The Body In Pain Is The Wreckage Of Empire: INFERNO, Canto XXVIII, Lines 1 - 21

We have come to the ninth pit of the sins of fraud, way down in the eighth circle of Dante's INFERNO. We're about to meet a set of souls--well, bodies, more like--who endure unbelievable agony, exactly as bodies have always endured agony under the sword of empire.

Join me, Mark Scarbrough, as we look at this complicated opening passage for canto XXVIII. It's chock full of historical references. But more importantly, our poet seems to be changing his mind. And changing the rules of the crusading ethic. Because the body in pain makes and unmakes the world itself.

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

[01:41] My English translation of INFERNO, Canto XXVIII, lines 1 - 21. If you'd like to read along or even drop a comment about this episode, please go to my website, markscarbrough.com.

[03:59] The opening buried reference to THE AENEID, Book VI, lines 625 - 627.

[07:06] References to Pulgia and Livy explored.

[10:59] References to Robert Guiscard, Manfred, and Érard de Valéry explored.

[14:20] The four historical dates (or battles) in this complicated passage.

[19:58] Two implications from this passage. 1) We cannot determine who will end up where in the afterlife based on wins and losses in this world.

[23:27] 2) The cost of empire is the body in pain.

[24:54] Some of those bodies in pain are Muslims.

[25:51] The body in pain makes and unmakes language.

[29:39] Back to the opening of the canto: The body in pain confounds yet needs unbound words in a hollow space.

[34:15] A second reading through the passage: Inferno, Canto XXVIII, lines 1 - 21.