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This elaborate canto-opening simile (see note to Inf. XXII.1–12) and its aftermath knit the narrative back together: Virgil had walked away from Catalano (and from Dante) at the end of the last canto; now, getting his anger under control, he turns back to reassure Dante and continue his leadership. That is a fair summary of how the simile works as a reflection of what is happening between the two characters. However, this simile (like the Aesopic material in Canto XXIII) can be read for more than one set of equivalences: (1) Virgil’s frown (hoarfrost) melts and he once again encourages Dante (the humble wretch), who eventually will, having completed the journey, feed us (his sheep) with the pages of the poem; (2) the devil’s deception (hoarfrost), in the form of an incorrect presentation of the terrain, discourages Virgil (the wretch), who finally reads the signs right and will lead Dante (his sheep) to pasture. A form of this second simultaneous reading was proposed by Lansing (Lans.1977.1), pp. 77–80.

As Frankel has noted (Fran.1984.1), pp. 82–83, the simile itself is divided into two rather different stylistic zones; the first six verses are “classicizing” and rather high-flown, while the final nine are in the low style. Hollander (Holl.1984.4) suggests that the first tercet of the “classical” part derives from Virgil’s third Georgic (vv. 303–304), a citation also found in the second and third redactions of the commentary of Pietro di Dante, and also noted by Tommaseo. For other studies in English of this much studied simile see Bake.1974.1, Econ.1976.1, and Lans.1977.1 (pp. 74–80); for Dante’s knowledge of the Georgics see Marigo (Mari.1909.1).

The reference to Aquarius sets the time within the simile as winter, since the sun is in that constellation from 21 January to 21 February. And so the sun cools his “locks” (its rays) in this season.

 

The sight of the ruina, the scree fallen at the Crucifixion, now gives Virgil hope: it is a way up and out of the bolgia. Catalano, unlike Malacoda, has given him valuable advice.

 

The phrase “people wearing leaden cloaks” obviously refers to the hypocrites whom we saw in the last canto.

 

The protagonist’s physical difficulty, since unlike Virgil he must move his flesh and bones against the pull of gravity, is insisted on. The interplay between Virgil and Dante, now with roles reversed from Cantos XXI-XXIII (when Virgil was the one at a disadvantage) goes on for some time, through verse 60. It is no way meant to make the reader believe, as did John Ruskin, in modern Painters, that “Dante was a notably bad climber.”

 

Once again (see Inf. XIX.35 and note) the poet insists that the far sides, or banks, of each bolgia are not as high as the ones encountered first, since the sloping floor of the Malebolge cuts down across each ditch.

 

The commentators are almost unanimous in taking Virgil’s words at face value and as sound advice. See, for example, Chiavacci Leonardi (Chia. 1991.1), pp. 712–13, who argues for earthly fame’s “double valence” in the poem; she claims that it is sometimes as excusable aim (as here), sometimes a culpable one. Certainly the net effect of Virgil’s appeal here is to get Dante moving upward in order to continue to the top of the ridge, whence he will be able to see into the next ditch as he continues his journey. Yet is it not strange that the motivation offered by Virgil is not the need to struggle onward toward the presence of God so much as it is the reward of earthly fame? Rossetti, in his commentary, was perhaps the first to observe the resonance of what has now become a standard citation for these verses, the entirely similar similes found in the book of Wisdom (5:15): “like the insubstantial foam that is dispersed by the storm, like the smoke that is dissipated by the wind.” In Wisdom the comparisons are to the hopes of the impious man (as opposed to those of the just, whose thoughts are set on God [5:16]). Narrowly construed, Virgil’s words are those of the impious man who lodges his hopes in the most transitory of things-exactly what the poem will later establish as the true and fleeting nature of earthly fame (Purg. XI.91–93). If we were to imagine St. Thomas as guide here, we would expect his words to have been quite different. Beginning with Gregorio Di Siena, commentators also cite another apposite text for these lines, Aeneid V.740, “tenuis fugit ceu fumus in auras”: it is the vision of Anchises that vanishes from Aeneas’s sight “like thin smoke into the air.”

Cantos XXI–XXIV thus include Virgil’s most difficult moments as guide to the Christian underworld. The rest of the cantica is mainly without such unsettling behavior toward his master and author on the poet’s part. But this will start up again in a series of moments that are difficult for Virgil in the early cantos of Purgatorio.

 

In a moment that will strike anyone who is in fact a “notably bad climber” with its aptness, the passage insists on Dante’s effort to convince his guide that he is better furnished with breath than in fact he is.

 

These lines introduce a problem (who is speaking?) that will weave itself through the text until perhaps the eighteenth verse of the next canto.

 

These twelve verses have no other point than to underline the intensity of Dante’s curiosity about the identity of the speaker whose unintelligible voice he has just heard. It would be unlikely for him to have left his riddle unanswered. See note to vv. 17–18 of the next canto.

Verse 69 has been the cause of much debate. Is the word in the text ire (as in Petrocchi’s edition, meaning “to go”) or ira (wrath)? For a treatment of the problem see Hollander (Holl.1982.2), offering a listing of the history of the commentary tradition (pp. 29–31) and concluding that the text originally read ira, as almost all the early commentators believed, with the major exception of Pietro di Dante. For a countering view see Stef.1993.1, p. 85.

Once again, while not in agreement with it, we have preserved the letter of Petrocchi’s text in our translation. Berthier, who opts for ira, cites St. Thomas to the effect that one of the five effects of wrath is precisely to cause in the furious sinner “clamor irrationabilis” (irrational cries), perhaps exactly what Dante had made out. It also remain difficult to explain how one can hear, from a distance and in darkness, how a being is “moved” to getting into motion, while it is not at all difficult to hear, in precisely these circumstances, that a voice is moved by wrath.

 

The new prospect before Dante’s eyes, once he is over the seventh bolgia, having descended from the bridge that connects to the eighth, completely absorbs his attention. The identity of the speaker, which he has been so eager to learn, is now forgotten—for a while.

 

Now begins the drama of the marvelous, what Milton might have called “things unattempted yet in prose or rhyme.” Many have commented upon the exuberance of Dante’s treatment of the scene of the thieves. On the question of the perhaps problematic virtuosity of this and the next canto see Terd.1973.1; for a reply see Hawk.1980.1.

 

The serpents derive, as almost all commentators duly note, from the ninth book of Lucan’s Pharsalia with its description of the Libyan desert, replete with them. They are all beyond the pale of any known zoology. For Dante’s knowledge of Lucan in general see Para. 1962.2.

 

Dante adapts Lucan’s somewhat unusual term for “serpent” (pestis—which generally means “plague”) and now imagines as many deserts as he knows of containing still other improbable serpentine creatures.