INFERNO, Episode 173. The Wonder Of Historical Obscurity: Inferno, Canto XXVIII, Lines 64 - 90

Muhammad has walked on, but we're not finished with the schismatics and those who make scandal for the faithful. The ninth of the evil pouches (the "malebolge") of fraud is a crowded pit!

Join me, Mark Scarbrough, as we descend to some historical obscurity, part of the on-going difficulty of what may well be the most occluded and murky pit among all those in the giant, eighth circle of fraud in INFERNO.

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

[01:24] My English translation of the passage: INFERNO, Canto XXVIII, lines 64 - 90. If you'd like to read along or drop a comment, just scroll down this page.

[03:44] More about wonder. And questions about the symbolism of the hacking in the ninth of the evil pouches of fraud.

[07:40] Questions about tone in Pier da Medicina's speech.

[08:41] Unpacking (possibly?) the history in Pier da Medicina's speech.

[14:51] The curious reference to Neptune in the passage.

[16:48] A warning about the historical distance between us and Dante.

[21:13] Reading the passage once again: Inferno, Canto XXVIII, lines 64 - 90.

And here is my English translation of Inferno, Canto XXVIII, Lines 64 – 90

Another guy, who had his throat run through

And his nose gashed up to his eyebrows

And only a single ear left on his head,

Stopped with the others and gazed at me with wonder.

Before anyone else could do it, he pulled open his windpipe

Just the spot still stained ruby red with his blood

And said, “Hey, you, not condemned by guilt,

I saw you up above on Italian soil,

Unless some likeness to you has tricked me.

“Remember Pier da Medicina,

If you ever go back to see that sweet plain

That slopes down from Vercelli to Marcabò.

“And let the two top guys of Fano,

Monsieurs Guido and Angiolello, know this:

Unless our foresight here is worthless,

“They’ll be thrown off their ship

In a weighted sack near Cattolica,

Thanks to the treachery of a menacing tyrant.

“Between the islands of Cyprus and Majorca

Neptune has never seen such great malfeasance,

Neither committed by pirates, nor by Greeks.

“That traitor who sees with only one eye

And holds the city, which someone down here with me

Wishes he’d never laid eyes on,

“Will bring them all in for détente,

And then will handle them so that they will never need to

Pray or make vows to save them from the winds off Focara.”