Note 855 — CANTO XXXIII.
James Romanes Sibbald translation
To yield him none: Alberigo being so unworthy of courtesy. See note on 117. But another interpretation of the words has been suggested which saves Dante from the charge of cruelty and mean quibbling; namely, that he did not clear the ice from the sinner’s eyes because then he would have been seen to be a living man—one who could take back to the world the awful news that Alberigo’s body was the dwelling-place of a devil.