INFERNO, Episode 102. Flying By The Seat Of Your Pants (Also, Geryon): Inferno, Canto XVII, Lines 100 - 134

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, just look below.

[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.

And here is my English translation of Inferno, Canto XVII, Lines 100 - 134:

As a skiff backs up from its mooring

Little by little, so did this thing.

And when he felt fully unfettered

He came about until his tail was where his chest had been,

Turning and twisting it like an eel,

As he gathered the air to himself with his arms.

I don’t think Phaeton felt any bigger fear

When he let go of his reins

So that the sky got scorched, as it still is.

Nor was poor Icarus more scared

When he felt those feathers molting off his back, the wax melting,

Hearing his father yelling up to him, “Hey! Wrong way!”

But that’s how I felt when I saw that I was

In the air, nothing visible all around me,

Other than the beast itself.

It went on swimming slowly, slowly.

It wheeled and descended, although I wouldn’t know it,

Except for the wind on my face from down below.

At this point, I heard the waterfall off to my right,

Making a horrible roar beneath us.

So I leaned out and looked down into the pit.

I was even more terrified of falling

Because I saw the fires and heard the wailing.

I hunched down even tighter, shaking all over.

Then I saw what I hadn’t really been able to see before:

As we descended, a huge swath of evil

Got closer and closer to us.

Like a falcon that’s been aloft too long

And hasn’t seen lure or prey

Makes the falconer say, “Aha! You’re coming down!”

And so through a hundred circles it wearily comes on down

To the place it left to alight

Far away from its master, all embittered and enraged,

In just this way, Geryon set us down on the ground.

And having gotten rid of our very persons

At the very foot of the rocky escarpment,

He shot away like the nock of an arrow let from a bow.