Steve Pollack wrote: > Regarding Inferno canto XV: It seems that in various commercially > available translations of Dante, there is not much consensus on how to > handle the "dusk/evening" translation, nor is there consistency in the > amount of "sexual charge" to the passage. Some translators used > gender-neutral words like "passersby" or "people" rather than saying > "men". I would say that the gender-neutral usage is called for to match the initial "d'anime," souls or spirits. Then Dante used collective nouns when talking of the Sodomites. "Una schiera" in the first instance. Google gave a translation of "formation" for this word and probably the military meaning was intended. That would give the impression of men. quando incontrammo d'anime una schiera when we met of spirits a formation che venian lungo l'argine, that came along the bank, Here is what John Harris wrote in that essay I pointed to you the other day: http://www.brown.edu/Departments/Italian_Studies/LD/numbers/02/harris.html Dante and Virgil first encounter Brunetto amidst a troop __ «una schiera» (v. 16) __ of souls who are hurrying through the gloom of the Seventh Circle. This «schiera» is the first of half-a-dozen collective nouns that will be used of the Sodomites in the course of Canto XV: «cotal famiglia»; «la traccia»; «questa greggia»; «la mia masnada»; «quella turba grama» («that company», «the train», «this flock», «my band», «that wretched crowd», vv. 22, 33, 37, 41, 109; the translations are by J. D. Sinclair). Dante, as he does so often, uses reiterated images to make a point, here, to set off these sinners as a particular group who share a defining sin, and so to make clear that Brunetto is of this group: whatever his claims upon Dante's esteem and affection, he is definitely a member of this scorched army whose rubric is Sodomy. Regards, Rick Parker