Virgil Returns For No Reason, Dante The Poet Slips, And More Fun On The Ice Sheet Of Cocytus: INFERNO, Canto XXXIII, Lines 91 - 117

We've slipped on down to the third ring of Cocytus--where we find a few textual problems, more New Testament references, the return of Virgil for no good reason, and a possible slip from our poet. Hey, it's slick down here!

Join me, Mark Scarbrough, as we near the end of INFERNO, Canto XXXIII, passing on from Count Ugolino (sort of--one last glance) and toward the last speaking damned soul in all of INFERNO.

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

[01:27] My English translation of the passage: INFERNO, Canto XXXIII, lines 91 - 117. If you'd like to read along, print it off, or drop a comment, just go to my website: markscarbrough.com.

[03:37] One last glance at Count Ugolino and his sons: a question about Dante's own rage in exile away from his own children.

[07:36] The return to the journey, here to a landscape with the damned as the only "geographical" markers.

[10:07] A translation problem about how the damned are actually facing in this third ring of the ninth circle, Cocytus.

[12:56] Why's in your eye? A reference to the Sermon on the Mount: Matthew 7:3.

[15:07] Yet another New Testament reference--perhaps to Acts 2:3--but a deeper problem of exactly what the pilgrim Dante knows (and whether the poet Dante has made a gaffe).

[18:13] The medieval understanding of how wind happens.

[19:32] The return of Virgil--to tell you we don't need Virgil!

[21:35] The last of the damned who speaks in hell--and here, asks for help.

[25:19] The damned soul asks for a kindness from a traveler on the road.

[27:17] Dante makes a coy or arch or false promise. So is he becoming more like God?