Walking With Dante

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