Note 312 — CANTO VIII.

Continuing: The account of the Fifth Circle, begun in the preceding Canto, is continued in this. It is impossible to adopt Boccaccio’s story of how the first seven Cantos were found among a heap of other papers, years after Dante’s exile began; and that ‘continuing’ marks the resumption of his work. The word most probably suggested the invention of the incident, or at least led to the identification of some manuscript that may have been sent to Dante, with the opening pages of the Comedy. If the tale were true, not only must Ciacco’s prophecy (Inf. vi.) have been interpolated, but we should be obliged to hold that Dante began the poem while he was a prosperous citizen.—Boccaccio himself in his Comment on the Comedy points out the difficulty of reconciling the story with Ciacco’s prophecy.