Dante's Divine Comedy

Canto XIV – Second Cornice – The Envious

• 1. What does the speaker of lines 14-15 mean?

The speaker, Guido del Duca, is saying that the very thought of a living man moving among them and speaking to them has never happened before and so amazes him.

Guido’s response is characterized more by wonder than by envy.

What does the indirection of Dante’s reply (lines 16-21) reveal?

It reveals his reluctance to associate himself directly with Florence, whose reputation he knows to be tarnished. It also suggests a newly developed humility regarding his own fame, despite having placed himself among the greatest poets in Limbo.

• 2. What do the words “Virtue is like a viper to all men” (line 37) mean?

The men of the Arno (or perhaps all fallen men) run from virtuous living as though it were a venomous snake. (The Italian word biscia is used here for the third and final time in the poem. The last time it was used to identify the serpent in the Valley of the Kings in Ante-Purgatory, a stand-in for the serpent in Eden which successfully tempted Eve.)

Notice the progression of beast images in lines 43-54. What is the significance of each separate beast image, and what is the significance of their ordering?

Lines 43-45 use the image of “swine” (fitting considering the allusion to Circe who changed Odysseus’ men into swine, lines 39-41). In medieval art, the swine symbolizes immoderate behavior, including gluttony, unbridled passion, and ignorance. Additionally, Levitical law classifies the pig as unclean. Dante’s usage makes the people of that portion of the river bestial.

Lines 46-48 Dante employs the image of “curs”/“dogs.” The dog could symbolize envy, anger, temptation, or unbelief in medieval iconography. Dogs are usually portrayed negatively in biblical and medieval traditions, with the apocryphal Tobit’s dog being a notable exception.

In lines 49-51 the image is transformed into that of wolves. In medieval symbolism, the wolf is an image of threat to Christians (“lambs”). Typically, the wolf symbolizes both gluttony and avarice (as many critics see it in the She-Wolf that blocks Dante’s path in Canto I.) In Dante’s catalogue of beast images associated with the Arno, the wolf is associated with Florence itself. Further, the conflict between dogs and wolves represents the conflict, respectively, between Guelph Florence and Ghibelline Arezzo.

Finally, in lines 52-54, Dante employs the image of the fox. In medieval art, the fox represents lust, greed, immoderation, injustice, lies, and the Devil himself. Since these lines refer to the mouth of the Arno near Pisa, it is an image of the stratagems and guile of the Pisans. (We will see the fox again at the top of Mt. Purgatory.)

Some critics believe the source of this grouping of images can be found in Boethius’s Consolation of Philosophy: “You will say that the man who is driven by avarice to seize what belongs to others is like a wolf; the restless, angry man who spends his life in quarrels you will compare to a dog. The treacherous conspirator who steals by fraud may be likened to a fox; . . . the man who is sunk in foul lust is trapped in the pleasures of a filthy sow.”

The progression moves from the base appetites to the fraud of which humans alone are capable.

• 3. Why does Guido del Duca not press Dante for his name even after calling him out for not supplying it (lines 77-81)?

Because he perceives that Dante, as a living man, has been granted the extraordinary opportunity to move through the realm of the afterlife, Guido does not press Dante for his name. He sees that “the Lord desires that grace’s flame/should shine so bright in” Dante.

After his denunciation of Tuscany, Guido del Duca laments which region of Italy? (lines 97-123).

He next turns his invective against Romagna.

• 4. Which of the eight epic conventions does Dante demonstrate in lines 97-123?

Cataloguing. He laments the disappearance of prominent and influential figures in Romagna. The catalogue names seventeen names of individuals and families as well as three towns while also condemning the contemporary generation.

What other rhetorical devices does Dante apply in the course of these 27 lines?

Apostrophe: “O people of Romagna . . .”

Personification: Virtue is treated as a living thing capable of producing fruit and offspring.

Irony: He represents people embodying greed, violence, and deceit as humans celebrated for human achievement.

Antiphrasis: apparent praise of communities, in fact, functions as an accusation.

Vegetation imagery: Language associated with growth, cultivation, and decline all treat moral character as a crop of plants — “seed of virtue” and “fruit produced by later generations.”

The disembodied voices that speak in lines 130-141 offer a counterpoint to the voices Dante and Virgil heard upon entering the cornice of the envious. What is the chief difference between these voices’ messages and those of the voices first heard upon entry?

While the earlier voices offered examples of compassionate love, these at the end offer statements from scriptural and classical characters, offering famous examples of envy just as the sculptures at the outset of the ring of pride offered examples of humility (the opposite of pride) and those along the path trodden by the penitents offer examples of humility.

• 5. Whose words are presented by the first voice (line 133)?

Cain: “I shall be a fugitive and a vagabond on the earth, and it will happen that anyone who finds me will kill me.” (Genesis 4:14) Cain slew Abel because he had God’s favor from giving a fit offering. He killed out of spite, that is, envy. Augustine wrote in The City of God that Cain was the founder of the Earthly City based on envy, rivalry, and strife. He goes on to assert, “Anyone whose aim was to glory in the exercise of power would obviously enjoy less power if his sovereignty was diminished by a living partner. Therefore, in order that the sole power should be wielded by one person, the partner was eliminated.”

Whose words are presented by the second voice (line 139)?

Aglauros, whom Ovid depicts as consumed by Envy and transformed into stone, notably of a livid color like the stone of this cornice.

• 6. What is the substance of lines 143-151?

The focus is on three metaphors related to discipline.

The first (line 143) is “the iron bit” used to guide a racehorse. (The bit is a companion to the rein in the image in lines 40-42 of Canto 13.) Metaphorically, it holds men to the narrow way.

The second is bait and hook (line 142), used by Satan to lure men into temptation.

The third is the lure used by the falconer to recall his bird (lines 148-150) implied by the language there. God is the falconer who uses the stars and heavenly realities as lures to draw humanity back to Him.