Commentary Inf XXVI 121-123

Ulysses' summary of the result of his speech is a masterpiece of false modesty. Once he has uttered his words, his exhausted companions are ready for anything. We now perhaps notice that one of his key words is 'little,' one mark of a speaker who masks his pride in false humility: his reduced company of shipmates is picciola (v. 102); so is the time left his men on earth (picciola, v. 114); and now his oration is also but a little thing (v. 122), picciola used one more time, a total of three times in 21 verses. Ulysses is, in modern parlance, a con artist, and a good one, too. He has surely fooled a lot of people. Rosalma Salina Borello (Bore.2000.1), p. 17, shows a similar understanding of Ulysses' use of these apparently self-deprecating words.