"Pape Satàn, pape Satàn aleppe" is the opening line ofCanto VII ofDante Alighieri'sInferno. 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 theInferno view it as some kind of demonic invocation toSatan.[1][2]
The line is a shout byPlutus. Plutus was originally the Roman god of wealth, but in theInferno, 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 fullstrophe, plus the following four, which describes Dante's andVirgil's entire meeting and confrontation with Plutus reads:
"Pape Satàn, pape Satàn aleppe!",
cominciò Pluto con la voce chioccia;
e quel savio gentil, che tutto seppe,
disse per confortarmi: "Non ti noccia
la tua paura; ché, poder ch'elli abbia,
non ci torrà lo scender questa roccia."
Poi si rivolse a quella 'nfiata labbia,
e disse: "Taci, maladetto lupo!
consuma dentro te con la tua rabbia.
Non è sanza cagion l'andare al cupo:
vuolsi ne l'alto, là dove Michele
fé la vendetta del superbo strupo."
Quali dal vento le gonfiate vele
caggiono avvolte, poi che l'alber fiacca,
tal cadde a terra la fiera crudele.[4]
"Pape Satan, Pape Satan, Aleppe!"
Thus Plutus with his clucking voice began;
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."
Then he turned round unto that bloated lip,
And said: "Be silent, thou accursed wolf;
Consume within thyself with thine own rage.
Not causeless is this journey to the abyss;
Thus is it willed on high, where Michael wrought
Vengeance upon the proud adultery."
Even as the sails inflated by the wind
Involved together fall when snaps the mast,
So fell the cruel monster to the earth.
The scant information that can be gleaned from the text is this:
The only word with fairly obvious meaning is "Satàn", namelySatan; which comes from the Hebrew wordהַשָׂטָן (ha-Satan), which translated literally means "the adversary".
Some interpretations from the earliest commentators on theDivine Comedy include:
With these interpretations, the verse would mean "Oh, Satan, o Satan, god, king!".[6]
The word "pape" might come from LatinPape, an old Roman term for "emperor", or "father". The double mention of "pape" together with "Satan" (here interpreted as the fallen angelSatan) and the break (the comma) in thehendecasyllable, 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 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 Abu Rashid, the first translator of theDivine Comedy intoArabic (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 indictsMuhammad (or Mahomet) as a spreader of religious schism.
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 thatJesus spoke in the Gospel according toSt 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]
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, come on, 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 hidePhilip 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]
Another solution published by Giancarlo Lombardi in April 2021[13][14][15] asserts that the words are thephonetic transcription of a sentence in the medievalFlemish dialect ofBruges (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 ofWest Flanders, is attested since 1150–1200 until the present day.) Dante would clearly indicate that he heard these words "with clucking voice" because of the guttural pronunciation of "alp" (especially the "L" — inFlemish/Dutch as in English, "kloek" is indeed the "chioccia"), typical of that dialect. By the phenomena known asanaptyxis and perhaps paragogy, typical of the Tuscan dialect of his day (as in "salamelecco" fromAs-salamu 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. Dante might have used specifically the Flemish dialect of Bruges because of the intense commercial relationships that existed between Florence and Bruges since the 13th century (Plutus being the god of wealth). The poem includes two references to Bruges[citation needed] and further references to the Tuscan families involved in business there. The meaning in Flemish would be "Father Satan, father Satan, help!", where "Pape" refers to the priest at the head of a parish. (TheMiddelwestvlaamsch word for "Pope" would bePawes, but it is very unlikely that Dante would have known Flemish.) The verse would then allude to theGospel of Matthew (Matthew 16 andMatthew 21–23), and its intended meaning would be to condemn the exercising of temporal power by the Western Church.
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