Myrrha

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Myrrha is recalled by Dante in the thirtieth canto of the Inferno as an emblematic example of a «falsifier of person», a figure from the ancient world set, by deliberate variation, against the comic character of Capocchio. According to the Ovidian tale referenced in the canto's notes, Myrrha, daughter of Cinyras king of Cyprus, burned with illicit love for her own father and, with the help of her nurse and thanks to the darkness, pretending to be another woman, succeeded in satisfying her passion. Discovered by her father, she fled to Arabia where she was transformed into the plant from which myrrh is extracted. The adjective «wicked» with which Dante designates her explicitly echoes the Ovidian source. In Dante's moral classification, Myrrha is not punished for incest, which would pertain to the lustful, but for fraud, considered a graver sin. Her mention in the hereafter levels every distance between mythological figures and contemporary characters.