Walking With Dante

We've come to the middle of INFERNO and the last bits of canto XVII. We've come to a tour de force of the imagination and a minor (foreshadowing?) comedic ending at the center of the hellish canticle.Dante's poetics have never been greater. At least, so far. Just wait until you see what's ahead. But let's stop and marvel at the medieval notion of flight on the back of the beast of fraud in a canto about those who sin against art. Could things get any more complicated?Here are the segments for this episode of WALKING WITH DANTE:[01:05] My English translation of Inferno, Canto XVII, lines 100 - 134. If you'd like to read along, you can find this passage on my website, markscarbrough.com.[04:29] How does Geryon fly? He swims.[06:36] Why is there a giant cliff between the 7th and 8th circles of hell, between the violent and the fraudulent? Is there a thematic, structural, or even psychological rationale for this cliff?[09:13] Phaeton and Icarus: two tragedies from classical literature (from Ovid's Metamorphoses, in fact), set down in the middle of COMEDY, in the middle of a passage in the center of INFERNO that has a comedic ending.[13:53] The imaginative tour de force of flight.[15:21] The falcon image in the passage. The last time we saw a falcon was at INFERNO, Canto III, at another border: where the damned rush into Charon's boat.[17:34] The many ways Geryon is described. Dante the poet seems to be pulling out all the poetic stops. Is he trying to keep from sinning against nature with this unnatural flight? Or is he winking at us from behind the text?[23:12] Don't give up on Virgil just yet! Our poet may believe he's moved beyond Virgil, but the classical poet still controls Geryon's flight.

Our pilgrim walks back from the usurers, sitting out on the edge of the seventh circle of INFERNO, and finds that he must climb aboard the awful beast of fraud. Drama!But there's so much more. This passage reveals our poet as a creator of modern narrative. And it shows us that he's taking full control of his poem. Virgil, be gone! Brunetto, too! This is Dante's work.Here are the segments of this episode:[01:12] My English translation of INFERNO, Canto XVII, Lines 79 - 99. You can read along with this translation on my website, markscarbrough.com.[03:06] More about "back ends." And a forecast: the way down will involve the beasts of hell from now on.[05:38] Dante is afraid--but he was just so brave. What's up with the changed emotions?[08:27] The pilgrim's internal motivations are always the final stop in the narrative technique--just one of the ways our poet Dante is so modern.[10:03] On touching the beasts of hell![10:47] Why is the pilgrim so silent in Canto XVII of INFERNO?[12:43] More about the corporeality of the afterlife.[14:31] Virgil is both a representative of a class and himself. He's Virgil in his Virgilness. Another way that our poet anticipates the problems of modern narrative.[19:01] Finally, the beast is named! Geryon! Except that only makes things more confusing.

We've come to what Dantista Chivacci Leonardi calls "the most colorful" bits of Dante's INFERNO. We've come to the usurers, sitting on the brink of the seventh circle of violence, looking out over the eighth circle of fraud, the deeper parts of hell.This passage is stuffed with synecdoches. Let's talk about why that is and how the poetic bones of COMEDY itself are exposed.This passage is also often overlooked, a mere footnote, because of the beast of fraud that comes before it and after it and eats up so much attention.It's also over-interpreted. There's so much effort in the commentary to name each of these bankers sitting on the burning sands. But Dante goes to some length NOT to name them. Rather, the poet implicates the families, rather than the individuals. Why spend time and energy nailing down who these guys are when the poem goes to come lengths to tell you that they are stand-ins (or yes, synecdoches!) for their families?Here are the segments of this podcast episode for Inferno, Canto XVII, lines 46 - 78 on WALKING WITH DANTE:[01:19] My English translation of the passage: INFERNO, Canto XVII, lines 46 - 78. If you'd like to read along, you can find this passage on my website, markscarbrough.com.[04:22] The usurers sit on the edge of violence and look out over the expanse of the eighth circle, the one for the fraudulent--probably because charging interest on loaned money sits right in the ethical juncture between violence and fraud for Dante. And there's another curious bit that rings underneath this passage: Dante's own family may well have been money-lenders.[12:47] The colorful purses hung around each other their necks. Let's identify the families and talk about why we don't have to name the specific sinners.[19:00] Why is this passage so colorful?[20:45] Where are the Jews? Almost any medieval reference to money-lending would always involve some anti-Semitic snark. But these are "good" Christian families. Dante seems to shy away from anti-Semitism just when we'd expect it.[24:37] These bankers are the fulfillment of Dante's own prophecy back in Canto XVI where he decried the coming of new money into Florence.[25:45] A final bestial image in the passage: the sluggish and stupid ox.[27:26] More thoughts on synecdoche. First off, the rhetorical strategy fragments the world into pieces, just as violence and fraud do. But more than that, synecdoche is the rhetorical strategy for COMEDY as a whole.

The beast of fraud has breached. And Virgil's got some negotiating to do. So he sends Dante the pilgrim alone along the edge of the cliff to see the sinners sitting "over there."Wait! Classical poetry has to convince fraud to do something? How? And why does classical poetry suddenly tell the "modern" pilgrim to walk on by himself? And how come we can't hear those negotiations between Virgil and fraud?Join me, Mark Scarbrough, as we look at this strange passage in what's often seen as a mere "waiting room" of a canto, a transitional space between the circles of hell, but which might well be more filled with meaning than so many have allowed it in the past.Here are the segments of this podcast episode of WALKING WITH DANTE:[01:12] My English translation of the passage: INFERNO, Canto XVII, Lines 28 - 45. If you want to read along, you can find this translation on my website, markscarbrough.com.[02:29] Virgil and the pilgrim move on down, but do they turn to the right? I think so, but many big-time Dantistas think not. What would that right turn mean?[06:21] They take ten steps. Ten? Is that symbolic? Or does it tell us something about the growing sense of the poem's technique?[08:32] Lie--run--sit: the three positions of those in the third rung of the circle of violent, those violent against God. Those sitting are on the edge of violence, right at the lip of fraud--because their sin is a piece of both.[10:55] Virgil's conversation with the beast of fraud is dropped from the text. What's up with that?[13:37] Dante the pilgrim goes it alone along the edge. Surely, given all that's happened, there's a thematic value in this moment when our pilgrim sets out by himself to see some sinners.

Canto XVII of INFERNO is often seen as a transitional canto, the way we get from the seventh circle of the violent to the eighth circle of the fraudulent. But I don't think so. I think this is the canto in which our poet strikes out on his own to craft the work he needs to meet the terms of his own salvation.Join me, Mark Scarbrough, as we enter a canto full of poetic fireworks with perhaps the strangest beast in all of hell: the monster of fraud, so carefully described, so difficult to parse, so made up out of whole cloth.Here are the segments of this episode of WALKING WITH DANTE:[01:21] My English translation of INFERNO, Canto XVII, lines 1 - 27. If you'd like to read along, you can find this passage on my website, markscarbrough.com, under the header about this podcast.[03:16] Two prefatory points: 1) We need to go back to Virgil's map of hell in Canto XI and 2) Canto XVII is in no way a transitional canto.[05:05] Canto XVI bleeds into Canto XVII. And something stranger, too: Dante swears on his COMEDY that he saw this monster and then Dante goes silent and Virgil takes over. Complex irony abounds![06:54] Behold the beast! It's a blasphemous perversion of "Behold the man."[08:32] Canto XVII is stuffed the synecdoches, the parts for the whole.[11:30] My quibble with the commentary tradition. Many connect this beast with a passage in the gospel of Matthew, warning against false prophets, wolves in sheep's clothing. But there's no interior v. exterior debate here. The beast is fully visible as horrific.[14:41] The beast of fraud is painted--the same way the leopard was apparently painted and thereby connecting the two.[17:05] The sheer bulk of metaphors and similes in this canto: four right here. And all about the fusion of craft and deceit.[22:33] A side note: This is the passage in which Boccaccio dies while writing his commentary.[25:31] So much emphasis on the thing's tail. What's going on here? Maybe a thematic structuring of INFERNO and maybe a set-up for the sewer of the eighth canto that lies ahead.

And by "read," as in the way it's used in literary studies, I mean "interpret."We've come through some tough passages, so I thought it would be useful to lay my cards on the table. Or at least most of the trumps. I'll keep a few back for later.Through Instagram DMs and emails, I've had some amazing conversations about Inferno, Cantos XV and XVI. And I thought, well, I should just lay out these discussions because they lie at the heart of my obsession about poetics in Dante's COMEDY. In a nutshell, here's how I read COMEDY. At least at this moment. No guarantees I won't change my mind.There are no distinct parts of this podcast episode. Rather, it's a general discussion of my own idiosyncratic overview of COMEDY.

Well, we've come to it. The moment of truth. Or fraud. And what if they're the same thing? Or similar things?Join me, Mark Scarbrough, for a corker of a passage, the last bits of Canto XVI of INFERNO, in which our poet Dante steps out from behind the plot and swears on the fragments of his own text that he really did see a beast that no one has ever imagined in the depths of hell.Get ready for meta-poetry. Get ready for irony. Get ready for a complex stance of a writer taking charge of his own text. This passage has been lurking the wilds of the text for a while. And here it is. And here are the segments of this episode:[01:00] My English translation of Inferno, Canto XVI, lines 124 - 136. If you want to find this passage and read along, it's on my website, markscarbrough.com.[02:34] To speak about lies before you name the work you're writing so that you can swear on the truth of your lie. Wow, complicated.[05:00] The poet steps out from behind the text and speaks directly to us: "I can't keep quiet." Were you trying to keep quiet? Has that been a problem?[06:40] What is "comedy" for Dante? A matter of style.[11:18] The figure swims up out of the murky air. "Una figura"--a very artistic word, which brings up the nature of the artistic process--as does the poet's use of the word "reader," indicating to us that he's writing a text to be read, not read aloud. Which means, yes, that the poem has become fully meta.[15:30] The figure becomes a simile before it becomes a beast. A curious turn of rhetorical events in the poem.[18:41] Why name the work here? What is the poet doing? Here are some answers given from the 1500s up to today.

Dante's COMEDY is about to shift gears. It's going to change its relationship to the poetry of the past. It's going to become more complicated in its symbolism (and yes, symbolism, not "just" allegory). And the pilgrim is going to begin to interact with the poet who is standing behind him.Join me, Mark Scarbrough, for this exploration of some of the next to the last passage in Inferno, Canto XVI. It's a corker in every sense of the word: difficult, challenging, fun, a great mind game all around.Here are the segments of this podcast episode:[01:10] The passage: Inferno, Canto XVI, Lines 106 - 123. As always, if you want to read along, you can find my English translation on my website, markscarbrough.com, under the header tab about this podcast.[02:28] Did you know Dante the pilgrim had a cord around his waist? Apparently! There's been some misinterpretation of this cord over the years. We'll delve into that. And here's a bonus question: since Virgil is going to throw this thing over the cliff, how big is it?[04:38] The leopard back in Canto I gets rewritten here at the end of Canto XVI. What is Dante up to?[08:57] Here, the leopard is said to have a "painted coat." Painted? That sounds like art.[10:12] The changing relationship between Dante the pilgrim and Virgil--that is, the changing notion of who provides the raw material and who straightens it out.[12:31] The pilgrim, the poet, and Virgil each speak a tercet, a three-line stanza. Their triangulation is becoming evident, even self-conscious.[16:01] What's imagined is going to appear in front of your face. Now there's a claim for poetry.

We're going to slow up even more and take one long look at a very complicated fifteen lines that include a twelve-line simile about the waterfall ahead of us.Join me, Mark Scarbrough, as we walk passage by passage through Dante's masterwork, COMEDY. We're in the seventh circle of Inferno, in the second rung (or almost the third rung) of that circle and we have come to a passage that downshifts the narrative and allows the poet more freedom to step out from behind the curtain of his creation.But to get that freedom, he first has to marshall his poetic tools with this tour-de-force simile.Here are the segments of this podcast episode:[01:39] The passage itself: Inferno, Canto XVI, lines 91 - 105. If you want to see my translation of this passage, you can find it on my website, markscarbrough.com, under the blog header about this podcast, Walking With Dante.[03:27] A little bit about the geography mentioned in this simile--and why it's not all it's cracked up to be.[08:01] This is the longest simile we have yet to encounter in COMEDY. Why is that important? Because it's setting us up for the monster similes that dominate the eighth circle of hell. And it shouldn't surprise us that monster similes exist ahead of us--because we're about to enter the land of fraud. And what's more fraudulent that poetry?[12:09] The waterfall and similes about that waterfall are the structuring device of Canto XVI of Inferno.[13:39] The simile itself replicates the very waterfall it's trying to explain. This simile is a tumble of verbals, participles, and clauses, all coming together to create one big rush of language.[17:14] More about the geography here. The seventh circle opens at the top of the Italian peninsula and then comes toward its close with another reference to those Alpine regions. Dante is truly an artistic at work, building the architecture of his poem as he also deepens its thematics.

We've come to the last passage on our three Guelph heroes, circling each other on the burning sands of the seventh circle of hell, the violent--and specifically, those violent against God. That is, the homosexuals.This short passage ends on a strange note. Dante the pilgrim/prophet is able to unify the three Guelph heroes. But he's not able to change them. And maybe that's the best that prophetic speech can do in hell.Join me, Mark Scarbrough, as we slow-walk through COMEDY in this episode with these segments:[01:04] My English translation of Inferno, Canto XVI, lines 79 - 90. If you'd like to follow along, you can find this passage on my website, markscarbrough.com, under the header "Walking With Dante."[02:03] Our three Guelph heroes speak in unison. Surely this is thematic in the passage.[06:20] But even unified, these guys haven't changed. They're still in hell. They're still damned. In other words, the truth-filled words of a prophet don't make any difference in inferno.[10:27] What's Virgil's role in all of this?

Dante the pilgrim is still looking down on the three Florentine, Guelph heroes, circling each other on the burning sands. They've got no forward momentum. But he does! The pilgrim is about to undergo a major change. He's about to begin his transformation into a prophet.Join me, Mark Scarbrough, as we slow-walk through Dante's masterpiece, COMEDY. We're in Canto XVI of Inferno, out on the burning sands of the seventh circle of hell, among the violent--and specifically, the homosexuals. And even more specifically, with three of Dante's Guelph heroes from the 1200s.This short passage is about civic virtues. And their emptiness. And the false reasons to do good. And rejecting Brunetto's explanation of Florence's troubles in favor of a prophetic voice that tells the truth clearly and plainly.In other words, a packed, small passage. Here are the segments of this episode:[00:59] My English translation of Inferno, Canto XVI, lines 64 - 78. If you want to follow along, you can find this passage on my website, markscarbrough.com, under the header "Walking With Dante."[03:23] Rusticucci's reply to the pilgrim's confession of himself as one of their countrymen. Rusticucci wants to know how things are going up on earth. He flatters the pilgrim--ever the oily orator--then offers an explanation for his own good deeds: the hope for fame. But is fame a proper motivation for doing good? Many medievals would say so. Most of us wouldn't. And Dante stands in the gap between.[11:31] Who is this Borsiere fellow they mention?[14:11] The pilgrim morphs into a prophet with an oracular pronouncement that 1) rejects Brunetto Latini's explanation for the ills of Florence and 2) begins to become the spokesperson for God.[18:19] Where is the pilgrim looking when his face is lifted up? Believe it or not, this question has bedeviled the commentary for 700 years.

Dante the pilgrim has met and spoken with the very heroes he's always admired. These are the Guelph leaders he himself admits he has remembered with so much honor.But their rhetoric is empty. Self-justifying. Flattering. And finally, ineffective.So Dante the pilgrim dares it all and translates his anger into something far more human: sadness and connection.Join me, Mark Scarbrough, for this important episode of WALKING WITH DANTE. Here, we begin to see a fundamental change in our pilgrim, Dante. He's not just a tourist in hell. He's a human with dashed hopes. And he may be starting to see a way out without resorting to the easy answer of anger.Here are the segments of this episode:[01:31] My English translation of this passage: INFERNO, Canto XVI, lines 46 - 63. If you'd like to follow along, you can find this translation on my website, markscarbrough.com, under the header "Walking With Dante."[02:58] Dante begins to put to death his political hopes for Florence.[06:48] Dante refines the terms of their rhetorical game. It's not about disdain, about who's up and who's down. It's about sadness, the hardest human emotion to feel.[10:02] "I leave the bitterness." And thereby, the pilgrim Dante also leaves Brunetto. There's another way to follow Dante's star to his glorious port. And it doesn't involve Brunetto's bitter history lesson of crab apples and sweet figs.[14:37] There are two ways to write a journey narrative: the things I saw v. the people I met. Dante chooses the latter--and it turns his story into something more difficult, more glorious, and more lasting.

The three, naked, oiled, burned, hairless Florentines revolve in front of the pilgrim, Dante, and Virgil. One of them starts to speak.And what a speech! Such gorgeous rhetoric! The sort he used when he was a Guelph leader in Florence. The sort all three used. The sort all politicians love. The sort that adds up to nothing.Join me, Mark Scarbrough, as we listen to Jacopo Rusticucci tell the tale of these three military and political heroes. More than that, they're Dante's heroes. And damned. They put an end to Dante's political hopes.Here are the segments of this episode: [01:02] My English translation of this passage: Inferno, Canto XVI, lines 28 - 45. If you want to follow along, you can find this translation on my website, markscarbrough.com, under the header "Walking With Dante."[02:44] Jacopo Rusticucci speaks for the group--and with such a flourish. He first starts by offering to abase himself (and the other two) in front of the pilgrim, Dante. Such fine manners![07:25] Who are these three guys? They're Guelph military and political heroes. They're Dante's heroes. They're Guido Guerra, Tagghiaio Aldobrandi, and Jacopo Rusticucci. Florence wouldn't be Florence without them. But then what is Florence these days?[15:26] Rusticucci is a great orator. His speech is pitch-perfect. Also, empty.[17:20] Rusticucci blames his damnation on his "bestial wife." What does that mean?[21:31] Tegghiaio and Rusticucci have already come up in COMEDY. Way back with Ciacco in Canto VI. Ciacco made no bones about them: "the blacker souls." So what's going on in this passage in which they seem so noble?

Brunetto may have run off like the winner of a foot race but he's far from gone from the text. In fact, the next canto of INFERNO, XVI, is in many ways a mirror of Brunetto's canto, XV.Dante and Virgil are still on the embankment, protected from the snowfall of fire, still looking out across the burning sands when three runners peel off and come over to them, attracted to the pilgrim by (of all things) his clothes.Canto XVI of INFERNO is often overlooked, but it may well be one of the most challenging cantos of the entire canticle of pain. Join me, Mark Scarbrough, as we meet three guys who will give Dante a history lesson he won't ever forget.Here are the segments of this episode:[00:51] My English translation of this passage. You can find it on my website, markscarbrough.com, under the header "Walking With Dante."[03:13] An brief overview of Canto XVI--and a discussion of why it's so often overlooked. (Because the last lines are seen as so much more dramatic than the opening lines--which is too, too bad.)[05:11] A brief diversion to a discussion of Dante's notion of politics. Our understanding of what the poet means by "politics" will inform our understanding of this difficult canto.[08:07] The opening three lines and the noise of the waterfall ahead. We're getting a view of the landscape ahead of us. It's one of the first times this has happened. Yes, in INFERNO, Canto XI, Virgil gave us a thematic and theological view of the journey ahead. But now we're getting naturalistic details of what's to come far on down the line. The narrative is stretching out.[11:51] Three oiled and naked guys, burned hairless, too, run up to our pilgrim and Virgil. They first notice the pilgrim's clothes. And recognize him as a Florentine. Which tells you a lot about their priorities.[15:33] Virgil stops to tell the pilgrim, Dante, that these men are worthy of courtesy, the prime medieval civic virtue.[18:53] The three Guelphs are described as wrestlers, circling each other. But there's plenty of symbolic import here. It's not just homoerotic. Or maybe not homoerotic at all. Instead, they're going nowhere, round and round, and in each other's footprints.

Join me, Mark Scarbrough, for this special episode of the podcast WALKING WITH DANTE. This episode is my interview with Kristen Hook, a Dantista who is writing her dissertation at UC-Berkeley on Inferno, Canto X.She's most interested in Guido Cavalcanti, the son of the man who raises his chin up over the edge of the heretics' tomb where Farinata is having his pissing match with our pilgrim, Dante.You might want to go back and review Canto X. Or just settle in. Kristen Hook will lead us into unexpected depth on this episode. I hope you find the water deep, maybe even over your head. Because there's always more to Dante's COMEDY than you might even imagine.

From the get-go of Canto XV, I've told you my assumption: These are the homosexuals punished in Inferno.But am I right? I'm certainly standing with the bulk of the commentary tradition, reaching back almost 700 years.But lately, there have been challenges to this assumption. Let's look at the book that started the whole modern debate: André Pézard's bombshell work from 1950 that reassesses who these sinners are.Join me, Mark Scarbrough, as I give voice to my own opposition! We'll get a little farther into the weeds than we usually do on Walking With Dante. But it seems important to state that my notion of who these sinners are is not necessarily the most current opinion.Here are the segments of this podcast episode:[01:10] Why do I believe these are the homosexuals in Inferno, Canto XV (and coming up in Inferno, Canto XVI)?[05:19] What does the opposition say? In essence, these are sinners guilty of sins against rhetoric. Let's explore that position.

We come to the end of Inferno, Canto XV. We go out in the strangest ways. First, the pilgrim, Dante, wants a little bedroom gossip. Who are the other homosexuals down here with you, Brunetto?Brunetto Latini is cagey and forthcoming, all at once, about the way he's been throughout this canto. He offers three names. He turns excessively vulgar. And he reveals his hidden agenda: don't forget the books I wrote! He is undoubtedly one of the most complicated figures in INFERNO.Join me, Mark Scarbrough, as we slow-walk through Dante's masterwork, COMEDY. We've come to the end of a strange canto in INFERNO. It's chock full of ambivalence and irony. And maybe more than we first imagined. Because there's Virgil, standing to the side all along. They've been blathering on about how a writer wins fame. And about the old, uncorrupted, Roman blood. Meanwhile, Exhibit A is standing right there with them.Here are the segments for this podcast episode:[00:51] My English translation of INFERNO, Canto XV, lines 100 - 124. If you'd like to read along, you can find this translation on my website, markscarbrough.com, under the header "Walking With Dante."[03:05] The pilgrim's prurient question: Who else is with you, Ser Brunetto? (Notice that flouish of politeness, "Ser," just when the pilgrim wants to know the dirty details.)[08:56] Smoke is rising from the sands. Brunetto can't stick around. Why?[10:38] Brunetto reveals his hidden agenda: Don't forget my book![13:11] Virgil. He's been there all along. They've been talking about fame and pure Roman blood. Shouldn't they have asked Exhibit A, walking along with them?[17:25] Brunetto wins his race! Or does he?

Brunetto Latini has offered a history lesson on Florence and a prophecy for the pilgrim Dante's future. It's Dante's turn to respond in their back-and-forth conversation.But the pilgrim doesn't just respond! He recasts their conversation, not in terms of the teacherly voice, but rather one that's more central to the task of COMEDY: he responds as a writer to the emotional demands of the situation.This response from Dante strikes to the heart of Canto XV. For all of Brunetto's bravado, he has shown Dante the writerly hopes of fame, of a text that's remembered (and glossed). The poet knows the truth because of Brunetto: it's all about being able to put experiences into language and hold them there for others to read.Join me, Mark Scarbrough, as I slow-walk through Dante's masterpiece, COMEDY, with this podcast episode that's an exploration of Inferno, Canto XV, lines 79 - 99. These are the pilgrim's words. They come after his teacher's rhetorical excess. These, too, are excessive. And gorgeous. And in the end, emotionally true, a state of being that might escape Brunetto.Here are the segments of this podcast episode:[01:12] My English translation of Inferno, Canto XV, lines 79 - 99. If you want to follow along, you can find this passage on my website, markscarbrough.com, under the header "Walking With Dante."[02:49] The pilgrim recasts Brunetto as an exile. What Brunetto has prophesied for the pilgrim is actually Brunetto's own state: exile (that is, from the land of the living). Intriguingly, by redefining Brunetto as an exile, the pilgrim (and the poet behind him) have been linked with the damned. Everyone's an exile.[04:40] The pilgrim Dante responds to Brunetto's rather boorish racism with a paternalistic connection. Dad?[07:36] Fame: how to make yourself eternal in this world.[11:05] Dante's not a pilgrim. He's a writer, taking notes. Notes that will ultimately get glossed "by a lady."[13:34] Yet there are strange doubts in this passage, as in this entire canto.[15:56] As well as the pilgrim's bravado: Fortune, bring it on! Is bravado a good response to doubt?[17:48] As Brunetto, Dante ends with a rhetorical flourish, an almost impenetrable aphorism.[21:18] Virgil! He's been there all along. Now he actually speaks. (It's his only line in Canto XV.)

Brunetto Latini's got questions. Too bad the pilgrim, Dante, doesn't seem to want to answer them.Or better, Dante only seems to want to confess to this teacher. (Anybody who has ever been a teacher knows this gambit: ask a question, get the truth, not the facts you were after.)This is indeed the game that teachers and students play/ Especially when their roles are reversed.And must they descend to this level of competition between them? If so, Brunetto might well come out on top. He's got a history lesson about Florence and a prophecy for the pilgrim's fate, the exile that Dante the poet already faces.That said, Brunetto's prophecy is a challenging, rhetorical knot. Should we take it at face value? Should we trust everything Brunetto says? Especially when he uses such coarse language? And vaults (at the same time) to such rhetorical heights.Join me, Mark Scarbrough, as we explore the hidden agendas and strange twists in this passage. The pilgrim Dante may think he has the upper hand. His teacher, Brunetto, has other ideas.Here are the segments of this podcast episode:[01:23] My English translation of INFERNO, Canto XV, lines 46 - 78. If you want to follow along, they're on my website, markscarbrough.com, under the header "Walking With Dante."[04:09] Brunetto's questions and the pilgrim's confession. Dante seems intent on telling Brunetto his plight--using Brunetto's own words and perhaps clarifying exactly what went on in Canto I of INFERNO. Do you need an older writer to help you say what you want to say about yourself? Maybe you do.[16:45] Brunetto's history lesson and prophecy of the pilgrim's (and poet's) plight. This passage is the oddest mix of vulgar language and rhetorical gamesmanship. Is that the heart of Brunetto's poetics? Because it might also be the heart of Dante's.[26:35] A little about INFERNO as a whole: it's partly about unlearning what the pilgrim (and maybe the poet) Dante has learned. We've already seen this with Francesca and Farinata. But now we start to see it with the very nature of poetry itself.

Walking down the levy along the stream with his guide, Dante the pilgrim faces his former teacher, scorched on the burning sands. Or the guy the poet wants us to think was his teacher: Brunetto Latini. (Poor Virgil. He's forgotten--momentarily.)So begins one of the most fraught and difficult conversations in INFERNO. There are hidden agendas everywhere. Strange twists in logic. And a lot about the very hellish heart of the project for every writer: the quest for fame, the need to be remembered, because printed words survive in this world in the ways people don't.Join me, Mark Scarbrough, as I explore the astounding ambivalence and irony embedded in this conversation with the fourth great sinner of hell, Brunetto Latini, perhaps the best-known writer in Dante's world before our own poet overtakes his teacher to become the author of the COMEDY. This is a joust between two poets of different generations. And an attempt to find a father. All at the same time.Here are the segments of this podcast episode:[00:57] The passage itself. If you'd like to read my English translation, it's on my website, markscarbrough.com, under the header "WALKING WITH DANTE."[02:46] The pilgrim Dante's reaction to Brunetto: first with the intellect, then with his emotions. And the most poignant question of this canto, or maybe of any in INFERNO: "Ser Brunetto, are you here?"[07:49] Who was Brunetto Latini? Let's dig a bit into the history of this writer, who was a major influence in Dante's world but would probably be almost forgotten today, or at least a sub, sub, sub question on a PhD exam, were it not for Dante's COMEDY.[15:16] The passage seems to turn on the father-son relationship between our pilgrim and this once-great poet. Or maybe it's the relationship of an older poet to a younger one. Or maybe those two relationships are the same thing.[20:29] Who is the teacher and who is the student? The passage gets stranger as it goes along. The ambivalence gets thick. As it probably should, given the (alleged) relationship between these two. After all, who doesn't want to put their teacher in hell?

We're walking with our pilgrim, Dante, along the embankment to a stream, heading down into the depths of the seventh circle of hell where the sins of violence are punished. This levy is the feature Virgil has plumped as the most amazing yet in hell.More amazing still is our pilgrim's response to it: doubt. What's more, the poet behind the pilgrim seems to be at a different game altogether: poetic overabundance. The poet is snowing us with similes, twinning them against each other, perhaps offering us a clue about what we're about to face in this bit of hell.Join me, Mark Scarbrough, as I walk with the poet and pilgrim into one of the strangest cantos of INFERNO. We get psychological insights into the pilgrim and gorgeous bits of poetic excess, all as a set-up to what's ahead, the very heart of a writer's project: fame.Here are the segments of this episode:[01:59] The passage itself in my English translation. If you'd like to follow along, you can find this passage on my website, markscarbrough.com, under the header "Walking With Dante."[03:45] Before we get started, I should confess my assumption about this canto (and the next one, too, while I'm at it). I believe the sinners here are the homosexuals. On down the line, in a future episode, we'll talk about why my assumption may not be the case.[05:07] The first three lines of Canto XV: the geography of margins and the poetry of excess.[12:07] Our first double simile: The Flemish and the Paduans, with their dikes and embankments, in a doubled-up comparison. But even stranger than this redundancy of two similes saying the same thing, there's the strange doubt expressed by the pilgrim (or maybe by the poet). "Whoever the master builder [of such works] might be"? Doesn't Dante know?[18:02] The pilgrim tells us he really, truly, honestly doesn't need to look back at the wood of the suicides, now far back on the horizon. Why's he so interested in that wood? Does he protest too much?[21:28] The Canto XV squad arrives! A group of men comes up from across the burning sands. And we get yet another double simile in this already fraught opening to one of the greatest cantos of INFERNO.

In this interpolated episode of the podcast WALKING WITH DANTE, I interview the poet and translator J. Simon Harris about his work on INFERNO, his thinking about Dante, and his passion for this medieval poet.Join me, Mark Scarbrough, as we explore the passion of someone who has made Dante's poetry his life's work.

We've come to the end of this strange and wonderful canto. We've passed Capaneus. We've heard about the Old Man of Crete. We've seen the weird snowfall of fire. We've even begun to explore the natural landscape of hell with a long talk about its hydraulics.But Dante is not done. He wants to clarify those hydraulics. So our pilgrim is going to ask two questions about how exactly the waters of hell work.And we're not done with Canto XIV. We've got some listener questions and clean-up duty to get through in this episode of WALKING WITH DANTE.So join me, Mark Scarbrough, as we finish off Canto XIV and discuss some of the great things listeners have said about this canto as we've been walking through it.Here are the segments of this episode:[01:15] My English translation of Inferno, Canto XIV, lines 121 - 142. If you want to see these lines "in the flesh," check them out on my website, markscarbrough.com.[03:25] A review of the Old Man of Crete to establish the rationale for our pilgrim Dante's two questions.[04:10] The pilgrim Dante's first question: Why haven't I seen any water flowing to the bottom of hell until now? This brings up fascinating answers about the geography of hell--and causes us to pause on Dante's poetics: the raw brilliance of not only imagining the afterlife but reconfiguring our world, too.[09:38] The pilgrim Dante's second question: Where is Phlegethon and Lethe? Virgil's got some quick answers: right in front of you and on ahead. But more's at stake here, since Virgil offers us a Christian answer to the classical river of Lethe.[13:18] Virgil's prompt to get going because this journey is far from over--although Canto XIV now is.[14:59] An added section to this podcast episode: listener questions and discussions via emails and DMs about Canto XIV.[15:29] The first question: Is Virgil nude?[17:19] The second question: How can the violent be the passive recipients of violence if they are slapping themselves?[19:08] The third question: Maybe the pilgrim offers more than just emotional reactions to the landscape. Maybe there are emotional reactions as well as intellectual reactions. And what about that right foot of that statue in Mount Ida?[23:31] My own clean-up job: Aristotle and the Christian tradition.

Canto XIV of Dante's INFERNO is often seen as a misstep. Or at least an uneasy two-parter. First, there's Capaneus on the burning sands. Then there's this strange statue in a mountain in Crete--and an exploration of the hydraulics of hell.But maybe Canto XIV isn't the twofer we imagine. Maybe this is an intentional bit of artistic brilliance that shows us two sides of the same coin. Or better yet, that makes an elegant answer to the problems found in Canto VII.Join me, Mark Scarbrough, as I explore the way the Old Man of Crete fits into the larger structure of Canto XIV--and the seventh circle of hell as a whole. Dante is always two steps ahead of us. We shouldn't doubt him!Here are the segments of this episode of WALKING WITH DANTE:[01:11] My English translation of this passage.[02:56] There are two giants in one canto. THAT can't be a mistake. How can anyone think that Canto XIV breaks into halves? And what's more, look at how XIV compares to Canto VII. (And VII x 2 = XIV!)[07:12] How can we sew Canto XIV back together after so many commentators have torn it into halves? By talking about the uneasy alliance of classical and Christian thematics, imagery, and iconography in the canto.[09:03] The Old Man statue is in Crete! Which ties us back to Canto XII and the Minotaur, showing us that Dante has been thinking about the overall structure of the seventh circle of hell since we first came down that scree-filled slope. We've been in the labyrinth all along![11:02] An overview of the structure of Canto XIV. Let's look at its narrative movement--particularly, at the problem of starting with Florence and ending at Cocytus, the lowest bit of hell.[14:26] The Old Man of Crete is our first instance in Dante's COMEDY of a narrative of human degeneracy. Strange, because we'd expect a lot of this kind of talk in a poem about hell. Maybe there's a clue in the poet's stance early on in the canto. Maybe we're moving into territory in which the poet is becoming more than a poet. Maybe he's becoming a prophet.

We come to one of the strangest moments in INFERNO. While Virgil may have claimed that stream burbling out of the wood of the suicides was the most astonishing thing seen so far, we've never encountered anything like Virgil's explanation for the hydraulics of hell.First off, there's a giant statue. It's in Crete. In Mount Ida, to be exact. It's made out of gold, silver, bronze, iron, and terra cotta. But it's really made out of passages from the prophet Daniel, Ovid, Virgil himself, and St. Augustine.There's nothing quite like the Old Man of Crete. He's certainly the most difficult bit of symbolism since those three beasts on the hill that Dante-the-pilgrim tried to climb in Canto I of INFERNO.Join me, Mark Scarbrough, for the first of two podcast episodes on this elliptical and ultimately baffling passage from INFERNO. Seven hundred years of commentary haven't been able to solve it. We won't either. But we'll start with a look at the statue itself and its source background. Sounds dry? No way! This is Dante. It's all surprising.Here are the segments for this episode of WALKING WITH DANTE:[01:11] My English translation of this passage: INFERNO, Canto XIV, lines 94 - 120. If you want to find them written out, they're on my website, markscarbrough.com.[03:30] The first source for the Old Man of Crete: the prophet Daniel. (Particularly Daniel 2:31ff.)[06:09] Dante-the-poet's specific alterations to the text from Daniel.[07:20] Biblical interpretations for the passage from Daniel in the medieval (and patristic) age.[10:28] The second source for the Old Man of Crete: Ovid's Metamorphoses.[11:35] The third source: Virgil's own Aeneid.[13:00] The fourth source: St. Augustine's recounting of a tale from Pliny the Elder's Natural History.[14:03] Two strange details about the statue: its terra cotta foot and its turn away from Damietta.[22:18] Many commentators see this as the first time Dante, our poet, fully engages in myth-making. No way![24:11] In the end, Dante's vision of hell has a human component: the tears of the Old Man of Crete. Which explain the hydrolics of the underworld! And give it a human dimension.

We've left Capaneus spread eagle on the burning sands and have begun to pass into this hellish desert-on-fire--that is, the third ring of the seventh circle of hell, of INFERNO.This podcast episode is about a short transitional passage before we get to some wilder stuff. But it gives us a chance to slow down and look at Dante-the-poet's poetic and narrative techniques.In essence, our poet is always building naturalistic details on and around his own emotional landscape. Those literary moves, in and of themselves, mark him as one of the fathers of the modern age.But he's still a poet of his times with that elliptical, medieval, puzzle-work style--here exemplified by Virgil's strange and almost inexplicable enthusiasm for the lurid red brook that comes out of the wood of the suicides and flows down the sands in a rocky culvert.Join me, Mark Scarbrough, as I explore this transitional passage on our way to one of the most troublesome bits of INFERNO.Here are the segments of this podcast:[01:31] My English translation of the passage: Inferno, Canto XIV, lines 76 - 93[03:03] A look at Dante-the-poet's artistic technique: the pilgrim's emotional landscape is often put alongside (or sometimes inside) the physical landscape, the naturalistic details.[06:09] A bit about the sulfurous spring from Bulicame and the long-standing interpretation of these three lines from the commentary.[08:10] More emotional details with the natural landscape.[08:52] The knot in this small passage: Virgil's strange insistence that this stream, pouring out of the wood, is the most astounding sight so far in INFERNO. After the winds of lust, after the tombs of the heretics, after Harpies in people-trees? It is? What’s going on here? I'll offer the answers out of the commentary tradition, then propose my own solution to Virgil's curious claims.[15:32] The pilgrim's desire and Virgil's meal--what's now and what's ahead in Canto XIV.

Finally, a blasphemer. A monk who wrote a heretical treatise? A priest who tainted orthodoxy? A run-of-the-mill atheist?Nope. A classical figure out of Statius' poem THE THEBIAD: Capaneus.Wait, can a mythical figure who wanted to take down a mythical god commit blasphemy in a Christian context?For Dante he can!Join me, Mark Scarbrough, as we explore this center passage of Canto XIV of INFERNO. We're among those who have committed (or have tried to commit) violence against God. But the passage turns on a figure out of mythology. What sort game is Dante playing? Or what game are we supposed to play with him?Here are the segments for this episode of WALKING WITH DANTE:[01:12] My English translation of this passage.[03:20] Dante the pilgrim tweaks Virgil, his guide. Rivalry? Or is something more thematic at play in this passage?[06:13] It's Capaneus on the sands! A giant. Our first. From myth. Which is a giant problem, to say the least, in a canto devoted to that most Christian sin, blasphemy.[08:41] An exploration of Capaneus' position toward the torments of hell--which reminds us a little of Farinata's. But Capaneus' speech is nothing like Farinata's![12:12] Why is Virgil irritated by Capaneus? An intriguing question. And a bit about the poetics here. The rhyming words match those in other passages with enraged figures. What's going on?[17:35] Why and how is Capaneus an exemplar (or exemplum) of blasphemy?[24:07] There's a bit of heresy running under this passage on blasphemy, under this entire canto. Can you provoke God to any action? Can you make the unmoved mover move? In the Middle Ages, the answer is slowly becoming "yes"--which causes all sorts of philosophical problems.

We now get a fuller glimpse of the third ring of the seventh circle of hell, of inferno, in this passage that lays out the ranks of the damned before us and helps us see the landscape more clearly.Sort of. Because this is Dante. And this is The Inferno. And nothing is quite what it seems.Join me, Mark Scarbrough, as we find three types of naked souls, lying, walking, and sitting under a snowfall of fire. Don't step out on the sand. It's an inferno. Naturally.Or unnaturally, since we've apparently entered a non-Aristotelean landscape. A place of miracles. Like the one Alexander the Great encountered in India.See? A lot. Here are the segments of this episode of Walking With Dante:[01:05] My English translation of Inferno, Canto XIV, lines 19 - 42. If you'd like to read along with this translation, it lives out on my website, markscarbrough.com.[03:58] The damned are naked. Or perhaps we assume so.[05:37] Our first glimpse of the three groups in the third ring of the seventh circle: those prone, those walking about, and those hunched over. It's an opaque passage--until you remember Virgil has already explained all of this back in Canto XI.[09:11] A lot about the snowfall of fire in the seventh circle of hell, here among those who have been (or tried to be) violent against God. I'll talk about Aristotelean physics--and why this passage violents those tenets. We'll do a little reading from the tiny New Testament epistle of Jude that may lie behind this passage. We'll talk some about Albert Magnus and Alexander the Great. And we'll round it off with the return of Guido Cavalcanti, whose father so missed him back in Canto X. Wow. A textured, layered passage, all about fire falling from heaven.[19:50] And finally, a bit about the wild dance of the damned here as they try to swat the snow-fire away--and the depth of the commentary underneath us as we read these passages.

Here's a fascinating opening passage of a canto--breaking over from the previous one, including quirky rhetorical techniques, showing us classical references, and offering us a glimpse of a slower pacing for the narrative as a whole.Join me, Mark Scarbrough, as we slow-walk through Dante's masterpiece, COMEDY. We're in Canto XIV, the seventh circle of hell, the third ring of that circle. This is our first glimpse of the place where those violent against God, the blasphemers, find their eternal damnation.It's hot. It's dry. It's terrifying. And it's interesting. Dante the poet is trying out some rhetorical techniques. And he's finding himself--perhaps--momentarily and unusually insecure in his own text. What a great passage to start the last ring of the seventh circle of INFERNO.Here are the segments of this passage:[01:00] My rough translation of INFERNO, Canto XIV, lines 1 - 18. You can also find these on my website, markscarbrough.com.[02:38] The opening tercet (or three lines) of this canto. It's fascinating for two reasons: it still seems to be a part of the previous canto, the wood of the suicides; and it includes some of the first expressions of the heart-felt loss Dante feels for Florence, a loss that will begin to texture his poem and make this journey through the afterlife so very human.[08:13] Our first glimpse of the arid sands in a second tercet (or three lines) of reflexive verbs (or as we would have to put it in English, passive-voice verbs). Why so much passive voicing here? The answers might give us a clue as to the punishment of the violent.[10:45] We can see that poem's pacing has slowed quite a bit as the poet backs up to explain exactly what the pilgrim saw as he left the wood. What does it indicate for a writer to slow down? What benefits accrue to a writer with a slower pacing?[14:20] An interesting rhetorical strategy of duplicating words. This is the first instance of many in the three cantos ahead.[15:24] A passing glimpse at Cato the Elder, running across the sands of Libya. I'll help you see where this reference comes from (Lucan's PHARSALIA), why it's important to Dante, and what Cato brings to the poem at this moment.[18:20] A rare moment in COMEDY: the poet steps out from behind the veil of the verses to warm us about the pains of hell. How many times does this happen? Almost never. Why here? What does that tell us about the poem as a whole?

On this episode of WALKING WITH DANTE, I'm headed toward the mail bag--or maybe the email bag--to look at three questions from listeners. These questions have come up over the course of the episodes about INFERNO, Canto XIII. I think they're important and interesting.One question is about my making clear the notion of literary interpretation I see in the text. Another offers an alternate reading for my outrage that souls have to breathe hard after they run through the thicket. And a final question has come up about how I translate Dante's text.Join me, Mark Scarbrough, as I talk through these questions, summarizing the discussions I've had online, in DMs, and through my website. I love that these questions have come up--and I wanted to share them with you.Here are the three segments of this episode:[01:27] A listener would like me to say more about the line in the text "I believe that he believed that I would believe"--and specifically, how that line relates to literary interpreation.[16:24] Someone else challenges me a bit on my modern readings of the text--and offers an alternate way to look at COMEDY that may solve some of my dilemmas about souls torn limb from limb or breathing hard in the thicket.[20:56] Finally, a question came up about how I translate the text. I thought I'd share my complete process here.

A bush has been torn apart by a crazed squanderers and black dogs. But it's got something to say, too, just like Pier delle Vigne.Join me, Mark Scarbrough, as we finish off this tour-de-force of a canto from INFERNO. Canto XIII is a never-ending grab bag of surprises, none more so than the pagan wish or hope that ends the whole thing--and then a final metamorphosis, the most horrifying one in a canto full of them.There are references to Virgil, maybe hints to our pilgrim's backstory, and confusing prophecies afoot, much like the ones the Harpies offered Aeneas (and were mentioned in the opening lines of this canto). Wild. You've got to hear it to believe it.Here are the segments of this episode:[01:15] My English translation of this passage from INFERNO: Canto XIII, lines 127 - 151.[03:04] What is the initial reticence in this passage? Does it reveal a bit of the Dante-the-pilgrim's backstory? Many now think it does--that is, he woke up in the dark wood in Canto I because he himself was suicidal. But is that the case? Or need it be?[07:56] The second suicide speaks--and remains anonymous, despite the centuries of commentary trying to pin him down. Actually, if we leave him nameless, we gain two benefits for the passage: 1) his suicide becomes truly about eradicating himself and 2) his ethical question, the very heart of the ethics we've been steering for since Canto X, becomes all the starker, all the richer.[14:54] The second suicide offers a prophecy about Florence, a future-telling reminiscent of the one the Harpies offered Aeneas. Florence will never see the end of warfare. So does it even matter if you follow an evil or a good warlord? So many questions--including the pagan hopes expressed by this last speaker in this dazzling and defying canto.

Pier may have stopped speaking--Virgil and Dante, our pilgrim, aren't sure--but he doesn't carry on because through the underbrush crash two naked souls, all scratched up, trying to get away from horrible, black hounds.These are those who commit economic suicide, who squander their property until there's nothing left--and who perhaps masochistically take pleasure in the destruction of their own wealth.But this passage--so often skipped over in the commentary of INFERNO--is about so much more. Join me, Mark Scarbrough, as I explore three giant "what?!" moments in Inferno, Canto XIII. If Pier's speeches tested our abilities to ferret out exactly what he was really saying, this passage will stretch our "willing suspension of disbelief" to its utter limits. Is that the point? Is this whole canto about how rhetoric can make us believe the unbelievable?Here are the segments of this episode:[01:36] My English translation of the passage from Inferno: Canto XIII, lines 109 - 126. You can find it on my website, markscarbrough.com. But better yet, get yourself a great translation by a scholar like Lombardo or the Hollanders. You'll be so much happier1[03:14] More about believing! If you don't think this canto was about the faith statement that reading entails, you're just not paying attention![03:43] So many commentators see this passage as an "inset" episode: plunked down here. Is it? It seems to tie back to Pier in fundamental ways.[05:10] Who are these two crashing through the underbrush?[10:23] My three "what?!" moments in this passage. I think they offer us two alternatives, as you'll hear. I want to believe the second. But I'm still not sure.[18:33] The inferno of irony. What is it about INFERNO that allows Dante the poet to play so much? What is it about this canto that allows savage ironies, even directed against me, the reader?

Pier seemed to have come to a conclusion in his last speech with Virgil and our pilgrim, Dante. But he's clearly not done. Prompted by Dante, Virgil asks the shade how it got to be a bush and (more tellingly) whether it can escape.This is a passage rife with problems: Virgil's dualism, at odds with a Christian understanding of the resurrection; Dante-the-pilgrim's on-going silence in the face of his own sorrows; Pier's rhetorical flourishes which become less and less pronounced the closer he gets to speaking about the Last Judgment, the end of time.If anything, Pier's second speech in Canto XIII of Inferno brings up more questions than it answers. This is complicated literary territory. Join me, Mark Scarbrough, as I take it step by step, exploring one of the most dazzling cantos of Inferno.Here are the segments for this episode:[01:14] My English translation of the passage from Canto XIII of Inferno: lines 79 - 108. If you'd like to see this translation "in the flesh" (hello, Pier!), it lives on my website, markscarbrough.com.[03:26] The passage starts with someone's hesitation. Whose? Virgil's? Pier's? It's more complicated than you might think.[05:06] The first words of our pilgrim, Dante, since way back in Canto XI. And he doesn't say much--except to reiterate the problem of belief and trust in a literary context. Why has our pilgrim been silent? I have several answers, including the notion that we might be in a thematic progression since Canto X with Farinata.[09:31] Virgil's response to the pilgrim--and a literary tie-back to Canto X.[12:07] Virgil seems caught in a potential heresy. The old classical poet appears to be a dualist, thinking the mind and body are separate things.[14:46] Pier's second speech--and the answer to what happens to the suicides in the resurrection.[20:57] The story of the metamorphosis itself: an infernal take on one of Jesus's parables and a tribute to Ovid, all in one short passage.[24:48] Pier's final moments: a strange fusion of Dantean heresy (theological suicide? literary suicide?) and Pier's final honesty after so much rhetorical fandango.[27:54] A final shot: there may be a reference to Judas Iscariot running throughout all of Pier's speeches.

Dante, our pilgrim, has done as Virgil instructed: he's torn a branch off a bramble, only to have it spit blood and air--and words!The bush is the soul of one of the great courtiers of the Middle Ages: Pier della Vigne. He's here because . . . well, if you trust him, for nothing of his doing.His speech is a tour de force of literary technique. Our poet is pulling out all the stops.And maybe starting a fire, too. Because what if you can't trust what you read? Isn't that literary suicide?Join me, Mark Scarbrough, as I explore one of the great speeches of INFERNO, if not all of COMEDY. Here are the segments of this podcast episode:[01:23] My English translation of this passage from INFERNO: Canto XIII, lines 46 - 78. If you'd like to see this translation, it's on my website, markscarbrough.com, under the "Walking With Dante" header.[04:15] Virgil, credulity, incredulity, and nature of reading--or the dangerous game of pushing your luck as a writer.[08:37] The branch speaks! Pier delle Vigne. A bit about his history--what we know and what we don't.[16:45] Pier blames his fate on envy, the scourge of every court. And his rhetoric lofts to the sky. What's he hiding? Or telling? Or doing?[20:03] The exact moment of the suicide, one of the most perfect and elliptical lines in an already perfect and elliptical passage. It says everything. And says nothing. All at the same moment.[27:31] A look at the rhetorical structure of the passage as a whole--and the point that it may all be trending toward its appeal.

Nessus has dropped our pilgrim, Dante, off on the other side of the river where he and Virgil step into a gloomy wood with thorns rather than fruit, twisted limbs rather than shapely trees.We know from Virgil's map of hell in Canto XI that this should be the place of the suicides, those who have committed violence against themselves (and their property). But what we find instead is a landscape that highlights a central problem for Dante-the-poet: How do you trust what you read?Join me, Mark Scarbrough, for this exploration of one of the most gorgeous and troubling cantos in INFERNO. Virgil, Ovid, Harpies, rhetoric, metamorphosis, and torqued grammar: It all adds up to a tour de force from the poet Dante.Here are the segments of this episode of the podcast:[01:20] My English language translation of this passage from INFERNO: Canto XIII, lines 1 - 45. If you want to see this passage, you can look it up on my website markscarbrough.com under the header "Walking With Dante."[04:19] We've stepped into a canto of negation: "non," "non," "non," a refrain that introduces us to poetry that will eventually test the limits of rhetoric and our own credulity. How much are we going to let the poet get away with?[08:05] There are Harpies in those sickly trees? In other words, we've stepped back into a Virgilian landscape--but with a difference.[12:00] And here's the difference: Virgil says you wouldn't believe this place even if I, the great poet, wrote about it. Which brings up the nightmare question for any writer: How do you create a text that is trustworthy?[15:27] Dante-the-pilgrim is "completely lost"--just as he was once before in another trackless wood.[16:50] The central problem: Interpretation is a matter of trust, of faith.[20:28] Our pilgrim breaks off a steam--and it speaks![23:16] A gorgeous simile which sets up the central metaphor of burning that will occupy the middle of this canto. But there's another problem: the speech from the sinner we're about to meet takes its cue from the metaphor that the poet has just written. What?[26:00] A review of the issues we've already found in Canto XIII.

Without a doubt, Canto XIII of INFERNO is one of the most astounding in the enter canticle of pain. It ranks up there with Canto V and the lustful, with X and the heretics, and with some of the ones we're headed for down the road. It's dense, opaque, elliptical, and ironic: a tour de force from our poet Dante.But before we step into the second ring of the seventh circle of hell, the second section of the violent, I thought it'd be good to pause and get some background on what's about to happen.In this episode of WALKING WITH DANTE, I'm going to introduce you to three passages you need to know to deepen your understanding of the strange brilliance of Canto XIII.Join me, Mark Scarbrough, as I work through one passage from Ovid's METAMORPHOSES and two passages from the Book III of Virgil's AENEID. Once you have these down, you'll be ready to step into one of the strangest landscapes in all of COMEDY.Here are the segments of this podcast episode:[00:33] Why is Canto XIII of INFERNO so mind-bending?[03:05] Our first background passage, from Ovid's METAMORPHOSES, Book IX, the story of Dyope and her strange fate after picking a lotus flower.[10:58] Our second background passage, from Virgil's AENEID, Book III: Aeneas's first stop in his journey away from Troy and the strange bleeding ground that warns him off from settling in this place.[17:49] Our last background passage, from Virgil's AENEID, further on in BOOK III: the hideous Harpies and the prophecy Aeneas gets about his future woes.

INFERNO, Canto XII, comes to its conclusion with a "zoo" of those who have been violent against others, including Alexander the Great (perhaps), Attila the Hun (more sure), and even local brigands from the highways of Tuscany.It's been a long ride to get here: down a scree-filled slope, past the Minotaur, up against threatening centaurs (who turn out to be really nice guys), and on across the river of boiling blood. Why did it take us so long to get to the murders and the plunderers? It's a grand question.Join me, Mark Scarbrough, as I posit some answers to it at the end of Inferno, Canto XII. Here are the segments of this rather complicated episode:[00:50] My English translation of the passage: Inferno, Canto XII, lines 103 - 139.[03:38] Nessus tells Dante-the-pilgrim that he's looking at "the tyrants." What exactly is tyranny?[07:57] A break in the action in which--of all things--Virgil bows out.[11:13] The stream gets shallower--and a discussion of relics in medieval Europe.[13:43] The more common murderers and (perhaps) the fording of the boiling river of blood.[14:45] Why is it hard to identify some of these figures in the river?[17:56] The plunderers are pointed out--or maybe not.[22:30] The first problem with Canto XII: The question of Dante-the-poet's attitude to the material, either perhaps an intellectual challenge or an emotional one (perhaps even guilt).[24:42] The second problem in the canto: a strange bit of camaraderie.[25:29] A third problem: the pilgrim's silence throughout this canto.[26:10] Dante is the poet of corporeality. Perhaps that's what's giving him fits here.

In INFERNO, the question of our pilgrim's corporeality continues to dog us (and perhaps the poet). Is the pilgrim in his body? Is this "merely" a dream sequence in which he's imagining he's in a body? How "real" is his journey?Although these may seem modern problems, they in fact bother Dante-the-poet in COMEDY, forcing him to make decisions about his narrative that will eventually pay off. For if our pilgrim is corporeal, then his sense of isolation in the spiritual world can become more profound.Join me, Mark Scarbrough, as we slow-walk through this passage toward the end of INFERNO, Canto XII. We're in the seventh circle of hell, among the violent, and specifically among those who have been violent toward their neighbors and their neighbors' property.The passage has conversations with Chiron, problems with Virgil's character, "extreme particularities" in its details, surreal landscapes, and knots in its interpretation--in other words, all that we can hope for from COMEDY.Here are the segments of this episode:[01:14] Here's my English translation of the passage from INFERNO: Canto XII, lines 76 - 102. If you want to see it, head out to my website, markscarbrough.com, and look under the header "Walking With Dante."[02:51] A brief introduction to this passage from the seventh circle of hell.[03:27] The problems of corporeality in COMEDY, particularly when it comes to these centaurs.[12:13] Virgil stands at Chiron's chest, right where the bestial and human merge.[14:26] What's up with Virgil's changed attitude toward these guardian figures?[17:53] Virgil uses periphrasis to talk about Beatrice--but that brings up a whole 'nother problem in COMEDY.[21:33] There's something else spoken of with periphrasis in this passage: Dante-the-poet's guilt.[24:13] A reference to a passage in the Gospel of Matthew may underlie this passage--and if so, shows us that this entire bit from COMEDY might be a little tongue in cheek.[27:33] Nessus, a "trusty escort"? More winking and nudging in this passage.

We've come to the river of blood in the seventh circle of INFERNO, the first ring of the violent--and we don't meet any sinners. Instead, we meet the tormentors: the centaurs who fire cruel arrows at those sunk in the boiling muck.This passage has some problems in it, but none more than the opening three lines, a direct address from the poet.Why does Dante feel the need to step out from behind the curtain of the narrative right here and speak directly to his readers? He's not giving us a cue about how to read the passage. Instead, he seems to be warning us away from the motivating sins--which are different than the evil being punished.To say the least, this is a complicated passage in INFERNO. Join me, Mark Scarbrough, as we take a slow stroll through it and begin to pull out both its themes and the poetics that may well like under Dante's increasingly elaborate narrative structure.Here are the segments of this episode:[01:01] My English translation of the passage: INFERNO, Canto XII, lines 49 - 75. If you want to see this passage, look for it on my website, markscarbrough.com, under the header "Walking With Dante."[02:59] A direct address from the poet that shows us 1) the underlying motivations for the evil punished here in the first ring of the seventh circle of hell and 2) the underlying metaphors that form the backbone of this canto. In other words, the surface and the depths are not always unified.[07:45] The arrival of the centaurs in the poem.[10:03] More on those centaurs, including where Dante the poet may be getting the information for this passage.[12:28] Three centaurs break off from the group. Who are these three? And why is that important?[14:31] Virgil's reply--and the problem with the story in this passage. Maybe the story is beginning to be in competition with the "point" Dante wants to make.[25:13] More about the uneasy alliance of point and narrative that underlies almost all imaginative literature.

In this passage from INFERNO, Virgil offers us (and the pilgrim, Dante) more of a glimpse into his last trek to the bottom of hell. Here, he tells us that things have changed, that hell now lies in ruins, that the harrowing caused havoc across hell--and he descends into a little heresy along the way, quoting Empedocles, a pre-Socratic Greek philosopher.Join me, Mark Scarbrough, for an in-depth exploration of this complicated passage. We don't always get the Virgil we think we should get. And that's part of the problem . . . no, part of the fun of Dante's COMEDY. Virgil is the most difficult part of a difficult poem. But that just gives us more space to explore what's going on in Dante's masterwork.Here are the segments of this episode:[01:05] My English translation of this passage from INFERNO: Canto XII, lines 31 - 48 (the descent toward the violent).[02:23] Dante-the-pilgrim's silence. It's one of the most curious things about INFERNO, Canto XII.[03:33] The rock slide is an example of "extreme particularity" in Dante's art. Here, I'll give you a little of the critic Erich Auerbach's thoughts on Dante's poetic and how we can see them at work in this passage. Our pilgrim is in silence. Virgil attempts to figure out why. He guesses the silence is about the natural landscape. Is the right? If so, then the poetry always drives back to the details, the "extreme particularities."[09:06] More of Virgil's backstory. We learn that hell has changed since the last time Virgil passed this way.[11:27] Why is hell in ruins? We can answer the question by heading off to the Gospels in the New Testament. But Virgil doesn't![13:24] We seem to have returned to the Virgil we knew in Cantos I and IV. What happened to the Virgil of Canto XI?[14:41] A little bit about the word used for "filthy": feda. It's a Latinization. More importantly, it's a hapax legomenon, a word used only once in a work of literature. Why is that important? And why doesn't Virgil use a more "ordinary" Florentine word here?[17:10] Virgil quotes Empedocles (c. 493 BC - 432 BCE), a pre-Socratic Greek philosopher. Virgil is not a sure guide to theology . . . until he is.[23:36] A look at the landscape ahead--which has made so many critics question the necessity of all that's come before this moment in Canto XII, particularly the additional details about Virgil's backstory. But maybe it's important to watch Dante-the-poet working with, around, and through the character of Virgil.

Virgil has finished his lesson on the geography of hell, he's answered the pilgrim's two questions, and we're back to the start of Canto XI, only at the start of Canto XII.Here, Dante, our pilgrim, confronts a dangerous rockslide that leads us straight past the Minotaur, the "infamy of Crete."Join me, Mark Scarbrough, as I look over so many questions in the passage. What's the point of the Minotaur right here? What's the point of such a complicated simile about an avalanche near Trento? And can we start to come to terms with one of the cantos of INFERNO that has come in for so much negative criticism over the centuries since COMEDY was written.Here are the segments of this episode:[00:50] My English translation of the passage: INFERNO, Canto XII, lines 1 - 30. If you'd like to see this translation, check it out on my website: markscarbrough.com.[02:24] An overview of Canto XII, particularly the negative criticism it has endured over the centuries. But there may be ways out of the problems so many critics find--or at least explanations for the problems.[04:34] The notion that Canto XI, the previous one, is actually parenthetical--which brings us to a question of the alternating modes of COMEDY: discursive and narrative.[06:57] The ruins of hell. There may be geo-political precedent for the fact that hell lies in ruins, not just a theological explanation (which will come in the next passage and the next episode of this podcast).[12:09] The Minotaur on the slope. Let's take it line by line to figure out more about this curious figure in the scree.[20:34] Two questions about the Minotaur: what exactly does he look like and what is his function in the poem, COMEDY?[25:19] The run down the slope--which emphasizes our pilgrim's corporeality. Why?

Even at this point, at the end of INFERNO's Canto XI, we've come a long with Dante-the-pilgrim. We've walked down six circles of hell. We've also encountered lots of problems in the text, moments that need explanation, lots of interpretive knots.But I want to call our attention to the criticism of an Italian scholar who essentially says that at this point, the COMEDY has been killed with footnotes.It's a great moment to stop, reflect, and think about the achievement and beauty of Dante's masterwork. Sure, it's fun to be down in the weeds. But since Virgil stopped to offer a map of the road ahead, I thought we'd stop and I'd encourage you to look back at the the road we've been on.This episode does not break into easily divided segments.

Having asked one question and gotten smacked down, our pilgrim, Dante, dares to ask Virgil a second question. And this one's much harder. So much so that even Virgil seems hesitant in his reply.Why is usury punished so far down in hell, even below the murderers? And why is usury punished among the violent?The answer, which involves Artistotle and Genesis, leads to a place no one could have a predicted: Scholastic reasoning has forced Virgil--and Dante-the-poet--to lay out a basic theory of art.Join me, Mark Scarbrough, as we work through this difficult passage at the back of Canto XI of INFERNO. The pilgrim wants to know the logic of the punishment of usury. Virgil offers him much more.Here are the sections of this episode:[00:56] My English translation of this passage from INFERNO: Canto XI, lines 91 - 114.[02:56] The pilgrim's second question based on Virgil's map of hell: Why is usury placed so far down in hell, at the bottom of the big circle of the violent?[05:26] Virgil's reply--which becomes a theory of art itself. This is a crabbed, tough passage, combining Aristotle's PHYSICS with the Biblical book of Genesis to arrive at a notion of art that anticipates the Renaissance.[15:28] More on the scholastic reasoning that's behind this passage and that will structure the deepest parts of the sins of violence.[18:41] A temporal marker after a map of hell, perhaps the most fascinating lines of all of Canto XI.

Most of INFERNO Canto XI is taken up with Virgil's description of the road ahead, his "mappa-inferno," as it were. The old poet claims he's laid it all out with "clear reasoning."But maybe not, because our pilgrim has a couple of questions for his guide.Join me, Mark Scarbrough, as we explore the first of these questions, really one about geography: Why are some people inside the walls of Dis and others outside?This passage is quite complex because it involves some (loopy) scholastic reasoning, which will never quite do the trick it's supposed to do. It's supposed to explain reality. Instead, it omits as much as it includes.Here are the segments of this episode:[01:05] My English translation of the passage from INFERNO: Canto XI, lines 67 - 90. If you'd like to look at my translation, you can find it out my website, markscarbrough.com, under the header "Walking With Dante."[03:16] First up, the pilgrim's question. It starts in flattery and then moves on to question the very mapping Virgil has (ostensibly) so carefully worked out.[06:45] The pilgrim's question actually reveals a structural coherence in the "upper" circles of hell we may have missed.[08:23] Now on to Virgil's answer, both its sadism (he is absurdly angry) and its logic. God has a vendetta. How does that work out?[14:00] A long section on the ramifications of Virgil's answer. There's so much to consider here, not only the three sorts of sin he outlines, but the changing nature both of hell and Virgil's character in COMEDY.

We've clearly left the seven deadly sins behind. We got through lust, gluttony, avarice, and wrath--and then dumped sloth, envy, and pride in favor of heresy, violence, and two types of fraud.Join me, Mark Scarbrough, as we explore the last of Virgil's lesson in Canto XI of INFERNO, outlining the map of hell. At the bottom of the pit, at the very center of the universe, lie those who have committed fraud: the sin that violates both the bond of love that nature is supposed to give every human for another and the special bond of trust that develops between two people.There's so much in this short passage: Virgil's changing character, the nature of the body politic and sin, Dante-the-poet's conception of civic life. Like much of COMEDY, it packs a punch in very few lines.Here's an outline of this episode:[01:11] I go back and read all of Virgil's map of hell, from Canto XI, Line 16, all the way up through the end of this passage at line 66. If you'd like to see my English translation of this passage, head out to my website markscarbrough.com and click the "Walking With Dante" header tag.[04:40] Virgil has become a scholastic theologian. This may be the most shocking thing in all of Canto XI: the changing nature of Virgil's character. What can we make of these changes? And which Virgil are we encountering at any given moment?[09:12] I work through this specific passage, lines 52 through 66 in Canto XI. I'll give you some insights into the nature of the two sins of fraud--what's sometimes called "simple fraud" and "complex fraud" or "treachery"--and offer some examples of what's ahead in the poem.[19:12] Perhaps the most telling thing about INFERNO is that it ceases to be a theological poem and becomes a political one after we pass through the gates of Dis. Oh, of course, the theology is ALWAYS there. But the questions of civil life and civic virtues will now begin to dominate the rest of this canticle.

Virgil's mappamundi--or mappa inferno--is about to take a longer look at the seventh circle of hell, the next we'll encounter, as we sit with Dante, the pilgrim and his guide under the lid from the tomb of a heretic pope.Virgil has explained already what's ahead: injustice and malice, force and fraud. Now he's going to make a fuller explanation of force--or "violence."But this one's not a simple sin. First, it's divided into parts or sub-categories. And it's roots are a complicated network of Aquinas, the Gospels, Cicero, Aristotle, Boethius, and even old Roman law.Dante-the-poet is doing something quite daring here: He's redefining the nature of evil based on a multiplicity of sources.Join me, Mark Scarbrough, as we work through Virgil's highly structured but still knotty explanation of the three smaller rings in the seventh circle of hell--and the rationale for how all these sins are contained under the larger rubric of "violence."Here are the segments of this episode:[01:19] My English translation of Inferno, Canto XI, lines 28 - 51. If you want to look at this translation, go out to my website: markscarbrough.com. You'll find it there--as well as every episode of this podcast.[03:42] The first six lines of the passage: Virgil's explanation of the seventh circle. That is, it lies in three smaller rings. Virgil begins by dividing the sin of violence into three parts: against God, against yourself, and against your neighbor. Why is he doing this? I'll help you through passages from the Gospel of Mark, bits from Thomas Aquinas, and even a poem from Boethius's CONSOLATION OF PHILOSOPHY, all to explain this sudden change in the structure of the rings of hell from sins, or perhaps Aristotelean poles of a sin, to a sin with multiple sub-categories.[13:38] The first of the smaller rings in the seventh circle: violence against your neighbor and your neighbor's goods.[16:06] The second of the smaller rings: violence against yourself and your own property.[21:04] The third of the smaller rings: violence against God, which itself takes three forms--blasphemy, then two curt references to Sodom and Cahors. What's that about?[28:18] My own brief overview of the seventh circle of hell, the circle of the violent (and the most unnatural part of hell we've yet encountered).

Settled under the tomb of a heretic pope, Dante-the-pilgrim hears Virgil's first take on the nature of lowest hell: malice, injury, the heart of evil itself, all bound up in force and fraud.Mappamundi? No! Mappa-inferno! Virgil's geography of hell will take up most of the rest of this canto and provide us with an unparalleled glimpse into the poet's thinking about the nature of evil. Or is it a glimpse into Virgil's thinking?Join me, Mark Scarbrough, as I rest with the pilgrim and listen to Virgil explain the road ahead.Here are the segments of this episode:[00:55] My English translation of this passage from INFERNO: Canto XI, lines 16 - 27.[01:49] How did we get here? A brief look back through the plot to this moment.[03:10] What is the significance of Canto XI? Might there by a medieval numerology running under even the numbers of the cantos?[05:06] An explication of the passage, line by line, with particularly emphasis on two words: "injustice" and "malice," apparently the keys to understanding the lowest parts of hell, the worst of human behavior.[12:40] My first larger question based on this passage: How do you rediscover the texts that meant so much to you in an earlier part of your life?[17:43] My second larger question: Why does Virgil feel the need to map hell for the pilgrim (and us)?

Dante, our pilgrim, leaves Farinata's tomb almost unwillingly--at least, he has to force himself back to Virgil and continue his journey.Something about the encounter with the heretics in the sixth circle of hell is so profound, it stops the forward momentum of COMEDY for a bit.But there's more ahead, including the tomb of a heretic pope and the foul smell of the lowest pits of hell. We're about to enter the abyss, what could be called "Tartarus," the place the poet Vergil and his hero Aeneas couldn't go, the place Dante-the-poet dares to go.Join me, Mark Scarbrough, as we get a first whiff of the worst parts of hell and take refuge under a tomb that contains the second piece of writing in hell but that causes more problems than it solves.Here are the segments of this episode:[00:56] More about Dante-the-pilgrim and Farinata. I think I've finally figured out how to describe their fraught relationship.[03:17] My English language translation of this passage from INFERNO: Canto X, Line 121b, through Canto XI, Line 15.[05:38] The first knotty problem in this passage: Dante's (well) disobedience of Virgil. His guide has been signaling him to move on. He hasn't. In fact, he's asked more questions of Farinata. What's going on here? And why are there so many references to the first canto of INFERNO in this passage?[14:26] Virgil makes Dante a promise about a beautiful woman's eyes. Who is this woman? And even more pressingly, why is this promise never fulfilled in COMEDY?[19:47] A bit of the plot: the stench of lower hell and our first glimpse of the abyss.[22:00] A tomb with an inscription--to a pope! With maybe a bishop in tow! Who are these people? (Mind you, no one really knows.) Might there be an artistic answer for this garbled passage?

The answers to these important questions--why is Farinata in the sixth circle of hell and why is he damned at all?--may lie in the structure of Canto X of INFERNO. And it also may lie in the nature of the self as Dante understands it.Join me, Mark Scarbrough, in this interpolated episode of the podcast WALKING WITH DANTE. I'll step back from the weeds of Canto X to talk about Farinata, Cavalcante, the thematics of this very wild canto, and even its structure, all in a way to get at the central problems of this canto, Dante's art, and the very nature of the self for Dante.Here are the segments of this episode:[01:03] Why is Farinata damned? He was accused of the Cathar heresy. I'll explain what that was--and why it may or may not be enough to damn him to this circle of INFERNO.[10:12] A quick look at the difference between Farinata and Cavalcante in Canto X. Their differences may have more to do than just physical affect but may bring to light certain thematics in this difficult canto.[12:39] The basic structure of Canto X: a chiasmus. If we look how this canto runs, it's something like this: Dante hides something from Virgil--Farinata arises--Cavalcante arises--Farinata continues--Dante tells Virgil everything. That means that Cavalcante is the fulcrum of the canto. What does that mean for its meaning?[19:36] Farinata isn't the only one who tells the future. Ciacco back in Canto VI did as well. What's the difference between these two?[24:40] Shame, vendetta, and the nature of the self for Dante.

We finish up our time with Farinata with a discussion that gets stranger by the minute. There's definitely a camaraderie between our pilgrim and this Ghibelline warrior. The grander question? Is there a camaraderie between our poet and Farinata?There are many strange things in this passage toward the back of Canto X in INFERNO. 1) Farinata's discussion of how the damned see time. 2) Dante's desire to be absolved of something--but what? 3) Our pilgrim's attempts to mitigate the sufferings of the damned. And 4) our pilgim as a peacemaker, someone who finally gets a Ghibelline to talk to a Guelph.Join me, Mark Scarbrough, as I explore one of the strangest conversations in INFERNO, a passage so rife with problems and unresolved issues that our poet will find the need to bring it up twice more, in each of the subsequent canticles, once in PURGATORIO and once in PARADISO.Here are the segments of this episode:[01:06] My English translation of this passage from INFERNO: Canto X, lines 94 - 121a.[02:51] We're not done with Farinata because this very conversation will be referenced twice more, once in each of the subsequent canticles of the poem.[03:35] Camaraderie and even benevolence. Our pilgrim and this warrior have come along way together. In fact, our pilgrim wants to grant Farinata something that Farinata could never have had in this life: peace.[09:45] Dante-the-pilgrim asks a fundamental question: How do the damned know the future? At the same time, it seems he's misdirecting his real problem. Sure, he's asking to solve a metaphysical knot. But isn't there a personal knot that also needs to be untied?[13:06] Farinata offers a shocking answer about how the damned see time. What's more, the farthest point ever referenced in time is put in Farinata's mouth. Why not in St. Paul's? Or someone far more worthy? Why does Farinata extend our view of time farther (and further) than anyone else?[21:05] The pilgrim finally repents--for the first time in COMEDY. But what exactly is he sorry for? And do his words cover his guilt?[27:24] Who else is in that tomb with Farinara? Two storied figures: one from history and one with a family tree in COMEDY.[31:55] And then Farinata withdraws, going as he arrived: in Stoic glory.