Dante's Ulysses and the Epistle of James

Author(s): Richard Bates and Thomas Rendall

Source: Dante Studies, with the Annual Report of the Dante Society, No. 107 (1989), pp. 33-44
Published by: The Johns Hopkins University Press
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Dante's Ulysses and the

Epistle of James
RICHARD BATES and THOMAS RENDALL

Dante and Virgil meet Ulysses in Canto XXVI of the

Inferno, the first of two cantos describing the eighth pouch

of Malebolge, they find the Greek s spirit swathed in a

tongue of fire. Although this punishment has long been considered
among the most apt of the poem, not all commentators agree upon the
nature of Ulysses' sin. Most often his fault is supposed to be fraudulent

counsel, because, as we read in Canto XXVI I, Guido da Montefeltro,

punished in the same manner in the same bolgia, was taken to Hell
"perche diede '1 consiglio frodolente" (1 16). l In the Ulysses episode itself,

however, Virgil says that the hero suffers for three crimes: first, the
stratagem of the Trojan horse; second, the trick that caused Achilles to

come out of hiding, abandon wife and child, and go to his death in the
war against Troy; and, finally, the theft of the Palladium (XXVI, 55-63). A
difficulty arises because none of these acts, in the sources known to Dante,

clearly involves fraudulent counseling.

Probably for this reason, even the earliest commentators were divided

concerning Ulysses' sin. Dante's sons, who lived at their father's side
during the latter stages of the writing of Inferno, define the fault punished

in the eighth bolgia as fraudulent counsel, Jacopo saying that the pouch

presents "la qualita di coloro che frodolentemente consigliano altrui,"2

and Pietro asserting that the eighth species of fraud consists in "consulendo et suggerendo callidissime, idest astute, alicui consilia" ("counseling and suggesting to another person the shrewdest, that is, most
cunning, policy").3 Francesco da Buti agrees.4
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Dante Studies, CVM, 1989

On the other hand, although the chapter rubric of Benvenuto da

Imola's commentary speaks of "mali consultores," the text itself offers a
generalized definition of Ulysses' sin as astutia sive vafritia ("astuteness or

slyness"),5 and continues the discussion in these terms. Likewise, L'Ottimo

commento says that the eighth ditch punishes "coloro che per inganno
d'aguati fecero ingiuria"and then, focusing more specifically, asserts only

that Canto XXVI describes those who used deception to attain military
victory.6 Finally, Jacopo della Lana is uncompromisingly general: the

pouch contains those who "si ingegnano in ogni modo e sottilmente

d'ingannare il prossimo."7

Doubts about the sin punished in the eighth bolgia continue to be

expressed in modern criticism as well, with scholars who dissent from
consiglio jrodolente following one or another of the alternative interpreta-

tions of Ulysses' sin suggested by the early commentators. In 1952, for

example, Mario Fubini wrote that Ulysses' sin is nothing more specific

than "malo uso dell'ingegno"; in 1963 Allen Gilbert asserted that the
eighth ditch punishes "wicked strategists"; and Antonino Pagliaro, in

1966, agreed that the sin of the bolgia should be seen as military or
political trickery.8

But it was Anna Hatcher who opened the most spirited debate on the

topic with an article published in 1970. Emphasizing the problem for

the usual interpretation presented by the three sins Virgil cites, she went

on to point out that the only act among those mentioned that involves
any form of counseling in Dante's sources - that is, Ulysses' exhortation
of Achilles to join the war - would involve "using fraud in counseling,"
which is also the sin commonly thought to be demonstrated by Ulysses'

speech to his crew. But Guido's advising Pope Boniface to subdue

Palestrina by "lunga promessa con l'attender corto" (XXVII, 110) is a
different sin, "counseling the use of fraud." Hatcher concluded her article

by proclaiming the need for scholars "to wash their minds of the silly
idea of fraudulent counseling as connected with Cantos XXVI-XXVII."9
Hatcher's analysis prompted replies from James Truscott and David
Thompson, which were themselves in turn rebutted by Mark Musa, who

sided with Hatcher's analysis as well in the commentary on Inferno

XXVI-XXVII of his widely used Penguin translation of the Commedia.U)

Meanwhile, Ettore Bonora, in an article on consiglio jrodolente in the

influential Enciclopedia Dantesca, asserted that the application of this

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Dante's Ulysses and the Epistle of James, RICHARD BATES and THOMAS RENDALL

category to the eighth bolgia is "di debole consistenza e smentito da troppi

altri elementi dei canti XXVI e XXVIl"; the sin must therefore be defined

very generally as "abuso del nobile dono delTintelletto acuto e sottile."11

In 1976, Mario Trovato expanded this concept of the sin even further,
saying that in Ulysses, Dante demonstrates "gli effetti funesti di una
sapienza non regolata dal limite, ma dalla cupidigia."12 Recent studies
continue to deny the traditional interpretation of Ulysses' sin as one of
speech.13
It is clear that the seeming inconsistencies of Canto XXVI have become

increasingly troublesome for scholars of Dante's poem. However, the

attempt to solve this problem by defining the sin of the eighth bolgia as

something more general than or other than a sin of speech entails costs

which many lovers of the Commedia - the authors of this study included - are unwilling to pay.
One weakness of a generalized interpretation is that the most striking
detail of the eighth ditch - that it is only by means of their flames that

the souls are able to speak - is passed off as an accident. Surely it is by

design that the spirits of the eighth bolgia are punished in tongues of
flame because they sinned with their tongues, that they are tormented
in flames which resemble the organ of speech because they in their lives

harmed others through speech. A generalized interpretation asks the

reader to ignore one of the most satisfying congruencies of the Inferno.

Another fault of interpretations of Ulysses' sin that disregard misuse of

the power of speech is that they devalue what has usually been seen as

the episode's greatest dramatic virtue. Not only is the Greek's sin
presented through his punishment, but, as in the earlier scene of the
barrators, we actually witness the sinner practicing his sin, upon his men

in the orazion picciola (XXVI, 112-120), upon the poets in the whole
narration of his last voyage, and, most importantly, upon the reader, who
may very well be taken in, as many critics have been, by the great orator's

specious rhetoric.14

Although Mark Musa has warned that attempting to justify the

category of consiglio frodolente for Dante's Ulysses is "no fit goal for a
scholar,"15 our paper will do just that by approaching the problem from

a new angle: consideration of Dante's hitherto unexamined source for

Canto XXVI of the Inferno in the Epistle of James. Through a detailed
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Dante Studies, CVH, 1989

analysis of this biblical text we hope to provide evidence that Dante had
the sin of evil speech in mind when creating his Ulysses.
One of the most memorable passages of the Commedia is that in which

the Greek, invoked by Virgil's sonorous command, begins to give an

account of his death, his flame swaying and trembling "come fosse la
lingua che parlasse" (89). Pietro Alighieri first drew attention to this
image's source in the third chapter of the Epistle of James: "Ecce quantus

ignis quam magnam silvam incendit! Et lingua ignis est, universitas

iniquitatis. Lingua constituitur in membris nostris, quae maculat totum

corpus, et inflammat rotam nativitatis nostrae inflammata a gehenna"

(Behold how small a fire kindleth a great wood. And the tongue is a fire,

a world of iniquity. The tongue is placed among our members, which

defileth the whole body, and inflameth the wheel of our nativity, being
set on fire by hell," 5-6). 16

Several modern scholars have repeated Pietro s observation in passing.17 But they have not gone on to examine the metaphors immediate
context in its surrounding verses and its wider context in the Epistle as
a whole. Dante's tongues of flame in the eighth bolgia are not merely a
coincidental similarity or a casual biblical borrowing. Rather, this image

is one of a series which the poet derived from James. In fact, detailed
comparison of the two texts indicates that the Epistle, and especially its
third chapter, provided Dante not only with the images he employs, but
also with the central theme of Canto XXVI.

The likening of the tongue to a destructive flame is the last of three

metaphors in the third chapter of James that Dante borrowed for his
presentation of Ulysses, metaphors which illustrate the ruinous course
careless speech sets a soul upon and which clarify the Apostle s point that
one's faith is tested by restraint of the tongue.

James writes that, although we all stumble in many ways, if one is

never at fault in what he says, he is perfect, able to keep his whole body

in check. The Apostle then illustrates his idea by likening the influence
a bridle has over a horse to the self-control a person may exercise over

his passions by curbing his speech. Such a person "potest etiam freno
circumducere totum corpus. Si autem equis frena in ora mittimus ad
consentiendum nobis, et omne corpus illorum circumferimus" ("is able
also with a bridle to lead about the whole body. For if we put bits into

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Dante's Ulysses and the Epistle of James, RICHARD BATES and THOMAS RENDALL

the mouths of horses, that they may obey us, we also turn about their

whole bodies," 2-3).

Similarly, Dante the Pilgrim, contemplating the spectacle of the eighth
ditch, uses the Italian equivalent of James s term when he tells us that he

bridles his talent ("lo 'ngegno affreno" 21) in order that it not run (like

a horse, corra, 22) where virtue does not guide. Although Dante's rein
image is seen by Bonora and many others as signifying generally "di non

abusare dell'intelligenza superiore,"18 the passage in James indicates that

the specific talent that Dante likely had in mind was the power of
language. This is the ben (24) that the poet says has been granted to him

by "a kindly star or something better" and that he is determined to

restrain according to the guidance of virtue.
The Epistle continues, in the next verse of chapter three, by comparing

the tongue to the rudder of a great ship: "Ecce et naves, cum magnae
sint, et a ventis validis minentur, circumferentur a modico gubernaculo

ubi impetus dirigentis voluerit. Ita et lingua modicum quidem membrum est, et magna exaltat" ("Behold also ships, whereas they are great,
and are driven by strong winds, yet are they turned about with a small

helm, whithersoever the force of the governor willeth. Even so the

tongue is indeed a little member, and boasteth great things," 4-5).

Similarly, when Ulysses and his crew, after years of voyaging, arrive at the
Pillars of Hercules vecchi e tardi (106), the commander, by a masterly piece

of rhetoric (112-120), overcomes his men's natural desire to return to

their homes, convincing them to ignore the divine limit placed "accio
che l'uom piu oltre non si metta" (109). Ulysses' brief speech is clearly
portrayed as the "small rudder" that, against all common sense, steers his

ship on its voyage to destruction - a more vivid dramatization of the

metaphor of the tongue as rudder can hardly be imagined.
Li miei compagni fee' io si aguti
con questa orazion picciola, al cammino,
che a pena poscia li avrei ritenuti;
e volta nostra poppa nel mattino,
de' remi facemmo ali al folle volo,
sempre acquistando dal lato mancino.

(121-126)
Finally, in verses of the Epistle we have already considered, James
makes plain the dangerous nature of a loose tongue, comparing the ruin

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Dante Studies, CVII, 1989

it can cause to the devastation of an indiscriminate flame (5-6). In a

passage that will be important later in our analysis, the Apostle then goes

on to point out that while the tongue has potential for great harm, it
can also become an instrument of good by being used in prayer, for "in
ipsa benedicimus Deum et Pattern" ("By it we bless God and the Father," 9).

Thus, three of the central images of the Ulysses episode - the bridle,
the ship, and the tongue of flame - derive from the opening six verses
of the third chapter of the Epistle of James. But the influence of this

chapter on the poet's conception of Canto XXVI does not end here,
because the Apostle concludes the chapter by addressing a subject that

many readers have found to be the central theme of the Ulysses

episode - the distinction between true and false wisdom.19
Ulysses' desire "a divenir del mondo esperto / e de li vizi umani e del

valore" (98-99), to seek "virtute e canoscenza" (120) even "di retro al

sol, del mondo sanza gente" (117), seems at first praiseworthy, especially
to modern readers. James, however, clearly makes a distinction between

the wisdom God grants to those who demonstrate their faith through
righteous works (Jas. 2:14-26) and a fruitless, secular wisdom of meandering curiositas.
True wisdom, unlike the canoscenza that Ulysses pursues on his voyage,

depends upon conduct in obedience to divine law. One who is genuinely

wise, James stresses in the last half of his third chapter, will show this by

deeds performed in the humility that comes from wisdom ("Quis sapiens

et disciplinatus inter vos? Ostendat ex bona conversatione operationem

suam in mansuetudine sapientiae," 13). Those who glory in contentiousness, calling it wisdom, are liars (14), for this is not wisdom descending
from above (desursum) , but rather that which is "earthly, sensual, devilish"

("terrena, animalis, diabolica," 15). Heavenly wisdom, by contrast, which

is from above, "primum quidem pudica est, deinde pacifica, modesta,

suadibilis, bonis consentiens, plena misericordia et fructibus bonis, non
iudicans,sine simulatione" ("first indeed is chaste, then peaceable, modest,

easy to be persuaded, consenting to good, full of mercy and good fruits,

without judging, without dissimulation," 17). According to James, then,

true wisdom is a matter of virtuous deeds and not the product of a desire
to divenir del mondo esperto.

Although the imagery and theme of James 3 are the most striking of
Dante's borrowings in Inferno XXVI, a reader once alerted to the relation-

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Dante's Ulysses and the Epistle of James, RICHARD BATES and THOMAS RENDALL

ship between the two texts will notice additional similarities in other
chapters of the Epistle as well. For example, the meaning of the remark
Dante the Pilgrim makes concerning the source of the ingegno that must

be bridled, "se Stella bona o miglior cosa / m'ha dato '1 ben" (23-24), is

made explicit by James's "Omne datum optimum, et omne donum

perfectum desursum est, descendens a Patre luminum" ("Every best gift,

and every perfect gift, is from above, coming down from the Father of
lights," 1 : 17). And although wandering aimlessly over the sea as a symbol

of empty curiositas was a medieval commonplace,20 Dante's decision to

focus his account of Ulysses on the Greek hero's voyaging may also have

been reinforced by a verse of the Epistle in which the Apostle exhorts

the seeker after wisdom to ask God, and then warns "Postulet autem in
fide nihil haesitans: qui enim haesitat, similis est fluctui maris, qui a vento

movetur et circumfertur" ("But let him ask in faith, nothing wavering.

For he that wavereth is like a wave of the sea, which is moved and carried

about by the wind," 1:6).

More importantly, Ulysses' error in allowing his ambition for worldly

knowledge to take precedence over his responsibilities as a husband and

father is addressed in a passage from James that describes what true
religion is. Interestingly, the passage opens with an allusion to the sin of
evil speech that makes use of the same bridle metaphor whose recurrence

in chapter 3 has already been discussed. If a person considers himself to

be devout but fails to rein his tongue ("non refrenans linguam suam,"
1:26), his religion is in vain. Religion that is faultless in the sight of God
is never mere lip-service; it must be faith in action. And the specific deeds

James mentions in the verse following his indictment of a person who

does not control his speech are looking after the fatherless and visiting
widows in their distress (1:27). Ulysses not only failed to rein his tongue,

but in making his son Telemachus an orphan and his wife Penelope a
widow, he contributed to the very problem these works of charity were
meant to alleviate.21 Strikingly relevant for Dante's characterization of
Ulysses as well is James's final requirement of faultless religion in this

passage: "immaculatum se custodire ab hoc saeculo" ("to keep oneself

unspotted from this world," 1:26-27).
As recent scholarship has shown, if in Ulysses Dante gives us a model
to shun, in the reference to Elijah (XXVI, 35) we are offered a model to
emulate.22 Given Dante's other borrowings from James in Canto XXVI,

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Dante Studies, CVII, 1989

it would not be surprising if his inspiration for this Old Testament allusion

was also the Epistle. Indeed, James, in the concluding verses, holds up
Elijah as a model of Christian conduct: "Elias homo erat similis nobis
passibilis: et oratione oravit ut non plueret super terram, et non pluit
annos tres, et menses sex. Et rursum oravit: et caelum dedit pluviam, et

terra dedit fructum suum" ("Elias was a man passible like unto us: and
with prayer he prayed that it might not rain upon the earth, and it rained

not for three years and six months. And he prayed again: and the heaven
gave rain, and the earth brought forth her fruit," 5:17-18). Elijah, it will

be remembered, cursed the nation of Israel when the prophets of Baal,

under the direction of Queen Jezebel, instituted the worship of the

Cannanite deity. The false prophets' persuasion of the people to neglect

the worship of the true God resembles Ulysses' urging of his crew to
ignore the divine command of ne plus ultra, since both are instances of
fraudulent counsel. In each case as well the punishment is severe: Ulysses

is drowned and condemned to Hell, the prophets of Baal are humiliated

and then slaughtered (3 Kings 24-40). But the most significant antithesis

between Dante's Ulysses and the Old Testament figure involves the
central theme of the Epistle already discussed, the use and misuse of the

tongue. In the allusion to Elijah, the Apostle gives an extended example

of the potential of language for good, because it is by speech, used in
prayer, that the miracles of the drought and the rain are brought about.

Ulysses employs his eloquence in an orazion (XXVI, 122) that turns his
men against the gods and leads them to their deaths; the prophet, by
contrast, uses speech in prayer - "oratione" (17) - for the service of God
and for the benefit of his people.

Of course, the Commedia contains an extended and explicit reference

to the Apostle James in Paradiso, where he acts as one of Dante's three

examiners preceding the final vision of God. Paradiso XXV contains not

only Dante's assertion that he has carefully studied the Epistle (76-78)
but also the similarity that, like Ulysses, James speaks to Dante from
within a flame (37, 79-80). 23 The most interesting links between Dante's

explicit reference to James in Paradiso and his implicit reference in the

Ulysses episode, however, are two striking numerical correspondences.

First, Dante meets James in the eighth heaven of Paradise as he meets
Ulysses in the eighth ditch of the eighth circle of Hell. And, secondly, if
one makes the common assumption that Inferno I serves as a prologue to

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Dante's Ulysses and the Epistle of James, RICHARD BATES and THOMAS RENDALL

the entire poem - making Canto XXVI the twenty-fifth of the Inferno
proper - a further structural parallel to the meeting of the Apostle in the
twenty-fifth canto of Paradiso may be discerned.24
**

The many correspondences between James and Inferno XXVI, above

all those of the Epistle's third chapter, seem to us convincing evidence

that this biblical text was an important inspiration for Dante's creation

of the Ulysses episode. Certainly, the analysis presented here of one of

the Commedias most discussed cantos should serve as yet another

reminder of the necessity of detailed and contextual as opposed to
perfunctory and selective study of Dante's use of the Bible.25 And since
the most pertinent passages of James deal specifically with the sin of evil
speech, it also seems increasingly difficult to deny that this is the sin that

Dante meant to be embodied by Ulysses. But the discovery of a source

that illuminates the poet's intention does not, we realize, in itself answer

the objections put forward by Hatcher and others.

The problem posed by the lack of evidence in Dante's sources for the
crimes Virgil cites involving consiglio frodolente still remains, yet this is not

the place to attempt its solution.26 Concern about the discrepancy

between the sin usually attributed to Ulysses in his orazion picciola - use

of fraud in counseling - and that committed by Guido da Montefeltro -

counseling the use of fraud - will also no doubt continue. But such a
hair-splitting distinction, while perhaps satisfying to logicians, may cause

our understanding to fall short of the breadth of Dante's conception. For

what James stresses in his Epistle is the potential, not the particulars, of

the ruin words can bring about.

Campion College, The University ofRegina

Regina, Saskatchewan, Canada

NOTES
1. Quotations from Dante's poem follow the text of Giorgio Petrocchi, La commedia secondo

Vantica uuhata (Milano: Mondadori, 1966-67).

2. G. Piccini, ed., Chiose alia cantica delVInferno di Dante Alighieri scritte da Jacopo Alighieri

(Firenze: Bemporad, 1915), p. 130.

3. Vincenzo Nannucci, ed., Super Dantis ipsius genitoris Comoediam Commentarium (Firenze:
Garinei, 1844), p. 232.
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Dante Studies, evil, 1989

4. C. Giannini, ed., Commento di Francesco da Buti sopra la Divina Commedia (Pisa: Nistri,
1858-1862), i, 673.
5. Vafritia is misread by the commentary's editor as vasritia. F. Lacaita, ed., Comentum super
Dantis Aldigherij Comoediam (Firenze: Barbera, 1887), 1, 259.
6. Alessandro Torri, ed., L'Ottimo Commento della Divina Commedia, testo inedito d'un con-

temporaneo di Dante (Pisa: Capurro, 1827-1829), 1, 43 9.

7. L. Scarabelli, ed., Comedia di Dante degli Allagherii col commento dijacopo della Lana bolognese

(Bologna: Tipografia Regia, 1866), i, 414.

8. Fubini, "II canto xxvi deW Inferno" in Nuoua lectura Dantis, ed. Siro Amedeo Chimenz
(Roma: Signorelli, 1952), as reprinted in II peccato di Ulisse e altri scritti danteschi (Milano-Napoli:

Ricciardi, 1966), p. 46. Gilbert, Dante and His Comedy (New York: New York University Press,
1963), p. 17 6. Pagliaro, Ulisse : ricerche semantiche sulla Divina Commedia (Messina-Firenze:G.D'Anna,

1966), i, 379.

9. "Dante's Ulysses and Guido da Montefeltro," Dante Studies, ixxxvui (1970), 112-1 13, 117.

10. Truscott, "Ulysses and Guido (Inferno xxvi-xxvii)," Dante Studies, xci (1973), 47-72;
Thompson, "A Note on Fraudulent Counsel," Dante Studies, xcn (1974), 149-52; Musa, "Filling
the Gap with consiglio frodolente," Italian Culture, m (1982), 11-21, and The Divine Comedy. Volume

i: Inferno (Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1984), pp. 313-314, 323-324.

1 1 . Enciclopedia dantesca (Roma: Istituto della Enciclopedia Italiana, 1970-78) s. v. "consiglieri
di frode."

12. "II contrapasso nell'ottava bolgia," Dante Studies, xciv (1976), 51.
13. For example, Richard Kay has argued that the sin of Ulysses and Guido is "to be called
astutia, that is 'astuteness,' or better, 'cunning' " ("Two Pairs of Tricks: Ulysses and Guido in Dante's

Inferno xxvi-xxvii," Quadetni d'ltalianistica, I [1980], 120).

14. This important aspect of the episode can also be lost by too narrow an interpretation of
the sin of the bolgia. For example, Truscott s definition of the sin as "advice to give false promise"

(p. 61) forces him to the conclusion that Ulysses' speech to his men "cannot legitimately and
defensibly be regarded as an instance of false counsel or counsel to use false promise" (p. 66). It is
true that it cannot be regarded as an instance of "counsel to use false promise," but, if this narrow
definition of the sin is abandoned, the speech can certainly be regarded, as it has been by generations
of readers, as an instance of consiglio frodolente.

15. "Filling the Gap," pp. 19-20.

16. Pietro,p. 232. Biblical references follow the book, chapter, and verse divisions oftheVulgate.

English translations are those of the Douay version.

17. G. A. Scartazzini, ed., La Divina Commedia (Bologna: Arnaldo Forni, n.d.), 1, 447, n. to line

42; H. F Tozer, An English Commentary on Dante's Divina Commedia (Oxford: Clarendon Press,
1901), n. to lines 40-42; Ernesto Trucchi, "I Commenti ai canti ix e xxvi &t\Y Inferno della Divina
Commedia raccolti e illustrati e posti a raffronto," Atti della Sodeta Linguistica di Scienze e Lettere di

Genova, x (1931), no. 2, p. 151;Joan M. Ferrante, "The Relation of Speech to Sin in the Inferno?'
Dante Studies, lxxxvii (1969), 41; Truscott, p. 55; Anthony Cassell, "The Lesson of Ulysses," Dante

Studies,c(\9S\),\2\,nA6.
18. Enciclopedia dantesca, s. v. "consiglieri di frode."
1 9. See, for example, Giorgio Padoan, Ilpio Enea e I 'empio Ulisse: Tradizione classica e intendimento

medievale in Dante (Ravenna: Longo, 1977), especially pp. 184-190.

20. Padoan cites, among others, passages from Augustine and Gregory (pp. 18 1-1 84).
21. It is interesting that Ulysses leads Achilles into the same faults by convincing him to join
the expedition against Troy.

22. For example, Robert Hollander, Allegory in Dante's Commedia (Princeton, New Jersey:
Princeton University Press, 1969), p. 1 17; Cassell, pp. 1 18-120.
23. Rather than burning in one of the torments of hell, of course, the Apostle is kindled by

divine love (82-86).

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Dante's Ulysses and the Epistle of James, RICHARD BATES and THOMAS RENDALL

24. It must be admitted that some critics have seen numerical parallels between the canticles
that require regarding Canto I as the first canto of Inferno. Parodi, for example, regards Dante's
meeting with Brunetto Latini in Inferno xv as corresponding to his meeting with Cacciaguida in

Paradiso xv (E. G. Parodi, "II canto di Brunetto Latini," in Poesia e storia della Diuina Commedia
(Vicenza: Neri Pozza, 1965], pp. 1 63-200). It must be acknowledged as well that Adam's description
of his sin as il trapassar del segno in Paradiso xxvi (117) is an unmistakable reminiscence of Ulysses'

description of his passing through "quella foce stretta / dov'Ercule segno li suoi riguardi / accio

che l'uom piu oltre non si metta" in Inferno xxvi (107-109). In fact, as Iannucci has written, the

Ulysses episode "costituisce un caso speciale in quanto illumina non un episodio singolo ma il

significato dell'intero poema" (Amilcare A. Iannucci, "Autoesegesi dantesca: la tecnica

delT'episodio parallelo' [Inferno xv-Purgatorio xi],"in Forma edevento nella Diuina Commedia [Roma:

Bulzoni, 1984], p. 97).

25. Robert Hollander has stressed the "detailed biblical literacy" that Dante expected of his
readers ("Ad iraparea mosso: God's Voice in the Garden [Inf. xxiv, 69] ," Dante Studies, ci [1983], 37),
and, in an essay similar in method to the present one, warns us that a Commedia passage that finds

"a striking appositeness" in the Bible should provoke a full, contextual study of the scriptural
passage in order to determine if only "a gesture toward a significant field of meaning" is involved
or, as in the cases of the episode analyzed by Hollander and that discussed here, we are faced with

the poet's "highly detailed reminiscence of a specific passage" ("Inferno xxxm, 37-74: Ugolinos
Importunity," Speculum, lix [1984], 553). Working in the same vein, Christopher Kleinhenz has
more recently noted concerning the relationship between the Commedia and the Bible that
"further research in this (relatively speaking) underdeveloped area promises to yield many rewards

and valuable critical insights" ("Dante and the Bible: Intertextual Approaches to the Divine
Comedyl' Italica, lxiii [1986], 225-236).
26. However, a few brief and tentative suggestions might be offered. To begin with, the rebuttal

provoked by Hatcher's article has correctly pointed out that Virgil's listing of Ulysses' faults may

be only supplementary to the sin for which he is placed in the eighth ditch; as Cassell remarks,
"the most serious sin, naturally, determines the soul's location in Hell, but lesser sins are evoked .
. . to show the path followed by the sinner" (p. 1 15). It might also be pointed out, on a very practical

level, that the two legends Virgil mentions which are most difficult to link to fraudulent
counsel - the ones concerning the Horse and the Palladium - are also those which every educated

reader of Dante's poem would immediately recognize from his acquaintance with classical
mythology. The third legend Virgil cites, the tempting of Achilles which led to his death in the

Trojan War, although more appropriate to the sin that places Ulysses in the eighth ditch, would
have been less familiar. An allusion even more suited to consiglio jrodolente, such as the deception

of Clytemnestra, which sent Iphigenia to her death at Aulis, would have been almost impossible
to make briefly without the risk of losing the general reader. Or, perhaps, as Margaret Grimes has

pointed out to us, the Roman poet, confronted with Ulysses in Hell, assumes that the Greek's
crimes must have been those which brought about the downfall of Troy, ancestor of the Empire.
If so, this would not be the only time in the Commedia that an irony is created by the limitations
of Virgil's pagan perspective. It is also clear that Dante drew upon the inseparability of Ulysses and
Diomedes throughout classical and medieval tradition (see, for example, Ovid, Metamorphoses xm,

100, 239-240) in order to create another of the unforgettable pairings of the Inferno - Francesca/Paolo, Farinata/Cavalcante, Ulysses/Diomedes, Ugolino/Ruggieri. Because Dante wanted to

present Ulysses in such a pairing, examples that specifically show Ulysses abusing his gift of
eloquence could not be as easily stressed as would have been possible had the poets met the hero
in Hell alone. The pairing constrains Virgil's account of Ulysses' crimes to the persuasion of Achilles

and the theft of the Palladium, in which legend specifically asserts Diomedes took part, and to the
Horse, in which we may reasonably assume he, as a chief Greek warrior, participated. Finally, the
difficulties posed by Virgil's statement can also be countered simply by considering the process of

literary creation. That the crimes of which Virgil accuses Ulysses cannot be directly linked to

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Dante Studies, evil, 1989

specific instances of fraudulent counsel in Dante's sources is more of a problem for the scholarly

annotator than it is for the creative writer. Dante's knowledge of the classical stories was based
upon long and intimate familiarity. Drawing on all he had read and its implications, he created
his own portrait of Ulysses, and the general impression of the Greek which he received from the
texts available to him was that of a character who combined the elements of consummate trickster
and eloquent rhetorician. Of the eight epithets attached to Ulysses' name in the Aeneid, two refer
to the characters craftiness - inventor scelemm (n, 164) and pellax (u,90) - and two refer to his power

of evil speech - hortator scelerum (vi, 529) and fandi fictor (ix, 602). That this emphasis continued

through the Middle Ages is demonstrated by the portrait in Guido delle Colonne's thirteenthcentury Historia Destructions Troiae, which informs the reader that Ulysses was, on the one hand,
"omne astucia et dolositate plenus" and, on the other, "mendaciorum maximus comentator, multa
difrundens verba iocosa sed leporis tanta disertus facundia quod neminem sibi parem habuit in

composicione sermonum" (ed. N. E. Griffin [Cambridge, Mass.: Medieval Academy of America,

1936], viii, 160-166). For Dante to place Ulysses in the bolgia of the fraudulent counselors, all that

was necessary was to sum up his character's two most salient traditional traits - wiliness and
eloquence - by combining them in a single sin.

Note: A version of this paper was presented at the Twenty-Fifth International Congress on

Medieval Studies, Kalamazoo, Mich., May, 1990. The authors would like to express their
appreciation to Dr. Thomas Chase, University of Regina Department of English, for a meticulous

commentary on an early draft. Thanks for advice and encouragement are also due to Professors

Sergio Corsi, Margaret Grimes, Robert Hollander, and Richard Kay.

44

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