XXI/2 Once again Dante's attitude is equivocal. He is portrayed here by a rubber stamp (a surprise gift from a French artist Philippe Lagautriere, who hand-cut it after a reproduction of the original frontispiece to this book). The pilgrim seems both frightened and amused as he watches the devils and learns (or, as the poet, invents) their names. Some English translators have attempted to find equivalents for Malacoda, Graffiacane etc. (Evil-tail, Scratch-dog. . .) though the results have been generally quite feeble. Except for the appearance in this image of several variants I have stuck to the Italian, especially since it is probable that Dante is using distortions of the names of well-known Florentines (e. g. two of the twelve Priors in 1300 who were called Menno Branca and Raffacani). -- Source of annotation: Marvin or Ruth Sackner.