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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,
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
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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
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
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'
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
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Dante's Ulysses and the Epistle of James, RICHARD BATES and THOMAS RENDALL
altri elementi dei canti XXVI e XXVIl"; the sin must therefore be defined
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
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 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
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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
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.
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.
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
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
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
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
(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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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
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,
deeds performed in the humility that comes from wisdom ("Quis sapiens
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
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
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
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
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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
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
between Dante's Ulysses and the Old Testament figure involves the
central theme of the Epistle already discussed, the use and misuse of the
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.
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
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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
**
counseling the use of fraud - will also no doubt continue. But such a
hair-splitting distinction, while perhaps satisfying to logicians, may cause
NOTES
1. Quotations from Dante's poem follow the text of Giorgio Petrocchi, La commedia secondo
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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-
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
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
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.
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
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
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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
"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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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
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
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