Cosmic Battles And Interpersonal Squabbles: Inferno, Canto X, Lines 1 - 21

In the sixth circle of hell, we haven't yet seen any of the damned. Instead, Dante, our pilgrim, and Virgil are picking their way along a "secret path" between the burning sarcophagi and the walls of Dis.

There may be way more to this path than we first expect. It's a reference. To Aeneas. And the moment he realizes he has caused someone else unendurable pain.

As our two go along, Virgil brings up the Last Judgment. But he also starts to pick a fight with our pilgrim. Or maybe Virgil calls out our pilgrim who then responds with a little passive-aggressive anger.

Join me, Mark Scarbrough, as we hear about cosmic divisions and interpersonal ones as we pick our way with the pilgrim in the terrifying landscape of the heretics, buried in tombs in the sixth circle of INFERNO.

Here are the segments of this episode:

[00:47] My English translation of this passage from INFERNO: Canto X, lines 1 - 21. If you want to see this passage, it's on my website, markscarbrough.com.

[02:21] One overarching point about the circle of the heretics: it's all about human divisions, about tribalism. Look for this thematic as we go forward.

[03:29] My first gloss (or commentary on the text): the "secret path" they walk is a reference to Vergil's AENEID, Book VI, line 443. It's an important reference because in this passage, Aeneas comes to realize his complicity in the suffering of Dido. And our pilgrim (and maybe our poet, too) is about to come face to face with his own complicity in the suffering of others.

[05:32] Second, Dante calls Virgil, his guide, "the highest virtue" (or maybe the "loftiest power," depending on how you want to translate it). Is Virgil that? You sure?

[08:54] Third, there's a twisted reference to the resurrection of Christ in this passage--and that thematic will play out throughout Canto X, which riffs in irony off the resurrection.

[10:23] Fourth, Virgil makes a reference to Jehoshaphat, to the site of the Last Judgment according to the prophet Joel. Curious. What's this reference doing here?

[12:48] Fifth, we discover we are among the Epicureans. Why these sinners? What's so big about Epicurus that he would be found here among the heretics? (And how can Epicurus, who lived long before the Christ be a heretic?)

[19:15] I read the passage one more time.