There is a wide consensus among both early and modern commentators that themembers of the first group of sinners, those who shout ‘Sodom’ (lines 40 and 79), aremen (and apparently only men, if one is to rely solely on the textual evidence) who havehad same-sex relations. If one is to use the medieval term, they are ‘sodomites’. Thesouls from the second group, described by the enigmatic adjective ‘hermaphroditic’,reprove themselves by shouting the exemplary story of Pasipha¨e (lines 41–42; 86–87).According to Ovid, Pasipha¨e was queen of Crete and wife of King Minos.2Havingbeen cursed by the god Poseidon, she fell in love with a bull and having entered aspecially constructed wooden cow (the ‘rough-hewn wood’ of line 87), mated with itand gave
