INFERNO, Episode 107. The Fine Art Of Seduction Can Land You In Hell: Inferno, Canto XVIII, Lines 67 - 99

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, just look below.

[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.

Here’s my English translation of Inferno, Canto XVIII, lines 67 - 99:

I caught back up with my escort.

Without too many more steps, we got

To a reef-like ridge ran out from the bank.

We climbed up this thing quite easily

And turned to the right at its spine,

Thus leaving behind those who circled the pit endlessly.

When we were at the point where the span

Yawns open to let the scourged ones pass below,

My guide said, “Stop a bit and let the sight

“Of these ill-born ones hold your attention.

You haven’t seen many of their faces yet

Since they’ve been going the same way we have.”

From the old bridge we watched the rank and file

That now came toward us from the other side,

Scourged in the same way by the whips.

My good master, without my having to ask a question,

Said to me, “Look at that great one coming toward us!

He doesn’t seem to shed a tear, despite the intense pain.

“He holds firm to such a regal aspect!

That’s Jason, whose courage and wits

Robbed the Colchians of the golden ram.

“He even stepped ashore on the island of Lemnos,

Where the bold, pitiless women

Put all their males to death.

“There, with all the gestures of love and with polished words,

He deceived the all too young Hypsipyle,

Who had first worked her deception on all the other women.

He left her pregnant and alone.

His culpability condemns him to such torment—

And thus, too, does Medea have her vendetta.

Along with him go all those who practice deception like this.

Let this suffice for you to know

The first valley and those munched in its maw.”