Lectura Dantis INFERNO Edited by ALLEN MANDELBAUM ANTHONY OLDCORN CHARLES ROSS UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA PRESS Berkeley Los Angeles London The University of California Press gratefully welcomes the contribution provided by ENTE CASSA DIRISPARMIO DIFIRENZE toward the publication of this book. The first volume of the California Lectura Dantis draws on a wide range of international scholar-critics. Each contributor presents his or her reading, in essay form, of a canto of the Inferno. The Purgatorio and Paradiso volumes will follow the same format, providing the long-awaited companion to the three volumes of Allen Mandelbaum's verse tranlsations, with facing Italian text, of The Divine Comedy. ADVISORY BOARD Ignazio Baldelli University of Rome Teodolinda Barolini Columbia University Charles T. Davisf Tulane University Giuseppe Di Scipio Hunter College and Graduate Center, CUNY Cecil Grayson Oxford University Emilio Pasquini University of Bologna Lea Ritter Santini University of Miinster John A. Scott University of Western Australia Lectura Dantis INFERNO Edited by ALLEN MANDELBAUM ANTHONY OLDCORN CHARLES ROSS UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA PRESS Berkeley Los Angeles London The editors have benefited much from the help of the Wait Tower staff of Wake Forest University, especially the unstinting care of Lily Saade, as well as from the editorial collaboration of Martha Craig at Purdue University. University of California Press Berkeley and Los Angeles, California University of California Press, Ltd. London, England ©i 998 by The Regents of the University of California Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Lectura Dantis : Inferno / edited by Allen Mandelbaum, Anthony Oldcorn, Charles Ross. p. cm.—(California lectura Dantis ; i) Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 978-0-520-21270-1 (alk. paper) i. Dante Alighieri, 1265-1321. Inferno. I. Mandelbaum, Allen, 1926- . II. Oldcorn, Anthony. III. Ross, Charles, 1949- . IV. Series. PQ4443-L38 1998 851'.!—dc2i 98-342^3 CIP Printed in the United States of America 08 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 The paper used in this publication meets the minimum requirements of ANSI/NISO Z39.48-I992 (R 1997) (Permanence of Paper). @ Lectura Dantis The moral topology of Inferno, by Barry Moser This volume of the California Lectura Dantis is dedicated to our indispensable colleague and peerless editor of the text of Dante's Divine Comedy, the late GIORGIO PETROCCHI It is unthinkable to read the cantos of Dante without aiming them in the direction of the present day. They were made for that... They demand the commentary of the futurum. OSIP MANDELSTAM CONTENTS Introduction Dante in His Age ALLEN MANDELBAUM I Canto i The Hard Begin LETTERIO CASSATA 9 Canto H Dante's Authority ROBERT HOLLANDER 25 Canto in The Gate of Hell EUGENIC N.FRONGIA 36 Canto iv A Melancholy Elysium MANLIO PASTORE STOCCHI 50 Canto v The Fierce Dove PAOLO VALESIO 63