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ZYGMUNT G.

BARAŃSKI

Language as Sin and Salvation:


A Lectura of Inferno 18

Bernardo Lecture Series, No. 19

Center for Medieval & Renaissance Studies


State University of New York at Binghamton
Binghamton, NY
© Copyright 2014
Center for Medieval & Renaissance Studies
State University of New York at Binghamton

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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

%DUDĔVNL =\JPXQW *
Language as Sin and Salvation: A Lectura of Inferno 18 /
 =\JPXQW * %DUDĔVNL
(Bernardo Lecture Series ; No. 19)
ISBN 978-1-4384-5738-3 (pbk. : alk. paper)
ISBN 978-1-4384-5740-6 (ebook)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2014950723

10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
BERNARDO LECTURE SERIES

Editor: Dana E. Stewart


Language as Sin and Salvation:
A Lectura of Inferno 18

‫ﱾﱽﱼﱻ‬

1 Reading Inferno 18

I
nferno 18 has had an unbalanced and reductive critical recep-
tion.1 In general, scholars have reacted with embarrassment,
sternness, and incomprehension when faced with the mix of
sex and excrement that characterizes and delimits the canto. At
the close of the Trecento, the commentator Francesco da Buti, profes-
sionally citing Horace, the master of poetic propriety, to support his
UHVHUYDWLRQV KDG ¿UPO\ UHSURDFKHG 'DQWH IRU WKH WUDQVJUHVVLYH QDWXUH
RIKLVSUHVHQWDWLRQDOWKRXJKDVDQXQGRXEWHGD¿FLRQDGRRIWKHSRHWKH
did go on, again relying on Horace, to attenuate his negative assessment:

Et comunemente per li savi homini admaestrati di poesi si


muove qui uno dubbio, riprendendo l’autore che di questa
materia ae parlato sì bructamente, et maximamente inducendo
ad parlare Virgilio, al quale non si convenia questa immondessa
di sermone imperò che Oratio dice ne la Poetria: «Intererit
multum divusnea loquatur an heros» [114] et cetera; unde pare
che abbia peccato contra la poesi. Et se altri lo volesse scusare
ch’elli ae meschiato la satira co·la comedia, et la satira usa sì
facti vocabuli, puosi obstare ancora, secondo che dice Oratio
nel dicto libbro u’elli dice: “Silvis deducti caveant me iudice
Fauni ne, velut innati triviis ac pene forenses, aut immunda
crepent ignominiosaque dicta; offenduntur enim” [244–48] et
cetera. Et però si dé considerare che qui è una poca di machia,
et puosi sostenere, come dice Oratio nel dicto libbro: “Verum
ubic plura nitent in carmine, non ego paucis offendar maculis,
quas aut incuria fudit, aut humana parum cavit natura” [351–53]
et cetera. Et così si scusa questo passo et l’altro quine ue dice:
Che merda fa di quel che si trangugia [Inf. 28.27], ma più
lievemente perché quine parla pur l’autore.

1
ZYGMUNT G. BARAŃSKI

[And commonly among wise men expert in poetry a doubt arises


here, reproaching the author who about this subject-matter has
spoken so unattractively, and most especially as he induced
9LUJLOWRVSHDNWRZKRPVXFK¿OWK\VSHHFKZDVQRW¿WWLQJJLYHQ
that Horace says in the Poetria: “It will make a big difference
whether a god or a hero is speaking” etc; hence it seems that
he has sinned against poetry. And if others should like to excuse
him that he has mixed satire with comedy, and satire uses such
words, one can again object, according to what Horace says in
the aforementioned book where he says: “When the Satyrs are
brought from the forest, I think, they should not behave as if
they had been born at the crossroads and were almost inhabit-
DQWV RI WKH IRUXP RU SUDWWOH WKHLU ¿OWK\ DQG VKDPHIXO VD\LQJV
For they are offended” etc. And yet one needs to consider that
here there is a little stain, and can be maintained, as Horace
says in the aforementioned book: “But where many merits shine
in a poem, I will not be offended by a few stains, which either
carelessness introduced or human nature has failed to avoid”
etc. And thus this passage is excused and the other where he
says: “That makes into shit that which is swallowed,” but more
lightly because here it is the author that speaks.]2

Buti correctly recognized that, in terms of medieval poetic convenien-


tiae, namely notions of literary decorum, Inferno 18 and in particular its
closing thirty-four lines (103–36) were clearly problematic. Yet, in his
wake, few readers have endeavored to assess the second bolgia in light
of contemporary artistic and ideological criteria. Furthermore, they have
SUHIHUUHG WR DYHUW WKHLU JD]H IURP WKH ÀDWWHUHUV IRFXVLQJ LQVWHDG RQ WKH
¿UVWEROJLDWKHSDQGHUVDQGVHGXFHUVZKHUHPDWWHUVVH[XDODUHLQWLPDWHG
rather than made crudely explicit. In light of such critical reticence, it
is obvious that most Dantists have found Inferno 18 deeply troubling.
Thus, when they have actually turned their attention to the second bolgia,
they have largely failed to consider this excremental world in its totality,
but have concentrated primarily on Thais—or rather, on the philological
GLI¿FXOWLHVFUHDWHGE\KHUDQG7KUDVR¶VZRUGV3 As is well known, Dante
translates the Eunuchus but misinterprets the quotation, which has led
to a vigorous debate regarding both the poet’s knowledge of Terence
and the alternative sources where he might have found the exchange
between the courtesan and her lover. In addition, given that, by the early
Trecento, Thais the meretrix had for centuries been deemed an arche-

2
Language as Sin and Salvation

typical character of comedy,4 and hence an emblem of her author, some


scholars have extended their analyses to the contacts between Dante’s
new “comedía” and the traditional comic stilus.5 However, in doing
this, they have largely failed to pose the vital question: Why might the
SRHWKDYHZLVKHGWRHQFRXUDJHUHÀHFWLRQRQFRPHG\DQGRQWKH³VDFUHG
SRHP´ LQ D FRQWH[W WKDW LV ERWK VR H[WUHPH DQG DW ¿UVW VLJKW DW OHDVW
so inappropriate, and in a canto that is so dispersive, embracing three
different groups of sinners and two areas of Hell, as well as serving as
the introduction to the most complex circle of Dante’s afterlife?
An answer to these problems, I believe, will need to consider
both the formal and ideological mechanisms that dispose Inferno 18’s
discrete parts into a single structure, and the ways in which medieval
culture dealt with what, today, we would term obscenity and scatology.6
As I argue below, the two problems are closely connected. Yet, with
few exceptions, scholars have not considered the possible sources of
Dante’s depiction of the two bolgias, and hence the cultural and ideo-
ORJLFDO V\VWHPV DV , KRSH WR HOXFLGDWH WKDW GH¿QH DQG XQLWH Inferno
 &RQVHTXHQWO\ DVVHVVPHQWV RI WKH SXQLVKPHQWV LQÀLFWHG RQ WKH WZR
groups of sinners have been highly impressionistic. Dante’s immoderate
descriptions are explained in generalizing stylistic and moral terms: the
poet chose a scabrous and phonetically “harsh” (Inf. 32.1) language and
sickening tortures as a mark of his profound disdain for sinners that he
considered particularly disgusting. Their “degrading”7 earthly behavior
is effectively highlighted and condemned by means of a vocabulary that
is pushed to the limits of what is linguistically acceptable. In this way,
Dante exposed the sordid reality of sexual behaviors that the sinners
had attempted to conceal behind “ornamented words” (Inf. 18.91). In
general terms, such interpretations are not without a degree of merit.
At the same time, they lack historical precision, as they are based on
large-scale anachronistic and banalizing categories such as “realism,”
“objectivity,” “farce,” “avant-garde poetics of vulgarity,” “provocative
and extreme vulgarism,” “esthetics of the ugly,” “crude and immediate
revelation,” and, naturally, “utmost degradation.”8 The inappropriateness
of such designations is striking. Their use is based on the idea that the
terms and the notions they express are somehow absolute, namely, to
put it bluntly, and in the language of Inferno 18, that “shit” (116) is
LPPXWDEOH DQG WKDW LWV PHDQLQJV DUH KHQFH ¿[HG9 Even when Dante’s
stylistic solutions are elucidated in terms that seem to refer to medieval

3
ZYGMUNT G. BARAŃSKI

poetics—“the style . . . descends to the humble and comic level . . . low-


ness of style and lowness of fault”10—this is done in such vague terms
WKDW LW LV GLI¿FXOW WR XQGHUVWDQG ZKDW SUHFLVHO\ LV EHLQJ FODUL¿HG ,Q
reality, not even the Thais episode (127–36), if judged according to the
FRQYHQWLRQV RI PHGLHYDO JHQUH WKHRU\ FDQ VWULFWO\ VSHDNLQJ EH GH¿QHG
as “low.” On the one hand, there is no doubt that the courtesan is a
comedic character par excellence, and that the poet employs formal ele-
ments that securely belong to the “humble style”: “sozza e scapigliata
IDQWH >¿OWK\ DQG GLVKHYHOHG ZHQFK@´   ³JUDI¿D >VFUDWFKHV@´  
“merdose [shitty]” (131),11 “puttana [whore]” (133), and the rhyme in
–inghe (127 and 129). Yet, these elements only constitute one of the
episode’s stylistic layers. “Attinghe [arrive at]” (129) is an excellent
example of the formal complexity of the canto’s close. The Lessico Eti-
mologico Italiano notes that the verb attingere LV GLI¿FXOW WR FDWDORJXH
“however it has to be recognized that the distinction between popular
and learned forms [of the verb] is problematic for Italo-Romance and
Iberian-Romance forms.”12 Conversely, “drudo [lover]” (134), thanks
to its Occitan and feudal-chivalric connotations, is indisputably aulic.
Equally, the exchange between Thais and Thraso belongs to the “high”
style (134–35), not only because it accurately translates phrases from a
classical auctor, but also because it includes a striking Latinism “apo
[among]” (135) from apud, which emphasizes the classicizing and non-
“low” status of Thraso’s words. Inferno 18’s close obviously constitutes
an exemplary instance of Dante’s plurilingualism, namely of the unique
³PL[HG´VW\OHRIWKHQHZ³FRPHGtD´ZKLFKWKHSRHWGH¿QHGLQRSSRVL-
tion to the standard genre distinctions of his world.13
I will examine in due course the ways in which, in Inferno 18,
Dante detailed the Commedia’s novelty. In truth, the poet loaded rather
more on to the canto than the task—onerous enough—of clarifying his
poem’s novitas. As I adumbrated earlier, Inferno 18 serves too as the
prologue to Malebolge, the most original section of Dante’s Hell.

2 Prooemium: starting Malebolge


Ever since the fourteenth century, much has been written about the
sources of Dante’s Hell: from the literary (Aeneid 6) to the philosophical
(Aristotle and Cicero), from the theological (Augustine and Aquinas) to
the popularizing (visions and voyages), and from the liturgical (confes-

4
Language as Sin and Salvation

sional manuals) to the iconographic (the baptistery in Florence and the


Cappella degli Scrovegni). Yet, despite this substantial body of work,
what has not been adequately recognized is both the originality of the
eighth circle of Hell, and the fact that, as we shall see, among the several
different systems for categorizing sins current in the late Middle Ages,
one in particular affects its artistic and ideological arrangement. That
0DOHEROJH ZDV RI YLWDO VLJQL¿FDQFH WR 'DQWH LV REYLRXV KH GHGLFDWHG
thirteen cantos to the eighth circle, more than to any other area of the
Inferno (and of the CommediaDVDZKROH KHLOOXVWUDWHGDQGGH¿QHGKHUH
the poem’s major structures and technical features (it is enough to recall
the opening of Inferno 20); the ten bolgias function as a microcosm of
Hell; and nowhere else in the tradition of otherworldly accounts can one
¿QG D GLYLVLRQ RI WKH DIWHUOLIH DV QDUUDWLYHO\ LQWHOOHFWXDOO\ DQG VW\OLVWL-
cally rich and varied as Dante’s Malebolge. As further evidence of the
importance of both Inferno 18 and of the eighth circle in general, scholars
have frequently noted that the canto, and hence the edge of Malebolge,
marks the start of the second half of the canticle, each part made up
of seventeen cantos, thereby tidily separating the sins of fraud from
those of incontinence and violence. Nonetheless, although the division
is structurally highlighted and is important for Inferno 18’s prefactory
functions—it is enough to recall the peremptory opening, “Luogo è in
inferno detto Malebolge [There is a place in Hell called Malebolge]”
(1), that precisely calques one of the introductory rhetorical formulae of
the descriptio loci—things in fact, as we ought to be accustomed with
'DQWH DUH UDWKHU GLIIHUHQW IURP ZKDW PLJKW DSSHDU DW ¿UVW VLJKW
Thus, it is far from clear where exactly—whether in the text,
conceptually, or in strictly geographical terms—Malebolge actually begins.
In a complex and unusual operation, the two cantos that precede Inferno
18 anticipate the latter’s opening description of place (1–18). Dante pref-
DFHV WKH ³RI¿FLDO´ VWDUW RI 0DOHEROJH ZLWK D VHULHV RI SURORJXHV ZKLFK
SUH¿JXUH DQG FRPSOHPHQW WKH PDMRU SURHPLDO IXQFWLRQV RI Inferno 18.
Putting to one side Inferno 11.57–60, since Virgil’s lesson there synthe-
sizes Hell as a whole, the eighth circle is effectively mentioned for the
¿UVW WLPH LQ WKH RSHQLQJ RI Inferno 16.1–3:

I was already in a place where was heard the rumbling


of the water that fell to the other circle,
similar to the rumble which beehives make.

5
ZYGMUNT G. BARAŃSKI

0DOHEROJH LV WKXV LPPHGLDWHO\ DVVRFLDWHG ZLWK 3KOHJHWKRQ ,Q WKH ¿QDO
section of the same canto, after the interlude of Jacopo Rusticucci and
his companions, Dante adds to the rapid sketch that he had executed in
WKH¿UVWWHUFHW,QOLQHV±ZH¿QG¿UVW ± DGHWDLOHGGHVFULS-
tion of “that dirty water” (104), and then (106–14) Virgil’s casting into
the void of the mysterious “cord” (106), which, whatever its precise
connotations, necessarily stands in contrast to “that deep abyss” (114),
QDPHO\ 0DOHEROJH DQG ¿QDOO\ ±  WKH ³PDUYHOORXV´   DUULYDO
RI *HU\RQ WKH HPERGLPHQW RI WKH FLUFOH RI IUDXG Inferno 17 has the
exact same structure as its predecessor. It begins by referring to Male-
bolge; there follows a digression; and it comes to a close by returning
to the world of deception. Verses 1–27 present a detailed portrait of the
“beast” (1), so that it too introduces Malebolge and anticipates Inferno
18’s proemial duties; verses 28–78 focus on the usurers; while verses
± GHSLFW WKH WHUULI\LQJ GRZQZDUG ÀLJKW RQ *HU\RQ¶V EDFN
A carefully orchestrated and relatively lengthy prelude thus leads
up to Inferno 18. Indeed, when Dante concentrates on presenting the
“plan” (6) of the “evil zone” (4) in lines 1–18, he is in essence simply
¿OOLQJ LQ GHWDLOV RI D ZRUOG WKDW ZH DOUHDG\ NQRZ

EHFDXVH , VDZ ¿UHV DQG KHDUG ZHHSLQJ


...
And then I saw, because I didn’t see it before,
the descent and the wheeling through the great evils
that were approaching from different directions. (Inf. 17.122–26)

Nonetheless, in Inferno 18, Dante is not repeating himself. Although the


“gran mali” deliberately foreshadow “Malebolge,” the neologism in rhyme
RI WKH ¿UVW OLQH WKH FDQWR DGGV QHZ LQIRUPDWLRQ DV UHJDUGV WKH ³SLW´
(5): the “color” (2) of the rock; the “path” (7); the number of “valleys”
(9); and the appearance both of the “banks and ditches” (17) and of the
“ridges” (16). As ever, Dante does not waste a word. Yet, astonishingly,
as he moves from the descriptio loci to the canto’s narrative segment,
the poet revisits what he has already depicted. Inferno 18.19–20—“In
TXHVWROXRJRGHODVFKLHQDVFRVVLGL*HUwRQWURYDPPRFL>,QWKLVSODFH
VKDNHQ IURP WKH EDFN RI *HU\RQ ZH IRXQG RXUVHOYHV@´²HVVHQWLDOO\
reiterates:

6
Language as Sin and Salvation

  FRVu QH SXRVH DO IRQGR *HUwRQH


al piè al piè de la stagliata rocca,
e, discarcate le nostre persone. (Inf. 17.133–35)

>7KXV *HU\RQ VHW XV GRZQ DW WKH ERWWRP


at the foot of the hewn rock,
and, disburdened of our persons]

7KH H[FHSWLRQDO QDWXUH RI WKLV ³VXSHUÀXRXV´ UHSHWLWLRQ LV D VLJQ RI
its importance. It encapsulates and highlights the care and attention
that the poet has taken when introducing Inferno 18, and hence “the
place . . . called Malebolge.” The highly meticulous construction empha-
VL]HV WKH RXWVWDQGLQJ VLJQL¿FDQFH RI WKLV VHFWLRQ RI WKH DIWHUOLIH ZKRVH
novitas is immediately brought to the fore:

On the right hand side I saw new suffering,


new torment and new scourgers,
with whom the new bolgia was replete. (Inf. 18.22–24)

Moreover, the complex organization that prepares for the eighth circle
foreshadows the area’s ideological and stylistic complexity, which, in its
turn, microcosmically points to the formal and thematic wealth of the
Commedia. This is why it is only in Malebolge, and in the two cantos
leading up to Inferno 18, that, beginning with “le note / di questa come-
día [the notes of this comedy]” (Inf. 16.127–28), Dante designates and
GH¿QHV KLV SRHP DQG LWV FRQVWLWXHQW SDUWV Inferno 18 in particular and
the circle of fraud simple in general engage with a “new” commitment
in the demanding duty of establishing and legitimating the status of the
Commedia as “comedy.”14 Such a delicate task needed an appropriately
sophisticated prelude.

3 Prooemium: “shitty nails” and the


limits of the “comic” in Dante

It is a commonplace of Dante scholarship to insist on the “comic”


character of Malebolge. Nonetheless, despite the ever more sophisticated
understanding of the medieval genera dicendi that, in the last forty or

7
ZYGMUNT G. BARAŃSKI

so years, has followed in the wake of Quadlbauer’s fundamental book,15


such research has had relatively limited impact on Dante studies. This
is somewhat troubling given that the poet is the major “comico” (Par.
30.24) of the Western literary tradition. When Dantists describe Inferno
18 in particular and Malebolge in general as “comic,” they normally
allude to their “low” identity in terms of traditional medieval criteria of
genre, noting their standing as cantus villanus [rustic song], linguistically
and thematically humilis QDPHO\ HPSOR\LQJ ³LQ¿PD HW SHUYXOJDWLVVLPD
verborum dignitas [the lowest and most current form of speech]” (Ad
Her. 4.8.11) and dealing with parvae res WULÀLQJ PDWWHUV16 Yet, already
the canto that follows ours, on account of its pronounced Scriptural
WRQHV FDQQRW UHDOO\ EH GH¿QHG DV ³RUDWLR    H[WHQXDWD >VLPSOH GLV-
course]” (Ad Her. 4.8.11); never mind Inferno 20, replete as it is with
classical, and hence gravesHOHPHQWVDQGZKHUH9LUJLODSSRVLWHO\GH¿QHV
the Aeneid, the supreme expression of the “grand style,” as “l’alta mia
tragedía [my lofty tragedy]” (113) in harmony with the vocabulary of
the genera dicendi,WLVREYLRXVWKHUHIRUHWKDWLQWKH¿UVWWKUHHFDQWRV
of Malebolge, Dante deliberately underlined the fact that the eighth
circle is far from exclusively and conventionally “low.” To evaluate the
Commedia’s genre in traditional terms means failing to appreciate the
originality of Dante’s plurilingualism, which, in an entirely novel man-
ner and in direct opposition to the separatist precepts of the doctrine of
the discrete “three styles,” constantly integrates, often at the level of the
sentence, but always at that of the canto, elements that belong to distinct
stili, and therefore that tradition demanded be kept apart.
As the introduction to the plurilingual Malebolge, Inferno 18
moves expertly, synthesizing them, between different registers. It opens
with “Luogo è [There is a place]”—a translation of locus est, a Latin
epic formula, and hence a “high” styleme—and closes with “viste sazie
[sight sated]” (136)—an alimentary, and thus “comic,” metaphor.17 The
¿UVW OLQH LQ IDFW PLFURFRVPLFDOO\ FDSWXUHV 'DQWH¶V VW\OLVWLF V\QFUHWLVP
it opens with a classical formula and ends with a vernacular neologism
whose roots reach down to the “low” depths of the Roman de la rose
and the Fiore. However, as I have begun to explain, it is especially the
manner in which Dante treats Thais, whom he strategically places in the
canto’s explicit, that leaves few doubts about the originality of the Com-
media, which, tellingly, the poet goes on to label “my” (Inf. 21.2). That
Dante should not have chosen to depict the most stereotypical of “low”

8
Language as Sin and Salvation

characters in conventionally “comic” terms unambiguously highlights


the distance that separates his poem from the standard stilus comicus.
“Thais . . . the whore” (133) is no longer either a Terentian character
RU DQ HPEOHPDWLFDOO\ ³FRPLF´ ¿JXUH ,QVWHDG VKH LV WUDQVIRUPHG LQWR D
new and quintessentially Dantean creation. The poet appropriates her,
just as, at the start of the journey, he had appropriated the privileged
position that medieval culture had assigned to Terence, unceremoniously
pushing him out of the “beautiful school” (Inf. 6.94) of the auctores
maiores, “so that I was sixth among so much wisdom” (102). Thais’
“extremism” is not so much to be sought in her “shitty nails” but in
her metamorphosis at Dante’s hands.
At every level of Inferno 18, Dante stresses the novelty of his
V\QWKHVHV 0RUHRYHU WKH FDQWR KDV TXLWH VSHFL¿F HOXFLGDWRU\ IXQFWLRQV
within the poem’s broader metaliterary system. Once again, the main
EXUGHQRIWKLVUHVSRQVLELOLW\IDOOVRQWKHÀDWWHUHUV7KHSUREOHPWKDWWKH
“other bolgia” (104) raises is, inevitably, that of obscenity and scatology,
namely, of how to represent, provided that such representation is even
legitimate, sexual activity and behavior relating to the expelling of waste.
As will soon become apparent, in medieval culture in general and in
literary and artistic circles in particular, the question was both weighty
and controversial. Yet, Dantists have been especially deaf to this key
issue. When analyzing Inferno 18, they have not raised the matter of
the status of obscenity and scatology in the medieval world, and hence
have not assessed the impact on the canto of textual traditions associ-
ated with these subjects.18 In fact, a substantial number of texts, both in
Latin and in the vernacular, circulating in the early fourteenth century,
addressed both topics. Furthermore, they belonged to traditions, such as
the Scriptural one, that were far from secondary.
3HUKDSV*UD]LROR%DPEDJOLROLZDVWKH¿UVWUHDGHUZKRUHFRJQL]HG
VXJJHVWLYHOLQNVEHWZHHQWKHLQIHUQDOÀDWWHUHUVDQGWKH%LEOH³$OH[LXVGH
Interminellis . . . is among those whom we read about in the psalm ‘the
beasts have rotted in their dung.’ ”19 A few years later, Pietro Alighieri
underlined the importance of such ties:

$QG WKLV VLQ RI ÀDWWHU\ LV ZLGHVSUHDG DPRQJ WKH LQGLJHQW
poor, as the Psalmist said: “Raising up the needy from the
earth, and lifting up the poor out of the dunghill” [Ps. 112.7].
Likewise too this same sin is extremely widespread among

9
ZYGMUNT G. BARAŃSKI

prostitutes. And also in chapter 9 of Ecclesiasticus this point


is made: “Every woman that is a harlot, shall be trodden upon
as dung on the path” (10). Hence the poet represents in this
excrement, namely in that aforementioned putrid and fetid
VWDWH RI ÀDWWHU\ LQ ZKLFK LQ WKLV ZRUOG DQG QRZ LQ WKH RWKHU
Dominus Alexius de Interminellis of Lucca, or rather his soul,
found himself. Alexius was a very poor soldier and a great
ÀDWWHUHUDQGVLPLODUWRKLP7HUHQFHWKHSRHWVSRNHWKURXJKD
FKDUDFWHU>*QDWKR@WKXVLQWKHEunuchus: “I heartily laugh with
them, immediately astounded at their wit. / Whatever they say,
I praise; if on the contrary they contradict, I praise; if they
GHQ\VRPHWKLQJ",GHQ\LIWKH\DI¿UP",DI¿UP´>±@
Moab too behaved in this manner, about whom Isaiah wrote,
namely that he rested amid his own excrement.20

For the moment, I do not intend to linger on the fact that the Scriptural
fornicaria DSSHDUV WR KDYH H[HUFLVHG D GLUHFW LQÀXHQFH RQ 'DQWH¶V UHS-
resentation of Thais and of the second bolgia in general—a borrowing,
in any case, which several scholars had previously noted. Instead, in the
wake of the two early commentators, my purpose here is to stress the
commonality of the language employed by Dante and Biblical authors.
Having to gloss “subject-matter” that medieval readers, well versed in
Horatian precepts that warned against the use of offensive terms, would
have deemed “spoken so disgustingly,”21 Pietro defended and legitimated
his father’s recourse to such language by emphasizing its Scriptural gene-
alogy. It is for this reason, I believe, that he accumulated examples from
the Bible which, like the allusions to the “Psalmista” and “Ysaya,” do
QRWVHHP²DWOHDVWQRWDW¿UVWVLJKW²WREHGLUHFWO\UHOHYDQWWRWKHVHFRQG
EROJLD 6LPLODUO\ ZKHQ *UD]LROR TXRWHG WKH SDVVDJH IURP -RHO ZKLFK LV
also not exactly germane to Inferno 18, he had the same aim in mind: to
account for Dante’s linguistic boldness in terms of Biblical linguistic usage.
Inferno 18’s debts to excremental Scriptural vocabulary suggest
a relationship between the canto and the Bible that can be designated
as “of genre”—a relationship that goes beyond simple intertextuality,
which is how modern Dante scholarship has treated the poet’s reworking
of Ecclesiasticus 9.10, judging it a simple borrowing whose functions
are exhausted in the descriptiones RI WKH SURVWLWXWH DQG WKH ÀDWWHUHUV¶
contrapasso. However, if the passage from Ecclesiasticus is treated in
isolation, as if it only has a limited function in Inferno 18, then much of

10
Language as Sin and Salvation

its connotative vigor is lost. Dante introduced the image, whose Biblical
pedigree is self-evident, of the woman whose sexual activities debase
her to the state of excrement not simply for straightforward descriptive
HQGV EXW DOVR DV *UD]LROR DQG 3LHWUR KDG XQGHUVWRRG WR VWUHVV WKDW KLV
linguistic choices, however problematic, imitated the style of the supreme
auctor and not the dictates of a pagan praeceptor, however authorita-
tive. But not only. As the two fourteenth-century Dantists had further
appreciated, the poet wished to underscore that the association between
the second bolgia and the Bible was not restricted to Ecclesiasticus 9.10.
The aggressive presentation of the puttana merdosa served also as a
stimulus to seek out further ties between the canto and Scripture. The
connection between the promiscuous woman and excrement is in fact
a Biblical commonplace famously established in the story of Jezabel:

And Jehu came into Jezrahel. But Jezabel, hearing of his


entrance, painted her face with stibic stone, and adorned her
head, and looked out of a window. . . . And Jehu lifted up his
face to the window, and said: Who is she? And two or three
eunuchs bowed down to him. And he said to them: Throw
her down headlong; And they threw her down, and the wall
was sprinkled with her blood, and the hoofs of the horses trod
upon her. . . . And when they went to bury her, they found
nothing but the skull, and the feet, and the extremities of her
KDQGV   $QGWKHÀHVKRI-H]DEHOVKDOOEHDVGXQJXSRQWKH
IDFH RI WKH HDUWK LQ WKH ¿HOG RI -H]UDKHO  .LQJV ± 22

1RQHWKHOHVV QRW HYHQ WKH GUDPDWLFDOO\ PHPRUDEOH ¿JXUH RI


the fornicaria exhausts the connection between the “other bolgia” and
Scriptural allusions to excrement, given that Dante’s representation does
QRWVWRSZLWKWKH³¿OWK\DQGGLVKHYHOHGZHQFK´  EXWDOVRLQFOXGHV
“li umani privadi [human privies]” (114) and the “capo . . . di merda
ORUGR>KHDG¿OWK\ZLWKVKLW@´  7KXV³$OHVVLR,QWHUPLQHLGD/XFFD´
(122), he of the besmirched head, grotesquely mimics Esther’s humble
EHKDYLRU EHIRUH *RG LQVWHDG RI XVLQJ VSHHFK WR ÀDWWHU RWKHUV VKH KDG
used it in praise of the Lord:

Queen Esther too, fearing the danger that was at hand, had
recourse to the Lord. And when she had put away her royal
apparel, she put on garments suitable for weeping and mourning,

11
ZYGMUNT G. BARAŃSKI

and instead of various ointments, she covered her head with


ashes and excrement, and humbled her body with fasts; and
all the places in which before she was accustomed to rejoice,
VKH ¿OOHG ZLWK KHU WRUQ KDLU DQG VKH SUD\HG WR WKH /RUG *RG
of Israel, saying: O my Lord, who alone is our king, help
me a lonely woman, and who has no other helper except for
you. (Esther 14.1–3)

)XUWKHUPRUH $OHVVLR¶V ¿OWK\ ³KDLU´   ERWK D FRQVHTXHQFH DQG D


V\PERORIKLVIDOVHDQGH[FHVVLYHUKHWRULFUHFDOOV*RG¶VUHDFWLRQWRWKH
priests’ insincere words of worship that stand in stark contrast to Levi’s
true and heartfelt prayers. In life, the Lord had punished the sacerdotes,
PDNLQJWKHP³FRQWHPSWLEOHDQGEDVH´DVWDWHWKDWSUH¿JXUHVWKHLUOLNHO\
condition in eternity, as the “sacred poem,” faithful to the lesson of
Scripture, reveals:

And now, O priests, this commandment is for you. If you will


not listen, and if you will not place it on your heart, to give
glory to my name, says the Lord of hosts, I will send poverty
upon you, and will curse your blessings, and I will curse
them, because you have not placed it on your heart. Behold,
I will stretch out my arm to you, and will spread upon your
face the excrement of your solemnities, and it shall take you
away with it. Behold, I will cast the shoulder to you, and will
scatter upon your face the excrement of your solemnities, and
it will take you away with it. And you will know that I sent
you this commandment, so that my covenant might be with
Levi, says the Lord of hosts. My covenant was with him of
life and peace; and I gave him fear, and he feared me, and
he was afraid before my name. The law of truth was in his
mouth, and iniquity was not found on his lips. He walked
with me in peace and in equality, and turned many away from
iniquity. For the lips of the priests will safeguard knowledge,
and they will seek the law from his mouth, because he is
the angel of the Lord of hosts. But you have abandoned the
way, and have caused many to stumble at the law. You have
rendered useless the covenant of Levi, says the Lord of hosts.
Therefore I have also made you contemptible and base before
all peoples. (Malachi 2.1–9)

12
Language as Sin and Salvation

In this context, one cannot but wonder whether Dante’s “cherco”—“I


VDZ RQH ZKRVH KHDG ZDV VR ¿OWK\ ZLWK VKLW  WKDW \RX FRXOGQ¶W WHOO
whether he was a layman or a cleric” (116–17)—is not actually an echo
of Malachi’s sacerdotes. In any case, there can be little doubt that, as
for other infernal tortures, Dante drew on the Bible when he fashioned
WKH ÀDWWHUHUV¶ HWHUQDO SXQLVKPHQW ,QGHHG LQ WKH 2OG 7HVWDPHQW DPRQJ
the acts of divine vengeance is the sinner or his corpse merging with
excrement. Examples of this degradation proliferate: the enemies of the
Lord “perished at Endor, and became as dung for the earth” (Psalms
82.11); “the lazy person is pelted with the dung of oxen, and everyone
that touches him will shake his hands” (Ecclesiasticus 22.2); “the Lord
is angry against his people, and he has stretched out his hand over
them, and has struck them; and the mountains were disturbed, and their
corpses were like dung in the middle of the roads” (Isaiah 5.25); “the
Lord spoke thus: And the corpse of man falls as excrement on the face
of the land” (Jeremiah 9.22); “they that were brought up in scarlet have
HPEUDFHG H[FUHPHQW´ /DPHQWDWLRQV   DQG ³, ZLOO DIÀLFW PHQ DQG
they will walk like blind men, because they have sinned against the
Lord, and their blood will be poured out like earth, and their bodies
OLNH H[FUHPHQW´ =HSKDQLDK   7KH ³SHRSOH SOXQJHG LQ H[FUHPHQW´
(113) thus have their most immediate precursors in this foul crowd of
Scriptural evildoers; and it is now clear that, when he alluded to Joel’s
EHDVWV WKDW KDG GHFD\HG DPRQJ WKHLU RZQ GXQJ *UD]LROR KDG DVWXWHO\
UHFRJQL]HGDQDQWHFHGHQWIRUWKHÀDWWHUHUVZKRVWHHSHGLQWKHHIÀXYLXP
of “human privies” (114), “snorted with their snouts” (104).
Inferno 18’s recourse to scatology establishes two central and
novel aspects of Dante’s comic style. First, it makes clear that the very
close links between the Bible and the Commedia, immediately highlighted
in Inferno 1, actually embrace the whole gamut of Scriptural sermo
humilis—a crucial detail that, up to this point in the canticle, had not
been made apparent.23 As I examine in detail in the next subsection, one
of the functions of Inferno  LV WR ¿[ WKH ORZHVW OLPLW RI WKH SRHP¶V
linguistic expressiveness. Consequently, and in the wake of our canto, the
Commedia, like the Old Testament, relies on scatology to lay bare the
vileness of sin. It is enough to remember Malacoda’s “arse” (Inf. 21.139);
Muhammed’s guts (Inf. 28.24–27); Cacciaguida’s injunction “and let
scratch where there’s scabies” (Par. 17.129); and St. Peter’s imprecation

13
ZYGMUNT G. BARAŃSKI

“he has made of my cemetery a sewer / of blood and of stench” (Par.


27.25–26). Moreover, throughout the Middle Ages, to employ scatological
language was a sign of religious writing broadly understood. In imita-
tion of the Bible, scatological vocabulary and imagery were far from
uncommon in the works of the Church Fathers—a vituperative strategy
that, over time, became a cliché of sacred language, naturally reiterated
by vernacular religious writers.24 The second bolgia thus also serves to
establish the religious credentials of the “sacred poem,” distinguishing
its Scripturally sanctioned use of scatology from texts in which, as we
shall see, its use is unashamedly lewd.
Second, by drawing on scatology, Inferno  UHDI¿UPV WKRXJK
in this instance from a perspective different to that offered by its plu-
rilingualism, which I discussed earlier, that the Commedia cannot be
assessed according to the conventional criteria of the stilus comicus.
6SHFL¿FDOO\WKHQRUPVRIWKHgenera dicendi did not permit unregulated
linguistic licence in the “low style.” The dictates of good taste and of
convenientia were as relevant to it as to the “high style.” Thus, neither
LQ WKH GH¿QLWLRQV RI WKH WKUHH ³VW\OHV´ QRU LQ WKH Ars poetica and its
commentary tradition, nor in the medieval artes poetriae that the clas-
sical Poetria KDG LQVSLUHG QRU LQ 7HUHQFH DQG KLV JORVV FDQ RQH ¿QG
passages that legitimate the use of scatological vocabulary.25 Furthermore,
we should not forget that, in Inferno 18, the use of this terminology is
not just rather insistent—sterco/merda/merdose (113, 116, 131)—but
also that it increases in vulgarity. The learned and technical sterco gives
way to the crude and popular merda, which is then transformed into the
rare, and hence especially expressive, adjective merdoso that Dante may
very well have coined.26 If the Commedia’s plurilingualism constitutes a
substantial challenge to that literary system, which, since ancient Rome,
had recognized in Horace its foremost praeceptor,27 then the poem’s
VFDWRORJLFDO YRFDEXODU\ HPSKDVL]HV WKDW QRW HYHQ LQ WKH ¿HOG RI WKH
“comic,” Horace’s particular area of expertise, can he serve as guide
to the new comedía.28 And the same is true for Terence, traditionally
the “comic” author par excellence, whom Dante relegated among the
minor auctores in Purgatorio 22.97, and whose example he rejected, as
his radical reworking of Thais makes obvious. In the medieval lectura
Terentii and in the commentaries to the Ars poetica, the two classical
poets were regularly associated.29 Thus, when Dante rebuffed one of
them, he likewise rebuffed the other, and by extension he snubbed the

14
Language as Sin and Salvation

established “comic” tradition. His pointed refusal of traditional poetic


norms explains why Dante allied himself so intimately, and not just for
ideological reasons, but also for literary ones, to Scripture’s totalizing
plurilingualism. Thais’ “shitty nails” (131) are a mark of the Biblically
LQÀHFWHGIRUPDOQRYHOW\RIWKHCommedia; however, as will soon become
apparent, they are also a symbol of its deeply ethical character.

4 Prooemium: obscenity and the


limits of the “comic” in Dante

Focusing on the scatological dimension of Inferno 18, I have pushed


into the background its sexual elements, which, in truth, are those that
dominate in the canto and which bring together the two bolgias. Espe-
cially if compared to the disgusting descriptions of the “ditch” (112)
RI WKH ÀDWWHUHUV ZKDW LV LPPHGLDWHO\ VWULNLQJ DERXW 'DQWH¶V SUHVHQWD-
tion of transgressive sexual behavior is its euphemistic and periphrastic
character. The poet introduces a “pimp” (66) who depicts the prostitu-
tion of his sister in ambiguous and elliptical terms: “I’ fui colui che la
*KLVRODEHOODFRQGXVVLDIDUODYRJOLDGHOPDUFKHVH>,ZDVWKHRQHZKR
OHG *KLVRODEHOOD WR GR WKH PDUTXLV¶ GHVLUH@´ ±  +H QH[W GHSLFWV
Virgil exclusively concentrating on the effects of Jason’s unrestrained
libido—“He left her here, pregnant, all alone” (94)—and later on, the
Latin poet distils the relationship between the “puttana” (133) and her
“drudo” to a dryly allusive literary quotation. Nor can one explain such
cautious usage simply in terms of deliberate evasiveness on Venedico’s
part, for, by speaking of “sconcia novella [disgusting story]” (57), he
recognizes the baseness of what he had done, or of rhetorical elegance
on Virgil’s part, as Buti maintained, given that the “tragic” poet actu-
ally utters the canto’s most lewd term, “merdose.” In any case, it is of
no little consequence that respect for linguistic discretio when speaking
about sex even affects the devils: “un demonio / . . . disse: ‘Via, / ruf-
¿DQ 4XL QRQ VRQ IHPPLQH GD FRQLR¶ >D GHPRQ VDLG µ*HW ORVW SLPSV
There are no women here to cheat/for sale’]” (64–66)—the ambiguity
of the phrase “femmine da conio” dissipating much of its sexual force.30
It is obvious that, as far as Dante was concerned, treating sexual
topics was not the same as dealing with scatological matter. It is thus
WHOOLQJWKDWWKHVDPHVHQVLELOLW\ZDVDOVRSUHVHQWLQDVLJQL¿FDQWSRUWLRQ

15
ZYGMUNT G. BARAŃSKI

of medieval culture. In the Middle Ages, referring on the one hand to


the obscene and on the other to the scatological could involve quite
distinct judgements and operations. The difference in approach almost
certainly had its origins in the divergent manner in which the Bible
addressed the two topics: relative unconcern about using scatological
vocabulary, and scrupulous discretion when presenting sexual themes.
Sermo humilis’ reticence when dealing with indecency is well summarized
by Raoul Ardent: “[lewd matters (turpitidines)] when they need to be
VLJQL¿HG WKHVH WKLQJV DUH VLJQL¿HG DQG KLGGHQ E\ PRUH KRQHVW ZRUGV
just like nature itself hides them. Don’t you see how Sacred Scripture
VLJQL¿HV WKURXJK PRUH KRQHVW ZRUGV WKH GLVKRQHVW\ RI WKRVH PHQ"´31
Consequently, a large number of religious and ethical texts circulated in
the Middle Ages that offered advice on how to speak about, or better,
on how to avoid speaking about, “opera turpia [vile actions].”32 Similar
constraints were not normally imposed on scatological references, as
long as these were utilized for strictly moral ends. As we have noted, it
was the grammatical and rhetorical traditions that, for reasons of literary
good taste, felt the need to regulate language of this sort. Conversely,
obscene speech was universally condemned, equally and energetically
rejected by Christian, literary, and ethical teaching. In the religious and
moral traditions, it was unequivocally a sin, turpiloquium,33 which St.
Paul closely associated with scurrilitas (also known as iocularitas) and
stultiloquium: “fornicatio autem et omnis immunditia aut avaritia nec
nominetur in vobis sicut decet sanctos aut turpitudo aut stultiloquium aut
scurrilitas quae ad rem non pertinent sed magis gratiarum actio [however
fornication and all uncleanness or avarice, let it not be named among
you, as becomes saints, or obscenity or foolish talk or scurrility, which
are pointless, but rather give thanks]” (Ephesians 5.3–4). It is almost
certain that Paul was referring to three different types of sin; however,
in the Middle Ages, turpiloquium and scurrilitas were frequently treated
as synonymous: “turpiloquium dicitur sermo turpis aut indecens, qui et
scurrilis dicitur a scurra, unde et scurrilitas, quoniam more scurrarum
abundare solet [lewd talk means indecent and lewd speech, which also
means scurrilous from scurra (jongleur), hence scurrility, seeing that it is
common behaviour among jongleurs].”34 The aim of the ioculator was to
make people laugh—“the jongleur [scurra] arouses men to laughter”35—
despite the fact that uncontrolled laughter led to sin.36 Then again, to

16
Language as Sin and Salvation

complicate matters further, in the wake of St. Jerome, scurrilitas and


stultiloquium also became confused:

Furthermore, I believe that foolish talk [stultiloquium] ap-


plies . . . to those who tell dirty stories to make people laugh
and, by feigning foolishness, amuse more those whom they
wish to please . . . But because scurrility [scurrilitas] follows
foolish talk, foolish talk should rather be applied to silly and
absurd tales. However, there is this difference between fool-
ish talk and scurrility, namely foolish talk has nothing wise
and worthy of the human heart in it. Scurrility, conversely,
descends from a prudent mind and strives with deliberation.37

In any case, however the three sins may have been distinguished in
practice, it is clear that all of them had their origin in the same error:
the desire to “tell dirty stories.” Indeed, the proliferation of designations
and distinctions for what, ultimately, was the same sin underlines the
seriousness and anxiety with which the Middle Ages treated turpiloquium.
It is understandable, therefore, that, faced with the repulsive sexual sin-
QHUVRIWKH¿UVWWZREROJLDV'DQWHVKRXOGKDYHPRYHGZLWKFDXWLRQDQG
with appropriate linguistic reticentia.
Yet, as in Inferno 18, there were instances when it was neces-
sary to address sexual materia. With more than a touch of pragmatism,
St. Augustine raised the question of how to discuss Adam and Eve’s
physical relations before and after their expulsion from Eden:

Accordingly, if anyone approaches what I am presently writing


without shame, it is his own guilt that he should shun, not
nature; he should stigmatize the actions of his own deprav-
ity, not the words imposed on us by necessity; the modest
and religious reader or listener readily excuses my use of
such words . . . For he reads these without becoming of-
fended . . . but, in explaining, as best as we can, the processes
of human generation, we nevertheless avoid, like him [Romans
1.26–27], obscene words.38

Following the example of the great teacher of sacred rhetoric, speaking


about “human generation” in ways that bypassed verba obscena became

17
ZYGMUNT G. BARAŃSKI

a norm of religious language. In this respect, sacred poetics dovetailed


perfectly with secular literary principles, which also forbade the use of
coarse vocabulary and encouraged instead the use of periphrasis when
treating sexual questions. In the Commedia, as in Inferno 18, and as he
had previously done in Inferno 5, Dante shuns any direct reference to
sexual activity. Furthermore, to refer to the male and female reproduc-
tive organs, he employed textbook circumlocutions: “lo membro che
l’uom cela [the member that man hides]” (Inf. 25.116) and that part of a
woman’s body that “è più bello / tacer che dire [is more beautiful to be
silent than to speak about]” (Purg. 25.43–44). Although it is something
of a critical commonplace to dub Inferno 18 as extreme, transgressive,
and lacking in good taste, it is in reality a model of sacred rhetorical
probity. On the other hand, except as far as obscena verba are concerned,
the canto provocatively challenges, as we have begun to see, the most
treasured values of classical and medieval literature.
An experimental text such as the Commedia, which openly
RSSRVHG WKH UH¿QHG DQG KDOORZHG GLVWLQFWLRQV RI WKH genera dicendi,
championing instead a vernacular plurilingualism of considerable expres-
VLYHIUHHGRPUDQVHULRXVULVNV*LRYDQQLGHO9LUJLOLR¶VFULWLFLVPVRIWKH
SRHPSURYLGHDKDQG\FRPSHQGLXPRIWKHGH¿FLHQFLHVZKLFKDFFRUGLQJ
to conservative literary opinion, marred the Commedia. Dante anticipated
such objections by emphasizing in Inferno 18 and elsewhere that the
“sacred poem” dutifully imitates Scriptural sermo humilis. At the same
time, however, he also needed to defend himself from accusations of
H[FHVVDQGRIXQMXVWL¿DEOHH[SHULPHQWDWLRQ,QVLPSOHWHUPVWKHSUREOHP
involved where limits should be set beyond which literature ought not
go; and, in essence, the whole of my analysis so far has revolved around
this question, which, in the early Trecento, especially as far as vernacular
culture was concerned, had acquired a degree of urgency. Once again,
in connection with this issue, too, Thais plays an emblematic role.
In Inferno 18, obscenity and scatology only come together when
the courtesan enters the scene. Thais does not so much embody extreme
behavior as constitute an instance of representational extremism. Yet, as
WKHVWRU\RI-H]DEHOFRQ¿UPV'DQWH¶V³ZKRUH´ZDVQRWZLWKRXWSUHFHGHQW
In the Bible, the association between excrement and sex was presented
EULHÀ\ DQG ZLWKRXW UHFRXUVH WR verba obscena. However, there were
traditions, in particular vernacular ones, that treated sex, not infrequently
coupled to other bodily functions, in a direct and linguistically unrestrained

18
Language as Sin and Salvation

manner. In Romance literature, it is enough to think of transgressive


texts such as the fatrasies, the fatras, and the fabliaux; the parodic epic
poem Audigier39 and the Roman de la Rose together with its Florentine
reworking, the Fiore; and the “comic-realist” lyric subgenre, which at
its most risqué produced lines like “tu porti ’l confalon degli sgraziati,
¿JOLXROGLTXHO>O@DF¶KD¶OFXOVuURGHQWHFKHWXW>W@LLFD]]LGHOPRQGR
KD V>WDQFDWL@ >\RX FDUU\ WKH ÀDJ RI WKH ORZOLIHV VRQ RI KHU ZKRVH DUVH
is so restless that it has exhausted all the cocks of the world].”40 And
then there were the scurrae, the jongleurs who, with little restraint,
transformed the obscene and the scatological into entertainment. It is
certain that Dante was absolutely committed to ensuring that he and the
Commedia were not associated with artists and works of this type. At
best, the ethical credentials of such literary forms were compromised,
though more typically they constituted classic cases of unacceptable
turpiloquium and scurrilitas. In contrast to the Commedia¶V VDOYL¿F
goals, they inexorably led to sin: on the one hand, to sinful laughter—
“where there is lewdness [turpitudo], there is also scurrility, where there
is indecorous laughter, there is also scurrility”41—and on the other, to
licentiousness: “for lewd subjects and debauched speech corrupt good
morals, and arouse and urge listeners to the lewdness of illicit pleasure.”42
Such traditions, therefore, had sensual dilectio as their aim rather than
ethically uplifting utilitas. They thus represented the opposite literary
pole to the Commedia. By means of his portrait of Thais, in which every
word is weighed according to the values of sermo humilis, Dante does
not offer lascivious distraction, but rather condemns sin. Although, like
the Bible, the Commedia is an encyclopedic work in which any topic,
VW\OH DQG ODQJXDJH FDQ ¿QG D VSDFH WKLV GRHV QRW PHDQ WKDW LW LV DNLQ
to the unrestrained vagaries of the scurrae or the absurd excesses of the
fatrasies, in which, recklessly, everything is possible. Precisely because it
LVDQH[SHULPHQWDOWH[WVW\OLVWLFDOO\WUDQVJUHVVLYHDQG¿HUFHO\FRPPLWWHG
to its ethical duties, Dante’s poem not only legitimates its “excesses,”
EXWDOVRXQDPELJXRXVO\¿[HVDQGGH¿QHVLWVRZQOLPLWV7KHCommedia
has little to do with Terence and traditional comedy, or with the most
brazen forms of the vernacular “low.” It rejects both the elegant con-
straints of the genera dicendi and the false freedom of turpiloquium. As
sacred rhetoric dictated, Dante did not hesitate to describe the “shitty”
otherworldly condition of the “whore,” but he refrained from evoking
the lustful earthly behaviors that had doomed her to the second bolgia.

19
ZYGMUNT G. BARAŃSKI

5 Prooemium: the sins of the tongue

The importance of Inferno 18 in the poem’s metaliterary system is


impressive. Dante assigned the canto a fundamental function: to establish
the Commedia’s essential formal and thematic parameters, in particular
WKRVH GH¿QLQJ LWV OLPLWV ,Q HVWDEOLVKLQJ WKHVH WKH SRHW ZDV JXLGHG E\
strict ethical principles, as is apparent when his solutions are compared
to the values and modes of medieval culture. At the same time, so as
to ensure that the Commedia’s aims and status could not be misun-
derstood, Dante closely allied Inferno 18, as well as the eighth circle
in its entirety, with one of the main ethical systems of his world: the
so-called sins of the tongue,43 in which turpiloquium enjoyed a position
of some prominence. Nonetheless, Dante did not draw on the tradi-
tion of linguistic sins simply to illuminate his poetic practice. Instead,
throughout Malebolge, he consistently engaged with the peccata linguae
in order to align the Commedia in general and its linguistic identity in
particular with the authority of the rich and prestigious Christian debate
on language and ethics.
As is evident from Paul’s letters, Christianity almost immediately
focused on the vitia linguae, not least because the moral and immoral use
of language had been a central concern of the Old Testament. However,
it was not until the latter years of the twelfth century that, as part of a
QHZLQWHUHVWLQWKHQDWXUHDQGFODVVL¿FDWLRQRIVLQVOLQJXLVWLFWUDQVJUHVVLRQ
was examined in a systematic manner. Basically, the tradition of the sins
of the tongue evaluated both sinful and righteous speech, as the Book of
Proverbs declared through a sententia that had become axiomatic: “Death
and life are in the hand of the tongue” (18.21). It would have been odd
LIDVWKHDXWKRURIDSRHPWKDWLQYHVWLJDWHGWKHUDPL¿FDWLRQVRIJRRGDQG
evil, Dante had not attended to the peccata linguae. What is suggestive,
however, is that he should have primarily bound the sins of the tongue
WRRQHDUHDRIKLVDIWHUOLIH*LYHQWKHIXQGDPHQWDOFRQQHFWLRQVEHWZHHQ
deception and intelligence, the sins of “fraud, whence every conscience
is bitten” (Inf. 11.52) were frequently linguistic in nature. The peccata
linguae thus provide one of the major means for understanding Male-
bolge, while also helping to integrate the circle’s different sins. From
this perspective, it is noteworthy that in the Inferno, barratry, which is
not a linguistic fault, but, in light of the accusations of corruption that
Dante’s enemies had laid against him, ends up entwined with detractio,

20
Language as Sin and Salvation

the sin of the tongue that “destroys the good actions of another person,
or diminishes them; or invents bad actions which are nonexistent, or
DPSOL¿HV DQG KLJKOLJKWV WKHVH LI WKH\ DUH SUHVHQW´44 Thomas Aquinas
GH¿QHG³GHWUDFWLRQ´ZLWKJUHDWHUSUHFLVLRQWRXFKLQJRQPDWWHUVFORVHWR
Dante’s personal circumstances:

Someone is said to speak ill [detrahere] of another, not because


he violates the truth, but he diminishes his good name [fama].
This is sometimes done directly, sometimes indirectly. Indeed,
GLUHFWO\LQIRXUZD\V¿UVWZKHQKHLPSRVHVRQVRPHRQHZKDW
is false; second, when he declares that his sin is greater than
it is; third, when he reveals something unknown about him;
fourth, when he says that a good action was done with a bad
intention. Indirectly, however, by denying the good action of
another, or by maliciously being silent about it.45

As we might expect, given the canto’s introductory functions, the key


VLJQL¿FDQFH RI WKH VLQV RI WKH WRQJXH LQ 0DOHEROJH LV ¿UVW EURXJKW WR
light in Inferno 18.46
Although several scholars have highlighted the structural
mechanisms that unite the different parts of the canto—as well as the
ideological associations that, in the Middle Ages, brought together and,
at times, even confused the three sins it presents—I am not aware that
DQ\RQH KDV QRWHG WKDW ¿UVW DQG IRUHPRVW LW LV WKH VLQV RI WKH WRQJXH
that grant it coherence. In fact, Inferno 18 can be read as a summa of
images and views typical of the tradition. We have already examined
how the debate on turpiloquium guided Dante’s stylistic choices; equally,
E\ FUDPPLQJ WKUHH OLQJXLVWLF VLQV ZLWKLQ WKH FRQ¿QHV RI D VLQJOH FDQWR
WKHSRHW¿UPO\GLUHFWHGWKHDWWHQWLRQWRZDUGVWKHpeccata linguae, which,
lest we forget, were highly popular in the early Trecento. In any case,
Inferno 18 recognizes its debts to these from its opening verses.
7KH VLPLOH RI WKH IRUWL¿HG FDVWOH DV 'DQWLVWV KDYH ORQJ UHFRJ-
nized, is striking:

Just as, where to guard the walls


more and more ditches encircle castles,
the part where they are creates a pattern,
such an image here these made;
and as to such fortresses from their entrances

21
ZYGMUNT G. BARAŃSKI

to the outer bank are little bridges,


so, from the bottom of the rock, ridges
move that cut the banks and ditches
as far as the pit that truncates and gathers them together.
(Inf. 18.10–18)

Normally, the description is considered a telling example of the precision


with which Dante portrayed the afterlife, as well as an instance of that
“realism” which is deemed characteristic of Inferno 18. Of rather greater
VLJQL¿FDQFHKRZHYHUDUHWKHZD\VLQZKLFKWKHLPDJHVSHFL¿FDOO\HYRNHV
the sins of the tongue. Among the principal topoi of the tradition of the
peccata linguae was the idea that the tongue is such a dangerous organ
that it needs to be enclosed and “guarded” behind the wall constituted
by the teeth. Like many other elements belonging to the sphere of the
sins of the tongue, this notion had its origins in the Book of Proverbs:
“he who guards his mouth, guards his soul” (13.3) and “as a city that
lies open and is not enclosed with walls, so is a man who is unable to
control his own spirit when speaking” (25.28). The Scriptural sugges-
WLRQV ZHUH VXEVHTXHQWO\ DPSOL¿HG DQG WUDQVIRUPHG LQWR PHWDSKRUV RI
IRUWL¿FDWLRQ ³7KLV EHDVW >WKH WRQJXH@ *RG VKXW LQ WKH SDODWH KH ZDOOHG
it in with teeth; he shut it with the gates of the lips; and he guarded it
with fastening bars of precepts so that it would be well defended and
guarded.”47 However much the simile of the “castles” may elucidate the
RUJDQL]DWLRQRI0DOHEROJHLWDOVRRIIHUVWKH¿UVWH[SOLFLWLQGLFDWLRQWKDW
the sins of the tongue will exercise a special function in the canto and
throughout the eighth circle. Likewise, a memorable metaphor such as that
RI³ODSULPDYDOOH    FKH¶QVpDVVDQQD>WKH¿UVWYDOOH\WKDWFOHQFKHV
in its fangs]” (98–99), the sinners cannot straightforwardly be resolved
DV D GUDPDWLF DOOXVLRQ WR WKH ¿[LW\ DQG YLROHQFH WKDW WKH GDPQHG VXIIHU
for eternity, given that it also helps to stress the linguistic character of
their sin. If only, in life, the sinners had enclosed their alluring tongues
EHKLQG WKHLU WHHWK WKH\ ZRXOG QRZ QRW ¿QG WKHPVHOYHV FDXJKW LQ WKH
³IDQJV´RIWKH¿UVWEROJLD7KHLPDJHWKHUHIRUHVHUYHVDVDJORVVRQWKH
evildoing of the panders and seducers. Similarly, the opening comparison
depicts a construction that is in fact the precise opposite of an earthly
“fortress.”48 Instead of rising upwards, it plunges downward without
surrounding or protecting anything—an ironic reversal that is typical of
Dante’s grotesque treatment of evil. However, irony also envelops the

22
Language as Sin and Salvation

OLQJXLVWLF VLQQHUV 7KH\ ¿QG WKHPVHOYHV XQSURWHFWHG RXWVLGH WKH ZDOOV


a state which constantly reminds them that, when alive, they had not
“walled in” their tongues. Furthermore, the fact that they are “guarded”
by “ditches” places them in the exact position in which they should
have maintained their tongues. The inhabitants of Malebolge thus end
up symbolizing their own sinful tongues—or rather their tongues in the
condition that they had failed to conserve them on earth. The subtleties
of divine justice are impeccable.
The further we delve into Inferno 18 so its ties to the peccata
linguae EHFRPH PRUH FRPSOH[ 7KXV WKH FDQWR WKHUHE\ UHDI¿UPLQJ LWV
proemial functions, includes a sort of abridged “treatise” de mendacio,
the sin which, on account of its close links to the eighth commandment
and to other forms of fallacious speech, was accorded a central place in
debates on the sins of the tongue. The episode of Jason and Hypsipyle
in particular raises questions regarding the nature of lying:

That one is Jason, who by courage and by wisdom


deprived the inhabitants of Colchis of the ram.
He passed through the island of Lemnos
after the bold pitiless women
had put to death all their men,
here with signs and with ornamented words
he deceived Hypsipyle, the young girl
who earlier had deceived all the others.
...
With him goes whoever deceives in this manner. (Inf.
18.86–93 and 97)

Conventionally, “that great one” (83) represented the supreme seducer;


yet, in Inferno, he is transformed into the archetypal liar. Augustine,
who composed two works on lying, the De mendacio and the Contra
mendacium ZKLFK WKURXJKRXW WKH 0LGGOH $JHV VHUYHG DV LQÀXHQWLDO
points of reference, described the liar as follows: “however the fault of
the liar is the desire to deceive in the enunciating of his mind; whether
he does deceive in that he is believed when uttering the falsehood or
he is not believed, or in that he utters a truth with the desire to deceive
which he does not think to be true.”49 The same emphasis on decep-
tion thus unites Augustine’s mentiens and Dante’s Jason. Furthermore,
the description of the hero’s modus operandi—“con segni e con parole

23
ZYGMUNT G. BARAŃSKI

ornate” (91)—translates an earlier phrase from the same paragraph in


ZKLFK$XJXVWLQHKDGGH¿QHGWKHOLDU³4XDSURSWHULOOHPHQWLWXUTXLDOLXG
KDEHW LQ DQLPR HW DOLXG YHUELV YHO TXLEXVOLEHW VLJQL¿FDWLRQLEXV HQXQWLDW
[hence, he lies, who has one thing in his mind and utters another in
words, or by signs of whatever kind]” (3.3).50 That Dante should have
concentrated on Hypsipyle rather than on Medea, as was usual, when
presenting Jason’s sexual adventures can once again be explained in light
of the medieval tradition on lying. The poet associates the “giovinetta”
(92) with the massacre of the men of Lemnos, and hence with the decep-
tion she practiced in order to save her father’s life. Hypsipyle’s action
constitutes a perfect instance of one of the major problems linked to
lying that Augustine had highlighted and discussed: “In the meantime,
let us enquire about this kind of lie, in which all agree: whether it might
sometimes be useful to utter a falsehood with the desire to deceive” (De
mendacio 5.5). In particular, the problem concerned lying so as to save
the life of another person: “If someone should take refuge with you,
who by your lie might be saved from death, wouldn’t you lie?” (5.5).
7KHQ RQH RI WKH H[DPSOHV H[DPLQHG E\ $XJXVWLQH VSHFL¿FDOO\ UHODWHV
to the life of a father: “what if this condition were offered to a Martyr,
WKDW LI KH UHIXVHG WR EHDU IDOVH ZLWQHVV DERXW &KULVW DQG WR VDFUL¿FH WR
demons, before his eyes, not some other man, but his own father would
be killed” (9.13; and see also 13.21–24; 17.34). The bishop of Hippo,
and with him the majority of Christian ethical opinion, decreed that “nor
must one lie in the seventh type of lying; for anyone’s advantage or
earthly welfare is not preferable to the perfecting of faith” (21.42; and
see also 9; 15–18). However, Dante must have had some doubts about
Augustine’s intransigent position, for, as Virgil would explain to Statius,
Hypsipyle is to be found among the inhabitants of Limbo: “she that
revealed Langia” (Purg. 22.112). The correspondences between Dante’s
reference to Jason and Hypsipyle and the Augustinian tradition on lying
are strikingly precise; in addition, other details in the canto associate it
with writings de mendacio. Venedico, in fact, had earlier alluded to two
of the commonplaces of the tradition on lying. Announcing the greed of
his fellow-citizens—“bring to mind our greedy breast” (63)—the sinner
also recalled that lying is the daughter of greed.51 Equally, his announce-
ment that the bolgia is especially full of Bolognese—“che tante lingue
non son ora apprese / a dicer ‘sipa’ tra Sàvena e Reno [that not so many
tongues have learned to say ‘yes’ (in Bolognese dialect) now between the

24
Language as Sin and Salvation

Sàvena and the Reno; 60–61]”—also has links to lying. When Augustine
insists that every lie leads to damnation, he cites Jesus’ words: “Unde
ore suo ipse Dominus: ‘Sit, inquit, in ore vestro, est, est; non, non: quod
autem amplius est a malo est’ [Hence from his own mouth the Lord
himself said: ‘Let in your mouth be yes, yes; no, no: and what is over
and above these is of evil’]” (5.6). The sententia is taken from Matthew
5.37, and is part of Christ’s attack on the swearing of oaths, to which he
constrasts the adequacy of honest speech. The passage, which enjoyed a
degree of popularity in the Middle Ages,52 ZDV LQWHUSUHWHG DV DI¿UPLQJ
the primacy of truth: yes that means yes. Conversely, the “greedy” sipa
uttered by the Bolognese lacks any basis in truth.
Having established the key importance of lying, Dante expands
KLVDQDO\VLVDQGWUHDWPHQWRIOLQJXLVWLFVLQVGUDZLQJZLWKFRQ¿GHQFHRQ
various aspects of the tradition of vitia oris. In this, as we have begun to
VHHKHFRXOG¿QGPDQ\RIWKHHOHPHQWVZKLFKKHQHHGHGWRIDVKLRQWKH
¿UVWWZREROJLDVDQGHVSHFLDOO\WKDWRIWKHÀDWWHUHUV)RULQVWDQFHVRPH
of the Scriptural passages on which he constructed the second bolgia
come from the two Old Testament books, Ecclesiasticus and Proverbs,
that were central to discussions of the sins of the tongue.53 It is enough
to think of “omnis mulier quae est fornicaria quasi stercus in via concul-
cabitur” (Ecclesiasticus 9.10), or the verses that also appear to lie behind
the description of Thais, “Et ecce mulier occurrit illi ornatu meretricio
praeparata ad capiendas animas, garrula et vaga, quietis inpatiens nec
valens in domo consistere pedibus suis [And here’s a woman who goes
to meet him in harlot’s attire, prepared to deceive souls, talkative and
wandering, not bearing to be quiet, not able to abide still at home]”
(Proverbs 7.10–11). The early commentators of the Commedia, when
HOXFLGDWLQJWKH¿JXUHRI7KDLVLPPHGLDWHO\DOLJKWHGRQ WKHVHSDVVDJHV
DOPRVW FHUWDLQO\ LQÀXHQFHG E\ WKH WUDGLWLRQ RI WKH VLQV RI WKH WRQJXH54
In any case, the relationship between sex and linguistic sins was well
established in this.55 Similarly, the substantial presence of alimentary
allusions in Inferno 18 can in part be explained by the notion that sins
of language were linked to those of gluttony56—a connection that had
been forged by canonical statements such as “Of the fruit of a man’s
PRXWK ZLOO KLV EHOO\ EH VDWLV¿HG DQG WKH RIIVSULQJ RI KLV OLSV ZLOO ¿OO
him. Death and life are in the hand of the tongue. They who love it,
shall eat its fruits” (Proverbs 18.20–21), and “Do you not understand that
whatever enters into the mouth goes into the belly, and is expelled into

25
ZYGMUNT G. BARAŃSKI

the toilet? However, the things that come out of the mouth, exit from
WKH KHDUW DQG WKHVH GH¿OH D PDQ´ 0DWWKHZ ±  D sententia that
Augustine had canonized in the De mendacio. The distance separating
such excerpts from a metaphorical language based on ideas of corrup-
tion, degradation, and pollution to describe the peccata linguae and their
effects is small:

Loquens debet attendere quid dicat, quomodo dicat, cui dicat


et quando dicat. Quid debet homo loqui docetur 1 Pe. 4 [11],
Si quis loquitur quasi sermones dei, et Eph. 4 [29], Omnis
sermo malus non procedat ex ore uestro: sed qui bonus est
DG HGL¿FDFLRQHP ¿GHL XW GHW JUDWLDP DXGLHQWLEXV. Qui enim
non timet coinquinare linguam suam plus quam alia membra
pocius porcus uidetur quam homo. Porcus enim in cito ponit
rostrum suum in luto sicut pedem. Item porcus semper habet
RV DSHUWXP DG VWHUFRUD HW QRQ DG ÀRUHV VLF PDOL DG VWHUFRUD
SHFFDWRUXPQRQDGÀRUHVXLUWXWXP    'HRUHODWULQLHWVHS-
ulcri non egreditur nisi fetor.

[A speaker ought to pay attention to what he should speak,


how he should speak, to whom he should speak, and when he
should speak. What a man ought to speak is taught in I Pet.
 ³,I DQ\ PDQ VSHDNV OHW KLP VSHDN DV WKH ZRUGV RI *RG´
and in Eph. 4, “Let no evil speech proceed from your mouth,
EXW WKDW ZKLFK LV JRRG WR WKH HGL¿FDWLRQ RI IDLWK WKDW LW PD\
administer grace to hearers.” He who does not fear to foul
his tongue more than other members seems to be a pig rather
WKDQDKXPDQEHLQJIRUDSLJSXWVLWVVQRXWLQ¿OWKDVUHDGLO\
as its foot. Likewise a pig always has its mouth open to dung
EXW QRW WR ÀRZHUV MXVW DV WKH PRXWKV RI WKH HYLO DUH RSHQ WR
WKH GXQJ RI VLQV DQG QRW WR ÀRZHUV RI YLUWXHV    1RWKLQJ
passes out of the mouth of a latrine or sepulcher except stink.]57

This type of disgusting imagery also became part of the commonplace


language of the sins of the tongue,58 and it certainly offered Dante the
PHDQV ZLWK ZKLFK WR GHYHORS WKH SXQLVKPHQW DQG VHWWLQJ IRU ÀDWWHU\
1HYHUWKHOHVVWKHFRQWUDSDVVRRIWKH¿UVWEROJLDDOVRKDVLWVURRWVDPRQJ
sins of language. In the Book of Proverbs, once again, the speech of the
stulti is compared to a rod: “In the mouth of a fool is the rod of pride,
but the lips of the wise guard them” (14.3), and “In the lips of the wise

26
Language as Sin and Salvation

wisdom is found, and a rod on the back of him that lacks sense” (10.13;
and see also 26.3). To create the torment of the panders and seducers,
Dante combined the notion of the sinful tongue that strikes those who
do not control it by exercising their intelligence with the Scriptural topos
of the whip of the Lord that punishes the evildoer: “And the Lord of
hosts will raise a whip above him” (Isaiah 10.26). Finally, it is likely
WKDWWKHWUDGLWLRQDOLPDJHRI*UDPPDWLFDJUDVSLQJDZKLSDOVRLQÀXHQFHG
the depiction of the “horned devils with big whips” (35).59 If the mem-
bers of the two “bands / . . . that the whip . . . drives away” (80–81)
had followed with due attention their grammar lessons, in which it was
normal to underline the relationship between language and ethics, they
PD\ YHU\ ZHOO KDYH DYRLGHG HQGLQJ XS LQ WKH ¿UVW EROJLD 7KH ZKLS
which in life could have taught them to live morally—the image may
also be found in the Bible (for instance, Proverbs 20.30)—now can only
LQÀLFW ³SDLQ´  60

6 Concluding “prudently”

In light of Inferno 18’s introductory functions, it is noteworthy that the


evildoers who appear therein, despite belonging to three distinct catego-
ries of sinners, can also represent, in general terms at least, the nature
and implications of any linguistic sin. If, as I have intimated, Malebolge
may be read as Dante’s meditation on the peccata linguae, and hence
our canto as the prooemium WR VXFK UHÀHFWLRQ LW ZRXOG EH XVHIXO WR EH
able to demonstrate that, in keeping with the conventions of works on
linguistic transgression, the poet, too, in Inferno 18, addressed the virtu-
ous use of language. Clearly, in metaliterary terms, the “comic” stilus
of the “sacred poem / to which have placed a hand both heaven and
earth” (Par. 25.1–2) stands in direct opposition to the manifold linguistic
perversions of sinful speakers. Yet, especially in Inferno 18, we might
expect something more.
According to the tradition, it was the sapiens, and more especially
the prudens, who spoke with care:

The prudent person is the one who speaks when he ought


to speak. Whence Ecclus. XX, “A wise man will hold his
peace until he sees opportunity.” The more prudent person is

27
ZYGMUNT G. BARAŃSKI

the one who speaks such things as he ought to speak, as he


who speaks words pure from falsehood and from harm to his
QHLJKERXUDQGIURPLQVXOWVWR*RG:KHQFH3URYHUEV;9³$
pure word [sermo purus] is most beautiful.” The most prudent
truly is he who preserves a measure in words, namely he who
speaks sweetly and without clamour or harshness what is not a
little useful . . . moderation of discourse cannot exist without
moderation of the heart.61

The supreme exemplum of the prudent individual was Job, who, tellingly,
“sedens in sterquilinio [sits on the dungheap]” (Job 2.8), but who, in
VWDUNRSSRVLWLRQWRWKHÀDWWHUHUV³QRQSHFFDYLW    ODELLVVXLV>GLGQRW
sin with his lips]” (10). Furthermore, and in this instance in contrast
WR WKH LQKDELWDQWV RI WKH ¿UVW EROJLD WKH ³SUXGHQW LV KH ZKR ORRNV WR
future things, both rewards and torments; and such a person does not
murmur about a scourge. For he freely bears the rod who saves him-
self from the sword of eternal punishment; he endures patiently being
beaten by him from whom he anticipates a heavenly inheritance.”62
If, in Hell, the presence of the Old Testament patriarch can only be
evoked intertextually, a prudens does in fact move “rather lightly” (70)
among the sinners. The prudent person’s “sermo purus” is recalled by
the pilgrim’s “chiara favella [clear speech]” (53), who, thanks to its
effects, triumphs over evil: “I say it with ill will; / but I am forced
by your clear speech” (52–53). The viator’s frank words, spiced even
with a metaphor—“pungenti salse [pungent sauces]” (51)—typical of
the conventional “low,” highlight the falsity and deception of Jason’s
“parole ornate [ornamented words]” (91). It is the intent behind words,
as the entire tradition on the peccata linguae concurred, that counts, and
not their formal elegance or crudeness (with the exception of course
of obscena verba). As is evident from the Commedia, “moderate” text
of a “prudent” scriba Dei ZKR DV RFFXUUHG DPRQJ WKH ³UXI¿DQ´  
has learned to speak “purely” during his otherworldly journey, we,
the poem’s readers, have the duty to recognize the ways in which it
blends language and ethics. If we stop at its lictera, and we evaluate
LWPHFKDQLVWLFDOO\LQWHUPVRILWVUHODWLRQVKLSWRWKHDUWL¿FLDOFULWHULDRI
medieval poetics, or we judge it anachronistically in terms of its confor-
mity to standards of decorum and good taste that have little to do with
the sensibilities of medieval culture, we will signally fail to appreciate
WKH HWKLFDO QHYHU PLQG WKH GLYLQH IRUFH RI LWV ¿QHO\ WXQHG OLQJXLVWLF

28
Language as Sin and Salvation

choices. We need to go beyond the lictera to establish the Commedia’s


intentio, and hence its moral purpose. Rather too often, alas, readers of
Inferno 18 have revealed themselves reluctant to undertake these basic
duties of the historian of literature.

Notes

1. Until quite recently, the only analyses of the canto were those written
VSHFL¿FDOO\ IRU WKH F\FOHV RI lecturae Dantis; see Salvatore Accardo, “Il
canto XVIII dell’Inferno,” in Inferno. Letture degli anni 1973-’76 (Rome:
Bonacci, 1977), 443–59; Marino Barchiesi, “Arte del prologo e arte della
transizione,” Studi danteschi  ±*LXOLR%HUWRQL³,OFDQWR
dei lenoni e degli adulatori,” Archivum Romanicum 12 (1928), 288–302;
Lanfranco Caretti, “Canto XVIII,” in Lectura Dantis Scaligera: Inferno
(Florence: Le Monnier, 1971), 583–616; )XOFR7RPPDVR *DOODUDWL 6FRWWL
“Il canto XVIII dell’Inferno,” in Letture dantesche: InfernoHG*LRYDQQL
*HWWR )ORUHQFH 6DQVRQL   ± *LDQQL *UDQD Il canto XVIII
dell’“Inferno” (Turin: SEI, 1959); *HRUJHV *QWHUW ³&DQWR ;9,,,´ LQ
Lectura Dantis Turicensis: InfernoHG*HRUJHV*QWHUWDQG0LFKHODQJHOR
Picone (Florence: Cesati, 2000), 243–57; Mario Martelli, Canto XVIII
dell’“Inferno” (Naples: Loffredo, 1981); Edoardo Sanguineti, “Il canto XVIII
dell’Inferno,” in Nuove letture dantesche (Florence: Le Monnier, 1968),
vol. 2, 137–60; H. Wayne Storey, “XVIII,” in Dante’s “Divine Comedy”:
Introductory Readings. I. “Inferno,” ed. Tibor Wlassics (Charlottesville:
University of Virginia, 1990), 235–46. During the last few years, the canto
has begun to attract the interest of scholars independently from the needs
of “readings” of the Inferno; see Stefano Carrai, “Attraversando le prime
bolge: Inferno XVIII,” L’Alighieri 37 (2011): 97–110; Roberto Mercuri,
“Trame metalinguistiche nel canto XVIII dell’Inferno,” Annali dell’Istituto
Universitario Orientale. Sezione Romanza 32 (1990): 201–11; Francesco
Tateo, “Il canto XVIII dell’Inferno,” L’Alighieri 12 (1998): 33–43;
Pasquale Tuscano, Dal vero al certo: indagini e letture dantesche (Naples:
(GL]LRQL VFLHQWL¿FKH LWDOLDQH   ± 7L]LDQR =DQDWR ³/HWWXUD GHO
canto XVIII dell’Inferno,” Per leggere 6 (2004): 5–47, which is by far the
EHVWDQDO\VLVRIWKHFDQWRWKDW,KDYHUHDG6HHDOVR=\JPXQW*%DUDĔVNL
“Inferno XVIII,” in Lectura Dantis Bononiensis, ed. Emilio Pasquini and
&DUOR *DOOL YRO  %RORJQD %RQRQLD 8QLYHUVLW\ 3UHVV   ±

2. Il “Commento” di Francesco da Buti alla “Commedia.” “Inferno.” Nuova


edizione, ed. Claudia Tardelli, Doctoral thesis, Scuola Normale Superiore

29
ZYGMUNT G. BARAŃSKI

di Pisa, 2010–11, 773. All translations are my own. Even when translating
Dante, I have aimed at linguistic and syntactic accuracy rather than at
HOHJDQFH 7R VDYH VSDFH DQG WR GLVUXSW WKH ÀRZ RI P\ DUJXPHQW DV OLWWOH
as possible, I have normally just provided the translation into English of
passages that I cite. All quotations from and references to the Commedia
are from the following edition: La Commedia secondo l’antica vulgata,
HG *LRUJLR 3HWURFFKL  YROV )ORUHQFH /H /HWWHUH 2).

3. See Marino Barchiesi, Un tema classico e medievale: Gnatone e Taide


3DGXD $QWHQRUH   -RKQ 1 *UDQW ³7DLGH LQ Inferno 18 and
Eunuchus 937,” Quaderni d’italianistica 15 (1994): 151–55; Roberto
Mercuri, “Terenzio nostro antico,” Cultura neolatina, 29 (1969), 84–116;
*LRUJLR 3DGRDQ ³,O Liber Esopi e due episodi dell’Inferno,” in Il pio
Enea, l’empio Ulisse (Ravenna: Longo, 1977), 151–69 (151–61); André
Pézard, “Du Policraticus à la Divine Comédie (premier article),” Romania
70 (1948): 1–36 (4–20); Ezio Raimondi, “Noterella dantesca (a proposito
di Taide),” Lettere italiane    ± =DQDWR ³/HWWXUD´ ±

4. Manlio Pastore Stocchi, “Taide,” in Enciclopedia dantesca, vol. 5, 509–


   6HH DOVR =\JPXQW * %DUDĔVNL ³'DQWH H OD WUDGL]LRQH FRPLFD
latina,” in Dante e la “bella scola” della poesia, ed. Amilcare A. Iannucci
(Ravenna: Longo, 1993), 225–45 (236); Padoan, Il “Liber Esopi,” 157–60.

5. See %DUDĔVNL³'DQWHHODWUDGL]LRQH´± Claudia Villa, La “Lectura


Terentii” (Padua: Antenore, 1984), 141–71, and “ ‘Comoedia: laus in
canticis dicta.’ Schede per Dante: Paradiso, XXV 1 e Inferno, XVIII,”
Rivista di studi danteschi 1 (2001): 316–31 (325–31).

6. The secondary bibliography on medieval attitudes to sex is now substantial.


See at least John W. Baldwin, The Language of Sex: Five Voices from
Northern France around 1200 (Chicago: The University of Chicago Press,
1994); Pierre Bec, Burlesque et obscenité chez les troubadours (Paris:
Stock, 1984); Howard R. Bloch, The Scandal of the Fabliaux (Chicago:
The University of Chicago Press, 1986); John Boswell, Same-Sex Unions
in Pre-Modern Europe (New York: Villard Books, 1994); James A.
Brundage, Law, Sex, and Christian Society in Medieval Europe (Chicago:
The University of Chicago Press, 1987); William Burgwinkle, Sodomy,
Masculinity, and Law in Medieval Literature: France and England,
1050–1230 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2004); Joan Cadden,
Meanings of Sex Difference in the Middle Ages (Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press, 1995); Lucia Lazzerini, Il testo trasgressivo (Milan:

30
Language as Sin and Salvation

Franco Angeli, 1988); Pierre Payer, The Bridling of Desire: Views of Sex
in the Latter Middle Ages (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1993);
5XWK 0D]R .DUUDV Sexuality in Medieval Europe: Doing Unto Others
(London: Routledge, 20122); Anthony Weir and James Jerman, Images of
Lust: Sexual Carvings in Medieval Churches (London: Batsford, 1986).

7. “Degrading” and its cognates are a constant in the critical tradition on the
canto.

8. Although all these phrases are taken from the lecturae previously cited, I
do not give references for these as they are meant to illustrate a general
trend.

9. In reality, “fecal discourse can be read as a culturally coded and determined


event”: Susan Signe Morrison, Excrement in the Late Middle Ages: Sacred
Filth and Chaucer’s Fecopoetics (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2008),
7. See also Valerie Allen, On Farting: Language and Laughter in the
Middle Ages (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2007); David Inglis,
A Sociological History of Excretory Experience: Defecatory Manners
and Toiletry Technologies (Lewiston: The Edwin Mellen Press, 2001);
Dominique Laporte, History of Shit (Cambridge: MIT Press, 1993).

10. Dante Alighieri, Commedia. I. Inferno, ed. Anna Maria Chiavacci Leonardi
(Milan: Mondadori, 20087), 535.

11. But see the analysis of the lexeme merda in subsection 3.

12. I cite from the online version of the dictionary. The entry attingere may
be found at: http://woerterbuchnetz.de/LEI/?sigle=LEI&mode=Vernetzung
&lemid=YA01939.

  6HH =\JPXQW * %DUDĔVNL, “Sole nuovo, luce nuova.” Saggi sul
rinnovamento culturale in Dante (Turin: Scriptorium, 1996). See also
Teodolinda Barolini, The Undivine Comedy (Princeton: Princeton University
Press, 1992), 74–78.

14. “In Malebolge, Cantos 18–22, 24, 26, 28, and 30 (i.e., nine cantos out
of thirteen) have proems emphasizing the craftsmanship of the poet; they
contribute strongly to the formal unity of these thirteen cantos. . . . This
new self-conscious emphasis, which begins at 16. 128–29 in connection
ZLWK WKH LQWURGXFWLRQ RI *HU\RQ UHSUHVHQWV D PDUNHG FKDQJH IURP WKH

31
ZYGMUNT G. BARAŃSKI

cantos preceding Malebolge: it is one of the ways Dante makes the entire
poetic texture more elaborate and more intense, as well as keeping before
WKH UHDGHU WKH SUREOHPDWLF UHODWLRQ RI SRHWU\ ¿FWLRQ DOOHJRU\  WR IUDXG´
Dante Alighieri, Inferno, ed. Robert M. Durling and Ronald L. Martinez
(New York: Oxford University Press, 1996), 282.

15. Franz Quadlbauer, Die antike Theorie der “Genera dicendi” im lateinischen
Mittelalter (Vienna: Hermann Böhlaus Nachf., 1962).

16. “Species huius artis dicuntur tria genera stilorum qua a quibusdam
YRFDQWXU¿JXUDHDTXLEXVGDPFDUDFWHUHVDXWVWLOL¿JXUHDSSHOODQWXUTXDVL
FRPSRVLWLRQHV YHUERUXP 7UHV VXQW ¿JXUH GLFLWXU XQD ¿JXUD KXPLOLV
idest compositio verborum pertinentium modo ad parvas, ut in bucolicis
LQYHQLWXU GLFLWXU DOLD ¿JXUD PHGLRFULV LGHVW DOLD FRPSRVLFLR YHUERUXP
SHUWLQHQWLXPDGSDUYDVUHVPRGRDGPDJQDVGLFLWXUDOLD¿JXUDDOWDLGHVW
compositio verborum pertinentium ad magnas res et altas” (MS Vaticano
Reg. lat. 1431, fol. 36r-v; the manuscript, of French origin, was copied in
the twelfth century: Birger Munk Olsen, L’Étude des auteurs classiques
latins au XI et XII siècles, 3 vols. (Paris: Éditions du CNRS, 1982–87),
vol. 1, 501).

17. On the “comic” character of culinary and alimentary references, see John
& %DUQHV DQG =\JPXQW * %DUDĔVNL, “Dante’s ‘canzone Montanina,’ ”
Modern Language Review 73 (1978): 297–307 (305); Ernst Robert
Curtius, European Literature and the Latin Middle Ages (Princeton:
Princeton University Press, 1990), 431–35; .DWKU\Q*UDYGDO“Vilain” and
“Courtois”: Transgressive Parody in French Literature of the Twelfth and
Thirteenth Centuries (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1989), 63
and 78.

  6HH=\JPXQW*%DUDĔVNL, “Scatology and Obscenity in Dante,” in Dante


for the New Millennium, ed. Teodolinda Barolini and H. Wayne Storey
(New York: Fordham University Press, 2003), 259–73. See also Medieval
Obscenities, ed. Nicola McDonald (York: York Medieval Press, 2006);
Obscenity: Social Control and Artistic Creation in the European Middle
Ages HG -DQ =LRONRZVNL /HLGHQ %ULOO  

  *UD]LROR%DPEDJOLROLCommento all’“Inferno” di Dante, ed. Luca C. Rossi


(Pisa: Scuola Normale Superiore, 1998), 134. The Scriptural quotation
does not come from the Psalter but from Joel: “conputruerunt iumenta

32
Language as Sin and Salvation

in stercore suo demolita sunt horrea dissipatae sunt apothecae quoniam


confusum est triticum” (1.17).

20. I cite from the second redaction of Pietro’s commentary in the version
that can be read on the website of the Dante Dartmouth Project.

21. Francesco da Buti, Il Commento, 773.

  2Q WKH UHODWLRQVKLS EHWZHHQ ZRPHQ DQG ÀOWK LQ PHGLHYDO FXOWXUH VHH
Alexandra Cuffel, Gendering Disgust in Medieval Religious Polemic
(Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press, 2007); Signe Morrison,
Excrement, 45–54.

23. On the Bible as a linguistic and stylistic summa, see Alastair Minnis,
Medieval Theory of Authorship (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania
Press, 2010), 130–38.

24. See Martha Bayless, Sin and Filth in Medieval Culture. The Devil in the
Latrine (New York: Routledge, 2012); Signe Morrison, Excrement, 25–44
(the whole book, however, examines the relationship between excrement
and the sacred).

25. See James N. Adams, The Latin Sexual Vocabulary (Baltimore: The Johns
Hopkins University Press, 1982), 231–50. Furthermore, Adams concludes
that “in Terence there is no trace of the lexical obscenities or of current
metaphors. He avoided mention of the sexual organs . . . Most of his
references to sexual practices take the form of metonymy” (218–19).

26. See Tesoro della lingua italiana delle origini [TLIO], entry: merdoso.

27. The bibliography on Horace in the Middle Ages is substantial; see at least
“Fortuna dal medioevo all’età contemporanea,” in Orazio. Enciclopedia
oraziana, vol. 3, 79–524; .DUVWHQ )ULLV-HQVHQ ³µ+RUDWLXV OLULFXV HW
ethicus.’ Two Twelfth-Century School Texts on Horace’s Poems,” Cahiers
de l’Institut du Moyen-Âge Grec et Latin 57 (1988): 81–147, “The Ars
Poetica in Twelfth-Century France. The Horace of Matthew of Vendôme,
*HRIIUH\RI9LQVDXIDQG-RKQRI*DUODQG´ Cahiers de l’Institut du Moyen-
Âge Grec et Latin 60 (1990): 319–84, “Horace and the Early Writers of
Arts of Poetry,” in Sprachtheorien in Spätantike und Mittelalter, in Sven
(EEHVHQ 7ELQJHQ 1DUU   ± DQG ³0HGLHYDO &RPPHQWDULHV

33
ZYGMUNT G. BARAŃSKI

on Horace,” in Medieval and Renaissance Scholarship, ed. Nicholas Mann


DQG %LUJHU 0XQN 2OVHQ /HLGHQ %ULOO   ± 9LQFHQW *LOOHVSLH
“The Study of Classical Authors from the Twelfth Century to c. 1450,”
in The Cambridge History of Literary Criticism. II. The Middle Ages,
ed. Alastair Minnis and Ian Johnson (Cambridge: Cambridge University
Press, 2005), 45–235 (160–78); Maria-Barbara Quint, Untersuchungen zur
mittelalterlichen Horaz-Rezeption (Frankfurt: Peter Lang, 1988); Suzanne
Reynolds, Medieval Reading. Grammar, Rhetoric and the Classical Text
(Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1996); Claudia Villa, “ ‘Ut
SRHVLV SLFWXUD¶ DSSXQWL LFRQRJUD¿FL VXL FRGLFL GHOO¶Ars Poetica,” Aevum
62 (1988): 186–97, and “Per una tipologia del commento mediolatino:
l’Ars Poetica di Orazio,” in Il commento ai testi, ed. Ottavio Besomi
and Carlo Caruso (Basle, Boston, and Berlin: Birkhäuser Verlag, 1992),
19–46.

  2Q 'DQWH DQG +RUDFH VHH DW OHDVW =\JPXQW * %DUDQVNL ³7KUHH 1RWHV
on Dante and Horace,” in Dante: Current Trends in Dante Studies, ed.
Claire Honess [special issue of Reading Medieval Studies 27 (2001):
5–37], “Dante e Orazio medievale,” Letteratura italiana antica 7 (2006):
187–221, “ ‘Valentissimo poeta e correggitore de’ poeti’: A First Note on
Horace and the Vita nova,” in /HWWHUDWXUDH¿ORORJLDWUD6YL]]HUDH,WDOLD
Miscellanea di studi in onore di Guglielmo Gorni, ed. Maria Antonietta
7HU]ROL$OEHUWR$VRU 5RVD DQG *LRUJLR ,QJOHVH  YROV 5RPH (GL]LRQL
di Storia e Letteratura, 2010), vol. 1, 3–17, and “ ‘Magister satiricus’:
Preliminary Notes on Dante, Horace and the Middle Ages,” in Language
and Style in Dante HG -RKQ & %DUQHV DQG 0LFKHODQJHOR =DFFDUHOOR
(Dublin: Four Courts Press, 2013), 13–61; Suzanne Reynolds, “ ‘Orazio
satiro’ (Inferno IV, 89): Dante, the Roman Satirists, and the Medieval
Theory of Satire,” in “Libri poetarum quattuor species dividuntur.” Essays
on Dante and “Genre,” HG =\JPXQW * %DUDQVNL 6XSSOHPHQW  RI The
Italianist 15 (1995): 128–44; Claudia Villa, “Dante lettore di Orazio,” in
Dante e la “bella scola,” 87–106.

29. Villa, La “Lectura Terentii,” and “Terenzio (e Orazio) in Toscana fra IX e


XIV secolo,” 6WXGLLWDOLDQLGL¿ORORJLDFODVVLFD ser. 3, 10 (1992): 1103–15.

30. Wayne Conner, “Inferno XVIII, 66 (femmine da conio) and (pungenti


salse),” Italica 32–33 (1955–56): 95–103.

  2QO\ WKH ¿UVW ¿YH ERRNV RI WKH Speculum universale have been published
in a modern edition: Radulphus Ardens, Speculum universale, ed. Claudia

34
Language as Sin and Salvation

Heimann and Stephan Ernst (Turnhout: Brepols, 2011). Books 6–8 are
quoted from MS Paris BN, lat. 3229, while books 9–14 are regularly cited
from MS Paris BN, lat. 3240. The passage quoted is found in book 13
and can be read at fol. 164rb.

  *LOHV RI 5RPH De regimine principum (Rome: apud Bartholomaum


=DQQRWWXP     

33. See Carla Casagrande and Silvana Vecchio, I peccati della lingua (Rome:
Istituto della Enciclopedia Italiana, 1987), 393–406; Edwin D. Craun, Lies,
Slander, and Obscenity in Medieval English Literature: Pastoral Rhetoric
and the Deviant Speaker (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1997),
141, 158–72, 177.

34. Vincent of Beauvais, Speculum doctrinale 4.170.398.

  *XLOOHOPXV 3HUDOGXV Summae virtutum ac vitiorum, 2 vols. (Paris: apud


Ludovicum Boullenger, 1668), vol. 2, 415. On the scurrae see Carla
Casagrande and Silvana Vecchio, “Clercs et jongleurs dans la société
médiévale,” Annales E.S.C 34 (1979): 913–28, and I peccati, 395–96;
Craun, Lies, Slander, 159–63.

36. On laughter in the Middle Ages, see Casagrande and Vecchio, I peccati,
395–98; Risus Mediaevalis: Laughter in Medieval Literature and Art,
HG :HUQHU 9HUEHNH +HUPDQQ %UDHW DQG *XLGR /DWUp /HXYHQ /HXYHQ
University Press, 2003).

37. Jerome, Commentariorum in Epistolas ad Ephesios libri III, in PL 26, col.


552; and see also Ionas Aurelianensis, De institutione laicali, in PL 106,
cols 250–51.

38. Augustine, De civitate Dei 14.23.3.

  6HH *UDYGDO Vilain and Courtois.

  ³3HU'LH0LQ=HSSDRUVRQJLRQWHOHWXH´OO±LQ0HRGHL7RORPHL
Rime, in Anna Bruni Bettarini, “Le rime di Meo dei Tolomei e di Muscia
da Siena,” 6WXGL GL ¿ORORJLD LWDOLDQD 32 (1974): 31–98 (58).

41. John Chrysostom, In Epistolam ad Ephesios, Homiliae XXIV LQ 3* 
col. 119.

35
ZYGMUNT G. BARAŃSKI

42. Jacques de Vitry, Sermones in Epistulas et Evangelia dominicalia totius


anni, ed. Damianus a Ligno (Antverpiae: in aedibus viduae et haeredum
J. Stelsii, 1575), 275.

43. Casagrande and Vecchio, I peccati; Craun, Lies, Slander. See also, but with
FDXWLRQ *DEULHOOD ,OGLNR %DLND “Lingua indisciplinata.” Transgressive
Speech in the “Romance of the Rose” and the “Divine Comedy,” PhD
thesis, University of Pittsburg, 2007.

44. John of Salisbury, Policraticus, ed. Clement C. I. Webb, 2 vols. (Oxford:


Clarendon Press, 1909), 7.24 (214).

45. Thomas Aquinas, Summa theol. 2.2.73.1.resp.3. See also Peter the Chanter,
Verbum abbreviatum, in PL 205, col. 56. On detractio, see Casagrande
and Vecchio, I peccati, 331–51; Craun, Lies, Slander, 136–53.

 *XOLHOPXV 3HUDOGXV OLVWV WZHQW\IRXU VLQV RI WKH WRQJXH blasphemia
[blasphemy], murmur [malicious whispering], defensio peccati [excusing
sin], periurium [perjury], mendacium / falsum testimonium [lying / false
testimony], detractio, adulatio>ÀDWWHU\@maledictio [swearing], convicium
[speaking in insults], contentio [quarreling], bilinguium [hypocrisy],
rumor [spreading rumors], iactantia [boasting], revelatio secretorum
[revealing secrets], indiscreta comminatio [threats], indiscreta promissio
[rash promises], ociosa verba [idle chatter], multiloquium [loquacity],
turpiloquium, scurrilitas, bonorum derisio [ridiculing the good], pravum
consilium [bad counsel], seminatio discordiarum [sowing of discord],
indiscreta taciturnitas [imprudent taciturnity]. In Malebolge, employing a
variety of approaches, Dante succeeds in presenting the majority of these:
QLQHWHHQ RXW RI WZHQW\IRXU +H DVVLJQV D VSHFL¿F EROJLD WR HDFK RI IRXU
sins: adulatio, bilinguium, pravum consilium and seminatio discordiarum.
Turpiloquium and scurrilitas, as we have noted, are assessed in metaliterary
WHUPVLQWKH¿UVWWZREROJLDV)XUWKHUPRUH0DODFRGD¶VEHKDYLRU²³HGHOOL
avea del cul fatto trombetta” [and he had made of his arse a small trumpet;
Inf. 21.139]—is typical of a scurra (see John of Salisbury, Policraticus 1.8;
and also Allen, On Farting, 165–67), while the devils who threaten the two
wayfarers commit the sin of indiscreta comminatio. The remainder of the
vitia, such as mendacium / falsum testimonium and detractio, are associated
with other sins. In any case, it was typical in the Middle Ages to associate
the peccata linguae with other transgressions. Thus, the thief Vanni Fucci
LVDOVRDEODVSKHPHU³JULGDQGRµ7RJOL'LRFK¶DWHOHVTXDGUR¶>VKRXWLQJ
µ7DNHWKDW*RGWKH\¶UHDLPHGDW\RX¶@´ Inf. 25.3); Sinon is the emblem

36
Language as Sin and Salvation

of periurium: “Ricorditi, spergiuro, del cavallo [Remember, perjurer, of the


horse]” (Inf. 30.118), just as he is, together with “master Adam” (104),
of both convicium and contentio %RQLIDFH ZKR UHDVVXUHV *XLGR WKDW KLV
sin has been “absolved” (Inf. 27.101) and who breaks his word to the
defenders of Palestrina (“a long promise with a short keeping / will make
you triumph,” 110–11) embodies indiscreta promissio ZKLOH *XLGR ZKR
excuses his own faults, commits defensio peccati; Alessio Interminelli,
ZKRVH³WRQJXH´QHYHU³WLUHG´RIXWWHULQJ³ÀDWWHULHV´ Inf. 18.125–26), also
commits the sin of multiloquium; the popes who “tread down the good
and raise up the bad” (Inf. 19.105) are guilty of bonorum derisio; and
¿QDOO\ 0DQWR ZKR ³ÀHHV DOO KXPDQ FRPSDQLRQVKLS Inf. 20.85) falls into
indiscreta taciturnitas (see Casagrande and Vecchio, I peccati, 447).

47. Etienne de Bourbon, Tractatus de diversis materiis predicabilibus, Oriel


College Oxford MS 68, fols 15r–160v (fol. 153v). See also Peraldus,
Summae virtutum 2 (373).

  6HH =DQDWR´ /HWWXUD´ ±

49. Augustine, De mendacio 3.3.

50. On medieval attitudes to lying, see Casagrande and Vecchio, I peccati,


251–89; Craun, Lies, Slander, 37–46, 58–67, 170–72; Mireille Vincent-
Cassy, “Recherche sur le mensonge au Moyen Âge,” in Études sur la
sensibilité. 102e Congrès national des sociétés savants, Limoges 1977
(Paris: Bibliothèque Nationale, 1979), 165–73.

51. On the relationship between greed and lying, see Casagrande and Vecchio,
I peccati, 251, 279; Craun, Lies, Slander, 13, 41.

52. See, for example, Hilarius, In Evangelium Matthaei commentarius 4.23,


in PL 9, col. 940B; Rabanus Maurus, Commentaria in Matthaeum 2.6, in
PL 107, cols 825–26.

53. Craun, Lies, Slander, 48–55, 59–60, 66, 81, 198–212.

  6HH WKH SDVVDJHV IURP *UD]LROR DQG 3LHWUR GLVFXVVHG HDUOLHU 6HH DOVR
Benvenuto da Imola, Comentum super Dantis Aldigherij Comoediam, ed.
-DPHV 3 /DFDLWD  YROV )ORUHQFH %DUEHUD   YRO   *XLGR GD
Pisa, Expositiones et Glose super Comediam Dantis, ed. Vincenzo Cioffari
(Albany: State University of New York Press, 1974), 347.

37
ZYGMUNT G. BARAŃSKI

55. Casagrande and Vecchio, I peccati, 399, 405; Craun, Lies, Slander, 22,
49, 51, 179.

56. Casagrande and Vecchio, I peccati, 141–74, 399, 405; Craun, Lies, Slander,
 7KH WLHV OLQNLQJ WKH ÀDWWHUHUV WR &LDFFR DQG KLV IHOORZVLQQHUV KDYH
been noted by Accardo, “Il canto XVIII,” 455.

57. Incipit “Duplex est abstinentia, detestabilis et commendabilis” [collection


of distinctiones], Bodleian Library MS Bodl. 185, foll. 25v–114v (fol.
70v), which ought to be compared with Peraldus, Summae virtutum 2, p.
 7KH ³SHRSOH     ZKR VQXIÀH ZLWK WKHLU VQRXWV´ ±  UHFDOO WKH
pig that always has its “snout” in excrement.

58. Craun, Lies, Slander, 36, 51, 59, 68–69, 138.

  6HH*DU\3&HVWDURDante and the Grammar of the Nursing Body (Notre


Dame: University of Notre Dame Press, 2003), 20–22.

60. On the links between grammar and the sins of the tongue, see Reynolds,
Medieval Reading 2, 18.

61. Peraldus, Summae virtutum 2 (375–76).

62. Peraldus, Summae virtutum 2 (383).

38
=\JPXQW * %DUDĔVNL is the Notre Dame Professor of Dante and Ital-
ian Studies at the University of Notre Dame and the Serena Professor
of Italian, Emeritus, at the University of Cambridge. He has published
widely on Dante and medieval Italian literature.

39
The Aldo S. Bernardo Fund
The Aldo S. Bernardo Fund is the endowment fund for the Center for
Medieval and Renaissance Studies at the State University of New York at
Binghamton. Established in 1989 by a gift from the founding co-director
of the Center, the fund aims to support Center programs with a special
emphasis on medieval and Renaissance Italian studies. Since its inception,
the Bernardo Fund has supported the Bernardo Lecture series as well as
book purchases for the Bartle Library. The endowment has continued to
develop and is now also used to support a range of programs associated
with the Center’s teaching and research activities.
The Research Foundation of the State University of New York at
%LQJKDPWRQZKLFKLVDSULYDWHQRWIRUSUR¿WFRUSRUDWLRQFKDUWHUHGXQGHU
the laws of the State of New York, receives tax deductible donations on
behalf of the Bernardo Fund.

‫ﱰﱯ‬

The Aldo S. Bernardo Lecture Series in the Humanities honors Professor


Emeritus Aldo S. Bernardo, his scholarship in medieval Italian literature,
and his service to Binghamton University as Professor of Romance
Languages and University Distinguished Service Professor. The Bernardo
Lecture Series is endowed by the Bernardo Fund and administered by the
Center for Medieval and Renaissance Studies (CEMERS), which Professor
Bernardo co-founded and co-directed with Professor Bernard Huppé
from 1966 to 1973. The series offers annual lectures by distinguished
VFKRODUV RQ WRSLFV UHODWHG WR 3URIHVVRU %HUQDUGR¶V SULPDU\ ¿HOGV RI
interest—medieval and Renaissance Italian literature, with a particular
focus on Dante Studies, and intellectual history.

40
The Occasional Papers: Earlier Volumes
1. Robert Hollander, Dante and Paul’s “Five Words with Understanding”
(1990). Five words spoken with understanding are preferable to
“ten thousand words in an unknown tongue.” With insight and wit,
Hollander analyzes speeches of Nimrod (Inferno 31) and Plutus
(Inferno 7) and other instances of garbled or mixed speech.

2. Joan M. Ferrante, Dante’s Beatrice: Priest of an Androgynous God


 %HDWULFHOHDGV'DQWHWRVHHDIHPLQLQHVLGHLQ*RGKXPDQLW\
and himself. In Paradise, he learns to speak of the souls of men
DV IHPDOH DQG WKH VRXOV RI ZRPHQ DV PDOH DQG WR VHH *RG DV
androgynous. Ferrante examines Beatrice’s roles of priest, confessor,
DQG WHDFKHU RI WKHRORJ\ DQG DV D &KULVW ¿JXUH

3. Ciriaco Morón Arroyo, Celestina and Castilian Humanism at the End


of the Fifteenth Century (1992). Arroyo addresses major questions that
have challenged and divided Celestina scholars: the Jewish ancestry
of its main author; the relationship of the overt moral intention
to artistic character, and the location of the work at the cultural
crossroads between medieval and humanistic ways of thinking and
writing.

  7KRPDV 0 *UHHQH Besieging the Castle of Ladies   *UHHQH
traces the mysterious motif of the castle defended by women across
centuries, regions, and cultural expressions—e.g., an early chronicle, a
staged game, the Roman de la Rose, English manuscript illuminations,
French ivory caskets, and early modern versions. Each instance, like
the entire series, poses questions about sexual politics and sexual
control.

  3HWHU . 0DUVKDOO Servius and Commentary of Virgil (1994).


0DUVKDOOWUDFHVWKHLPSRUWDQFHDQGLQÀXHQFHLQWKHZDNHRI7LEHULXV
Claudius Donatus, of Servius’s Commentaries in the Middle Ages
and Renaissance, especially on the magistri, the grammatici, and the
mythographers.

6. John Freccero, Dante’s Cosmos (1995). In this intricate but highly


readable account of Dante’s cosmology, Freccero notes that the

41
Paradiso PD\ EH FRQVLGHUHG D PHGLHYDO YHUVLRQ RI VFLHQFH ¿FWLRQ
+RZHYHUZKHUHDVPRGHUQZULWHUVRIVFLHQFH¿FWLRQWHQGWRVHOHFWD
WKHPHWKDWZLOOEHVWLOOXVWUDWHDSDUWLFXODUVFLHQWL¿FWKHRU\)UHFFHUR
DUJXHV WKDW ³'DQWH FKRRVHV KLV VFLHQFH WR ¿W KLV WKHPH´

7. Sara Sturm-Maddox, Dante and Petrarch: The Earthly Paradise


Revisited (1996). The nature and significance of Petrarch’s
indebtedness to Dante in the Rime Sparse, Sturm-Maddox argues, is
revealed not only in the many individual poems or isolated echoes
disclosed by recent studies. Here it is explored in a strategically
placed sequence of poems, the well-known canzoni 125–127. In each
RI WKHP 6WXUP0DGGR[ ¿QGV WKH UHLQVFULSWLRQ RI HOHPHQWV GUDZQ
from the scene of Dante’s encounter with Beatrice in the Earthly
Paradise.

  :LOOLDP - .HQQHG\ Totems for Defense and Illustration of Taboo:
Sites of Petrarchism in Renaissance Europe (1998). Critical
commentaries appended to early printed editions of Petrarch’s Rime
Sparse,.HQQHG\DUJXHVLQÀHFWHGWKHUHFHSWLRQDQGXQGHUVWDQGLQJof
Petrarch’s vernacular poetry in Renaissance Europe. As a consequence,
WKH DXWKRU¶V H[SUHVVLRQ RI KLV VSHFL¿F ,WDOLDQ VRFLDO FXOWXUDO DQG
political identity came to acquire a protonationalist value for his
later readers. The Petrarchan sonnet, the most widespread vernacular
literary mode in sixteenth-century Europe, became a site for early
H[SUHVVLRQVRIQDWLRQDOVHQWLPHQW.HQQHG\H[SORUHVWKLVSKHQRPHQRQ
in the poetry of Du Bellay in France and of Philip Sidney and his
niece Mary Worth in England.

9. Teodolinda Barolini, Desire and Death, or Francesca and Guido


Cavalcanti: Inferno 5 in its Lyric Context (1997). Barolini explores
the lyric context of Inferno 5, paying particular attention to how
,WDOLDQO\ULFSRHWVVXFKDV*LDFRPRGD/HQWLQL*XLGRGHOOH&RORQQH
*XLWWRQHG¶$UH]]R*XLGR&DYDOFDQWLDQG'DQWHKLPVHOIKDGIUDPHG
WKH LVVXH RI GHVLUH LQVXI¿FLHQWO\ FRQWUROOHG E\ UHDVRQ 3RLQWLQJ WR
Cavalcanti’s “che la ’ntenzione per ragione vale” (from “Donna me
prega”) as the intertext of Dante’s “che la ragion sommettono al
talento” (Inferno 5.39), Barolini reads Inferno 5 as a response to
Cavalcanti. Moreover, by looking at the views of love evidenced in

42
Dante’s own lyrics (e.g., “Lo doloroso amor,” the “rime petrose,”
“Io sono stato con Amore insieme,” “Amor, da che convien pur ch’
io mi doglia,” and “Doglia mi reca ne lo core ardire”), the essay
reconstructs the complex and arduous ideological pathway that Dante
traversed to reach Inferno 5.

10. Maria Rosa Menocal, Writing Without Footnotes: The Role of the
Medievalist in Contemporary Intellectual Life (1999). Menocal argues
that intellectual engagement with a public beyond the walls of our
own specialties, and even beyond the walls of the academy, was
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and writers in the humanities. In reconceptualizing our place in the
academy, a task called for by the variety of crises that threaten to
make of literary studies a small and insular corner of that academy,
it seems imperative to consider the principally negative effect of
specializations that have followed the contours of national aspirations
and national languages, and of critical language that excludes all but
fellow specialists. Medievalists, in particular, with so much material
that echoes so richly with contemporary concerns, have a special
opportunity to lead the way in returning our work to that sphere of
public intellectual conversations of which it was once a part.

 *LXVHSSH 0D]]RWWD Dante Between Philosophers and Theologians:


Paradiso X–XIII (2000). Mazzotta raises one central, radical question:
how Dante’s understanding of poetry shapes his theology, his ethics,
and, more generally his sense of the organization of knowledge or
encyclopedia. By focusing on the cantos in the Heaven of the Sun,
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holding together seemingly disparate thematic and conceptual patterns
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among the Franciscans and Dominicans, and the dance of the wise
spirits. What sustains the complexities of the text, Mazzotta argues, is
Dante’s insight into a “theologia ludens,” which embraces an ethics
of risk as well as the notion of the joyful essence of the divinity.

 9LFWRULD .LUNKDP Dante the Book Glutton, Or, Food for Thought
from Italian Poets (2002). Boccaccio’s Little Treatise in Praise of
Dante (ca. 1350) documents his subject’s love of learning with a

43
story about how he went to Siena to see a book, then sat reading
it all day with such absorption outside a shop on the piazza that he
failed to notice the noise from Palio festivities going on all around
KLP ,Q WKH PLG¿IWHHQWK FHQWXU\ WKH KXPDQLVW 0DQHWWL UHSHDWV WKLV
anecdote in his Vita of Dante, adding that like Cicero’s Cato, the
poet could be called “a book glutton” (“helluo libri”). The image
of Dante as a book gobbler belongs to a rich Western tradition that
runs from Ezechiel, St. John on Patmos, and Plato’s Symposium via
Augustine, Macrobius, Petrarch, and Dante himself, down into modern
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the typology of the author portrait, which depicts writers with their
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Renaissance manuscripts. Most literary sources speak only of
reading and “digesting” without pushing the metaphor to its logical
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Philology vomiting up books before her apotheosis as Mercury’s
bride. Commemorative statuary of a type known humorously in
Italian as the “caccalibri” (“book pooper”) completes the intellectual
food cycle in another way, showing books streaming from behind
Niccolò Tommaseo in Piazza Santo Stefano at Venice, and Benjamin
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Crowe Ransom’s amusing poem, “Survey of Literature,” caps this
illustrated history of literature as food for thought.

13. Rachel Jacoff, Dante and the Jewish Question (2003). Beginning with
recent expressions of discomfort that two distinguished medievalists
have noted in their relationship to texts that are at once beloved but
also pernicious in their propagation of misogynistic and anti-Semitic
clichés, this essay addresses Jacoff’s own discomfort with Dante’s
reiteration of the deicide charge against the Jews in Paradiso 7 and
elsewhere. It explores Dante’s divergence from his major source,
St. Anselm’s Cur deus homo, and the implications of Anselm’s own
complex relationship to the Jews. The essay addresses the issue of
the changing relationship of the medieval Church to the Jews in the
thirteenth century and some of the theories that have been proposed
by historians for the increasing sense of danger the Church manifests
in this period. It concludes with a discussion of the issues at stake

44
in teaching such issues and their pertinence to our own historical
moment.

 &KULVWRSKHU.OHLQKHQ]Movement and Meaning in the Divine Comedy:


Toward an Understanding of Dante’s Processional Poetics From
Divine to Human 39   .OHLQKHQ] DUJXHV WKDW DQ DQDO\VLV RI
procession in the Divine Comedy is fundamental to an understanding
of how Dante generates meaning in his poetic text. The entire Comedy
may be seen as a procession during which Dante also observes an
assortment of processions, which because of their formalized nature,
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his goal, he acquires knowledge, gains experience, and receives
moral and spiritual enlightenment. His journey is at once linear
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circular in that at the end of the poem he is once again returned to
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in the Comedy is resolved when Dante recognizes the linear process
of transformation as the necessary preparatory stage for putting the
soul in circular harmony with the celestial spheres.

15. William R. Cook and Ronald B. Herzman, Dante From Two


Perspectives: The Sienese Connection (2007). Cook and Herzman
combine the disciplines of history and literature to examine the
Sienese whom Dante encounters in the Purgatorio, relating these
characters and their stories to the interconnected histories of Florence
DQG 6LHQD LQ WKH JHQHUDWLRQ SUHFHGLQJ 'DQWH¶V ¿FWLRQDO MRXUQH\ LQ
1300, that is, to the generation of the battle of Montaperti (in 1260)
and its aftermath. What Dante the pilgrim needs to learn, and what
the lessons of the terraces of the proud and the envious teach him,
especially in his encounter with Sienese such as Sapia and Provenzan
Salvani, is the futility of seeing political activity in terms of winners
and losers. This is the way that the Florentine Farinata degli Uberti—
encountered by Dante the pilgrim in Inferno 10—looks at politics,
and in that episode Dante the pilgrim seems perfectly willing to
follow suit. In a somewhat systematic way, Dante the poet seems
to be suggesting that the communal sin of Florence is Pride, and
the communal sin of Siena is Envy. Cook and Herzman make the

45
FDVH WKDW E\ WKH WLPH 'DQWH WKH SLOJULP KDV ¿QLVKHG KLV VRMRXUQ RQ
the terrace of the envious, it can be seen that Siena is more likely
to repent of its envy than Florence is of its pride. Therefore, the
treatment of Siena, and of the Sienese encountered in Purgatory,
becomes an act of humility on the part of Dante the poet, equivalent
to that of Provenzan Salvani, who gained his salvation by begging
in the Campo of Siena.

16. Dino S. Cervigni, From Divine to Human: Dante’s Circle vs.


Boccaccio’s Parodic Centers (2009). From antiquity to our
contemporary culture, the circle has always represented perfection.
In the Decameron, Cevigni argues, Boccaccio employs circles and
circularity from beginning to end; at the same time, he subverts the
function of that millenary notion that attains its highest perfection in
Dante. As a consequence of this new narrative strategy, Boccaccio,
going beyond Dante and also Petrarch, seeks to create a new, less
sacred but equally ethical, view of the world.

17. Albert Russell Ascoli, ‘Favola fui’: Petrarch Writes his Readers.
Building upon his 2008 book Dante and the Making of a Modern
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WR DQG ¿JXUDWLRQV RI KLV UHODWLRQVKLS WR KLV UHDGHUV LQWHUVHFW ZLWK
the oft-asserted “modernity” of his authorial stances. In particular,
Ascoli argues that following in the wake of Dante’s double staging
of himself as reader of his own works (especially in the Vita Nuova),
Petrarch shows a keen and probing awareness of how the process of
SRHWLFVLJQL¿FDWLRQLQYROYHVDFRQWLQXDOLQWHUFKDQJHEHWZHHQDXWKRU
and reader, as well as a strong desire to control the nature of that
interchange as much as he can. Ascoli asserts that between Dante
and Petrarch two primary—and contradictory—features of literary
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authorial intention and the foregrounding of readerly freedom of
interpretation.

18. Lino Pertile, Songs Beyond Mankind: Poetry and the Lager from
Dante to Primo Levi (2013). Is there is a degree of suffering and
degradation beyond which a man or a woman ceases to be a human
being? A point beyond which our soul dies and what survives is pure

46
physiology? And if yes, to what extent may literature be capable
of preserving our humanity in the face of unspeakable pain? These
are some of the issues that this lecture explores by considering two
systems of suffering, the hells described by Dante in his Inferno and
Primo Levi in Survival at Auschwitz.

47

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