INFERNO, Episode 83. The Fourth Great Sinner Of Hell, Brunetto Latini: Inferno, Canto XV, Lines 25 - 45

Walking down the levy along the stream with his guide, Dante the pilgrim faces his former teacher, scorched on the burning sands. Or the guy the poet wants us to think was his teacher: Brunetto Latini. (Poor Virgil. He's forgotten--momentarily.)

So begins one of the most fraught and difficult conversations in INFERNO. There are hidden agendas everywhere. Strange twists in logic. And a lot about the very hellish heart of the project for every writer: the quest for fame, the need to be remembered, because printed words survive in this world in the ways people don't.

Join me, Mark Scarbrough, as I explore the astounding ambivalence and irony embedded in this conversation with the fourth great sinner of hell, Brunetto Latini, perhaps the best-known writer in Dante's world before our own poet overtakes his teacher to become the author of the COMEDY. This is a joust between two poets of different generations. And an attempt to find a father. All at the same time.

Here are the segments of this podcast episode:

[00:57] The passage itself. If you'd like to read it, it’s just below.

[02:46] The pilgrim Dante's reaction to Brunetto: first with the intellect, then with his emotions. And the most poignant question of this canto, or maybe of any in INFERNO: "Ser Brunetto, are you here?"

[07:49] Who was Brunetto Latini? Let's dig a bit into the history of this writer, who was a major influence in Dante's world but would probably be almost forgotten today, or at least a sub, sub, sub question on a PhD exam, were it not for Dante's COMEDY.

[15:16] The passage seems to turn on the father-son relationship between our pilgrim and this once-great poet. Or maybe it's the relationship of an older poet to a younger one. Or maybe those two relationships are the same thing.

[20:29] Who is the teacher and who is the student? The passage gets stranger as it goes along. The ambivalence gets thick. As it probably should, given the (alleged) relationship between these two. After all, who doesn't want to put their teacher in hell?

Here’s my English translation of INFERNO, Canto XV, lines 25 - 45:

And I, as he reached out his arm to me,

Held the eyes of his cooked looks.

And the sight of his burned face didn’t stop

My intellect from knowing who he was.

Extending my hand down to his face,

I asked, “Ser Brunetto, are you here?”

And he: “My son, don’t be upset

If Brunetto Latini, at least for a little bit,

Turns back to be with you and lets that line of guys go on.”

And I to him: “As much as I can, I pray it to be so.

And if you’d like me to sit with you,

I’ll make it happen, if it pleases the one I’m following.”

“My son,” he said, “whoever out of this herd

Stops even for a moment must lie down for a hundred years

Without being able to brush off even one bit of the fire that falls.

So please walk on and I’ll come along at your feet,

Then I’ll go back to my band,

Who go along lamenting their eternal damnation.”

I did not dare get down from the road

To walk next to him, but I kept my head down

And went on as one who walks respectfully.