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The Divine Comedy of Dante Alighieri. The Italian Text with a Translation in English Blank Verse and a Commentary by Courtney Langdon, vol. 1 (Inferno) (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1918).

Author: Dante Alighieri
Translator: Courtney Langdon

Part of: The Divine Comedy, in 3 vols. (Langdon trans.)

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CANTO VII

The Fourth Circle. The Hell of Incontinence. Intemperance in the Use of Wealth. Plutus. Misers and Prodigals. Fortune

Judging from a hint dropped in line Dante deemed that man’s wrong attitude toward wealth — which he thought of as an outer body, upon the proper use of which material civilization’s interests depended — was the most prevalent of all the sins in Hell. In this connection the symbolic Wolf of materialistic Greed is brought in, not in her own capacity as representing malicious Fraud, but as “mated” to Incontinence.

The Fifth Circle. The Hell of Incontinence. Intemperance in Indignation. The Wrathful and Sullen. Styx