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Professor Mazzotta begins this lecture by recapitulating the ambivalent nature of Ulysses’ sin and its relevance to Dante’s poetic project. Inferno 27 is then read in conjunction with the preceding canto. The antithetical relationship between Dante’s false counselors, Ulysses and Guido da Montefeltro, anchors an overarching discussion of the relationship between rhetoric and politics. The latter half of the lecture is devoted to Inferno 28, where Dante’s preeminent sower of discord, Betran de Born, introduces the principle of the contrappasso. The law of retribution that governs Dante’s Inferno is discussed in light of classical and contemporary theories of justice/crime and punishment. In conclusion, the opening of Inferno 29 is read as a retrospective gloss on the limitations of retributive justice.