Behold The New Modern Man, Master Adam: INFERNO, Canto XXX, Lines 46 - 90

First, leprosy. Then rabies. And now dropsy. The medieval hospital of horrors just gets worse in the tenth of the evil pouches (the "malebolge") of fraud.

Join me, Mark Scarbrough, as we meet one of the great sinners of hell--who is actually something of an undiscovered character. Poor Master Adam. He doesn't get the love that Francesca, Farinata, and Ulysses get. But the counterfeiter Master Adam may be just as important, given the sheer amount of space Dante gives him in INFERNO.

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

[02:21] My English translation of the passage: INFERNO, Canto XXX, lines 46 - 90. If you'd like to read along or drop a comment about this episode, please go to my website, markscarbrough.com.

[06:33] The theological problem of "bad-born" people.

[10:24] A man who looks like a lute, a very high-class instrument.

[12:18] Falsifiers with various diseases and medieval notions of dropsy.

[14:52] Master Adam, the sarcastic narcissist.

[17:41] Home, sweet home--that is, Master Adam's contrapasso.

[22:25] Only three lines on his sin--but more about water in this very watery canto.

[25:29] Master Adam: the biggest source of hatred so far in INFERNO and a direct threat to the new economic order.

[34:14] Master Adam versus Adam in the Garden of Eden (and the new Adam, Jesus).

[36:23] References to Adam at the bottom of hell.

[37:17] An obscure reference to Virgil's Eclogues (and by the way, where is Virgil in all this?)

[40:23] Speculations about Master Adam's large space in INFERNO. 1) Master Adam: the bottom of the universe.

[41:27] 2) Master Adam: the sum of the problems of the damned.

[42:44] 3) Master Adam: the new Adam, not like Jesus, but a guy from the coming, modern world.