We take our farewell to the eighth circle of INFERNO with more questions about Dante’s craft than answers. Here are some of the interpretive issues associated with the malebolge, the evil pouches of fraud. And some ways we see Dante become a more assured poet at each step of the journey.

An overview and review of the plot of the eighth circle of Dante’s INFERNO: the ten malebolge or “evil pouches” that make up the vast circle of fraud. What happens in each pit? What does Dante do? What does Virgil do? And how can we find coherence in this grand piece of hell’s real estate?

An overview and review of the tenth of the evil pouches (the “malebolge”) of fraud in Dante’s INFERNO. I reread the entire section from INFERNO, Canto XXIX, Line 1, through Canto XXXI, Line 6, in my English translation. Then I offer six additional points for discussion about this last pit of fraud.

At the bottom of fraud, Virgil rebukes the pilgrim Dante, then the poet Dante steps out to offer one of the most striking and modern similes in all of INFERNO, before Virgil forgives the pilgrim, but not the poet, although Virgil’s forgiveness is predicated on the poet’s explanation. A complicated passage that verges onto a modern notion of the self.

Dante the pilgrim falls silent at the bottom of the last of the evil pouches (the “malebolge”) of fraud as he (and we!) are treated to a street-brawl insult contest which may be a comment on the poetry of his own youth. But what sort of comment, positive or negative? Or maybe not a comment at all.

Dante the pilgrim has come to the last of the evil pouches (the “malebolge”) of fraud to find two figures who lie (and tell lies) at the start of the stories of two chosen people as well as the very beginnings of Western civilization itself: Potiphar’s wife and Sinon, the Greek who convinces the Trojans to open the gates for the wooden horse.

Down near the bottom of INFERNO and the center of the universe, Dante the pilgrim finds the counterfeiter Master Adam—and we find ourselves confronted with a representative of modern people: polite, snarky, envious, hostile (even violent), and deeply insecure.

Dante asks the remaining alchemist to identify the two rabid pig-souls who have shown up to create chaos in the tenth of the evil pouches (the “malebolge”) of fraud. Our pilgrim finds himself confronted with a classical figure (Myrrha from Ovid’s METAMORPHOSES) and Gianni Schicchi, a guy connected to Dante’s in-laws.

Thebes and Troy: two fallen cities. Two warnings for Dante about Florence. And the place where madness became a contagion—and where fraud finally became the sickness. Madness as metamorphosis, allusions as similes, classical lit as modern warnings: this is the height of Dante’s art in INFERNO.

In the tenth of the evil pouches (the “malebolge”) of INFERNO’s vast landscape of fraud, Capocchio the leper sits up to offer some juicy gossip about the fools of this world—and perhaps show Dante the pilgrim one of the ways you can hold onto your humanity, even in hell.

The first falsifier steps up to tell his tale—a doozy of a joke about his grifting, his mark’s stupidity, and the whims of damnation in Dante’s INFERNO. It may have been about the grift, but he’s damned for alchemy—which is itself a lot like the poetry Dante writes.

Dante and Virgil question the first two of many of the damned in the final evil pouch (or “malebolge”) of fraud, here in the eighth circle of INFERNO. They’re in a medieval hospital ward of contagion and the primary question is “how do you hold onto your humanity even here?”

The final evil pouch (“malebolge”) of fraud in Dante’s INFERNO may be the most disgusting of them all: a medieval hospital ward stuffed with festering bodies. Contagion is a nightmare. Particularly when there’s no hope.

Dante and Virgil stick around the ninth of the evil pouches (the “malebologe”) of fraud in INFERNO to find the first of Dante’s family in the afterlife: Geri del Bello, Dante’s father’s first cousin. They may also come to a tentative truce or even resolution for the vendetta thematics that have run under INFERNO all along.

Canto XXVIII and the evil pouch (or “malebolge”) of the schismatic fraudsters ends with a poet: Bertran de Born, who wrote the very troubadour poetry that was a forerunner of Dante’s early work. And the canto ends with a rationale for the punishments: “contrapasso.” But what punishments? Bertran’s? The schismatics” All of the damned? Or even more?

In the ninth of the evil pouches (the “malebolge”) of fraud, we also meet Mosca dei Lamberti, who seems to want to confess his crimes—which were nothing less than the start of the horrific Florentine civil war and the epicenter of Dante the poet’s rage.

In the ninth of the evil pouches (the “malebolge”) of fraud, among all the other schismatics and scandalmongers, we meet Curio, who goaded Julius to cross the Rubicon and start the civil war that destroyed the Republic and founded the Empire. And we also see a node of Dante the poet’s inevitably ambivalence, a product of his idealism.

Muhammad has walked on but we’re not nearly done with the schismatics. Here comes a guy who’s so into talking, he pulls open his windpipe to get the job done. Problem is, much of what he tells Dante the pilgrim has been lost to us in the mists of history. Maybe that’s not a cause for worry. Maybe it’s a call to wonder.

After Muhammad’s appearance in Dante’s INFERNO, Virgil tells the Islamic prophet the purpose of the pilgrim’s journey—which is a new thematic for COMEDY and provokes the most shocking line in all of INFERNO.

We come to one of the most shocking, vulgar, and incendiary passages in all of INFERNO: Muhammad’s placement in the ninth of the evil pouches (the malebolge) that make up the circle of fraud. Why is Muhammad here? What’s the history of the West’s relationship with Islam? Why is Dante explicitly using an Arabic word in this passage?