How To Hold Onto Your Humanity, Even In Hell: INFERNO, Canto XXIX, Lines 73 - 108

We've come to the final evil pouch (or "malebolge") in the giant, hellish circle of fraud, Dante's largest piece of real estate in all of COMEDY.

This last pit is also one of the more disgusting spots in Inferno: a medieval medical ward, full of contagion, the nightmare for anyone in the 1300s.

Join me, Mark Scarbrough, as we hear from the first of many of the damned in this foul pit--and as we watch Dante the pilgrim hold onto his humanity, even in the face of the sorts of diseases that could kill him and everyone he loves.

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

[01:31] My English translation of the passage: INFERNO, Canto XXIX, lines 73 - 108. If you'd like to read along or leave a comment about this episode, please go to my website, markscarbrough.com.

[04:25] There are echoes and contrasts in this passage to previous bits in Canto XXIX and even before.

[08:55] These opening images are not pastoral. Rather, these images are distinctly up-market. Don't think "hovel." Think "manor house." (I don't mention it in the episode, but they even tie directly to Virgil's reference to "chain mail" in the passage.)

[13:03] A meta-literary point: There are two narratives (or stories) in COMEDY: the narrative of the journey and the narrative of the fiction.

[16:06] What diseases do these guys have? Leprosy? Scabies? Rabies? And why does it matter?

[22:00] Dante's genius is on full display in the character of Virgil: a fallible, changeable, but still great poet.

[24:39] How do you avoid losing your humanity in hell?

[28:53] How do you avoid losing your humanity when you write about the terrible truths of the human condition?

[33:12] Rereading INFERNO, Canto XXIX, lines 73 - 108.