
66. here there are no females to coin: The pimps are identified as ones who turn women into coins; see the note to 11.110–11, on the generative terminology applied to usury. The first sin of fraud is metaphorically connected with the last sin of violence, usury.
70–79. we climbed … we looked down: This canto exemplifies what will be a frequent alternation between viewing the Malebolge from the bank parallel to the ditch and from the bridge crossing over it. In only two cases (in Cantos 19 and 23) do the poets actually descend into the bolge.
72. those eternal circlings: The Italian is cerchie (not cerchi [circles]): the feminine implies a concrete instance; the use of the term cerchia for public whipping is attested in medieval Tuscany.
73. gapes: Dante had already used the word vaneggia in line 5.
83–96. Jason: Dante knew the story ofjason from Ovid’s Met. 7.1—424, Heroides 6, and Statius’s Theb. 5.29–485.
85. how regal is his bearing still: The descriptive touches on Jason’s noble appearance (line 83) and bearing may have been suggested by Met. 7.43–45, on the appeal for Medea of Jason’s beauty and nobility. Jason was the son of Aeson, exiled king of Iolcos.
87. robbed the Colchians of the ram: Having sailed to Colchis, at the eastern end of the Black Sea, in the ship Argo, Jason won the Golden Fleece (the fleece of the ram that had carried Phryxus and Helle to Colchis; the ram was made the constellation Aries) with the help of Medea, daughter of the king, whom he carried off. Dante refers to this exploit repeatedly in the Paradiso (see Par. 2.16–18, 25.7, 33.94–96, with notes).
88–94. He visited … pregnant and alone: Made revolting to their husbands by Venus because of their failure to sacrifice to her, the women of Lemnos resolve to kill all their men. Only Hypsipyle, young daughter of the king, secretly spares her father’s life and enables him to flee. When the Argonauts, on the way to Colchis, are forced by bad weather to stay for two years on Lemnos, the women take them as husbands. According to both Ovid and Statius, Hypsipyle and Jason were ritually married. According to Heroides 6.61—62, Hypsipyle is pregnant when Jason leaves; according to Statius, she gives birth before he does so. Hypsipyle is referred to in Purg. 22.112 and 26.95.
91. elaborate words: Literally, “ornate.” Note the parallel emphasis on rhetorical ornamentation (and closely parallel phrasing) in Beatrice’s words to Virgil in 2.67–69 (Mazzotta 1979).
96. also for Medea vengeance is taken: After begetting two children by Medea, Jason abandoned her to marry Glauce, daughter of the king of Corinth; on the wedding day Medea murdered the bride and both her own children in Jason’s presence.
97. deceive: The third use of the verb ingannare (cf. lines 92 and 93).
103–36. From there … be sated: While the punishment of whipping for the pimps and seducers has no obvious metaphorical relevance to their sin (though perhaps it alludes to their urgings of their victims), that of the flatterers is clearly appropriate. It is the worthlessness of the flatteries themselves that is represented by the excrement, in a substitution of lower for upper products of the body; such inversions will be frequent in the Malebolge. Dante outdoes himself in the expression of scorn and the vivid evocation of sensory disgust.
106. encrusted with a mold: See also the notes on lines 117 and 126. Emphasis on viscous or oily substances that coat the sinners’ bodies will be frequent in the Malebolge. See Additional Note 13.
117. whether he was lay or clerk: That is, whether a portion of his head had been shaved in the clerical tonsure; the clear implication is that both clerics and laymen are present.
118. hungry: Another food metaphor.
122. Alessio Interminei: There seems to be a play on the idea of endlessness in the shade’s surname; the name Alessio derives from a Greek verb meaning “to protect.”
126. with which my tongue was never cloyed: The Italian adjective stucco/a is itself a metaphor for stickiness derived from the noun stucco [plaster].
133–35. that is Thaiïs … Marvelous favor indeed: Thaïs is a character in Terence’s play Eunuchus; Dante is quoting one scene, which in all probability he read of in Cicero’s De amicitia, where her reported reply is cited as an example of the exaggeration typical of flatterers, or in John of Salisbury’s Policraticus (twelfth century), where flattery is identified as a species of fraud (Pezard 1948, Gmelin). It is noteworthy that the only prostitute we find in Dante’s Hell is damned for flattery, not prostitution, whereas the panders—those who induce women to have sex for money and profit from it—are legion. For the women in Hell, see the note to 30.37–41.
136. sated: As if by food.