Disembodied Voices In The Pastoral Landscape Of An Ice Sheet: Inferno, Canto XXXII, Lines 16 - 39

We start our trek with the pilgrim Dante and his guide Virgil across the final, ninth circle of hell, an unforgiving ice sheet, where we encounter disembodied voices, questions about perspective, pastoral imagery, and some puzzling questions about how it all works.

Dante’s imagination is mechanical and full. But even he nods once in a while. Maybe a couple of times in this passage, in fact. But not in its overall effect: a nightmare of frozen bodies at the center of the universe.

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

[01:17] My English translation of the passage: INFERNO, Canto XXXII, lines 16 - 39. If you'd like to read along or drop a comment, please go to my website, markscarbrough.com.

[03:20] What does it mean that Dante and Virgil are "well below the feet of the giants"?

[06:00] Who says "watch out"? Why are these lines of dialogue unassigned?

[10:17] The final ring of hell is not a lake of fire, but a lake of ice, made from the rivers of hell. But there's an interesting problem here! Dante may have nodded off and forgotten some details.

[15:07] Dante bring "local" geography to the last circle of hell, furthering the complex irony in the passage.

[18:08] How does Dante know about Cocytus?

[21:15] We get pastoral glimpses inside the terror of the final ice sheet.

[24:10] The damned use a language denied to Dante the poet.

[25:31] Cocytus is a noisy place!

[26:22] The final revelation is that the endpoint of evil is immobility.