Inferno Wisdom and Knowledge Quotes Page 3

For the second time, Dante asserts himself as a brilliant poet. In telling Lucan and Ovid – both of whom superbly described attacks by serpents and transformations (like Dante is doing here) – to "be silent," Dante obviously considers himself superior to them. His reasoning is based on the fact that neither Roman poet ever wrote of an instance in which "two natures….were ready to exchange their matter." And nobody, up to Dante’s time, had done it as well as he does…or so he asserts.

After witnessing the thieves’ punishment, Dante warns his readers not to misuse their intellect as the thieves have. His assertion, "I curb my talent," in describing the thieves’ painful transformations, Dante indirectly points out his superiority to other poets (described in the previous canto). But by "curb[ing his] talent," Dante claims he is adhering to virtue and not trying to surpass his human limits, nor to "run where virtue does not guide." This hails back to Virgil’s description in the third canto of "the good of the intellect."

It is no coincidence that within the same canto that Dante "curb[s his] talent" to "not abuse [his intellect]," Ulysses urges his men to "be followers of worth and knowledge." In doing this, he sins, though his ideals seem noble. However, his assertion spurs his followers to cross the known geographical boundaries of human knowledge as well as to impinge on the godly body of knowledge. Thus, in his worthy attempt to make his men "not live [their] lives as brute," Ulysses transgresses the boundaries of what God deems proper for men to know. A similar fable in the Christian tradition would be God’s exile of Adam and Eve from Eden after they eat from the Tree of Knowledge.