Commentary Par XI 4-9

Dante's list of vain human activities starts out with law (whether civil or canonical); medicine (identified by one of the earliest known doctors, Hippocrates, author of the medical text that bears the title, Aphorisms); priesthood (as a position rather than as a calling); political power (whether achieved by force or guile).  This list matches up fairly well with the one found earlier ([Par VIII 124-126]: Solon, Xerxes, Melchizedek, Daedalus) in at least three out of four categories, if there is no easy match between Hippocrates (the doctor) and Daedalus (the artisan).  This opening catalogue of four professions is conjoined to a second one, also of four activities, now divided into two parts, the lower instincts (robbery [with avarice at its root] and sexual pleasure [the sin of lust]) and the more civilized (but equally distracting) behaviors, immersion in civic duty or in one's idle self.  (Michel de Montaigne would have sharply disagreed with Dante's harsh view of otium.)