1–3. Thus … shriek:Limbo is thus identified as the uppermost circle of Hell, although in important respects it is different from all the others. The narrower compass of this second circle is the first indication that Hell is funnel-shaped and that effects of compression and crowding will become increasingly prominent.
4. There stands Minos:According to Greco-Roman tradition, Minos, son of Zeus and Europa and king of Crete, and his brother Rhadamanthus became judges in the underworld (cf. Aen. 6.566–69). Further references to Cretan legend are found in Inferno 12 (the Minotaur, Theseus, and Ariadne) and 14 (the Old Man of Crete), Purgatorio 26 (Pasiphae), and Paradiso 13 (Ariadne) (see the note to 12.12).
6–12. by how he wraps … wills the soul to be sent down:In other words, the number of times Minos’s tail is wrapped about his body indicates the number of circles the soul must descend to find its permanent place. This representation of the overall structure of Hell associates its successively lower levels with the body. (Michelangelo includes a striking Dantean Minos in his Sistine Chapel Last Judgment.)
16. hospice:The use of the term for a monastic guesthouse is bitterly sarcastic.
20. spacious entrance:See Matt. 7.13: “wide is the gate and broad is the way that leadeth unto destruction.”
23. this is willed where … can be done:The second of Virgil’s reproofs of infernal custodians, identical with the first (3.95–96).
25. Now the grief-stricken notes:This first region of Hell proper (but second circle) is marked by the onset of the discordant “music” of Hell, the accumulated dissonances of its grieving souls.
28. all light is silent:That is, where all knowledge ceases (cf. 1.60).
31–33. The infernal whirlwind … tortures them:Like many of the punishments in Dante’s Hell, the whirlwind is a taking literally of a common metaphor, in this case a figure for the power of passion; note the implication of conflicting impulses in line 30. For the theory ofcontrapasso, see the note to 28.142.
34. before the landslide:For this detail, see 12.32 (another canto involving conspicuous references to myths about Crete).
39. who subject their reason to their lust:Note the political metaphors: the sovereign function of reason is usurped by desire. Talento[talent], Dante’s word for “desire” here, originally referred to the unit of weight of silver used in antiquity; see the parable of the talents in Matt. 25.14–30. One’s desire is thus one’s “weight,” one’s dominant inclination (see Augustine, Confessions13.9.10). The metaphor is maintained throughout the canto. Lust (Latin luxuria)was traditionally regarded as the least serious of the seven deadly vices.
40–44. And as their wings … down, up:The first of three bird similes (starlings, cranes, and doves) that track the pilgrim’s shifts of attention; starlings and doves were associated in the medieval bestiaries with lust (Ryan 1976).
43. here, there, down, up:These directions correspond to the four classical “perturbations” of the spirit (love, hate, fear, and joy) (see the note to 10.58 and cf. Cicero, Tusculan Disputations5.6).
46. as the cranes … their lays:Bestiaries familiar to Dante (e.g., the one included in his teacher Brunetto Latini’s Tresor)compare the formations of migrating cranes to knights in battle lines (Ryan 1976). The emergence of the line of noble lovers (and there is a reference to the medieval vogue of stories of adulterous love in Breton lais)suggests that the starlings may represent more plebeian lovers.
54. empress over many languages:Semiramis, widow of King Ninus, legendary founder of Babylon and its empire, hence “over many languages.” “She made licit whatever pleased” (in the Italian, only a single letter distinguishes libitofrom licito,the “pleasing” from the “lawful”), that is, she legalized incest, allegedly because she herself was guilty of it with her son. For these details and for his general knowledge of Semiramis, Dante follows hostile Christian accounts (Augustine’s City of God,Orosius’s Seven Books against the Pagans,and Brunetto’s Tresor).
60. the lands the Sultan governs now:In Dante’s day, Syria, though not Baghdad, was ruled by the Mameluke Sultans of Egypt.
61–62. she who killed herself for love:An echo of Aen.4.552: Dido committed suicide when abandoned by Aeneas (see also 6.450–51); she had previously vowed to be faithful to the memory of her husband Sichaeus. Dante could have known from Macrobius that according to ancient tradition Aeneas and Dido lived several hundred years apart and that Dido was legendary for her chastity. Dido’s story had both charmed and alarmed Christian moralists since at least the time of Augustine (cf. Confessions1.13).
63. lustful Cleopatra:Queen of Egypt, famous for her liaison with Julius Caesar and her marriage with Mark Antony, which led to war between him and
Octavian (later Augustus). As was the custom of the Ptolemies, Cleopatra morganatically married her brother; the theme of incest was introduced with Semiramis.
64. Behold Helen:Helen of Troy, wife of Menelaus, king of Sparta, blamed by Homer and Vergil for the Trojan War (cf. Aen. 2.567- 88; the Roman de Troie 28426–33, etc.).
65–66. great Achilles:Dante conserves the classical epithet (cf. Statius, Achilleid 1.1, “magnanimum” [great-souled]), but the Achilles who fell in love with Polyxena, daughter of Priam, and was thus led to ambush and death was in the foreground in the Middle Ages, thanks to both Latin (Dictys Cretensis, Dares Phrygius) and vernacular {Roman de Troie) versions of the story.
67. Paris, Tristan:Paris, the son of the Trojan king Priam and Helen’s abductor, and a single figure from medieval romance—the final position is telling—round out the list of love’s victims (seven in number, only the last three are men). Tristan’s love affair with Iseult, the wife of his uncle, King Mark, ending with the death of the lovers, was the most famous love story of the Middle Ages. All seven examples involve the subversion of political or military responsibility by adulterous passion.
69. whom Love parted from our life:See Aen. 6.442: “quos durus amor crudeli tabe peredit” [those whom harsh love destroyed with cruel death]; the Sybil is identifying a division of the underworld by its denizens.
71. ancient ladies and knights:Such anachronistic description of classical and ancient figures is frequent in Dante’s time.
72. pity came upon me … almost lost:The pilgrim’s strong reaction of sympathy begins a process that reaches its climax at the end of the canto. His word for “lost” here, smarrito, was used in 1.3 of the straight way.
82–84. As doves … by their will:For the comparison, see Aen. 5.213–17 and 6.190–92, when the doves of Venus guide Aeneas to the golden bough, the key to entering Hades. This is the last of the bird similes, which move toward smaller groups and “nobler” birds and from classical to modem examples (Shoaf [1975] surveys doves in the Comedy).
82–84. called by their desire … borne by their will:Such phrases continue the principle of the whole canto: the wind that drives the soul is the force of desire.
88–108. O gracious and benign … from them to us:Francesca (she is identified in line 116) begins with a courteous salutation meant to capture the
listener’s attention and good will (the captatio benevolentiae of classical rhetoric), and the gracious tone is maintained throughout her carefully organized speeches.
90. stained the world blood-red:Francesca is alluding to Ovid’s tale of Pyramus and Thisbe, residents of Semiramis’s Babylon (see Met. 4.55–166): Pyramus’s blood stains the mulberry first red, then, when it dries, black.
93. our twisted pain:The Latin/Italian pervertere means literally “to turn in an evil direction.”
97–99. The city … with its followers:Francesca was born in Ravenna, where, during the Middle Ages, one of the branches of the Po entered the Adriatic. She uses the language of pursuit to describe the relation between the Po and its tributaries. Her yearning for peace was evident also in lines 91–92.
100–107. Love … extinguished our life:Each of these three terzinas begins with the word Love (anaphora): first of Paolo’s love for Francesca (Love “seized” him), then of her love for him (also a “seizing”–note the contrast between Francesca’s claim that anyone beloved must love in return and Virgil’s parallel but quite different statement in Purg. 22.10–12), and last of its result, death (Love “led” them). In each case it is the personified god of love that is made the agent, rather than the human actors. Note the etymological figure in the central terzina, Amor… amato … amar.
Hardt (1973) observed that of the nineteen instances of the word amor, amore in the Inferno, this canto has the central nine (i.e., five precede Canto 5, five follow it), of which these are the central three.
100. Love, which is swiftly kindled:Francesca echoes the canzone ‘Al cor gentil rempaira sempre amore‘ [To the noble heart love always repairs], by the Bolognese poet Guido Guinizelli (d. 1276?), whom Dante admired and called “the sage” (when quoting the same canzone in Vita nuova 20) and “my father” (Purg. 26.97); he is one of the founders of the “sweet new style” (dolce stil novo) proclaimed by Bonagiunta of Lucca in Purg. 24.57’. For Francesca’s words, see especially “Al cor gentil,” line 11, “Foco d”amor in gentil cor s’aprende/come vertute in petra preziosa“ [The fire of love is kindled in the noble heart / as is the power in a precious stone]. Francesca’s speech is a tissue of allusions to the fashionable poetry of love, including Dante’s own early poems.
106. Love led us on to one death:In the Italian the first word, amor, is included in the last two: una morte.
107. Caina awaits him:“Caina“ is the division of Cocytus—the lowest circle of Hell—assigned to those who murder relatives, named for Cain (Caino).
111. What are you pondering:The translation emphasizes the etymological force of Italian/pensare [to think], from Latinpensum [a weight of flax to be spun], continuing the series of metaphors of weight. Compare the movements of the pilgrim’s head in these lines with those ascribed to the lovers later.
113. sweet thoughts:The expression is almost a technical term in the medieval theory of love deriving from Andreas Capellanus and refers to the obsessive presence of the beloved’s image in the imagination.
116. Francesca:Only here is the identity of this soul revealed; the pilgrim has either recognized her or inferred her identity from her words. It is Francesca da Rimini (her companion, Paolo Malatesta, remains silent), a member of the Polenta family, who ruled Ravenna (her nephew, Guido Novello da Polenta [c. 1270– 1333], would be Dante’s host in Ravenna at the end of his life); she was married around 1275 to Gianciotto [Lame John] Malatesta, second son of the ruler of Rimini (see 27.6–48 and 28.76–90, with notes). According to Dante’s early commentators (the events left no trace in the chronicles), around 1285 Francesca’s husband discovered her with his younger brother Paolo and murdered them both. Baccaccio, tireless in seeking out informants about Dante, spent extended periods in Ravenna in the 1340s and ’50s and dedicated an eclogue to Guido Novello’s successor; in his Esposizio ni he gives a lengthy, melodramatic account of the affair which, though unconfirmed by other sources, may have some basis in fact. Among other things, he asserts that Francesca had fallen in love with Paolo, his brother’s proxy at the betrothal, mistaking him for her intended husband.
119. how did Love:The pilgrim follows Francesca’s rhetoric of attributing agency to “Love” rather than to the human actors.
121. no greater pain:If Francesca is taken at her word, Dante’s visit would involve considerable intensification of her suffering. Despite the apparent nod to Virgil here (“and this your teacher knows”), the commentators cite Boethius, Consolation 2.4.3–6. The idea is a commonplace, however (cf. Augustine, Confessions 10.14), like its converse, the pleasure of recalling past misery once free of it (e.g., Aen. 1.203: “perhaps at some time we will be glad remembering these things”) (see the notes to 6.96 and 10.34).
124. But if you have so much desire:Compare the beginning of Aeneas’s tale of the fall of Troy (Aen. 2.10). Again, Francesca draws on lofty literary models.
127. We were reading:Paolo and Francesca were reading some version of the Book of Lancelot of the Lake, part of a vast early-thirteenth-century prose compilation, the so-called Vulgate Cycle, and specifically the scene where Lancelot, coaxed by his friend and go-between Galehault, confesses his love to Guinevere and the lovers exchange their first kiss (the scene was often illustrated).
130. Many times: Like volta [turning, from volgere], fiata [occasion]–from Old Frenchfiee (or directly from VL *vkata, according to DeVoto & Oli, crossed xvithfiato, breath)–was for Dante a normal word for “occasion.” Whatever the derivation, Dante often seems to associate fiata with ftato; here the association contributes strongly to the tension; cf. 10.48.
130–31. that reading … turned our faces pale: The reading is now made the active agent; note the emphasis on the motions of the head. And see Ovid’s Art of Love 1.573–74.
132. one point alone … overpowered us: See the use of the termpunto in 1.11, 7.32; again, the rhetoric places the agency in something other than the human beings.
133. the yearned-for smile was kissed: The use of the passive again avoids naming the agent. In the surviving Old French Lancelot romances, it is invariably Guinevere who kisses Lancelot, not vice versa; so also in the iconographic tradition. For another reference to this scene, see Par. 16.14–15 (the “first recorded fault of Guinevere”).
135. who will never be separated from me: This line is quoted in one of the six ballate by Guido Novello da Polenta (see note to line 116).
137. Galeotto was the book: Galeotto is the Italian form of Galehault, the name of the knight who, as Lancelot’s friend, arranged the meeting with Guinevere (see the note to line 127). Because of the prominence in it of this character, the second third of the Book of Lancelot of the Lake was commonly called the Galehault. As Francesca’s remark shows, the name had by Dante’s time already become current in Italian as a common noun for “go-between”; compare the English word pander, originally the name of the character in Chaucer’s Troilus and Criseyde.
138. that day we read there no further: If they had finished reading the Vulgate Cycle, they would have read how Lancelot’s and Guinevere’s adultery (with Arthur’s incest) eventually destroys the entire Arthurian world (the blows by which Arthur and his son Mordred kill each other are recalled in 32.61–62), though the lovers themselves repent and die saintly deaths.
141–42. for pity I fainted … falls: Given the emphasis on the motions of the head throughout the canto, it seems likely that the pilgrim falls head first (cf. 6.92–93). The pilgrim’s pity, which will frequently figure in the rest of Hell, is presented as highly questionable. His symbolic death imitates Francesca’s (death-bringing) surrender to passion, just as she and Paolo had imitated the book; like her surrender, it is a response to a text. At the end of Canto 3, the pilgrim had fallen “like one whom sleep is taking.”