Inferno: Canto 16 -- Circle 7

2005-01-25T13:47:00.000-08:00

The waterfall of all three rivers we've already crossed is heard in the distance -- the mingling of woe, hate, and fire are falling into the eighth circle on their way to Cocytus, the river of lamentations. In this brief mention of the rush of that spill, we get a sense of the funnel narrowing in on itself.

No sooner has Brunetto Latino left Dante's side than three shades replace the air that once contained him. Virgil tells Dante to wait on them "for these are souls to whom respect is due;/ and were it not for the darting flames that hem/ our narrow passage in, I should have said/ it were more fitting you ran after them" (15-8). Here we find two of those about whom Dante had asked Ciacco -- Jacopo Rusticucci and Tegghiaio Aldobrandi. Jacopo introduces the trio, and when Dante hears their names, he leaps in his heart toward them, prevented by the burning brands and sands from doing so in fact. With even greater than he showed Brunetto Latino, Dante explains his hesitation in responding to having arisen from "grief that choked [his] speech when through the scorching/ air of this pit [his] Lord announced to [him]/ that such men as [they] might be approaching" (55-7). Realizing that he is in the presence of a friend, Jacopo seems less interested in Dante's mortal status than he does in its implications -- Dante can give them a more accurate account of what is happening in Florence than they have been receiving from a newly arrived sodomite named Borsiere. When Dante answers them, they are impressed with the response and ask to be remembered on earth before they depart. This desire on the part of some of the damned to be remembered will be contrasted against those below, for most of them would prefer not to remain so. That Dante has already remembered these twice (once in Canto VI and now here) is a double tribute to their memory.

In the previous canto, when Virgil is explaining the rill across which the poets are presently walking, he tells Dante that hell is round and that Dante should not be surprised to see new things every now and then. This admonition counts for the reader, too, who is suddenly made aware that Dante has a Franciscan cord tied around his waist. Ciardi comments on this that "it is frequently claimed, but without proof, that Dante had been a minor friar of the Franciscans but had left without taking vows." Even without the proof, it is interesting to note that Dante's remains presently lie in Ravenna, in a Franciscan monastery, despite all attempts by Florence, already set to weeping in its heart, to have those remains restored to his native city. Of the cord, Dante the poet tries to introduce its presence into the first canto in retrospect, saying that he had thought to put it "to use/ to snare the leopard with the gaudy pelt" (107-8), so it's actually appropriate that he gives it to Virgil to toss into the eighth circle, as that is the circle of the leopard, or of fraud. Metaphorically, he both snares the circle and signals the monster, Geryon, who will aid the poets in their descent.

The canto ends with Dante's noticing the beast's ascent, stopping in medias res as though to build suspense.

S.