The Fifth Bolgia, and the punishment of Barrators, or “Judges who take bribes for giving judgment.” ↩

Having spoken in the preceding Canto of Virgil’s “lofty Tragedy,” Dante here speaks of his own Comedy, as if to prepare the reader for the scenes which are to follow, and for which he apologizes in Canto XXII 14, by repeating the proverb,

“In the church

With saints, and in the tavern with carousers.”

“In the church With saints, and in the tavern with carousers.”

↩