In the first instance of dramatic action in Dante’s Comedy, the protagonist is forced by the sudden appearance, in rapid succession, of three wild beasts to abandon his ascent of the sunny hill that offered a haven from the terrors of the dark wood. It is a sequence whose allegorical significance continues to elude the poem’s commentators. And woven into this allegory of the three beasts and the prophecy of the hound that is the wolf’s nemesis are several metaphors of eating which, it seems fair to assume, are an integral component of the episode’s encrypted meaning. Indeed, it is not uncommon for the appetites of the lion, the wolf, and the salvific figure of the “veltro” to be seen as related in some coherent pattern. This essay, however, will seek to show that these patterns of meaning are far more complex and more revealing of Dante’s purposes in writing the Comedy than has generally been thought.