 Nevertheless, as straightforward as Marco’s speech seems to be at this juncture, the careful reader will keep in mind that the speaker may be undergoing penance because his own sense of devotion to justice fostered in him wrath towards others who did not share his values—and in an unjust world, this would mean that Marco’s love of valor [16.47] would have made charity difficult for him. In other words, even though it is true that Marco’s speech recapitulates key arguments of Convivio 4 and Monarchia, the dramatic context for the speech introduces some doubt as to whether we are meant to understand this speech as an unqualified endorsement for those positions. And, of course, this problem—the interpretive problem posed by the significance of the dramatic context for the various speeches in the Divine Comedy—is an inescapable feature of the hermeneutic framework within which philosophical (and theological) doctrines are offered for our consideration.