INFERNO, Episode 201. A Treacherous Poet On A Treacherous Ice Sheet: Inferno, Canto XXXII, Lines 70 - 102

We're nearing the center of the universe, a place where we can feel the weight of everything bearing down on us.

Our pilgrim is showing the strain. Violent. Erratic. Our poet, too. Trying to convince us he really took this journey.

Join me, Mark Scarbrough, as we walk with Dante and (silent!) Virgil across the final ice sheet of hell, the ninth circle, into Antenora, the realm of those who've been treacherous to their own political parties or even countries (or even literary forefathers).

Here are the segments for this episode of WALKING WITH DANTE:

[01:48] My English translation of this passage: INFERNO, Canto XXXII, lines 70 - 102. If you'd like to read along or drop a comment, just scroll down this page.

[04:27] Two problems: I've divided a single passage into two parts for this podcast and we must make many inferences to make any of these passages make sense.

[06:26] Three translation problems: "cagnazzi," "gravezza," and "se fossi vivo."

[15:26] The poet appears in the passage--and predicts his own future, based on the reality of this journey.

[18:05] Why is this passage so violent? Three answers: 1) the pilgrim's progress (the traditional answer), 2) the poet's frustration, or 3) COMEDY's structure as a series of interlocking and bracketed events and situations which do not offer linear development.

[26:28] The pilgrim is keeping notes, thereby further asserting the "realism" of the journey.

[30:10] Antenora: the second sub-ring of Cocytus, named for a Trojan traitor, Antenor.

[34:24] Dante is being a traitor to his literary party, too.

And here’s my English translation of Inferno, Canto XXXII, Lines 70 – 102

After that, I saw a thousand faces turned

Purple by the cold. Thus, I still shiver,

At frozen fords. And I always will.

As we walked on toward the center

Where all the weight bears in,

And I was quaking with the eternal cold,

Whether what happened was willed or fated or destined,

I don’t know. In any event, passing on among the heads,

I happened to kick one of them hard right in the face.

Wailing, he called me out: “Why’d you stomp on me?

Unless you came down here to execute some vendetta

About Montaperti, why even fool with me?”

And I, “My Master, please wait a bit for now

Because I want to clear up a doubt about this guy.

Then we can hurry along, as much as you want.”

My guide stopped and I said to the guy

Who still cursed at me like an animal,

“Who are you to be calling out others like this?”

“Well, who are you to be going through Antenora,”

He replied, “bashing others in the cheeks?

If I were alive, this would be too much to bear.”

“Well, I am alive and if you give a hoot

“About fame,” I replied,

“I can put your name in my notes.”

And he to me, “I’m greedy for just the opposite!

Get out of here and quit bugging me!

You have no clue how to flatter someone in this swamp.”

I grabbed him by the hair at his nape of his neck

And said, “Either you tell me your name

Or you’re not going to have a hair left on your head.”

At which he to me, “You can scalp me

And I still won’t tell you who I am, nor raise my head up to let you see me,

Even if you jump on my head a thousand times.”