INFERNO, Episode 78: The Old Man Of Crete PART ONE--A Statue Rises From Four Other Texts: Inferno, Canto XIV, Lines 94 - 120

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 just below

[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.

Here’s my English translation of INFERNO, Canto XIV, lines 94 - 120:

“In the middle of the sea there’s a wasted land.”

He set in saying, “It’s called Crete.

Under its king the world once was chaste.

“There’s a mountain in that land.

That mountain was well irrigated and leafy. It’s called Ida.

Now it’s a desolation, like something worn out.

“Rhea chose it to be the trustworthy cradle

For her son. To better conceal him,

Whenever he cried out, she made her followers raise a racket.

“A gigantic statue of an old man stands inside the mountain.

He gives the cold shoulder to Damietta

And turns his gaze toward Rome, as if it were a mirror.

“His head is crafted out of the best gold;

His arms and chest, pure silver;

Down to his crotch, all bronze;

“On down from there he’s all smelted iron,

Except for his right foot. It’s terra cotta.

He stands on this foot more than the other one.

“A fracture runs through the whole thing except for the golden bits.

What’s more, this break drips tears

Which collect and make their passage through that cavern.

“Their course goes on down until it gets here,

Creating Acheron, Styx, and Phlegethon.

After that, they go on through these straits,

“Down to the place from which there is no more down.

There they make Cocytus. What that pool is like,

You’ll see for yourself, so I don’t need to say anything else.”