Commentary Inf XXVI 139-141

The final image of Ulysses' narrative is based, as a commentator as ancient as Guido da Pisa (DDP Guido.Inf.XXVI.136-142) realized, on Aen. I.116-117, where Virgil describes the only ship in Aeneas's flotilla to be destroyed in the storm at sea: 'ast illam ter fluctus ibidem / torquet agens circum et rapidus vorat aequore vertex' (but a wave whirls the ship, driving it three times around in the same place, and then a sudden eddy swallows it up in the sea). The echo is probably not without consequence for our view of the would-be hero Ulysses: 'The ship in point is that which carried the Lycians and faithful Orontes and which goes down within sight of the land that would have saved its sailors, as does Ulysses' ship. It is a ship of the damned. Aeneas, in his piety, is the hero; Ulysses, in his heroicness, is the failure' (Holl.1969.1, p. 121).