Allusion

A brief reference, without explanation, to a person, a text, a myth or a fact known outside the work, which carries with it the meaning of that other story.

In Inferno

I saw and recognized the shade of him who through cowardice made the great refusal.

The verse points to someone without giving a name, only by the act: "made the great refusal". The reader must know the episode to which it alludes, which tradition links to the resignation of Pope Celestine V in 1294.

Cantos I to IV: The Forest and the Gate, Dante, recognizing a shade among those who lived without infamy and without praise, in the vestibule

no greater pain than to remember the happy time in misery; and your teacher knows this.

Cantos V to VIII: The Incontinent, Francesca, answering Dante, who asked how their love began

Galeotto was the book and the one who wrote it: that day we read no further.

Cantos V to VIII: The Incontinent, Francesca, recounting how she and her companion kissed while reading the story of Lancelot

Let Lucan be silent, where he speaks of the wretched Sabellus and Nasidius, and attend to what is now fired off. Let Ovid be silent about Cadmus and Arethusa, because if that one turns into a serpent and this one into a fountain in his poetry, I do not envy him.

Cantos XXIII to XXVI: Hypocrites, Thieves, and Ulysses, The poet, challenging Lucan and Ovid before narrating the exchange of forms between two thieves