INFERNO, Episode 218. Let's Walk Out To See The Stars: INFERNO, Canto XXXIV, Lines 127 - 139

The conclusion of INFERNO. Can you believe we got here? The final lines of the first canticle of Dante's masterwork, COMEDY.

Join me, Mark Scarbrough, as we climb out of hell to see the most gorgeous things we know: the stars in the heavens above.

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

[00:58] My English translation of the passage: INFERNO, Canto XXXIV, lines 127 - 139. If you'd like to read long, drop a comment, or print it off, just scroll down this page.

[02:35] Dante the poet enters Virgil's space: explanatory material.

[05:06] Why does Dante the poet so understate the climb out?

[06:21] Virgil's explanation of this cavern and the mountain above us stated as supposition because Virgil has no experiential knowledge of this geography.

[07:31] INFERNO may end on a point of uncertainty: What is this little stream they follow?

[10:12] INFERNO ends with the stars.

[11:48] More importantly, INFERNO ends with Virgil's exit from hell.

And here’s my English translation of Inferno, Canto XXXIV, Lines 127 – 139

As far as you can get from Beelzebub,

Stretching as deep as his tomb,

There’s a spot not known by sight but only by the sound

Of a little stream that descends there

In the narrow channel it has cut into the rock

As it flows down its gentle slope.

My guide and I made our way up this hidden passage

To return to the world of light.

Without thinking for a moment about resting,

We made our way—he first, I second—

All the way until I could see through a round opening

Some of the beauty that the heavens hold.

And so we walked out to see the stars once again.