INFERNO, Episode 216. More About Up, Down, And Spin: INFERNO, Canto XXXIV, Lines 70 - 93

There's much more to be said about this problem of up, down, and spin after Dante the pilgim and Virgil pass the center of the earth.

Join me, Mark Scarbrough, as I explore this problem: the world upside-down and the enforced rereading of INFERNO to turn it into COMEDY, the dominant form of Western civilization.

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

 01:28] Once more, a reading of my English translation of INFERNO, Canto XXXIV, lines 70 - 93. If you'd like to print it off, read along, or drop a comment, just scroll down this page.

[03:25] Dantista John Freccero's notion of the universe's spin via Aristotle.

[04:36] Dante's notion of global geography: Jerusalem and Mount Purgatory at opposite sides of the globe from each other.

[08:36] Dante flips the globe itself on his journey.

[09:49] Where is the dark wood in INFERNO, Canto I?

[11:32] All the left turns are really right turns and the two right turns are "really" left turns--which is how INFERNO becomes COMEDY.

And here’s my English translation of Inferno, Canto XXXIV, Lines 70 – 93

So to do as he wished, I took hold of him around his neck.

He figured out the timing and the distance,

Just so that when the wings were at their full open span,

He got a grip on those hairy obliques.

From clump of hair to clump of hair, he climbed down

Between that thick pelt and the frozen crust.

When we got down to the spot where the femur

Turns in its socket, right at the widest spot of the hips,

My leader, already worn out but with a great deal of effort,

Brought his head around to where his thighs had been

And gripped the fur like a man climbing upward,

So that I believed we were going back to hell again.

“Hold tight, because it’s by stairs like these,”
My master said, gasping for breath like an exhausted guy,

“That we’ve got to take our departure from such all-encompassing evil.”

After that, he got out through a little hole in the rock,

Set me down right at its rim,

And with careful footing, brought himself over to me.

I lifted my eyes, believing I’d see

Lucifer just as I’d left him.

Instead, I saw that his legs were sticking up above me.

Well, if I became raddled like that,

Then let the dullards out there think a bit

About the point I’d just passed.