INFERNO, Episode 77. Dante Calmly Tells The Tale And Virgil Makes A Wild Claim: Inferno, Canto XIV, Lines 76 - 93

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 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 along 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? So 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.

Here’s my English translation of this passage from INFERNO, Canto XIV, lines 76 - 93:

We went along in silence until

We got to a spot where a little stream burbles out of the wood.

The deep red of that flow still makes me judder inside.

Such a stream flows from Bulicame

So that the sinning women share it among themselves—

In just such a way, this one ran down the terrain.

Its bottom and both its sloping banks

Were made of stone, as was its leeway,

So that it dawned on me that our path lay there.

“Among all the things I’ve shown you

Ever since we came on in through that gate

That doesn’t deny its doorstep to anyone,

Nothing will seem as astounding to your eyes

As this river in front of you,

Which puts out all the flames from above.”

These were the words of my guide—

And because of them I asked him to grant me the meal

For which he had raised the desire inside me.