Straight On, Then Turn Right For The Heretics: Inferno, Canto IX, Lines 107 - 133

Finally, we are done with the fifth circle of hell, with the wrathful (and the sullen) and all that happens standing before the gates of Dis.

We're also done with the seven deadly sins as a structuring device for INFERNO, because we follow our pilgrim, Dante, and his guide, Virgil, into the sixth circle, not of envy, pride, or sloth, but of heresy.

Join me, Mark Scarbrough, as we continue our slow walk with our pilgrim through the infernal worlds. We have finally passed into the sixth circle of hell, a circle that's a bit hard to figure out. Why heresy? And why here? (And these are only the beginnings of the problems in this most curious circle.)

I'll try to answer those questions and more in this episode of WALKING WITH DANTE.

Here are the segments of this episode:

[01:00] My English translation of the passage from Inferno: Canto IX, lines 107 - 133.

[03:48] Five general observations on the sixth circle of hell, the ring of the heretics. 1) They're in tombs--which are INSIDE the city's walls, where they'd rarely be in a medieval landscape. 2) There is no formal descent (or even a step down) to this circle. 3) The sin punished is not self-evident until Virgil fills the pilgrim in. 4) The sin itself--heresy--is a strange one in the poem's schematics where every sin seems to be about the will. And 5) Maybe heresy shows a bit of poetic insecurity, as Dante-the-poet steps beyond and Virgilian landscape and into one of his own creation.

[11:38] Six glosses (or notes) on this particular passage. 1) These are ROMAN tombs. 2) There's a curious reference to art (or craft) in the passage (so maybe more about poetics?). 3) The tombs' lids are "suspended"--as Virgil is in Limbo. 4) The tombs are described as arks--you know, like Noah's. 5) The classical world has definitely been left behind. And 6) Virgil leads Dante to the right, not the left, as he does in almost every other instance in INFERNO.

[24:25] One more time reading through the passage to set it in your mind.