INFERNO, Episode 76: Blaspheming Against Jove Smack In The Middle A Christian Poem: Inferno, Canto XIV, Lines 43 - 78

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.

Here is my English translation of INFERNO, Canto XIV, lines 43 - 78:

I began, “Master, you who conquer

Everything except for those difficult demons

Who blocked our entrance into the gate back up there,

“Who is that grandiose one who seems as if he doesn’t care

About the fire, who lies there so disdainful of the pain

As if the precipitation doesn’t ripen it?”

And that very one himself, who was made aware

That I had questioned my guide about him,

Hollered, “Whatever I was when I lived, the same am I dead.

“May Jove tire out that craftsman of his

From who he, enraged, grabbed the jagged thunderbolt

That ran me through at the end!

“And even if he exhausts all the others, time after time,

In the black forges of Mongibello—

Crying out, ‘Good Vulcan, help me, help me!’

“Just as he did at the battle of Phlegra—

And shoots at me with all his power,

He still wouldn’t be able to make a happy vendetta out of it!”

At which my guide spoke so forcefully

That I’d never heard him talk so loudly,

“O Capaneus, since your top-shelf pride

“Isn’t drowned out, you’re punished all the more.

No tribulation, except your own white-hot rage,

Could ever compete with your fury.”

Then he turned to me with better lips,

Saying, “That was one of the seven kings

Who laid siege to Thebes. He had the audacity to hold

“God in disdain and seems to still do so.

But, as I told him, his ranting

Is the only medal his chest deserves.

“Take up the rear and be careful that you don’t set

Your feet on the smoldering sand,

But hold them back so they’re closest to the wood.”