On To The Wrathful, Sort Of: INFERNO, Canto VII, Lines 97 - 130

Here's something new: a descent from one ring to another within a single canto.

Our pilgrim and Virgil scramble down to find themselves on the shore of Styx. Stuck in the muck are the wrathful . . . and of two sorts. Let's talk about Thomistic notions of wrath (or Aristotelean notions of wrath) and the strange inversions of medieval iconography.

But more importantly, what's up with Virgil, who seems to know things nobody could know?

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

[01:26] My English translation of INFERNO, Canto VII, lines 97 - 130. If you want to see this translation, find a deeper study guide, or continue the conversation with me through a comment on this episode, find its entry on my website, markscarbrough.com.

[03:57] The descent to the fifth circle and Virgil's strange ability to tell time.

[05:37] The naturalistic details proliferate in this passage. Are these allegories of wrath or the beginnings of the larger project about the hydraulics of hell?

[09:58] The fifth circle: wrath. Two sorts here, à la Aquinas (but really à la Aristotle).

[17:24] Virgil voices the damned who are sunk in the swamp. How?

[18:31] Walking the circle--we're starting to see more of hell as a landscape.

[19:13] The wrathful are an infernal perversion of standard medieval iconography: of Leah and Rachel. (This iconography will become increasingly important as we move through COMEDY.)