2. the pity of the two in-laws: Paolo and Francesca were brother- and sister-in-law, a degree of relation that in the eyes of the Church would have made their relationship incestuous as well as adulterous.
7–12. I am in the third circle … the earth stinks: The rain, hail, and snow and resulting mud are versions of the food and drink to which the gluttons were addicted: in the last analysis merely versions of the elements earth and water. Dog imagery dominates (lines 14, 19, and 28), but the gluttons wallow like pigs (as in line 52; cf. 8.49) in material implicitly compared to excrement (line 12). Chiavacci Leonardi notes a parallel in Wisdom 16.16, where the wicked are said to be punished by “strange waters, and hail, and rain.” Gluttony is the second of the seven deadly vices or sins; on their traditional ranking, see Purg. 17.115–39, with notes; for their relation to the arrangement of Hell, see the note to 11.70–73.
9. its rule and quality never change: The rule is the quantity and direction, the quality is the nature, of what is coming down.
13–32. Cerberus … thunders: The three-headed dog, in Greek mythology the guardian of the entrance to Hades. Dante is drawing on Vergil’s description, Aen. 6.417–22:
Cerberus haec ingens latratu regna trifauci personat adverso recubans immanis in antro. Cui vates horrere videns iam colla colubris melle soporatam et medicatis frugibus offam obicit. Ille fame rabida tria guttura pandens corripit obiectam, atque immania terga resolvit fusus humi totoque ingens extenditur antro.
[These regions gigantic Cerberus with his three-throated barking makes resound, lying huge across the path in his den. When the priestess saw the snakes already beginning to rise around his neck, she threw him a cake drugged with honey and soporific grain. He in his raging hunger opened his three gullets, and seized it as it was thrown, and relaxed his enormous bulk, lying on the ground; enormous, he fills the whole cave.]
The traditional classical interpretation of Cerberus saw him as the earth, devourer of corpses (Servius). Dante makes him into a personification of gluttony and a demon (line 32–a minor devil, like Charon), debasing him and scaling h’ n down, aptly turning the three throats to the account of gluttony and adding other quasi-human details (the greasy beard, large belly, hands) appropriate to it. Cerberus’s thundering over the souls (line 32) and his mauling of them (line 18) have a quasi-political dimension (see the note to lines 91–93).
14, 16, 18. latra [barks] … atra [black] … isquatra [quarters]: The same three rhymes appear in the last of the rimepetrose, “Cosi nel mio parlar voglio esser aspro” (lines 54, 55, and 56), discussed in Durling and Martinez 1990.
20–21. they make a shield… turn over frequently: An important parallel exists between this description and the characterization of Florence as a sick woman in Purg. 6.148–51.
21. castout wretches: Dante’s term isprqfani [profane], etymologically referring to those barred from thefanum, or sanctuary. As Gmelin observes, the sinners here are like drunkards lying in the gutter.
22. the great worm: That Cerberus is a worm is appropriate to the gastronomic theme, but there is also an association with Satan himself, called the “evil worm that gnaws the world” in 34.108 (see also 6.115, “the great enemy”).
36. their emptiness that seems a human body: “Human body” translates Dante s persona [person]; compare Francesca’s use of the term in 5.101. In addition to the vivid visual effect here, the line is a comment on gluttony itself, like line 101.
40–42. O you … I was unmade: Note the etymological figure mfatto / disfatto [made/unmade]. The line can be taken to mean that Ciacco recognizes the pilgrim; his phrase “if you can” would then refer to his disfigurement. Of course, as Dante’s readers knew, and as becomes clear in Canto 16, a Florentine of the upper class was recognizable by his clothes, and the pilgrim’s age is obvious.
49–51. Your city … kept me: Note the implicitly digestive image of the sack. Ciacco is the first Florentine the pilgrim encounters; these lines introduce the important theme of Florentine political affairs and Dante’s involvement in them.
50. envy: Compare 1.111, where the devil’s envy is made responsible for the she-wolf’s presence in the world.
52. You citizens called me Ciacco: Note the repeated emphasis on the theme of the city; cittadino, used here and in line 61, means “city dweller.” Ciacco is otherwise unknown; the name may be a corruption of FrenchJacques or even of Cecco, the nickname for Francesco; it also means “hog.”
53. the damnable sin of the gullet: Italian gola [throat]; iromgula, the standard medieval Latin term for gluttony.
58–59. your trouble … calls me to weep: Note the parallel with the pilgrim’s words to Francesca (5.116–17), whom the pilgrim also may have recognized (see the note to lines 36–42).
60–63. but tell me … has assailed it: The pilgrim asks three questions, which are answered in order in lines 64–72, 73, and 74–75, respectively.
61. the divided city: The term refers directly to the division of Florence into parties and the dominant role played by violent partisanship, but it also resonates with the Augustinian concept of the two cities (the Earthly and the Heavenly), which coexist in this life (City of God, Book 11).
64–72. After much quarreling … they weep or are shamed: Ciacco foretells the events of 1300 to 1302. The rival Guelf factions, the Whites (“the party from the woods,” to which Dante belonged, so called because its nucleus, the Cerchi family, was originally from a rural area outside Florence) and the Blacks (“the other,” led by Corso Donati), rioted violently on May 1, 1300. In June (while Dante was one of the six priors of the city, the chief executive committee), during the temporary dominance of the White party, the troublemakers from both parties were exiled, including Dante’s close friend and fellow poet Guido Cavalcanti, a turbulent member of the White faction; in June 1301, all the Black leaders were exiled.
“One who now hugs the shore” refers to Pope Boniface VIII, who for a long time seemed impartial, though he secretly favored the Black faction. In 1301 both sides appealed to him to make peace; he sent Charles of Valois, a brother of the French king, as peacemaker; Charles, after gaining entrance to the city with an armed force, supported the Blacks in their violence against the Whites, many of whom were killed, others fleeing into exile (early November 1301). The Black victory, begun in the spring of 1302, was complete by the fall, thus “within three suns [years]” from the spring of 1300; they dominated Florence during the rest of Dante’s lifetime. For the effect of these events on Dante’s life, see 10.79–81 and notes.
65. to blood: That is, to shedding blood. Note the repetition of verranno [they will come] from line 60.
73. Two are just: Who Ciacco/Dante means is never specified (15.61–66 supports the view that Ciacco refers to Dante as one of the two). The existence in corrupt cities of a small number of “just men” is a biblical motif, as in Gen. 18.23–33 and Ezek. 14.13–14.
74. pride, envy, and greed: Note the similar line, again with invidia [envy] at the center, at 15.68. There would seem to be an important relation with the three beasts of Canto 1.
79–80. Farinata … Mosca: All are prominent Florentines of earlier generations. For Farinata degli Uberti, see Canto 10; for Iacopo Rusticucci and Tegghiaio Aldobrandi, see Canto 16; for Mosca, see Canto 28.103–11; Arrigo, presumably Arrigo di Cascia, is not mentioned again.
84. if Heaven sweetens or Hell poisons: Note the food metaphors.
91–93. His direct eyes … the other blind ones: Ciacco has been looking direcdy at Dante; now he turns his head away, still looking at Dante, but obliquely, that is, sidelong; then he bows his head, and the rest of his body follows his head downward (cf. the movements of Dante’s head in Canto 5). The sidelong gaze is traditionally characteristic of envy {invidere [to envy] was traditionally derived from the privative prefix in-and the verb “to see”; note the blindness mentioned in line 93); compare Ovid’s portrait of Envy in Met. 2.770–82, especially line 776: “nusquam recta acies” [her eyebeam is never straight]. While speaking with the pilgrim and gazing at him directly, Ciacco was momentarily restored to community; his weird withdrawal may be in part a comment on the disregard of civic responsibility implicit in gluttony.
96. the enemy governor: Thepodesta (usuallypodesta, from Latinpoiesto, potestatis) was the chief executive in the medieval Italian city-states, often brought from the outside, usually for six months or a year. Virgil is referring to the Last Judgment and Christ’s coming asjudge (once again, as in 4.53–54, without any reference to his divinity) on the basis of Matthew 24–25, the so-called Little Apocalypse.
99. will hear … eternally: The damned will hear the definitive sentence condemning them to Hell for eternity (Matt. 25.41).
106–9. Return to your philosophy … pain: “Your philosophy” is equivalent to philosophy as such (cf. the same usage in Hamlet 1.5.167), meaning, of course, the current Aristotelianism. The axiom Virgil cites appears in Aristotle’s Nichomachean Ethics 10.4.
109–11. Even though these cursed people … than on this: For Plato and the Neoplatonic tradition, human nature was complete in the soul; the union with the body was a fall. For Aristotle the soul was the form of the body; he inclined toward mortalism (the doctrine that the soul dies with the body). Since the Bible taught that God created Adam’s and Eve’s bodies directly, Christians could not accept the Platonic view, for the body must be good in its kind. The medieval adaptation of Aristotle’s doctrine was that the nature of human beings is the union of the immortal soul with the body (cf. 13.37–39 and notes). Thus only when body and soul are reunited can human beings be complete, or “perfect” in their natures. The accepted view, therefore, was that the sufferings of the damned will be more intense after the Resurrection. The effect on the damned of the ending of time is discussed in 10.58.
115. Plutus: We interpret the Italian Pluto (which appears in the Comedy only here and in 7.2) as referring to the traditional god of riches, Plutus, rather than the god of the underworld, Pluto (also called Dis and Hades), whom Dante identifies with Satan and regularly refers to as Dis or Lucifer. However, Dante was aware of a special association between the two (of which he had read in Cicero and Isidore of Seville), based on gold and silver coming from underground and on the importance of greed as a source of ills. That Plutus is called “the great enemy” (cf. “the great worm,” line 22 and note) strengthens the connection.