Commentary Inf VI 28-32 |
It is as though Dante had begun paring his art, striving for succinctness more than he had before. Up to now, we have found similes an important structuring device in the first two cantos (see discussion at C.Inf.II.127-130), in the third canto (C.Inf.III.112-120), and in the fifth ([Inf V 40-49]; [Inf V 82-85]). Only the fourth, given over nearly entirely to conversation about the nature of the Limbus and to a catalogue of the forty souls identified as being there, is without a simile (although it does contain a dramatic simple comparison [[Inf IV 96]]).
Mirroring the low-mimetic tone of this canto, this its only simile for the first time turns to what we might refer to as 'scenes from daily life,' those wonderfully realistic touches that reveal what an intense and skilled observer Dante was of such scenes. Many later similes in Inferno will also reveal this trait.
Boccaccio (DDP Boccaccio.Inf.VI.7-12) sees the bellowing of Cerberus (v. 32) as antithetic to the music played at banquets, the setting in the world above for the gluttony that is punished here. Padoan (DDP Padoan.Inf.VI.32) points out that this description of the effect on the guilty souls of Cerberus's barking mirrors the verse in Virgil describing a similar effect: Aen. VI.400-1: 'licet ingens ianitor antro / aeternum latrans exsanguis terreat umbras' (if, from his cave, the huge gatekeeper may indeed terrify the bloodless shades with his endless howling).