Walking With Dante

Our pilgrim, Dante, has finished his righteous rant. And after rage comes Virgil. More importantly, Virgil's embrace.The pilgrim ends the canto in the arms of his poetic master. A curious ending to a curious canto.Join me, Mark Scarbrough, as we finish off Inferno, Canto XIX, ready to move on with the next steps of our pilgrim.Here are the segments of this podcast episode of WALKING WITH DANTE:[01:21] My English translation of the passage: Inferno, Canto XIX, Lines 118 - 133. If you'd like to read along, check out this passage on my website: <a href="markscarbrough.com">markscarbrough.com</a>.[02:39] The rant is surrounded by words about music--and thus, about poetry. What does that tell us about Dante-the-poet's attitude toward this passage?[06:24] Why is Virgil so pleased with Dante? Because Comedy completes the work of The Aeneid.[11:42] One last passing slap at the popes in hell: "goats."

Our pilgrim, Dante, has been talking to Pope Nicholas III, stuck upside-down in a hole in the third evil pocket of the eighth circle of Inferno, the vast landscape of the fraudulent. He's learned that Nicholas III was a master of nepotism and is eagerly awaiting the arrival of other popes, even ones from Avignon.And our pilgrim can take it no more! Join me, Mark Scarbrough, as we explore the longest speech from our pilgrim yet, a diatribe about church corruption that sees the end of the world in the offing. The popes go whoring and the world just might go smash.Here are the segments of this episode of the podcast WALKING WITH DANTE:[01:45] My English translation of the passage: INFERNO, Canto XIX, lines 88 - 117. If you'd like to read along, you can find this translation on my website, <a href="markscarbrough.com">markscarbrough.com</a>.[03:44] Some introductory remarks about this podcast episode.[05:15] The Biblical references in the pilgrim Dante's rant: the keys to the kingdom (Matthew 16: 13 - 20), the apostles' choosing Matthias after Judas Iscariot dies (The Acts Of The Apostles 1: 21 - 26), and the whore of Babylon (The Apocalypse of St. John [aka "Revelations"] 17: 1 - 5).[16:38] The historical references in the rant: Charles of Anjou, King of Sicily and Naples; and Emperor Constantine The Great with his infamous "donation."[24:23] The thematic echoes in the rant: back to the fourth circle of avarice in INFERNO, Canto VII; and even further back to the question of "folly" from INFERNO, Canto II.[30:37] The folly of the rant: There are all sorts of garbled bits in this passage, including corrupted passages from the Bible's New Testament. Is this the folly of the pilgrim or of the poet?[34:17] Reading the passage one more time, now that you know the details.

In this passage, we get a clearer picture of the guy stuck upside-down in this hole in the third evil pouch, the third of the malebolge, in the eighth circle of Inferno, stuffed with the fraudsters. It's Pope Nicholas III.But I also want to explore my unspoken assumptions about the poem that COMEDY breaks in this passage.Join me, Mark Scarbrough, as we talk through a particularly fraught bit of INFERNO, one that seems to argue for a different dating of Dante's writing of COMEDY and helps us better understand the poem's construction, all while damning popes to hell. In other words, there's a lot to unpack!Here are the segments of this episode of the podcast WALKING WITH DANTE:[01:22] My English translation of the passage: Inferno, Canto XIX, lines 64 - 87. If you'd like to see this passage, you can find it under the "Walking With Dante" header on my website, <a href="markscarbrough.com">markscarbrough.com</a>.[03:09] The revelation of Pope Nicholas III in the hole--and a curious little problem without a good answer: How does Nicholas know our pilgrim (and his guide) have come down the slope to learn his name?[06:17] Who was Pope Nicholas III? And why is Dante is harshest critic?[10:16] The sin of this pouch is finally named: simony.[12:50] The problem of the math in the passage. How many years does a pope's feet get cooked?[14:25] A third pope is on the way: Clement V, the guy who took the papacy to Avignon.[16:46] Unpacking a difficult passage based on the story in II Maccabees 4: 7 - 26.[18:46] How my unspoken and even unconsidered assumptions about COMEDY got broken.

Now we come to it: the daring part, the audacious part, and (dare we say it?) the funny part.Join me, Mark Scarbrough, as we stand with our pilgrim, Dante, and his guide, Virgil, on the floor of the third evil pouch, the third of the malebolge, in the eighth circle of Inferno with its many rings of fraud.We know we're in for a condemnation of the church. But nothing could prepare the reader--or the pilgrim!--for the notion that a Holy Father can end up in hell.What a passage this is, full of interiority and bravado, all woven in a fine tapestry with ever so many threads!Here are the segments of this episode of the podcast WALKING WITH DANTE:[01:14] My English translation of this passage: Inferno, Canto XIX, lines 46 - 63. If you'd like to read along, you can find this translation under the "Walking With Dante" header on my website, <a href="markscarbrough.com">markscarbrough.com</a>.[03:09] The first address to the damned soul upside down in the hole. He's still an unknown figure--and it's important that we keep him that way.[05:52] But he does mention Pope Boniface VIII. In fact, he's expecting his arrival. Who was Boniface VIII. A historical summary.[12:59] Dante the pilgrim acts as the confessor--which indicates lay authority, the very thing Boniface VIII was so intent on stamping out.[15:33] Don't miss the humor in this passage! And don't miss its audacity.[21:22] Here's how tightly constructed this passage is: more Ovid, more metamorphoses, a reference to the opening allusion in Canto XIX, and a reference back to the sexual sins of Canto XVIII, all woven together in a few lines.[23:21] A moment of the pilgrim's interiority.[27:28] Virgil to the rescue! (Along with some savage irony tucked into the lines.) Why does Virgil need to rescue our pilgrim at this moment?

Dante the pilgrim and Virgil, his guide, have been walking along the ridge line of the eighth circle of Inferno. But Dante wants a closer look at the figures kicking their thighs and feet out of the holes in the ground in the third evil pouch. So down they go! Except Virgil the shade carries our corporeal pilgrim. And perhaps even more is afoot in the poetics.Join me, Mark Scarbrough, as I explore some problems in this rather "simple" narrative passage from COMEDY. But you know Dante. Nothing's as simple as it seems. Even this passage brings up larger questions about Dante's poetics and the problems of biting the hand that (at least indirectly) feeds you: the church.Here are the segments of this episode of the podcast WALKING WITH DANTE:[01:31] My English translation of this passage: Inferno, Canto XIX, lines 31 - 45. If you'd like to read along, you can find this passage on my website, markscarbrough.com.[03:00] A packed segment: the colors of hell, the metaphoric space's fusion with the narrative space in the best of Dante's poetics, and questions about the geography of the eighth circle of hell, the circle of fraud.[10:46] The pilgrim and his guide are so simpatico! What's up?[12:08] The first descent into one of the evil pouches.[14:01] Virgil carries Dante the pilgrim down. Yes, the corporeal v. incorporeal problem we've been over before. But maybe there's more to this passage. Maybe Virgil carries Dante the poet down.[19:18] A speculative question for Canto XIX: Why does Dante need to descend into this pouch, since he doesn't go down into the first two pouches we've encountered? What calls Dante to this pouch?

We've come to one of the most difficult cruxes in all of INFERNO: a passage that's loaded with Christian symbolism but that also includes a bit of biographical detail on Dante, the historical figure.That biographical detail remains the subject of much curiosity! Join me, Mark Scarbrough, as we explore this difficult but ultimately rewarding passage: a condemnation of churchly corruption and a revelation of Dante's personal life, all bound up in the eighth circle of hell with the sins of fraud until the whole thing becomes a tour de force of meta-reality.Here are the segments for this episode:[01:00] My English translation of this passage. If you'd like to read along, you can find it under the header for this podcast on my website, <a href="markscarbrough.com">markscarbrough.com</a>.[03:38] What's up with the "livid stones"? For one thing, Jesus. He founded his church on the rock of Peter's faith: "Upon this rock will I build my church." But these rocks aren't as firm, to say the least.[05:47] A curious bit of Dante's biography, inserted into this passage. What's going on here? Let's look back at the commentary's answer and also explore a relatively new interpretation of this strange passage.[11:38] Is the guy Dante saves drowning or suffocating? It all comes down to translation problems in this passage which only muddy it further.[15:30] Why is this biographical detail here?[17:21] What exactly is the poet's "seal"?[21:07] The emotional center of this curious passage: "my beautiful San Giovanni."[22:58] The feet and thighs of these sinners are visible, but not their buttocks. That may be an important detail.[25:38] A fusion of Christian images: Pentecost and the anointing with oil that happens at ordination.[28:08] Inversion is a crucial motif for Inferno, Canto XIX as a whole.

It's almost mind-boggling to see the difference between INFERNO, Canto XVIII, and INFERNO, Canto XIX.Canto XIX opens with a proem: a prefatory poem, to set up the action ahead. It's dense with Biblical, folkloric, and classical allusions. It also includes not one but two direct addresses: first to Simon Magus, a figure from both the New Testament and folklore; and second to "highest wisdom," a nearer approach to addressing God.Join me, Mark Scarbrough, as I begin to wrestle with one of the most complicated cantos in INFERNO: the denunciation of the church by its supreme follower, Dante.Here are the segments of this episode of WALKING WITH DANTE:[01:39] My English translation of INFERNO, Canto XIX, lines 1 - 12 (as well as a little bit from the end of Canto XVIII). If you'd like to read along with this translation, you can find it on my website, <a href="markscarbrough.com">markscarbrough.com</a>.[03:38] The opening apostrophe (or direct address) to Simon Magus. No other canto in INFERNO opens as XIX does.[04:53] Who is Simon Magus? Let's explore both his place in the New Testament and in an apocryphal book about Saint Peter that had become a part of medieval folklore in Dante's day.[08:37] Metamorphosis! Turning the things of God into gold and silver. We're continuing the "Ovid" themes of the eighth circle of fraud. And we can see that the pimps, seducers, flatterers, and prostitutes of Canto XVIII are still with us.[11:52] A bit about the trumpet that sounds in the passage. It heralds the apocalypse--just as it has done before, back in Canto VI.[14:31] A narrative insertion of one tercet (three-line stanza) in the middle of all these direct addresses. Why is the "story" inserted briefly here?[16:12] The last tercet (three lines) of this passage is a second apostrophe (or direct address): but this time, not a denunciation, but a prayer.[18:19] Some historical background for this canto, including the problems that papal reform brought straight into the church.[22:49] Who says these lines? Is it the poet or the pilgrim? Or both, for perhaps the first time?

We've come to the back of INFERNO, Canto XVIII, to the two flatterers who live down in the pouch filled with the muck from human privies.Just as a warning: This passage is crude and crass. The language is vulgar, maybe even NSFW. Be careful.Dante, our pilgrim, and his guide, Virgil, have come to the top of the second bridge over the second of the "malebolge" (the "evil pouches") that make up the eighth circle of fraud. We've already seen that the place is disgusting. Now we're about to see that the sinners are even more so.Join me, Mark Scarbrough, as we slow-walk through Dante's masterpiece, COMEDY. (And not "The Divine Comedy," particularly in this passage, which isn't very divine). Here are the segments of this episode of Walking With Dante:[01:24] My English translation of Inferno, Canto XVIII, lines 115 - 134. If you'd like to read along, you can find this passage on my website, markscarbrough.com, under the header about the blog for WALKING WITH DANTE.[03:21] Dante and Alessio in the pouch of the flatterers: thoughts on the pilgrim's becoming a better observer just as we are becoming better readers, and on the question of whether Alessio Interminei's historical obscurity is intentional in the passage.[10:51] Virgil and Thais: thoughts on the curious lack of women in INFERNO.[18:00] Dante the poet garbles the poetic reference to Thais in this passage. Is doing so intentional? Or is this a matter that our "divine" poet is actually fallible like the rest of us?[22:48] Canto XVIII is architectural, in the same way that all of the eighth circle of hell is architectural. I'll admit: this I find intentional. Here's a bit on why.

Inferno is getting grosser. Coarser. And maybe more human?We're getting ready to cross over the second of the evil pouches of fraud in the eighth circle of hell.Join me, Mark Scarbrough, for a short episode of WALKING WITH DANTE as we explore the brief opening description about this second pouch of fraud and ask a couple of speculative questions that lie around and even under this passage.Here are the segments of this podcast on INFERNO, Canto XVIII, lines 100 - 114:[01:08] My English translation of this passage. If you'd like to read along with INFERNO, Canto XVIII, lines 100 - 114, you can find this passage on my website, <a href="markscarbrough.com.">markscarbrough.com.</a>[02:44] Dante and Virgil have become ridge runners. They're also in a more precarious place on these spiny ridges. Which may tell us something about the poetics as well. (You know how I love meta points!)[05:37] The language in the poem is coarsening dramatically. Why? I have several possible answers.[11:37] The first of two speculative bits for this podcast episode. Sometimes, it's necessary to say "no" to Dante, even to a poet of his stature.[14:23] Why are there two pouches in one canto (Canto XVIII)? I have several answers and I'll let you make your own decisions among the speculations.

We're about to climb up on a bridge and look down at the other sinners in the first of the evil pouches. These guys are going the other way--and they're not engaged in any metamorphosis.Join me, Mark Scarbrough, as we let Virgil show us Jason of the Argonauts. Jason is the prime example of seduction. Poor Hypsipyle. Poor Medea. Yet Virgil is still quite taken with this figure from mythology. Why?Here are the segments of this episode of WALKING WITH DANTE:[00:55] My English translation of INFERNO, Canto XVIII, lines 67 - 99. If you'd like to see this translation, you can find it on my website, <a href="markscarbrough.com">markscarbrough.com</a>.[03:37] The spiny, rocky nature of the landscape of the eighth circle may show us something about the poetry: its bones are getting exposed, too.[10:06] Virgil's profound admiration of Jason.[14:05] More about Jason's rather foul character and his deceptions.[17:27] What are polished words worth? Maybe less than they used to be.[20:01] Jason's seductions and Medea's vendetta: the cycle of violence goes on.[21:54] "Deception" is a key word in the passage. And we end with the imagery of eating. It's all a neat package. Quite structural. Like bones.[22:57] A bit about the increasing notion of hell's circularity.

The first evil pouch. And a long podcast episode on WALKING WITH DANTE.Join me, Mark Scarbrough, as we walk along the rim of the first of the evil pouches in INFERNO's circle of fraud. Here, we'll see our first fraudster: a pimp.How's a pimp guilty of fraud and not lust or even avarice. Because of metamorphosis. Because he turns women into money.And a warning: the language is foul in this passage. Please be careful of kids or others who might be offended by it. Maybe you'll want to listen on your own later.Here are the segments of this episode of WALKING WITH DANTE:[01:34] My English translation of Inferno, Canto XVIII, lines 40 - 66. If you'd like to read along, you can find it on my website, <a href="markscarbrough.com">markscarbrough.com</a>, under the header for this podcast.[03:48] A little bit more about the size, scope, and even directionality of these evil pouches in the eighth circle of hell.[06:05] Why does our pilgrim halt--and even back up? (No full answers here--just a curious detail.)[08:05] This damned soul tries to his face from the pilgrim Dante, unlike all the souls we've encountered in the rings above. [09:13] Who is Venedico Caccianemico? And how can he be in hell is he's still alive up on earth?[12:39] Venedico is steeped in a "rank braise"? A little bit about the translation of what may be a few tough words in the Florentine.[15:33] The pilgrim's "plain speech" forces Venedico to speak. Intriguing, since Venedico uses such poetically gorgeous language to describe his own state of affairs.[20:46] WIth Venedico, we begin our tour of the towns of central Italy that will help structure the various pouches in the eighth circle.[22:34] Fraud is never far from money for Dante--and thus, turning women into money is the first metamorphosis in the eighth circle, a circle of hell full of changlings.[25:57] A speculative question: why in the end is this scene in COMEDY rather unsatisfactory?[30:16] A second speculative question: why if it doesn't really matter which sinners are first and which are second in this pit because the sins of the eighth circle are not ranked according to severity but by other means?

We're starting to walk along the first of the evil pouches with our pilgrim and his guide, Virgil. Down below, naked people are being whipped by horned demons. This is the hell we expected!Except maybe not. Join me, Mark Scarbrough, as I explain some of the historical and cultural references in a passage that may have a garbled bit at its very core. Is that garbling intentional? We'll have to wait for later in the canto to decide.Here are the segments of this episode on Inferno, Canto XVIII, lines 22 - 39 of the podcast WALKING WITH DANTE:[00:51] My English translation of Inferno, Canto XVIII, lines 22 - 39. If you want to read along, you can find this translation on my website, <a href="markscarbrough.com">markscarbrough.com</a>.[02:18] A fine example of Dantean technique: seeding the passage with hints of things to bloom later on. Plus, historical resonances in this jammed pouch of the eighth circle of hell, as well as a possible garbling of the passage in terms of which direction who's walking at any given moment.[07:46] The demons appear! And they don't disappoint! They're also a complex parody of Paradise itself.[12:34] The historical analogy in the middle of the passage. It's about the Jubilee Year of plenary indulgences that Pope Boniface VIII called in 1300. But what's it doing here, in our first blush with fraud?

We've passed the midway point in INFERNO. Halfway done! Yet we only have two circles left. We're about to enter the biggest circle of them all, the one that takes up thirty-eight percent of the INFERNO: the circle of fraud.Join me, Mark Scarbrough, as we slow-walk through Dante's masterpiece, COMEDY. We've come to the most modern of all the sins: fraud. A nasty bit of inhuman humanity. And perhaps Dante's greatest achievement in INFERNO. It's an imaginative expanse that puts to bed his forefather poets and establishes our poet as the writer in full control of this work.Oh, and there are some nasty, gross bits of hellish punishment, too.Here are the segments of this episode of the podcast WALKING WITH DANTE:[00:56] My English translation of the passage: INFERNO, Canto XVIII, lines 1 - 21. If you'd like to read along, you can find this passage on my website, <a href="markscarbrough.com">markscarbrough.com</a>, under the "Walking With Dante" header.[02:34] A bit about the name of the 8th circle: "malebolge" or "evil pouches." We haven't had a named circle until now, other than to call a circle by its sin. We didn't enter "weird worlds" when we came among the violent. But here, Dante coins a word to explain the 8th circle. "Pouches"--a word that connects us back to the money bags that the usurers wear around their necks.[04:09] Let's look back at Virgil's map of lower hell in Canto XI, particularly the bits about fraud starting at line 52. Virgil both predicts and fails to predict what we're about to encounter. But he does clue us in that it's a vast landscape with lots and lots of the damned.[08:12] The opening of Canto XVIII is clean, almost spare. It seems as if it's an "objective" viewpoint. Yet the poetry is also full of Latinate expressions and even some Latin itself. Dante is setting us up for what's to come: a strange mix of classical formalism and vulgar Florentine.[14:03] The 8th circle is actually an inverted (or perverted) castle. And it's a spiderweb when you look down on it, a notion Dante has set us up for by mentioning Arachne in the last canto.[18:00] Many critics are at some pains to describe this as a natural landscape. I think it's more worthwhile to see it as a constructed one.[21:07] The final tercet (or three lines): we're back in the plot! Which brings us to an interesting problem. Nine of the thirteen cantos of the 8th circle will begin with proems, prefatory poetry. Does that mean the poem as a whole is becoming more self-conscious? Or more fraudulent?

We've spent over forty (!) episodes of this podcast slow-walking through the seventh circle of INFERNO, among the sins of violence. We've been here a long time, to say the least. So I thought it would be crucial to look back at the sweep of the seventh circle--that is, INFERNO, Cantos XII through XVII.There's no specific passage for this episode of the podcast WALKING WITH DANTE. Rather, I'd like to detail some of the structural and thematic unifying devices in the cantos. And I'd like to ask a two questions for which I have no answer.Here are the segments of this podcast episode on the Seventh Circle of INFERNO:[01:29] A look at a few of the structuring devices in Cantos XII through XVII--that is, some of the poetic ways Dante ties this long stretch into one unit, both astride beasts and the possibility of a Crete program in these cantos.[04:48] More structuring details: court life to start, followed by the ways the middle class can make money in the nascent days of liquid capital. The violent against others and against themselves are largely about courts; the violent against God are partly about how money is made or power is accumulated in this new world. In the middle, almost as a fulcrum, lies Capaneus, the mythic hero, stretched out on the burning sands.[07:03] The poet and the pilgrim are both becoming more assertive throughout these cantos.[08:36] The Seventh Circle starts with the Minotaur and perhaps should be seen as a series of labyrinths. [10:55] The Seventh Circle is controlled by Phlegethon--in other words, by flow.[12:58] One question for which I have no answer: Why does the Seventh Circle of INFERNO start with a slope and end with a cliff?[14:21] There are clearly two modes of writing INFERNO so far: the travelogue, a tour of sin; and the exploration of interiority, of personal space, found in the long sequences with some sinners. The Seventh Circle starts and ends with a travelogue, bits which bracket more intense psychological and sociological explorations.[16:52] A second question for which I have no answer: Does naming the work "COMEDY" in the circle of the violent do violence to the text the poet is writing?

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, <a href="markscarbrough.com">markscarbrough.com</a>.[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, <a href="markscarbrough.com">markscarbrough.com</a>.[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, <a href="markscarbrough.com">markscarbrough.com</a>.[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, <a href="markscarbrough.com">markscarbrough.com</a>, 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, <a href="markscarbrough.com">markscarbrough.com</a>, 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, <a href="markscarbrough.com,">markscarbrough.com,</a> 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, <a href="markscarbrough.com">markscarbrough.com</a>, 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.