1–6. One and the same … good reward: Compare the opening of Canto 24, on a change in Virgil’s attitude toward the pilgrim.
1–3. One and the same tongue …the medicine to me: Virgil functions like conscience, reproaching (“stung”) but also limiting the self-criticism (offering “medicine”): see Deut. 32.39: “I will strike, and I will heal”; and Tobit 13.2: “For thou scourgest and thou savest: thou leadest down to hell, and bringest up again.”
4–6. the spear of Achilles and his father … good reward: Dante is alluding to Ovid’s Art of Love (4.43–48):
Discite sanari, per quem didicistis amare,
una manus vobis vulnus opemque feret:
vulnus in Herculeo quae quondam fecerat hoste
vulneris auxilium Pelias hasta tulit.
[Learn to be cured from the same who taught you to love,
one hand will bring you both wound and remedy:
having once wounded the enemy, the son of Hercules (Telephus),
the Pelian spear brought help for the wound.]
According to the myth, only Achilles’ spear could heal a wound it had inflicted. The troubadors and later medieval poets understood Pelias as a reference to Peleus, Achilles’ father, rather than to Mount Pelion. The first of a series of epic references in the canto.
7–11. turned our backs … my sight did not pierce far ahead: The wayfarers enter what seems a large plain, which, according to 30.86–87, must be something less than three miles in diameter.
10. less than night and less than day: Twilight; for possible meanings of this time of day, see the note to 34.5.
14–15. drew my eyes … following its path backward: The pilgrim’s curious backward following of the sound of the horn perhaps echoes the Song of Roland (lines 1765–67), when the sound of Roland’s tardy horn blasts finally reaches the main army, recalling them: “The hom could be heard far away: Charles heard it, going through the passes … so did the Franks hear it.”
16–18. After the dolorous rout … his horn so terribly: According to the Song of Roland, when Charlemagne’s rear guard, led by Roland (Orlando) and Oliver, is ambushed in the pass of Roncesvalles, Roland delays signaling for help until too late to save his companions, who are slaughtered to a man (see 32.122 and note). The deaths of Roland, Oliver, Turpin, and others signal the end of “the holy company,” the peers or paladins of France, as in line 1735: “Oi nus defalt la leial cumpaignie” [Today we lose the loyal company] (see line 71 and note).
20–21. many high towers … what city is this: The appearance of a city recalls the approach to the city of Dis; compare 9.67–72. Dante’s word for “city” here (terra) also means “earth” (see also the notes to lines 31–43, 120–21).
22–26. Because your sight traverses … deceived by distance: Dronke (1986) found an interesting parallel in the famous treatise on optics by Witelo (thirteenth century), who gives the example of a tower seen through “murky air” in twilight, as a classic instance of visual misjudgment (see Purg. 29.47–53).
31–44. not towers … the horrible giants: The pilgrim’s error transforms the giants into the towers of a city, and this error informs the simile in line 40. Note that “towered” in line 43 may also be taken transitively, meaning that the giants crown the bank with towers and thus are towers. Allegorically, both giants and towers traditionally stand for pride: see Wisdom 14.6: “from the beginning … when the proud giants perished,” and Augustine, City of God 16.3: “Therefore he [Nimrod] with his people began to erect a tower against the Lord, by which his impious pride was signified.” See also lines 107, 121, and Additional Note 14.
32. in the pit … from the navel downward: Note the parallelism of the giants with Farinata, exposed “from the waist upward” (cf. King Lear 4.6.125– 26: “But to the girdle do the gods inherit,/ Beneath is all the fiend’s”). For this division of the body, see 17.19–24, 32.34, with notes, and Additional Note 2.
40–41. above its circling walls … towers: The small fortress of Montereg-gione stands on a low hill eight miles northwest of Siena; fourteen towers, reduced in height since Dante’s day, still surmount the walls (Figure 7). The walls and towers were built after 1260, when the Sienese defeated the Florentine Guelfs at Montaperti; when the emperor Henry VII marched toward Florence in 1312, Montereggione harassed his movements.
Nearly circular, with towers evenly spaced, Montereggione is compared to the last redoubt of Hell, imagined as a city, Dis (8.68), with outer walls (Cantos 8 and 9), defensive ditches (Malebolge) around the central fortress (the pit of Cocytus with its giant-towers), and Satan at the lowest point of the central pit (the “tower”), all upside-down (see 18.10–18 and 34.6–7, with notes).
Figure 7. The walls of Montereggione.
44. Jove still threatens … when he thunders: A reference to the classical war of the giants against the gods, when the giants attacked Olympus (see the note to lines 94–95). Jupiter’s name of the “thunderer” (tonans) had been a standard epithet for the Christian God in Christian Latin poetry from the time of Prudentius (fourth century) (see 14.52–60 and note, also line 92).
49–51. Nature … such instruments: Dante takes the size of the giants to be historical, on the basis of Gen. 6.4:
Now giants were upon the earth in those days. For after the sons of God went in to the daughters of men, and they brought forth children, these are the mighty men of old, men of renown.
This verse was the basis of the traditional euhemeristic interpretation (see Baruch 3.26–28). The giants no longer exist because Nature, God’s minister, stopped fashioning them, depriving Mars of such essecutori [literally, executors].
55. where sharpness of mind … evil will and power: See Aristotle, Politics 1.1.1253a: “just as man is the best of the animals if perfected in virtue, so, if he is separated from law and justice, he is the worst of all, for he owns the weapons of reason.” The combination of malice, destructive violence, and misused intelligence is an argument for the last portion of Hell being the zone of “mad brutishness” (see 11.82–83, with notes).
59. the pine cone of Saint Peter: The bronze pine cone, now about thirteen feet high, may once have stood near the Campus Martius in Rome (in Saint Peter’s in Dante’s time, it is now in the Belvedere Gardens).
60. to that proportion were his other bones: Reckoning the size of giants from their “remains” was a traditional puzzle; Augustine reports finding a human tooth 100 times normal size (City of God 15.9). Dante’s recourse to subjective factors in measurement (cf. “seemed as long and broad”) make calibrations pointless; the numerous stated measurements in lower Hell (the size of Hell itself, of the individual bolge, of the giants, of Satan) are not consistent (Gilbert 1945; Kleiner 1989; Kirkham 1990). The giants’ disproportion here may itself be a judgment: they are out of scale, like the pine cone Dante uses to measure them: see Aristode (Ethics 5.3.1131M6): “the just is the proportional, the unjust is what violates the proportion.” See also lines 64, 83, 84, and 113.
61. his apron from the waist down: Dante’s metaphor uses the biblical word, perizoma [apron], for the fig leaves that Adam and Eve used after the Fall to conceal their sexual parts (Gen. 3.7). Along with pride, the giants embody a rebellious sexuality. Gen. 6.4 was sometimes taken to mean that the rebel angels mated with women to produce giants; in Vergil (Aen. 6.580) the giants are the spawn of earth (Titania pubes: the “young,” but also the “genitals,” of Earth); the crime of the giant Tityos was his attempt to rape Latona, the mother of Apollo and Diana (Servius on Aen. 6.595), while for Fulgentius and the mythographic tradition, Antaeus signifies the rebellious sexual libido, because of his contact with the earth (Rabuse 1961).
64. three Frisians … thirty great spans: Dante relied on encyclopedia accounts of Frisians as “a people of strength, tall of body, of fierce and harsh spirit” (cf. Terlingen 1965).
66. where the mantle is clasped: Perhaps a reference to giants as “great and mighty men”; only the rich wore cloaks.
67–81. Raphel… unknown: The first giant named is Nimrod (Nembrotto), king of Babylon (Gen. 10.9–10). Dante based the idea that Nimrod was a giant, God’s adversary, and the builder of the Tower of Babel (Gen. 11.1–9), on Augustine’s Ciiy of God (16.3–5), which followed the Old Latin translation of the Greek Septuagint version: “Nebroth … began to be a giant on the earth.” In the same passage, Augustine understood the Greek to mean “against the Lord.”
Dante’s version of the confusion of tongues (Gen. 11.7–9) in the De vulgari eloquentia (1.7.7) is unusual:
For community of language remained only of those engaged in the same activity; for instance, all architects had the same language, all those rolling stones had the same language, all those preparing stones had the same language… . However many were the varieties of activity directed to the work, by the same number of languages the human race is divided; and the more highly placed their activity, the more rudely and barbarously they now speak.
This is the logic by which Nimrod, king and director of the entire undertaking, is left entirely alone, with a language no one but he understands.
67. Raphel mat amecche zabi almi: Attempts to decipher Nimrod’s babble (Guerri 1909; Lemay 1963) have not persuaded. As Plutus’s language (cf. 7.1) seems a hash of Greek, Nimrod’s language sounds Semitic. Dronke (1986) points to the tradition of invented languages, used largely for comic effect in Church plays at Twelfth Night and Easter.
69. no gentler psalms befitted it: As the book of Psalms was taken as a model for “the unity of a well-ordered city bound by concordant variety” (Augustine, City of God 17.14), there is an implicit contrast with Babel (see the note to lines
70, 74. Foolish soul, befuddled soul: On the Earthly City (Hell), see City of God 16.4: “This city, which is called confusion, is that very Babylon … for Babylon, interpreted, means confusion.”
71. be content with your horn … touches you: Nimrod’s expression is of passion, not intellect. This is perhaps a final glance at Roland, whose pride kept him from sounding the horn; see Song of Roland, line 1171: “you did not deign to sound your horn.” Throughout the canto, Dante interweaves the giants with heroes of epic (Achilles, Roland, Scipio, and Hercules), “great and strong men.” Achilles and Hercules are classical (often allegorized); Scipio and Roland, historical (Scipio a Roman hero, Roland a Christian one).
76. evil thought: See Gen. 11.4, words attributed by Augustine to Nimrod: “Come, let us make a city and a tower, the top whereof may reach to heaven: and let us make our name famous before we be scattered abroad into all lands.”
79–81. not waste speech … unknown: Nimrod can neither understand nor be understood by anyone (see the note to lines 67–81). The juxtaposition of the confusion of Babel and the “speaking in tongues” of Pentecost was a commonplace of medieval biblical exegetes (cf. Bararisky 1989; see the note to line 69).
85. Who was the master to bind him: Dante’s reflection evokes passages like Job 39.10: “canst thou bind the rhinoceros … ,” and 40.20–21; the “master” is presumably God (see 15.12), perhaps the archangel Michael.
86. one arm was held … behind him: The focus on the arm follows Vergil (see Aen. 6.583–84, quoted in the note to lines 94–95); compare Job 38.15: “the high arm shall be broken.”
91. This proud one … against highest Jove: This links the giants with Lucifer’s attempt to rise above his creator (see 7.12 and 34.35, with notes) (see the note to lines 94–95).
94–95. Ephialtes … the gods afraid: The second giant the pilgrim sees is Ephialtes: he and his brother were sent by their father Neptune to pile Mount Ossa and Mount Pelion (in Macedonia) on top of each other in order to reach Mount Olympus and displace the gods (Aen. 6.583–84): “qui manibus magnum rescindere caelum/ adgressi superisque Iovem detrudere regnis” [who with their hands tried to destroy great Heaven, and to thrust Jove down from his high realm].
On the gods’ fear of the giants, see the notes to 14.52–60 and 31.120–21.
98. immense Briareus: See Statius, Theb. 2.596: “immensus … Briareus.” Virgil’s words (lines 103–5) indicate that Briareus is not hundred-handed (see Aen. 10.565–66), but merely huge.
100–101. Antaeus .. . who speaks and is unbound: This third giant was not among those who attacked the gods (see the note to lines 94–95), which perhaps explains his not being bound. Dante read in Lucan (Pharsalia 4.593–660) how Antaeus devastated crops, men, and beasts in the valley of Zama, in North Africa, until Hercules arrived to challenge him: in order to conquer, Hercules had to keep Antaeus from contact with his mother, Earth, who strengthened him: so Hercules held him aloft in his arms and crushed him (see line 132).
107. shake a tower: A giant compared to a tower again (see the notes to lines 31–44, 136–38).
108. Ephialtes suddenly shook himself: Confirming Virgil’s judgment on his ferocity, Ephialtes produces a metaphorical earthquake: ancient mythology attributed earthquakes and volcanic eruptions to giants, bound in Tartarus or under Mount Aetna after their defeat (cf. lines 91–95). The giants have so far in this canto received historical (they truly existed), euhemerist (they signify powerful, violent men), and physical explanations (they signify earthquakes).
109. I feared death: See 1.7 and 34.25, with notes.
115–29. O you … before his time: Virgil’s speech to Antaeus, who does not speak (though in line 101 he is said to be able to do so), is an aretalogy or enumeration of his great deeds, followed by a petition: a formula associated with praying to the gods (Dronke 1986). Virgil uses hyperbole or exaggeration (the thousand lions, mentioned in Pharsalia 4.601–2; the notion that the giants would have won if Antaeus had been present) to flatter Antaeus, then offers praise and fame in return for setting them down in the bottom of Hell.
115–17. the fortunate valley … turned tail: Zama, in North Africa, where Publius Cornelius Scipio defeated Hannibal and broke the power of Carthage, establishing Roman control of the Mediterranean. Zama is “fortunate,” and Scipio inherited glory, because of this victory, which conferred on him the title Africanus; like Lucan, Dante sees Scipio’s victory over Carthage as repeating Hercules’ victory over Antaeus and thus inheriting its glory (Rabuse 1961).
120–21. it seems some still believe … victorious: Vergil, with a careful double qualifier (cf. 12.42), alludes to Pharsalia 4.595–97: “caeloque pepercit,/ quod non Phlegraeis Antaeum sustulit arvis” [She (Earth) spared the gods when she did not raise up Antaeus on the field of Phlegra]. For the giants associated with Earth (Italian terra, meaning both “earth” and “city”), see the notes to 20–21, 31–44, 41, and 100–101.
123. where the cold locks in Cocytus: See 32.2–3, 23–24 and 34.52 and 117, with notes. In his Commentarii 1.10, Macrobius notes that Cocytus means “sorrow.” See Additional Note 2.
124. to Tityos or to Typhon: In classical myth, Tityos (see the note to line 61) was stretched out on a plain and bound (his body covered nine acres) while a vulture fed on his liver (cf. Aen. 6.595–97). Typhon was punished for attacking the gods by being buried under Mount Aetna, where his shakings appear as volcanic activity (also called Typhoeus; see Par. 8.70).
129. if grace does not call him before his time: The remark links the pilgrim to Scipio Africanus the Younger, who Cicero’s Somnium Scipionis said would have become the most important man in Rome but that his fate was cut short, for Scipio died under mysterious circumstances in his fifty-sixth year, 129 B.C.; the identification would be exploited by Boccaccio in his biography of Dante. See the association of the pilgrim with the hero Hercules, in the note to line 132.
132. whose powerful grip Hercules once felt: The pilgrim now feels Antaeus’s grip. as Hercules did when wrestling with him: Hercules’ grip was fatal to Antaeus (see the note to lines 100–101). Although unbound, Antaeus must obey the higher law that protects Virgil and the pilgrim.
This is the final reference to Hercules (most are implicit) in the Inferno (see 9.98–99, 12.67–69, 17.97, and 25.31–32, with notes) and the one in which the pilgrim and the hero are most closely identified.
135. he made one bundle of himself and me: Literally, a sheaf or fascis, also the symbol of Roman authority. There are a number of parallels here with the passage on Geryon (17.79–96) and the descent along Satan (34.70–81).
136. As Garisenda appears … it seems to fall: Having begun with the pilgrim’s confusion of the giants with towers, the canto concludes by comparing Antaeus to a leaning tower that appears to fall when a cloud passes behind it (the “tower” does in fact “fall,” in that the giant bends over). The Garisenda tower, built in Bologna in 1110 and still standing, though reduced in height, is 10.6 feet out of the perpendicular at its crest and 160 feet high; the Asinelli tower next to it, 320 feet high, was built in 1109.
Dante supposed that the Garisenda had been built for private warfare; modern opinion is that it was built by the city. But most such towers in the Italian cities were built by the warring clans; in Dante’s day, Bologna bristled with more than 100 of them. By repeatedly associating his giants with towers, Dante makes them symbols both of the pride that scaled Heaven (Satan; the tower of Babel; Pelion on Ossa) and of the resistance to Roman law and authority implicit in the prevalence of private war in northern and central Italy. Cantos 32 and 33, which closely concern civil strife, also involve the tower motif. For the linguistic issue, see Ascoli 1990.
142. the bottom that devours Lucifer with Judas: For the implications of “devour” here, see 34.55–56.
145. like the mast of a ship he raised himself: Compare s‘ergea [he was rising up], of Farinata (10.35). This is the next to last (see 34.48) of the references to ships in lower Hell (cf. 16.134, 17.100, 21.7–15, 22.12, 25.142, 26.100–142, 27.81, and 28.79; cf. 7.13–14). The full-rigged ship (masts, spars, and sails) was often mentioned as a figure of pride (cf. Pluto [7.13–15] and the note to 27.79–81).