Dante's Divine Comedy

• 1. Consider lines 10-18. Why does Virgil admonish Dante?

Dante has paused while another band of sinners marvels at his casting a shadow. Virgil wants his charge to remember his purpose here and to move forward.

Throughout Inferno, we saw Dante as relating in some manner to nearly every sin he witnessed. Does he reflect the negligence of the band he encounters in any way?

Yes, he should be purposeful, determined, and self-moved. Instead, he pauses once again to respond to the negligent sinners.

• 2. Lines 22-42 record yet another group of souls react to Dante. They sing the same psalm identified by the same word that Dante uses when he first speaks to Virgil in Inferno I.65: miserere, “Have mercy.” How does this band’s movement contrast to that of the excommunicates?

They move and react quickly. The two they send to inquire about Dante are said to run. The simile in lines 37-40 further emphasizes the quickness of their movement.

How do lines 43-45 further offer contrast, this time to Virgil’s earlier admonishment of Dante?

He seems to be favorably concerned about the souls’ needs from Dante; therefore, he does not object to a pause to speak with them.

Dante himself seems to be learning the difference between the attention with which they regard him and what he can learn from them.

• 3. What do lines 49-58 reveal about his particular band of souls?

Like the excommunicates, they desire Dante’s prayers and those who may be reminded by Dante of their situation.

They died by violence, unable to receive the Last Rites.

However, they are also people who, made to see the truth by the “light of Heaven,” repented of their sins and forgave those who sinned against them in their final moments.

Interestingly, they say God “torments our heart with desire/To see His face.” In other words, they long to look upon God in Heaven.

Line 52 again recalls the parable of the laborers in the vineyard who receive the same reward as those who worked all day.

• 4. Lines 64-84 relate the words of Jacopo del Cassero, though he is not directly named. Probably, he is unnamed because Dante expected his readers to recognize his story. What do you learn of him from his speech?

Like the others, he desires that Dante tell his story when he returns to the temporal life He also trusts, as do the others in his band, that Dante will do so (since he is clearly blessed by Heaven).

He admits to “heavy sins.”

He offers a vivid image of bleeding out as he died.

He was a Guelph.

• 5. Lines 85-132 turn to the testimony of Buonoconte da Montefeltro, the son of Guido da Montefeltro who spoke to Dante in the eighth bolgia of the eighth circle of Hell. You may recall that he repented of his evil counseling and took up Holy Orders among the Franciscans, but Boniface pressured him to give advice on how to defeat his enemies. When he died, a demon claimed his soul after St. Francis arrived to carry it toward Heaven. How Buonoconte’s story the inverse of his father’s? (lines 104-108)

When he dies, God’s angel takes him despite the protestations of “one from Hell.” The demon protests that he should not escape Hell for shedding “one little tear.”

The cross he made of his arms may simultaneously indicate the pain he suffers in death and his hope of redemption at that moment. Though his father anticipated redemption, he did not suffer in his death.

• 6. Lines 133-136 concern a murder victim unknown to history or commentary. Do you see the resonance of the words of the thief on the cross in line 133?

The thief’s words are recorded in the Gospel of Luke 23:42 . . .

“Lord, remember me when You come into Your kingdom.”