INFERNO, Episode 145. A Swarm Of Snakes And Literary Texts: Inferno, Canto XXIV, Lines 79 - 96

Dante the pilgrim has wanted a good, close look into the seventh of the evil pouches, the seventh of the malebolge that make up the great landscape of fraud in the eighth circle of hell. And boy, does he get what he wants!

Join me, Mark Scarbrough, as the pilgrim and his guide, Virgil, slip down the wall and catch a glimpse of a nightmare of snakes, a tangle of them--that almost rivals the tangle of literary allusions the poet makes in a mere twelve lines.

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

[01:08] My English translation of this passage: Inferno, Canto XXIV, lines 79 - 96. If you'd like to read along, you can find it on my website, markscarbrough.com.

[03:08] Delay, delay, delay--it's the growing tantric structure of COMEDY.

[08:47] The seventh malebolge, evil pouch: the snake pit of the thieves.

[10:31] But there's another theft afoot: Dante's. Literary theft. In a mere twelve lines, the poet steals as many bits from other works as he possibly can.

And here is my English translation of Inferno, Canto XXIV, Lines 79 – 96

 We descended the head of the bridge

Where it joins up with the eighth embankment.

Now the pouch was made clear to me.

I saw a horrifying pile-up

Of snakes in it, and of so many wild types,

That the memory of it still curdles my blood.

Libya with all its sand has nothing to brag about!

Even if it’s full up with chelydri, jaculi, and phareae,

With cenchras and amphisbaenae,

It hasn’t ever had, not even with all that’s in Ethiopia

And even in the lands out beyond the Red Sea,

As much pestilence as this—nor as repellent either.

In the middle of this cruel and nasty abundance,

People were running around, naked and crazed with fear,

Without a crevasse to hide in or even a heliotrope.

Their hands were lashed behind their backs with snakes

Who had stuck their heads and tails through their crotches

And joined themselves in knots in front of their stomachs.