Walking With Dante

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 riv...

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 i...

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 t...

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 ex...

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 Minot...

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 footnote...

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 pre...

Most of INFERNO Canto XI is taken up with Virgil's "mappa inferno." The old poet claims he's laying it out with "clear reasoning." But maybe not, because our pilgrim has a couple of questions. 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? Consider supporting this podcast with a one-t...

We've left the seven deadly sins behind. We got through lust, gluttony, avarice, and wrath, 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 map of hell in INFERNO, Canto XI. At the bottom of the pit--indeed, at the center of the universe--lie those who have committed fraud: the sin that violates b...

Virgil begins to detail his mappa mundi --or perhaps his mappa inferno --with a longer look at the seventh circle of hell, the next we'll encounter. He's already explained what's ahead: injustice and malice, force and fraud. Now he's going to make a fuller explanation of force--that is, violence. But violence is not a simple sin. Nor even a halved sin, like anger and sullenness. Instead, violence...

Settled in the shade of the tomb for a heretic pope, Dante hears Virgil's first take on the nature of lowest hell: malice, injury, the heart of evil itself, all bound up with force and fraud. Mappamundi? No! Mappa-inferno! Virgil's geography of hell will take up most of this canto and provide us with an unparalleled glimpse into the poet's thinking about the nature of evil. Or is it "just" a glimp...

Our pilgrim leaves Farinata's and Cavalcante's tomb hesitantly. Something about his encounter with the heretics is so profound, it stops the forward momentum of COMEDY for a time. What's ahead is the tomb of a heretic pope, as well as a glimpse of Beatrice 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 h...

Why is Farinata in the sixth circle of the heretics in hell? And why is he damned in the first place? The answers may lie in the structure of Canto X of INFERNO. It may also lie in the nature of the self as Dante understands it. Join me, Mark Scarbrough, in this interpolated episode of WALKING WITH DANTE. I'll step back from the weeds of Canto X to talk about Farinata, Cavalcante, the thematics of...

We finish our time with Farinata with a discussion that gets stranger by the minute. There's definitely a camaraderie between our pilgrim and this Ghibelline warlord. The grander question? Is there a camaraderie between our poet and Farinata? There are many strange things in this passage toward the back of INFERNO, Canto X. 1) Farinata's discussion of how the damned see time. 2) Dante's desire to...

After out time with Cavalcante, that passage about human loss and suffering, we now return to Farinata, our Greco-Roman statue--who becomes less so over the course of the strange, twisty passage. Join me, Mark Scarbrough, as we explore the roots of Dante's art: What does it mean to be human? Who loses their humanity in this passage? Not Farinata. Certainly not Cavalcante in the last passage. Inste...

In this passage from INFERNO, our poet (and our pilgrim) comes face to face with the suffering he caused. It takes a brave writer to face his fears head on. A shade rises up next to Farinata. This one's a Guelph, part of the faction that is Farinata's great enemy. This one's also Farinata's in-law, the man who married his son to Farinata's daughter. And this one is the father of a man our poet Dan...

Rising out of the burning sarcophagus and pulling himself upright, Farinata confronts our pilgrim by interrupting Virgil. This is no ordinary encounter with the damned. This is an encounter with history, with someone who brought so much bloodshed to Dante's family and faction. What would happen if you met your historical enemy? The one who killed off swaths of your family? How would you treat them...

Well within the sixth circle of hell, we haven't yet seen any of the damned. Instead, Dante, our pilgrim, and Virgil, his guide, are picking their way along a secret path between the burning sarcophagi and the walls of Dis. As these two go along, Virgil brings up the Last Judgment. And he starts to pick a fight with our pilgrim. Or maybe Virgil calls out our pilgrim who then responds with a little...

Finally, we're done with the fifth circle of hell, with the wrathful (and the sullen) and all that happens before the gates of Dis. Curiously, we're also done with the seven deadly sins as a structuring device for INFERNO. We now follow our pilgrim and Virgil into the sixth circle, not of envy, pride, or sloth, but of heresy. Join me, Mark Scarbrough, as we walk with Dante through the infernal und...

How long have we been standing with the pilgrim and his guide in front of the walls of Dis? For ten episodes of this podcast! Now comes salvation . . . in the form of a messenger . . . from heaven? And who is this, so above the fracas of Styx? Salvation was always on the way. So what was everyone so worried about? To help underwrite the many fees associated with this work, please consider a small...

This passage is surely the densest thicket of classical allegory we've yet encountered in INFERNO. The references are so heavy and quickly applied that the poet even steps out from behind the curtain to ask us to notice it all as a giant allegorical scheme in COMEDY. But a scheme of what? Which part of all this time among the wrathful is allegorical? All of it? Even Phlegyas' boat? Or just the Fur...

We danced around with the witch Erichtho quite a bit in the last episode with seven interpretive stances toward and over her. (That is, seven possible ways she functions in the text, or seven ways to interpret her presence, all from a single line of medieval poetry). Which brings up a giant question for us as we walk with the pilgim: Did the poet intend all of this? Join me, Mark Scarbrough, as I...

At the end of INFERNO, Canto VIII, we left our pilgrim and his guide standing outside the walls of Dis, the city of hell. Virgil appeared to be a bit afraid but putting a good face on it for Dante-the-pilgrim. Now Virgil's doubts are more pronounced. (And maybe the poet's, too.) To compensate, Virgil launches into one of the strangest moments of INFERNO, the story of his descent to the bottom of h...

Virgil goes off to confer with the demons who slam shut the gates of Dis, shutting our pilgrim out in the fifth circle of INFERNO with no way forward. But perhaps more importantly, our pilgrim, Dante, has been left alone. He hasn't been all alone since the dark wood in Canto I. To compensate for the feeling that the pilgrim is abandoned, Virgil makes a beautiful promise. And he seems to get his ow...

Our pilgrim, Dante and his guide, Virgil, have made it across Styx, leaving behind Filippo Argenti and the wrathful/sullen. Our main characters have now come to the iron walls of Dis, the city of hell. These walls are more than that a geopolitical barrier. They're also a literary barrier. Aeneas got no farther than this in the afterlife. In other words, here's the farthest Virgil's imagination cou...