Note 788 — CANTO XXXI.

Rafel, etc.: These words, like the opening line of the Seventh Canto, have, to no result, greatly exercised the ingenuity of scholars. From what follows it is clear that Dante meant them to be meaningless. Part of Nimrod’s punishment is that he who brought about the confusion of tongues is now left with a language all to himself. It seems strange that commentators should have exhausted themselves in searching for a sense in words specially invented to have none.—In his De Vulg. El., i. 7, Dante enlarges upon the confusion of tongues, and speaks of the tower of Babel as having been begun by men on the persuasion of a giant.