Inferno, Canto 26

The Text of Canto 26 (Open PDF)

Summary

Dante, with bitter irony, reproaches Florence. The Poets climb up and along the rugged spur to the arch of the next bridge, from which they see the Counsellors of Fraud moving along the floor of the Eighth Bowge, each wrapped in a tall flame. Virgil stops the twin-fiame which contains the souls of Ulysses and Diomede, and compels Ulysses to tell the story of his last voyage.

The Prepatory Lecture

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Questions for Reflection

• How does Dante’s characterization of Ulysses differ from Homer? Why would Dante add to (or change) the ending of one of the most well-known and celebrated of the classical heroes?
• Is Ulysses desire to know the ways of the world, vice, worth, and valor in itself sinful? If so, does this mean that knowledge itself is problematic? If not, why is he in hell?
• How does Ulysses use language to inflame the hearts and minds of his men to violation the human “boundaries” set by the gods?
• In Ulysses’ speech, he tells his men: “You were not made to live as mindless brutes, but to go in search of virtue and true knowledge” (26.118-120). Isn’t this a true statement about human beings, that we have a desire to know? If so, how is Ulysses using the truth in a way that is deceptive?
• How does Ulysses reflect Dante’s own project in the Comedy? How does Ulysses function as a constant temptation or fear for the Poet throughout the rest of the poem?
• What does Ulysses warn us about the power and danger of rhetoric and curiosity?

Canto 26 © Jan Hearn

The Images

The Counsellors of Fraud. The sinners in Bowge VIII are not men who deceived those whom they counselled, but men who counselled others to practise fraud. The Thieves in the bowge above stole material goods; these are spiritual thieves, who rob other men of their integrity. This explains, I think, the name which Dante gives to their punishment.

The Thievish Fire. The fire which torments also conceals the Counsellors of Fraud, for theirs was a furtive sin (from the latin, furtivus, from fur, thief). And as they sinned with their tongues, so now speech has to pass through the tongue of the tormenting and thievish flame.

Mark Vernon's Lecture