INFERNO, Episode 215. The Way Down Is The Way Up: INFERNO, Canto XXXIV, Lines 70 - 93

We've seen it all. Now we just have to get out. And to do that, we have to make a big turnaround on Virgil's shoulders. Right at Satan's butt.

Join me, Mark Scarbrough, as we pass the center point in the universe, a place where the action of grace suddenly comes into focus. Satan is the way out of hell. Satan is the pivot point for the entire universe. The way down has been the way up all along.

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

[01:38] My English translation of the passage: INFERNO, Canto XXXIV, lines 70 - 93. If you'd like to read along, print it off, or drop a comment, please scroll down this page.

[04:18] What is Dante-the-pilgrim's motivation? Why does he know to grab on to Virgil?

[05:25] Virgil is the only one who can get them out of hell.

[06:43] Dante-the-pilgrim never touches Satan. Is that thematic? Part of the allegory? Why can Virgil touch Satan?

[08:14] Satan is not held in place by the ice sheet of Cocytus.

[09:12] Satan is very anatomical, almost a cut of meat.

[11:13] Satan's anus is the center of the universe. Or maybe his genitals.

[13:12] Does Satan need a digestive tract?

[15:22] Do Satan and the angels need genitals?

[18:10] Dante-the-pilgrim is confused about Satan's directionality but never about Virgil's.

[20:12] This passage echoes the descent on Geryon's back in its rhyme at the same lines (82 and 84).

[22:27] Satan is upside down--and named with his Christian title for the first time.

[24:08] Why is Dante-the-poet irritated at those who don't get it? The beginning of reason and the intellect!

[27:08] The three instances of "felix culpa" (fortunate fall) in this passage: Satan is the way out, Satan is the axis for the universe, and the way down has been the way up all along.

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

So to do as he wished, I took ahold 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 the 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 on 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 rattled like that,

Then let the dullards out there think a bit

About the point I’d just passed.