Being Human In Hell: Inferno, Canto VIII, Lines 97 - 130

Virgil goes off to confer with the demons who then slam shut the gates of Dis, shutting our pilgrim out in the fifth circle of INFERNO, among the wrathful, with no way forward.

But more importantly, Dante-the-pilgrim has been left alone. This hasn't happened since the dark wood in Canto I.

To compensate for the feeling that the pilgrim is being abandoned, Virgil makes a beautiful promise. And something else happens to Virgil: He seems to get his own internal space. And beyond that: a backstory.

Join me, Mark Scarbrough, as we explore the end of Canto VIII of INFERNO which may be one of the most resonant and human passages we've yet encountered in INFERNO. So much is changing in this great poem. Let's see if we can tease out the human problems, not just the classical references.

Here are the segments of this episode:

[01:00] My English translation for this passage in INFERNO: Canto VIII, lines 97 - 130

[03:23] Dante-the-pilgrim's terror at being left alone--or perhaps the poet's terror at being left at the edge of Virgil's imaginative landscape.

[08:16] Virgil's response to the pilgrim: a promise never to leave him. A promise Virgil will break, both in this passage and finally much later in the poem in a heart-wrenching scene.

[11:39] The pilgrim's response--and the poet's technique of a unified point of view. Plus, Virgil's apparent doubts before the walls of Dis.

[18:22] Virgil's reply: faith and encouragement, despite his own doubts.

[26:42] Where are we? What circle is this? What happened to our museum of the damned? So much has changed in the tectonic shift in the poem.