Pape Satàn, pape Satàn aleppe

"Pape Satàn, pape Satàn aleppe" is the opening line of Canto VII of Dante Alighieri's Inferno. The line, consisting of three words, is famous for the uncertainty of its meaning, and there have been many attempts to interpret it. Modern commentators on the Inferno view it as some kind of demonic invocation to Satan.[1][2]

Plutus in Divina Commedia, in an engraving by Gustave Doré.

Text

The line is a shout by Plutus. Plutus was originally the Roman god of wealth, but in the Inferno, Dante has made Plutus into a repulsive demon who guards the fourth circle, where souls who have abused their wealth through greed or improvidence are punished.[3] The full strophe, plus the following four, which describes Dante's and Virgil's entire meeting and confrontation with Plutus reads:

The scant information that can be gleaned from the text is this:

  1. Virgil understands the meaning ("And that benignant Sage, who all things knew..."), and is replying.
  2. That the line is just the beginning of something else ("Thus Plutus with his clucking voice began...").
  3. It is an expression of anger ("And said: "Be silent, thou accursed wolf / Consume within thyself with thine own rage.").
  4. That it has the effect of a threat to Dante (And that benignant Sage, who all things knew, / Said, to encourage me: "Let not thy fear / Harm thee; for any power that he may have / Shall not prevent thy going down this crag.").

Possible explanations

The only word with fairly obvious meaning is "Satàn", namely Satan; which comes from the Hebrew word הַשָׂטָן (ha-Satan), which translated literally means "the adversary".

The earliest interpretations

Some interpretations from the earliest commentators on the Divine Comedy include:

  • The word "pape" might be a rendering of Latin papae, or from Greek παπαί (papaí). Both words are interjections of anger or surprise, attested in ancient authors (comparable to the English "damn!", or just "oh!").[5][6]
  • The word "aleppe" could be an Italian version of the word for "alef", the Hebrew letter א (a) (compare Phoenician alep and Greek alpha). The consonant shift here is comparable to that in Giuseppe, the Italian version of the name Joseph. In Hebrew, alef also means "number one" or "the origin that contains everything". It may also be interpreted as a metaphor for the "head", "the first and foremost". This was an attribute for God in late medieval expressions, meaning "the majesty" (of God). "Alef" was also a medieval interjection (like "Oh God!").[5][6]

With these interpretations, the verse would mean "Oh, Satan, o Satan, god, king!".[6]

The prayer theory

The word "pape" might come from Latin Pape, an old Roman term for "emperor", or "father". The double mention of "pape" together with "Satan" (here interpreted as the fallen angel Satan) and the break (the comma) in the hendecasyllable, gives it a tone of a prayer or an invocation to Satan, although there is no apparent verb. It might be also an invocation of the evil within the intruders.

Domenico Guerri's theory

Domenico Guerri researched medieval glossaries thoroughly in 1908, and interpreted it as "Oh Satan, oh Satan, God", which he wrote was meant as an invocation against travellers.[7]

Abboud Rashid's theory

Abboud Abu Rashid, the first translator of the Divine Comedy into Arabic (1930–1933), interpreted this verse as a phonetic translation of the spoken Arabic, "Bab Al-Shaytan, Bab Al-Shaytan, Ahlibu!", meaning "The door of Satan, the door of Satan, proceed downward!". According to some scholars, although Dante did not speak Arabic, he could have drawn some inspiration from Islamic sources.[8] Doubts arise, however, because the meaning of this interpretation does not really match the reaction of Dante and Virgil (anger and fear), nor Virgil's answer, and Dante directly indicts Muhammad (or Mahomet) as a spreader of religious schism.

The Hebrew theory

Some commentators[9] claim that the sentence is phonetic Hebrew, "Bab-e-sciatan, bab-e-sciatan, alep!". This would be the opposite of the sentence that Jesus spoke in the Gospel according to St Matthew 16:18, "...and the gates of Hell shall not prevail against it". The meaning of this utterance would be that Hell (Satan) has conquered.[6]

The French theories

Two suggestions have been proposed interpreting the words of Plutus as French.

The first reads: "Paix, paix, Satan, paix, paix, Satan, allez, paix!" ("Peace, peace, Satan, peace, peace, Satan, let's go, peace!"). The latter phrase can be interpreted as "Satan, make peace!".[6] Benvenuto Cellini, in his autobiography, reports hearing the phrase in Paris, transliterating it as "Phe phe, Satan, phe phe, Satan, alè, phe" and interpreting it as "Be quiet! Be quiet Satan, get out of here and be quiet."[10]

The second interpretation, elaborating on the first, is: "Pas paix Satan, pas paix Satan, à l'épée" ("No peace, Satan! No peace, Satan! To the sword!").[11] According to Giovanni Ventura, Dante's intention was to hide Philip IV of France behind Plutus, god of greed, and that was the reason why Plutus was made to speak French instead of Greek.[11] Dante considered Philip the Handsome as the enemy of Christianity, and of Papacy, due to his rapacity.[11] The words of Plutus are also a blaspheme quotation of Jesus' words in the Gospel Matthew 10:34 ("Think not that I am come to send peace on earth: I came not to send [or bring] peace, but a sword.").[11][12] This interpretation implies a transposition of the tonic accent, for metrical purposes, from the 11th to the 10th syllable, from "aleppé" to "alèppe", similarly to what happens at line 28, where the tonic accent shifts from "pur lì" to "pùr li".[11]

The Flemish theory

According to the solution, published in April 2021,[13][14][15] the words are the phonetic transcription of a sentence in the medieval Flemish dialect of Bruges (Middelwestvlaamsch), written as Pape Satan, pape Satan, help! or helpe! and pronounced as Pape Satan, pape Satan, alp! or alpe! (this pronunciation, characteristic of Bruges and its region, the West Flanders, is attested since 1150-1200 until the present day). Dante would clearly indicate that he heard these words as "with clucking voice" because of the guttural pronunciation of "alp" (especially the "l": in Flemish/Dutch as in English, "kloek" is indeed the "chioccia"), typical of that dialect. By the phenomena known as anaptyxis and perhaps paragogy, typical of the Tuscan dialect of his day (as in "salamelecco" from Salam' alaykum, also in modern Italian usage, and in "amecche" from Hebrew "amech" or "amcha" in Inf., XXXI, 67), Dante arrives at the transcription found in the Poem. The reason Dante might have used specifically the Flemish dialect of Bruges is the intense commercial relationships between Florence and Bruges since as early as the XIII century and explicitly mentioned by the Poet in the Poem (with two references to Bruges and with further references to the Tuscan families involved in business there). Dante would also have known Plutus as the god of wealth from Cicero's De natura deorum. The meaning is "Father Satan, father Satan, help!", where "Pape" is the priest at the head of a parish ("Pope" in Middelwestvlaamsch is Pawes, but it is very unlikely that Dante would have known Flemish well). The verse would then be allusive to Matthew's Gospel (Mt., 16, 21-23), and its intended meaning would be to condemn the exercising of temporal power by the Western Church.

Sources
  1. Dorothy L. Sayers, Hell: notes on Canto VII, Penguin, 1949, ISBN 0-14-044006-2.
  2. Mark Musa, Inferno: notes on Canto VII, Penguin, 2002, ISBN 0-14-243722-0.
  3. Björkesson, Ingvar (2006). Den gudomliga komedin (Divine Comedy), comments by Ingvar Björkesson. Levande Litteratur (in Swedish). Natur & Kultur. p. 425. ISBN 978-91-27-11468-5.
  4. Italian text from Princeton Dante Project.
  5. Vittorio Sermonti, Inferno, Rizzoli 2001, p. 134.
  6. Berthe M. Marti, "A Crux in Dante's Inferno," Speculum, Vol. 27, No. 1 (Jan 1952), pp. 67–70.
  7. Domenico Guerri, Di alcuni versi dotti nella "Divina Commedia", Città di Castello, 1908
  8. Philip K. Hitti, "Recent Publications in Arabic or Dealing with the Arabic World," Journal of the American Oriental Society, Vol. 54, No. 4 (Dec 1934), pp. 435–438.
  9. Ernesto Manara, in Il Propugnatore, 1888.
  10. Benvenuto Cellini (tr. Julia Conaway Bondanella and Peter E. Bondanella), My Life, Oxford University Press, 2002, ISBN 0-19-282849-5, p. 262 and note on p. 438.
  11. L'incompreso verso di Dante, by Giovanni Ventura, 1868.
  12. Matthew 10:34 KJV
  13. Lombardi, Giancarlo (2021). "Pape Satan: il messaggio pasquale a lungo nascosto alla base della Divina Commedia (Pape Satan: the long hidden Easter message at the basis of the Divina Commedia)". Riscontri. XLIII, n. 1: 25–54 – via available for download or purchase on Amazon.
  14. Ladolfi, Giuliano (29 August 2021). "Pape Satàn... E se fosse fiammingo?". Avvenire. p. 19.
  15. Lombardi, Giancarlo (2022). L'Estetica Dantesca del Dualismo. Borgomanero: Giuliano Ladolfi Editore (published September 2022). ISBN 9788866446620.
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